Fred’s Packing Job

Fred was almost done packing for the day, with five packages left. Unfortunately, Fred dropped the labels and had no idea which label went to which package. What is the probability that Fred managed to correctly label exactly four of the five packages?

Zero. If Fred had correctly labeled four packages, the fifth label would belong to the fifth package and all packages would be correctly labeled. Therefore it is impossible to mislabel exactly four packages.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Word Party

You watch a group of words going to a party. A word either enters through one of two doors or is turned away by the guards. ‘HIM’ goes through door number one and ‘BUG’ goes through door number two. ‘HER’ is turned away. ‘MINT’ and ‘WEAVE’ go in through door one, ‘DOOR’ and ‘CORD’ take door two and ‘THIS’ and ‘That’ aren’t allowed in.

What determines whether a word can enter and which door they must use?

Door number one is for words composed entirely of capital letters written using only straight lines, such as A, E, F, H, and I. The entire set of letters allowed through door number one are AEFHIKLMNTVWXYZ. Door number two, as might be expected, is for words with capital letters that have a curve, including BCDGJOPQRSU. Any words composed of both straight and curved letters (or lowercase letters) are not allowed in. The word ‘THAT’ would have been sent through door number one, if the letters had been capitalized.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Special-Sized Box

I have a box. The top has an area of 240 square inches, the side 300 square inches and the end 180 square inches. What are the dimensions of the box?

Length = 20
Width = 12
Depth = 15

Posted in Brain Teasers

I’m A Sifter

I’m a sifter of a memorable shape,
You can eat a variety of me, but I can be toxic,
I can cause severe pain if you’re not careful,
And the action I describe could hurt as well.

What am I?

A kidney.

Kidneys filter your blood and are shaped like kidney beans, which you can eat. Red kidney beans contains high amounts of phytohemagglutinin (quite the word, eh?) and can be toxic if not soaked and boiled. Kidney stones can be extremely painful and if a kid knees you in the stones, that would also be unpleasant.

Posted in Riddles
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Three Consecutive Days

Name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Posted in Brain Teasers

TOWN Rebus

What does this represent?

T
O
W
N

Downtown.

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First In Flower and In Rose

My first is in FLOWER and in ROSE
My second is in FORK and well as HOSE
My third is in CROCUS but not in GNOME
My fourth is in RAKE never in HOME
My fifth is in HOE and also in WEEDS
My sixth is in SHEARS though not in SEEDS
My seventh is in LADYBIRD not in CREATURE

What am I?

Rockery

Posted in Riddles

All Those Legs

Two legs sat upon three legs with one leg in his lap.
In comes four legs, grabs one leg, and runs off with him.
Up jumps two legs, grabs up three legs, throws it after four legs,
and makes him bring back one leg.

Who are we?

One leg is a leg of mutton. Two legs is a person. Three legs is a stool. Four legs is a dog.

Posted in Riddles

Four Gallons From Two Buckets

You have two buckets. One holds exactly five gallons and the other three gallons. How can you measure exactly four gallons of water into the five gallon bucket?

Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.

  1. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  2. Pour the 3 gallons of water into the 5-gallon bucket
  3. Fill the 3-gallon bucket again.
  4. Fill up the 5-gallon bucket with the 3-gallon bucket, leaving you with 1 gallon left in the 3-gallon bucket.
  5. Empty out the 5-gallon bucket.
  6. Pour the remaining 1 gallon of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket.
  7. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  8. Pour the 3 gallons of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket leaving you with 4 gallons of water in the 5-gallon bucket.

Alternate solution:

  1. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket
  2. Pour it into 3 gallon bucket, leaving 2 gallons
  3. Empty out the 3 gallon bucket
  4. Pour the 2 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket into the 3 gallon bucket
  5. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket and pour it into the 3 gallon bucket until it’s full, leaving 4 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket.
Posted in Brain Teasers

Imprisoned In Wood and Never Released

I am taken from a mine and shut up in a wooden case from which I am never released. Yet I am used by almost everybody. What am I?

Pencil lead. While modern pencils don’t contain lead, that’s still what we call the graphite compound. When real lead was used in pencils it was mined and nearly everyone has used a pencil at some point in their life.

Posted in Riddles