What’s Three Times Three? The Answer Isn’t What You Think

Three elderly men were at the doctor’s office for a memory test. The doctor turned to the first man and asked, “What is three times three?”

“274,” the man replied confidently.

The doctor blinked, sighed, and turned to the second man. “Your turn. What is three times three?”

“Tuesday,” the second man answered, nodding proudly as if he’d solved a great mystery.

The doctor rubbed his temples, already exhausted. Then he looked at the third man. “Okay… your turn. What is three times three?”

“Nine,” the third man replied without hesitation.

The doctor lit up, relieved. “Excellent! And how did you figure that out?”

The third man shrugged. “Easy. I just subtracted Tuesday from 274.”

The doctor stared at him, completely defeated—and that’s when everything took a turn none of them expected.

The Memory Test That Changed Everything

The doctor, Dr. Merrill, had been running memory exams for decades, but something about these three men felt… off. Not because their answers were ridiculous—that part was fairly normal—but because each one of them had come in insisting it was urgent.
And because they all lived at the same assisted living facility.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.
“Gentlemen, before you go… can I ask why you all came in together today?”

The first man, Arthur, raised his hand like a schoolboy. “Oh! That’s because of The Great Promise.”

“The… what?” the doctor asked.

“The Great Promise,” repeated Bernard, the second man. “We made it sixty years ago. Back when we were in the military.”

The third man, Samuel, nodded. “It’s time to fulfill it. And we needed the test to make sure we still remembered the details.”

The doctor frowned. “But two of you can’t even recall simple arithmetic.”

Arthur waved dismissively. “Ah, that’s just numbers. Not important. The Promise is important.”

Dr. Merrill, against his better judgment, asked, “What exactly is this promise?”

The three men exchanged looks—mischievous looks. Looks that belonged on boys planning a prank, not men in their eighties.

Arthur leaned forward.
“If one of us died first, the other two would sneak into the funeral home, steal the body, take it to the beach, and give it the send-off he always wanted.”

Bernard nodded solemnly. “A Viking funeral.”

Samuel clapped his hands together. “With fireworks!”

The doctor’s jaw dropped. “Dear God, no. Absolutely not.”

The three men looked offended.

Bernard crossed his arms. “Well that’s rude.”

Samuel pointed at the doctor. “You said my memory was excellent! That I should do things that bring me joy!”

“That’s not— I didn’t mean—” Merrill sputtered.

But the men weren’t listening. They were already whispering to each other, plotting like teenagers.

Then, suddenly, there was a knock on the exam room door.

A nurse peeked in, her expression uneasy. “Um… Dr. Merrill? There’s a visitor for these gentlemen.”

The men looked at each other, confused.

“Who would be visiting?” Arthur asked.

They shuffled out to the hallway, leaving the doctor trailing behind them.

Standing there, waiting with a cane and a knowing smile…
was a silver-haired woman wearing sunglasses indoors.

Arthur’s jaw dropped.

Bernard gasped.

Samuel nearly tripped.

“Is that—?”
“It can’t be—”
“You were dead!”

The woman lifted her sunglasses dramatically.

“In the flesh,” she said.

Her name was Margaret. The woman they all believed had died sixty years ago during their deployment—the woman at the center of a love triangle (or square, depending on whose version of the story you believed). She had disappeared under mysterious circumstances during a mission, and each of the men had mourned her in their own way.

But apparently, she was very much alive.

Dr. Merrill’s day was officially ruined.

THE REUNION

Margaret took a step forward. “I see you three made it,” she said with a laugh.

Arthur sputtered. “Where have you been?”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were alive?” Bernard demanded.

Samuel pointed accusingly. “We made a promise about your funeral!”

The doctor whispered, “This is insane,” to himself.

Margaret smiled. “I didn’t tell you because I went into witness protection. And when I finally got out… well, life got complicated. But I never forgot you three.”

Arthur’s eyes softened. “We thought we lost you.”

“You nearly did,” she said. “But I’ve come back because I need your help.”

The men straightened up like soldiers hearing a command.

“What do you need?” Samuel asked.

She looked around, lowered her voice, and said,
“There’s a box I buried sixty years ago. I need you to help me retrieve it before someone else finds it.”

The men were instantly fired up.

Bernard stretched his back. “My spine is questionable, but my loyalty is unquestionable.”

Arthur cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go.”

Samuel saluted the doctor on the way out. “Thank you for confirming our brains are in working order.”

The doctor stared in disbelief. “They aren’t!”

But it didn’t matter.
Because the four of them—three elderly men and one woman thought dead for decades—were already hobbling, limping, and shuffling toward the parking lot like an elderly version of Ocean’s Eleven.

THE FINAL TWIST

Hours later, just as Dr. Merrill was finishing his paperwork, his phone rang.

He answered it wearily. “Dr. Merrill speaking.”

A stern voice responded, “This is Agent Dawson with the FBI. We’re tracking four senior citizens who left your office today. They’re connected to a decades-old classified operation. We need to know if they revealed anything unusual.”

The doctor blinked slowly, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said,
“You have no idea.”

He hung up, leaned back in his chair, and whispered:
“I should have become a dentist.”

And somewhere, at that very moment, four elderly renegades were tearing down a highway in a minivan at 32 miles per hour—on their way to dig up a secret that the world had forgotten…

…but that was about to change everything.