Saturday, August 18, 2007

Senility

It seems like ones fickle neurons pick the most inopportune time to up and die on you. Here you are at the Cracker Barrel with the wife and the kids and their new baby. You've discussed the menu with the wife and agreed to share an order of chicken pot pie, and even agreed on the green beans and the vegetable-of-the-day (cornbread dressing on Sunday) as your two side dishes. So far the old brain is working swimmingly.

Then the waitress walks up and asks if she can help you. As the son places his usual order of eight-ounce surloin medium rare with green beans corn and carrots, you mentally lip-sync his recitation. "Yup, your synapses are firing on all cylinders," you silently congratulate your gray matter. (Truth be told, the young man is such a creature of habit that you'll probably forget the Pledge of Allegiance long before the son's usual fades.)

The grandbaby sticks out her tongue; you smile and think, "Awww, isn't that cute." You are tempted to reward the wee thing by mimicking her, but the brain cautions you that what's cute at seven months might be considered a tad gauche at 55 years, so you simply smile as you turn your head to answer the waitress's inquiry, "And you, sir?" Then as you form your reply, without any warning, somewhere deep within your cranium, a synapse short circuits and the words "share" and "split" merge into one - and you answer, "My wife and I would like to shit an order of ...."

The cortex that connects your ears to lexical look-ups registers an alarm, and you sputter, "Er, I mean we'd like to spit, I mean split, an order of chicken pot pie." The waitress smiles and the wife chokes back a laugh. Your bride's gleaming eyes convey a mix of mirth and pity, but somehow you suspect there's some smugness lurking about that angelic countenance, as if to say: "Ha! Blog about my confusing the words 'Corolla' and 'corona' will you!"

The daughter-in-law is either stone deaf or really good at poker - and you note that her hearing shows no other sign of impairment. Yep, the boy and I both married well.

3 comments:

Ladybug Crossing said...

LOL!! It was that sweet baby that got your brain all mixed up, I'm sure...

I am not that nice a DIL, I would have been rolling on the floor laughing!!!

Anonymous said...

I suppose eventually you shit at least half an order, right? You were just being proactive.

Anonymous said...

LOLOLOLOL It reminds me of the time my best friend and her boyfriend (which happened to be my ex boyfriend) were over for dinner. He commented on the pretty flowers in the back and that he could smell them all day. They were called Climatis flowers. I turned and looked at him and said...."You can stick your nose in my (insert what was suppose to be climatis and inset female body part here sounding much like climatis) ANYDAY! The silence and then the burst of laughter and the eye roll from Hula Hubby with a snicker made me feel like Freud was having a field day with me.
That is so funny. I be that waitress will never forget you.