Multitasking - Fact or Myth

Shirley and Jill for years have been preaching to me that females (them) can multitask and males (me) cannot. I would estimate that this is reinforced at least once a week with questionable observations usually involving my listening capabilities. You are probably wondering where I’m going with this … well yesterday, Shirley was using self check-out at the grocery store when I called. She ran into a problem. She scanned her loyalty card into the machine and it didn’t like it. She rescanned it and this time it really didn’t like it. She summoned the clerk over to show her the problem only to get this rude response, “that is a Kroger card, this is Albertson’s and we don’t require a loyalty card to get our discounts.” Shirley then complimented the clerk on her store not having a stupid loyalty card. She is obviously getting soft. I remember the day when she would have insisted on speaking with the manger and demanding that they match the Kroger discounts at a minimum. I wonder what card she uses at Super Wal-Mart. Does she use a card at Kroger? The only thing I know is that from now on, self check-out is dead to her.

That said, she now claims it was entirely my fault for calling at an inappropriate time. What happened to this multitasking skill? Did I mention she didn’t even answer the phone? So she wasn’t trying to do two thought requiring tasks like talk and self check-out but merely checking-out with the background noise of her phone ringing. Is this multitasking talent just a myth? I’ll be looking for chinks in Jill’s armor.