We, the gray hair (or no hair) generation often forget things. I like to think of it as our brains have been operating for over 60 years and there’s just not enough room left to store all our vast knowledge…so, some leaks out, never to be seen again.

But after receiving an email last week from my good friend Bobby “Keys” Eure, perhaps we senior citizens are not the only ones suffering from brain overload. Bobby referenced the following conversations:

Recently, I when to McDonald’s and I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.  I asked for a half dozen nuggets.

“We don’t have half dozen nuggets,” said the teenager at the counter.

“You don’t,” I inquired.

“We only have six, nine, or twelve,” was the reply.

“So I can’t order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six,” I asked sarcastically.

“That’s right,” said the teen.

So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets 

That must have been the same teen counter clerk I asked for sweetener for my tea and she said they didn’t have any, only Splenda and sugar.

And they think they are worth $15.00 per hour.

Recently I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those dividers that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn’t get mixed. 

After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the divider, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it.  Not finding the bar code, she said to me, “Do you know how much this is?”

I answered by saying, “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think I’ll buy that today.”

She said okay and I paid her for the things and left.

She had no clue to what had just happened.  But the lady behind me had a big smirk on her face as I left.

A woman at work was seen putting a credit card into her DVD drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the “ATM thingy.”

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car.

“Do you need some help,” I asked.

She replied, “I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door un-locker. Now I can’t get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Do you have an alarm, too,” I asked.

“No, just this remote thingy,” she answered handing it and the car keys to me.

As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, “Why don’t you drive over there and check about the batteries. It’s a long walk.”

What I really wanted to tell her was to just lie down before you hurt yourself.

Several years ago, we had an office intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, “I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do?”

“Just use paper from the photocopier,” the secretary told her.

With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies.

I know what you’re thinking, but she was a brunette.

A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid had eaten ants.

The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and he should be fine.The mother says, “I just gave him some ant killer.”

Dispatcher: “Rush him in to emergency right now.”

All these events prove one thing….life is tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.

Cal Bryant is Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.