silversolitaire

"I would also like to mention a little incident that took place in a Holiday Inn in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during that same time. I was lying in bed in room 243 and began counting ceiling tiles. Since the room was square, it was an easy computation, taking no longer than the weekend. As Sunday evening rolled around, I began to compute how many imaginary ceiling tiles it would take to cover the walls and floor of my room. When I checked out of the hotel, I flippantly told the clerk that it would take twelve hundred ninety-four imaginary ceiling tiles to fill the entire room.
Two weeks later, while attempting to break the record for consecutive listenings to "American Pie", I realized that I had included the real tiles in my calculation of imaginary tiles; I should have subtracted them from my total. I would like to apologize to the staff of Holiday Inn for any inconvenience I may have caused."

- From Steve Martin: Pure Drivel, Chapter 'A Public Apology'