ABSENTMINDEDNESS

Not along ago my wife se me to town on an errand. I walked to the hardware store and bought a small can of paint. Then I returned home. Handing my wife the paper bag containing the paint, I said “here’s the paint you wanted”. My wife looked in the bag then looked at me, “I told you,” she said slowly “to get me a quart of vanilla ice cream.

”Alarmed over my absentmindedness, I paid a call on my family doctor. He was very kind. “Your case” he said “is a simple one and should give you no concern. If you know you are absentminded, you are okay. It’s nothing to worry about. But if you are so far gone you don’t know you are absentminded, you may be in trouble.”

“Many famous people have been absentminded,” the doctor told me. “Thomas Edison was standing in line one day to pay his taxes. When arrived at the window, he found that he had forgotten his own name. He turned to the man next in line and asked, “Can you tell me who I am?”

I felt much better and got up to leave. “Thank you, doctor,” I said.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Ten dollars for the check-up,” the doctor answered.

“But doctor, I didn’t have a check-up.”

The doctor looked puzzled. He scratched his head, “Oh yes,” he said, “It was the patient before you. How absentminded of me!”