Do you know who I am?

I stood at the hotel front desk as chaos erupted. I was being kicked out of my room due to a scheduling mixup by our company's representative. I'm twenty-five years old and standing in Berlin - the older part of the city, East Berlin as the tour guide instructed us the prior day. Leading up to this trip, I had been repeatedly assured that everybody knows English, but apparently these people had never stepped foot in Germany because I knew I was in trouble as soon as I descended the staircase from my Lufhansas flight from Frankfort - nothing but blank stares as I spoke. I rummaged through the documents in my backpack, finding papers with some German phrases written and used my wits to find my bag and then a taxi. The printout (this was before smart phones) picture of my hotel proved to be a life saver. Later, a taxi driver would teach me how to curse (of which I'm very fluent in English) properly in German with Scheisser my favorite, but right now I was being kicked out of a hotel at 11:00 at night and my flight home scheduled later the next day - what was I to do? I summoned my best Tom Ripley and began dropping names of a few people I had actually met along with other names I had heard from others. I cringed as I uttered "Do you know who I am?" following by explanations and names and my importance and where I needed to be and who was expecting me and repeatedly saying that I am an American (that part makes me cringe now). This was a good thing back then, not sure about now. Thankfully, the hotel staff spoke (or understood) English and eventually straightened it out. I never had to impersonate another person like Tom Ripley (nor did I hurt anyone) but I took on an air of importance that somebody believed or rather I am an idiot and they were just doing their job. Eventually, I was transferred to another hotel with room charges covered and all was well. I landed home just over 24 hours later.