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I'm fairly sure my mother is slowly going senile. And not in a sweet-forgetful-old-lady way either - she's just not that kind of person.
Now, she does have a number of chronic medical problems. Most of these are under diet control - for example, and this is relevant here, she has to watch her salt intake. So you'd expect her to be able to identify, from a lineup, which foods have salt in, and which do not.
Now, this isn't something I saw myself. It was relayed to me by a very good friend, who happened to be dropped in on by my parents. But for one reason and another, they went to McD's.
As most of you will immediately recognise, McD's is a fast food establishment, and fast food tends to be universally high in salt. So I would have expected my mother to go for one of the salads, which I strongly suspect are not salted. Much.
Nope.
I'm not told precisely what it was, but it came with fries. She definitely ate the fries. I bet the fries had lots of salt on them.
And then she had coffee.
And complained that the coffee was salted.
My friend and my dad both tried to correct her - after a moment of stunned, disbelieving silence, that is - but she would have none of it.
It gets worse.
According to her, it's a conspiracy to make customers buy more coffee because the (supposed) salt in it makes them more thirsty.
Last time I checked, coffee usually came loaded with caffiene straight from the plant. Caffiene is already a respectably strong diuretic (makes you pee), so I fail to see why adding salt would even be necessary. In fact, caffiene is added to most soft drinks for precisely that purpose - it's a mildly addictive setup.
So let's recap. She's on a long-term diet which requires her to avoid salt. She just ate fries, which are more or less expected to be salty. She didn't seem to notice the taste at that point. Then she has coffee, and complains that it tastes of salt. Which was probably left over from the fries. She fails to listen to this more reasonable explanation, and blames it on a conspiracy theory.
There is of course a second plausible explanation, which I haven't entirely discounted. She might have put sugar in her coffee - but picked up the wrong kind of "sugar". But that would make it her own damn fault...
Now, she does have a number of chronic medical problems. Most of these are under diet control - for example, and this is relevant here, she has to watch her salt intake. So you'd expect her to be able to identify, from a lineup, which foods have salt in, and which do not.
Now, this isn't something I saw myself. It was relayed to me by a very good friend, who happened to be dropped in on by my parents. But for one reason and another, they went to McD's.
As most of you will immediately recognise, McD's is a fast food establishment, and fast food tends to be universally high in salt. So I would have expected my mother to go for one of the salads, which I strongly suspect are not salted. Much.
Nope.
I'm not told precisely what it was, but it came with fries. She definitely ate the fries. I bet the fries had lots of salt on them.
And then she had coffee.
And complained that the coffee was salted.
My friend and my dad both tried to correct her - after a moment of stunned, disbelieving silence, that is - but she would have none of it.
It gets worse.
According to her, it's a conspiracy to make customers buy more coffee because the (supposed) salt in it makes them more thirsty.
Last time I checked, coffee usually came loaded with caffiene straight from the plant. Caffiene is already a respectably strong diuretic (makes you pee), so I fail to see why adding salt would even be necessary. In fact, caffiene is added to most soft drinks for precisely that purpose - it's a mildly addictive setup.
So let's recap. She's on a long-term diet which requires her to avoid salt. She just ate fries, which are more or less expected to be salty. She didn't seem to notice the taste at that point. Then she has coffee, and complains that it tastes of salt. Which was probably left over from the fries. She fails to listen to this more reasonable explanation, and blames it on a conspiracy theory.
There is of course a second plausible explanation, which I haven't entirely discounted. She might have put sugar in her coffee - but picked up the wrong kind of "sugar". But that would make it her own damn fault...
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