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HUMOUR: Dagnabbit, it's a mystery

This week's humour column proves Thanksgiving is also a time for denial
confused-senior
Stock Photo

I think I’m still a little numb from the experience. I just bought a coffee at McDonald’s and the young female cashier gave me the senior’s discount.

I didn’t ask for it. She didn’t ask me if I was entitled, so I was completely baffled.

Yes, I am a senior but am certain I look far younger than my years.

As I drove away I struggled to understand how she knew. I thought that, perhaps, she's a natural detective, able to deduce the almost imperceptible, subtle hints to reveal hidden truths.

If that’s the case then maybe it was the fact I was there at 6 a.m. and I know, young people like to sleep in. My 43-year-old nephew is still sawing logs at 7:30!

Maybe she saw I was wearing plaid slippers or noticed my sweatpants were hoisted up above my navel. Could it have been that my “Barry Manilow rocks” t-shirt isn’t as hip as it was? Has “Mandy” really fallen so far off the charts?

If these snippets of evidence tipped off the young cashier, she must be a regular Nick Charles.

No, there must have been something else. 

Was it the fact that I had a coupon and counted out the balance in change, including some pennies I had saved? I wondered, did she notice my oval squeeze change purse?

Of course, at one point, I did mutter, “I never bend over that low until at least noon,” after I dropped one of the pennies.

I also took close to seven minutes to determine if I had enough change, with the coupon, for a large or just a medium coffee. And I did spend another 13 minutes staring at, I was finally told, something called a “touch screen.” But I am still certain that “Order Here” is the title of an episode of Matlock and was almost certainly about to start.

I didn’t use the drive-thru so I know she didn’t see the bobble-head doll of Ernest Borgnine on my dashboard or my Cleveland Barons bumper sticker, or that my left turn signal was on the whole time I was in the restaurant.

I shrugged off all of these possibilities. After all, if this young girl was so skilled at deduction, she would be working at a more challenging job; perhaps at the Five and Dime.

No, unless I turn my gold Buick around and go back to ask her, this unsettling event will remain a mystery.