The Riddle Dude

Lunch Time

This is a story about a buddy of mine who works in an office building. Anyway, he’d been feeling pangs of hunger all morning. And when he finally finished his busy morning meeting, he glanced at his brand-new digital watch which he had just gotten for Christmas and he says, “Yikes, no wonder I’m hungry,” says Melvin, “it’s 12:01, lunch time!” So Melvin hurriedly dons his coat, hat and gloves and races out the rear entrance of the building. He heads for the diner across the street and he darts between traffic lanes, parked cars, and he falls into the doorway of the lunch counter there, and the door’s locked. There’s a sign that says, “Closed, Open at 11:00 A.M.” Huh? What happened?

Money, money, money

Why are there no billionaires in England?

Bet, bet, bet!

Take yourself back in time to California, the Gold Rush, 1849. You’re prospecting for gold. You’ve had a pretty good run of luck. So you decide it’s time to clean up and go into the big city to celebrate. You stumble out of one of the saloons, having spent most of your money on women and wine — and you’re about to squander the rest — when you hear someone call out to you.

From the inky shadows emerges a well-dressed gentleman who proposes a game of chance. He says, “I have this little silk bag. In it are three cards. One of them is green on both sides. Another one is red on both sides. And the third is red on one side and green on the other.

“I’m going to allow you to inspect the bag and put the cards inside. Without looking, I will let you pull one of the cards and place it on this little table in front of me without revealing what’s on the bottom of the card.”

You reach into the bag, deftly pull out one card, and put it on the table. You see a red face. The con man says, “I’ll bet you even money that the other side of the card is also red.” Should you take the bet?

Father’s Day

A teacher named Ms. Goodwin asks her third grade class if it’s anyone’s birthday that day and, to her surprise, even though there are 30-something kids in the class, no one raises their hand. Ms. Goodwin then asks, “Well, is there anyone here who has a family member whose birthday it is today?” And little Katie raises her hand and says, “As a matter of fact, today is my father’s birthday, and it’s also my grandfather’s birthday.” The teacher says, “Oh really, how interesting.” Little Katie goes on to say, “And they’re the same age.” The teacher says, “Oh, no, no, Katie, that can’t be.” And Katie insists, oh, yes, they are the same age. So the question is: Can it be and, if so, how? Now, if you start thinking about February 28th and all that, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Bedouin Breath

Two Bedouins were traveling across the desert on their way to a distant village. In the middle of the day, they sat down to eat the loaves of bread they had brought with them for lunch. One had five loaves. The other had three, making a total of eight. Just as they’re getting ready to eat, a stranger comes along and asks if he might share their meal. He said, “I have plenty of money but, unfortunately, no food.” The two agree to divide their loaves equally among the three of them. After the meal is finished, the stranger lays down eight coins of equal value for what he had eaten and goes away. The Bedouin with the five loaves picks five coins and leaves three for the other guy. But the other guy says, “No, no, no, no, Bedouin Breath. Look, we both shared our loaves. We should each get four coins.” Since they couldn’t agree, they call in a magistrate who happened to be road testing out a camel. The magistrate listens to the story and figures out who should get what. So the question was, was the first guy right, was the second guy right, or were they both wrong? And what’s the fair way to divide up the money? Well, it turns out they’re both wrong. What would be the proper distribution of coins?

Bonus Unsolved Riddle

Batter Up

Originally published on December 14, 2009

This riddle involves an historic baseball game which took place in June of 1997. It was notable not for what happened that day, but for what didn’t happen and it had nothing to do with the actual playing of the game, so to speak. I mean it wasn’t like 17 home runs were hit, or weren’t hit, or there were three no hitters pitched in the course of one game or something like that and this thing that didn’t happen has not, not happened, ever since.

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RiddleDude

Tricky Tricks

One of the ways that Allied agents in World War II used to get microfilm for example, past German guards, was to hide it in hollow coat buttons — not the kind that you have on a shirt where the thread goes through but the big ones with the loop on the back. Like you’d have on a winter coat, you know? And the top of the button screwed on and off like a jar lid. Well, anyway this worked for a while but somehow the Germans became aware of this trick and started giving a twist to the buttons on the coat of anyone who looked suspicious to see if any of the buttons unscrewed. When the Allies found out the trick had been discovered, the people in charge of preparing the clothing for undercover agents had to make a change. They did make a change and none of those hollow buttons was ever discovered again. What was the change?

Another Road Trip

Mrs. Riddledude and I decided to take a trip one day. So we get in the car and Mrs. RiddleDude drives the first 40 miles and I drive the rest of the way. We arrive at our destination and we get out of the car, glance at the foliage, and Mrs. RiddleDude says, “okay, let’s get a cappuccino and get out of here.” So we turn around and head home on the same road that we used to get there, okay? Mrs. RiddleDude drives the first leg of the trip, and I drive the last 50 miles home.

Anyway, when I get home the neighbor says, “How was the trip?” And I say, “I was with my wife, how good could it have been?” And he says, “Well, who did the driving?” And I explain exactly what I just said. “On the way there Mrs. RiddleDude drove the first 40 miles and I drove the rest. On the way back Mrs. RiddleDude drove the first leg of the trip and I drove the last 50 miles.”

He said, “Yeah, but who did most of the driving?” I said, “Well, you can figure it out, in fact you can even figure out how much more of the driving was done by that person.” Now, I didn’t say how long we were gone, how far we went, whose car we took, who bought the gas or any of those things. So the question was who drove the most miles and how many more did that person drive?

Records for Sale

The owner of a record store hires a pimply faced, high-school kid to work on Saturdays. He says to the kid, “You know what to do. But I got one little extra thing for you. I’ve got two piles of used 45-PM records that I’m selling for my friend Sam. Each pile consists of 30 records.

“The records in the first pile are 2 for $1. The other pile is 3 for $1. I don’t want you to put the money in the register. I’ve got to give it to Sam. Put the money into the cigar box under the counter.”

At the end of the first day, the owner comes back to the store, finds that all of the records have been sold and there is $25 in the cigar box. The two-for-a-dollar records sold for a total of $15, and the three-for-a-dollar records sold for a total for ten bucks.

Encouraged by the rapid sales, the next week Sam shows up with 60 more records. The owner gives the kid the same instructions. This time, the kid says, “I noticed last week that people were taking two records from one pile and three records from another pile, so I decided that this week I’m going to sell 5 for $2.”

The fellow who owns the record store says, “Seems like a good idea.” At the end of the day, though, the owner opens the cigar box and there’s $24 in there. He says, “You’re missing a dollar!” The kid says, “No, I sold all the records.” And that’s the question. Where’s the missing dollar?

Road Trip

A couple of weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. RiddleDude took a trip up north to see the foliage, and while we were way up north there, we decided to visit our a friend, who lives way up in the boondocks with his ice pick and his flock of sheep and all that. And while we were sitting around he says, “You know, guys, there’s a road right near my house that runs directly north and south.” We said, “Well, sure that’s no big deal.” And he says, “Well, I can put my car on this road and point it north, drive a mile and when I’m done I’m a mile south of where I started.” And we said, “Get out of town.” He offered to show us and he did. So how did he do it?