The Big Book of Senior Moments Page 3

  No Place Like Home

  Isaac Newton was notorious for forgetting things or getting lost in his own building.

  Careful of the First Step

  World-renowned mathematician Witold Hurewicz was noted for work in topology and also for being distracted. In 1956 while attending the International Symposium on Algebraic Topology in Uxmal, Mexico, he climbed to the top of a Mayan ziggurat, then forgot where he was. He stepped from the top and fell off to his death—a rather extreme penalty for absentmindedness.

  And Don’t Come Back

  As many of us seniors know, we Silver Surfers know, sometimes we have trouble with our computers.

  Yesterday, I had a problem, so I called Georgie, the eleven-year-old year old next door, whose bedroom looks like Mission Control, and asked him to come over.

  Georgie clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem.

  As he was walking away, I called after him, ‘So, what was wrong?’

  He replied, ‘It was an ID ten Terror.’

  I didn’t want to appear stupid but nonetheless inquired, ‘An ID ten Terror? What’s that? In case I need to fix it again.’

  Georgie grinned. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of an ID ten Terror before?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Write it down,’ he said, ‘and I think you’ll figure it out.’

  So I wrote down:

  ID10T

  I used to like the little bastard.

  A Relatively Close Call

  Albert Einstein used to walk to work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Fellow scientist Marston Morse, also at the Institute, drove. Einstein was apparently as distracted a walker as Morse was a driver. While backing out of his driveway, Morse very nearly backed right over the walking Einstein. Fortunately it was only a near miss.

  “I may be a senior, but so what? I’m still hot.”

  —Betty White

  Maybe You Can Take It with You

  Johnson was a man who had worked all of his life, had saved all of his money, and was a real miser when it came to his spending. He told his wife, Marie, “When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. I want to take my money to the afterlife with me.” She promised him with all of her heart that when he died, she would put all of the money in the casket with him.

  He died. He was stretched out in the casket. Marie was sitting there in black, and her friend Susan was sitting next to her.

  When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, Marie said, “Wait just a minute!”

  She had a box with her and came over with the box and put it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down, and they rolled it away.

  So Susan said to her, “Marie, I know you weren’t fool enough to put all that money in there with your husband.”

  The always loyal Marie replied, “Listen, I’m a Christian, I can’t go back on my word. I promised him that I was going to put that money in that casket with him.”

  “You mean to tell me you put all that money in the casket with him!?”

  “I sure did,” said the wife. “I got it all together, put it into my account and wrote him a check. If he can cash it, he can spend it.”

  “I’m gonna hang a Batman outfit in my closet just to screw with myself when I get Alzheimer’s.”

  —Will Ferrell

  Thank God for the Kids

  Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie said that her ten-year-old son baked a cake on the day of her wedding to Brad Pitt. The couple also forgot a few other minor parts of the ceremony, like the music and their vows, a London newspaper reported. The actress said that they had a plan for everyone to sing “Here Comes the Bride” beforehand but forgot about it and moved into the ceremony. But they had also forgotten to write vows. The kids again stepped in and wrote them.

  “Minds ripen at very different ages.”

  —Stevie Wonder

  She Wasn’t Afraid

  Virginia Woolf accidentally baked her wedding ring into a pudding.

  Need That Thing to Function

  Anyone can relate. You get in your car—in this case your helicopter—and you realize you forgot something: glasses, wallet, and cell phone.

  So it went for President Barack Obama recently. On his way to Las Vegas for a speech, Obama boarded his Marine One helicopter on the White House’s South Lawn.

  But he promptly disembarked and headed back into the executive mansion.

  When he emerged moments later, the president said he had forgotten his Blackberry, pulling it from its holster and showing it to reporters and photographers.

  He’s Just My Husband

  When actress Hilary Swank won the Best Actress Oscar in 2000 for Boys Don’t Cry, she forgot to mention then-husband Chad Lowe. She made a point of effusively thanking him in 2005 when she won again for Million Dollar Baby.

  “I’m going to start by thanking my husband, because I’d like to think I learn from past mistakes,” she said.

  A General Never Forgets

  While the Spanish-American War was some thirty-three years out from the Civil War, there were still officers in the Army who had fought on either side in the Civil War. Major General Joseph Wheeler was one such officer. He saw extensive service in the Civil War as an officer in the Confederate States Army rising from Second Lieutenant to Lieutenant General. He was wounded three times and had a total of sixteen horses shot from under him. He returned home to Alabama as a planter after the war and held a number of elected positions over the years. When the Spanish American War came up, at sixty-one years old, he volunteered to serve.

