A young carer working in a nursing home one day noticed a new resident who had not long moved into the home.  He was just sitting there in an armchair, with a bowl of peanuts next to him on a small table.  He hadn't really said a lot since he had moved into the nursing home, and the young carer felt somewhat sorry for him.  She decided to sit with and talk to him for a while to try and make him feel more relaxed and started talking to him.

After a while, the old man opened up and started to talk.  The carer listened to what he was saying, asking him questions occasionally, and eventually the old man started talking quite a bit, telling the carer about his exploits during the Second World War and all the things that he'd seen and done during his time on active service.

Whilst the old man was talking the young carer started to get a bit hungry.  She looked over at the bowl of peanuts and thought to herself "There are enough peanuts in that bowl.  I'm sure Alfred won't notice if I only ate a small handful."

And with that the carer helped herself to some of the nuts, whilst old Alfred continued chatting with her.  However, she was quite hungry, and she kept on taking more and more peanuts, the end result being that she eventually ended up emptying the entire bowl of peanuts.

Once the young carer had realised that she'd emptied the bowl she felt a bit awkward, and quickly tried to think of an excuse to get away.  She looked at her watch and said "Oh crikey, Alfred.  I've spent so long speaking to you today that I've gone right through my lunch break.  I'd better be getting back to work or I'll get into trouble with my Supervisor."

"That's fine, dear" relied Alfred, who at that point happened to look at the bowl of peanuts and noticed that they were all gone.  The young carer also realised that Alfred had noticed the empty bowl and said, quite sheepishly, "I'm sorry Alfred, but I was getting quite hungry during our chat.  I've ended up eating all of your peanuts."

And with that Alfred just smiled at the young carer and replied "Oh, don't worry about that, young lady.  Ever since I got these false teeth all I've been able to do is suck the chocolate off of them..."