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Investigative reporter, author and former federal agent Chuck Hustmyre has seen the ugly side of life, from A to Z. Here he gets the last word on politics, crime, local government and pop culture.

Did you ever see that episode of Star Trek (the original series with Capt. James T. Kirk) in which a group of aliens, who incidentally looked quite human, could move things with their minds? They became so physically weak that Kirk knocked one down with a single punch and the guy started crying like a baby.

The point of the show, as I recall (though I was only about 10 when I saw it), was that these aliens had such tremendous mental powers that they let their bodies weaken to the point of near uselessness.

Well, that's what's happening to us, except we're letting our minds go. (We're also letting our bodies go, but that's another subject.)

The agent of our mental demise is the computer chip.

Last week I was in Florida with my son Todd, and in an effort to promote a healthy diet I swung into the McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast. The cashier was friendly enough as she rang up my order and gave me the total, $7 and some change. I forked over a ten and waited.

After a moment or two she looked at me sort of quizzically and said, "Do I owe you some change?"

That was my first inkling that something must be wrong with her computerized cash register.

"Yes," I said. "I gave you a ten."

"How much change do I owe you?" she asked.

"Two dollars and some change," I said. "I didn't pay attention to the exact total."

She looked flustered. "It was seven dollars and fifty-six cents."

Without her cash register she was helpless, unable to figure out the change in her head. Her helplessness made me wonder what they teach in Florida schools.

I did some mental math and said, "You owe me two dollars and forty-four cents."

She then counted out my change, handed it to me, and told me to proceed to the next window.

Even my 12-year-old son was surprised at the clerk's lack of math skills.

When I was a kid, I worked at the old Broadmoor Theater back when it had the exclusive contract with Disney. On weekend afternoons we got crushed by crowds 10 deep at the concession counter. We used a money drawer, not a cash register, and we didn't have calculators. We memorized the prices, added them up in our heads and figured out the correct change.

I learned quickly that to figure out change all you have to do is start counting up from the price until you reach the amount the customer handed you. In the case of my McDonald's order, all the girl had to do was count from $7.56 to $10: four pennies to $7.60, a dime and a nickel to $7.75, a quarter to $8 and then two bucks to 10 dollars. No subtraction needed.

Lest you think my experience was an isolated incident or something unique to Florida, on Sunday my brother Jon told me he went to a local store and ran into a similar problem. The cash register was out and the clerk asked Jon how much tax she was supposed to charge. He told her he thought it was 9.5%. She said, which is it, nine or 10?

Although the clerk had a calculator, Jon had to explain to her how to add the tax to his total.

So what are we going to do if our math skills become so deficient that even a calculator can't help us? Are we going to become the mirror image of the aliens in that long ago episode of Star Trek, so mentally weak that if someone puts a math problem to us, we're going to fall to the ground and start crying like babies, just like the guy Capt. Kirk smacked around?

I hope not, but I have to admit mine is a rather flimsy hope.

What do you say?

Chuck out.

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