  As the Rough Riders pushed from their landing place towards their goal of Santiago, their first engagement with the Spanish Army was at Las Guasimas. After a hot engagement, the Spanish soldiers finally broke and retreated toward Santiago.

  Major Beach, standing next to Joe Wheeler, watched the departure and Wheeler, forgetting in the heat of the moment which war he was fighting, said, “We’ve got the damn Yankees on the run!”

  “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

  —Albert Einstein

  Great Minds Think … Differently

  Being one of the most important great minds of his century, Albert Einstein was known to suffer from dyslexia, mainly because of his bad memory and his constant failure to memorize the simplest of things. He would not remember the months in the year yet he would succeed in solving some of the most complicated mathematical formulas of the time without any trouble. He may have never learned how to properly tie his shoelaces but his scientific contributions and theories still have a major effect on all of today’s current knowledge of science.

  It Wasn’t Even Thanksgiving

  Ben Franklin nearly killed himself giving an electric shock to a turkey.

  “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”

  —Benjamin Franklin

  A Mystery

  Agatha Christie was the most famous mystery writer of all time, so it’s only appropriate that she became the center of her own bizarre mystery in 1926. On the evening of December 3, the thirty-six-year-old Christie mysteriously vanished from her home in Sunningdale, England. The next morning, her abandoned car was discovered one hour away in Newlands Corner, but she was nowhere around.

  Christie’s disappearance became a huge story and once word spread that her husband, Archibald, had recently asked for a divorce, speculation ran rampant that he’d murdered her. Finally, on December 14, Christie was found alive and well, registered under the name Teresa Neele at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate. She claimed to have no memory of how she’d ended up there.

  There has always been debate over what happened to Christie during those eleven days. At the time, many believed she staged her own disappearance for publicity or as a way of getting back at her husband—especially since Teresa Neele happened to be the name of his mistress. However, there is evidence that Chr
istie might have entered a fugue state and truly lost her memory.

  It has been theorized that Christie’s impending divorce and the recent death of her mother caused her to enter a deep depression. Crashing her car might have been the breaking point that caused her to develop amnesia and forget who she was. She died in 1976, and took the full truth about what happened to her grave.

  He Could Spell Poem, Though

  W. B. Yeats was denied a post at Trinity College in Dublin for spelling “professor” wrong on the application.

  Who?

  Charles Darwin ate an owl.

  Ouch

  Edgar Allan Poe split his pants playing leapfrog with his wife.

  High Standards

  When Fred Astaire was sixty-nine, he gave up dancing, explaining: “At my age, I don’t want to disappoint anyone, including myself.”

  How Philosophical

  Gertrude Stein wrote on her philosophy exam, “I am so sorry but I do not feel a bit like an examination in philosophy.”

  What’s to Say?

  Isaac Newton served in Parliament for a full year and only spoke one sentence.

  ”Of all sad words of mouth or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.”

  —John Greenleaf Whittier

  Oops

  Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant.

  Rules of the Road

  Mildred was riding in Susan’s car to a meeting at the church, and she became increasingly uneasy. “Susie,” she said hesitantly, “I don’t want to criticize, but you’ve run two red lights and made an illegal left turn.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Susan. “Am I driving?”

  “Don’t worry about old age; it doesn’t last that long.”

  —Mark Twain

  Senior Challenges

  As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Herman, I just head on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on 280. Please be careful!”

  “Hell,” said Herman. “It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!”

  And for Dessert …

  Once Beethoven dropped in to a restaurant to have dinner, but because he was very absent-minded he forgot what he actually came there for. He was asked by a waiter a few times what he would like to order but he didn’t pay any attention to that. After an hour Beethoven called the waiter and asked him:

  “How much do I pay?”

  “Sir, you haven’t ordered anything yet and I would like to ask you what I can do for you?”

  “Just bring whatever you want and leave me alone.”

  Oh Yeah, And …

  When Julia Roberts won the Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich, she thanked “everyone I have ever met in my life.”

  Except, apparently the main reason for the film, Erin Brockovich herself, whom she neglected to mention.

  She made up for it later at a press conference but it was too late.

  Notes Help

  The award for most scatterbrained celebrity has to go to former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, who was once spotted leaving a Post-it note on her dashboard to remind herself to lock the car doors.

  Paparazzi photographed the singer while out shopping but one eagle-eyed snapper noticed she had left herself a little reminder plastered to her sat-nav system.

  The bright pink note read “Lock Door!” and it seems to have worked but Geri failed to realize the large sat-nav it was stuck to posed a rather intriguing prospect for any thief in the area.

  It wasn’t the first time Geri has struggled with the basics of driving. Once she turned to ask her followers if it was illegal to tweet while stationary at a red light.

  Old Friends

  Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades.

  Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures.

  Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.

