A blind man walked into a restaurant and took a seat.
The owner came over, handed him a menu, and politely asked what he would like to order.
The man smiled and explained that he was blind and couldn’t read the menu.
Then he made a rather unusual request.
“Just bring me one of your dirty forks,” he said. “I’ll smell it and tell you what I want.”
The owner was confused.
He had certainly served plenty of unusual customers over the years, but he had never heard anyone order a meal by smelling a used fork.
Still, he decided there was no harm in trying.
He went into the kitchen, picked a greasy fork from the dirty dishes, and brought it back to the man’s table.
The blind man took the fork, held it close to his nose, and took a long, careful sniff.
The owner watched in complete disbelief.
After a moment, the blind man confidently placed his order.
“I’ll have the meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”
The owner could hardly believe it.
He went into the kitchen and told his wife, who happened to be the cook, what had just happened.
The blind man ate his meal, paid his bill, and left.
The owner thought that had to be a lucky guess.
But several days later, the same man came back.
This time, the owner remembered him.
Before the man could even ask, the owner brought him another dirty fork.
The blind man took it, smelled it carefully, and immediately ordered a completely different meal.
“That smells great. I’ll have the macaroni and cheese with broccoli.”
Once again, the owner was stunned.
There was no way the man could simply be guessing every time.
The owner began wondering just how powerful the man’s sense of smell really was.
The blind man finished his meal and left.
But now the owner had an idea.
He wanted to test him.
The following week, when the blind man returned, the owner hurried into the kitchen before bringing him his fork.
He told his wife about the man’s strange talent and asked her to help him with his little experiment.
She agreed.
The owner prepared the fork and returned to the dining room, trying his best not to laugh.
He handed it to the blind man.
The man raised the fork to his nose.
He took one long sniff.
Then another.
The owner waited eagerly for his answer.
The blind man suddenly smiled.
“I didn’t know Brenda worked here.”
The owner’s face dropped.
He had finally found a way to test the blind man’s remarkable sense of smell.
Unfortunately, the blind man passed the test a little too well.
The owner had been trying to fool him, but instead, he had accidentally given the man one more piece of evidence that his unusual method of choosing a meal really did work.
And after all that effort, the owner was probably left wondering one thing:
How in the world was he going to explain that one to Brenda?
