Three elderly men sat side by side in a doctor’s office, waiting for a routine memory assessment. They had all known each other for years, meeting weekly for coffee and complaining about the same things: sore knees, disappearing reading glasses, and how music “didn’t sound like it used to.”
The doctor entered with a clipboard and a polite smile.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “this will be a simple test. Just answer the questions as best you can.”
He turned to the first man.
“What is three times three?”
The man frowned, stared at the ceiling, tapped his cane twice on the floor, and finally said with confidence,
“Two hundred and seventy-four.”
The doctor blinked but made a note.
Then he turned to the second man.
“All right. Your turn. What is three times three?”
The second man didn’t hesitate at all.
“Tuesday,” he replied proudly.
The doctor paused, rubbed his temples, and sighed.
He turned to the third man, already bracing himself.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “Your turn. What is three times three?”
The third man smiled, straightened up, and said,
“Nine.”
The doctor’s face lit up with relief.
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Very good!”
The third man leaned forward and whispered,
“I knew it had to be one of them.”
And That’s When the Room Exploded with Laughter
The doctor burst out laughing first, followed by the nurse outside the door who had been listening in. Soon, even the first two men started laughing—though neither of them was entirely sure why.
“What’d I miss?” the first man asked.
“Apparently,” the second man said, chuckling, “Tuesday lost again.”
The doctor wiped tears from his eyes and shook his head. “Gentlemen, this is exactly why memory tests aren’t always as straightforward as we think.”
He sat down across from them, still smiling.
“You know,” he added, “sometimes it’s not about the right answer. Sometimes it’s about how confidently wrong we can be.”
That made the third man laugh even harder.
Coffee After the Test
After the appointment, the three men walked—slowly—across the street to their usual coffee shop.
“Well,” said the first man, “I don’t know about you two, but I think I did pretty well.”
“You said 274,” the second man reminded him.
“Yes,” the first man replied. “And I said it with authority.”
The third man snorted into his coffee.
“I still can’t believe Tuesday,” he said.
“Hey,” the second man shot back, “Tuesday makes more sense than 274.”
They all laughed again, loud enough that a young couple at the next table turned to look. The three men didn’t care.
At their age, embarrassment had retired long before they had.
The Doctor’s Unexpected Lesson
Back at the clinic, the doctor was still thinking about them.
He’d seen fear in patients’ eyes before—fear of forgetting names, faces, or entire chapters of their lives. But those three men hadn’t shown fear.
They’d shown humor.
That afternoon, he added a note to his chart system:
Patient displays strong coping mechanisms through humor and social connection.
He realized something important then: memory loss might steal facts, but it didn’t steal personality.
Years of Friendship
The three men had been friends since their thirties. They’d raised kids, buried spouses, changed jobs, and watched the world reinvent itself over and over again.
They no longer trusted their memories completely, but they trusted each other.
And that mattered more.
“Next week,” the second man announced, “I’m bringing flashcards.”
“For math?” the first asked.
“No,” he said. “For days of the week. Clearly I need help.”
Why Everyone Needs Friends Like This
The story of the memory test spread through the clinic. Nurses repeated it. Patients laughed. Even the receptionist started calling Tuesday “three times three day.”
But beneath the laughter was something real.
Growing older wasn’t just about forgetting things—it was about choosing joy anyway.
Those three men did.
They showed that even when your memory slips, your sense of humor doesn’t have to.
And sometimes, the best medicine isn’t the right answer.
It’s laughing together when everything goes a little wrong.