  One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said,

  “Now don’t get mad at me.

  I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but I just can’t think of your name!

  I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t remember it.

  Please tell me what your name is.”

  Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her.

  Finally she said, “How soon do you need to know?”

  What’s in a Name?

  Actress Zoe Saldana keeps forgetting her husband’s name. The Book of Life actress once claimed that her pregnancy has made her very absent-minded, comparing herself with the famously forgetful fish Dory from Finding Nemo. She said: “You forget a lot of things! My husband’s name is Marco, and there have been a couple of times I’ve called him Michael. I have like a Dory brain from Nemo—I reset like every three seconds.”

  “I truly believe that age—if you’re healthy—age is just a number.”

  —Hugh Hefner

  Where Is That Apple Again?

  Isaac Newton was notorious for forgetting things or getting lost in his own building.

  Have to Start Somewhere

  My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, sixty-two. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, “Did you start at one?”

  Grandparent Wisdom

  I was out walking with my four-year-old granddaughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that.

  “Why?” my granddaughter asked.

  “Because it’s been on the ground. You don’t know where it’s been, it’s dirty, and probably has germs,” I replied.

  At this point, my granddaughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, “Grandma, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart.”

  I was thinking quickly, “All Grandmas know this stuff. It’s on the Grandma Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Grandma.”

  We walked along in silence for two or three minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

  “Oh … I get it!” she beamed, “So if you don’t pass the test, you have to be the Grandpa.”

  “Exactly,” I replied.

  Sports

  Tense and strenuous and exhausting sports have long been a breeding ground for increasing the density inside the heads of athletes. It seems that playing games is the perfect antidote to boredom, common sense, and sharp clear thinking.

  “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

  —Yogi Berra

  “I can’t really remember the names of the clubs that we went to.”

  —Shaquille O’Neal, on whether he had visited the Parthenon during his visit to Greece

  “When my time on Earth is gone, and my activities here are past, I want them to bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass.”

  —Bobby Knight

  Waited a Bit Too Long

  To show appreciation for their long-suffering fan base in 2006, the lowly Houston Astros invited supporters to come to their ballpark early one day to mingle with former team stars Jose Cruz and Joe Niekro. Joe Niekro was unable to attend due to a death in the family, his own.

  “When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income.”

  —Chi Chi Rodriguez

  Going Out on Top—While They Could Still Remember

  While most athletes cling to the sport they love until they simply can’t hold on any longer, in some rare instances sports stars have called it quits while still in the midst of their prime years.

  Rocky Marciano retired from boxing at thirty-one before ever tasting defeat, sporting a perfect 49–0 record.

  Sandy Koufax shocked the baseball world when he retired at the age of thirty, while he was still the best pitcher on the planet.

  Barry Sanders at thirty-one and Michael
Jordan at thirty (the first time) retired prematurely when they were still putting their best feet forward.

  “The trick is growing up without growing old.”

  —Casey Stengel

  Makes Sense

  A good-looking and well-preserved woman of about seventy was sitting in a restaurant, eating alone, when an extremely handsome and sexy man of middle years came in and also sat alone. He noticed her staring and, after about half an hour, sent a waiter to her table with this penned message: “If you will tell me—in three words—what you want, I’ll follow you home and do it for only $20.”

  After a moment’s deep thought, the woman flipped the note over and wrote, “Clean my house.”

  “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

  —Yogi Berra

  Try the Other Direction

  The Houston Astros had a horrendous season in 2013, but it was also entertaining. They accidently hit their own teammates, tried out new and unsuccessful bunting techniques, and recreated Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez’s famous butt fumble. The Astros continued to impress all year with their unimpressive plays, game after game.

  The nightmare of a season is coming to a close for Houston, but that hasn’t stopped them from making even more embarrassing plays. During the sixth inning of one of the last games of the season against the Yankees, catcher Matt Pagnozzi attempted to keep tabs on Robinson Cano on the basepaths. Pagnozzi tried to throw down to second base to catch Cano after he took a big lead, but his throw backfired—literally—as he ended up spiking the ball, somehow, and it ended up traveling to the backstop. Lyle Overbay was on third base during the shenanigans, and was able to score on the bizarre throwing error.

  “Drink Coffee: Do dumb things faster and with more energy.”

  —Anonymous

  Head-Butt Turns into Real Pain in the Neck

  In 1997, the Washington Redskins finally made a change at quarterback with Jeff Hostetler replacing Gus Frerotte after one of the more bizarre plays in the team’s history. Frerotte did not start the second half of the Redskins’ overtime tie against the New York Giants after head-butting a padded wall in the end zone in celebration of a one-yard touchdown run. He ended up with a sprained neck and a trip to the hospital.