A Box Without Hinges
A box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.
What is it?
An egg.
(From J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit)
Take Away the Whole
What is it that after you take away the whole, some still remains?
Wholesome.
Say My Name
Say my name and I disappear. What am I?
Silence.
An alternate version is, “What is so fragile it breaks when you say its name?”
I Turn Polar Bears White
I turn polar bears white
and I will make you cry.
I make guys have to pee
and girls comb their hair.
I make celebrities look stupid
and normal people look like celebrities.
I turn pancakes brown
and make your champagne bubble.
If you squeeze me, I’ll pop.
If you look at me, you’ll pop.
Can you guess the riddle?
The answer to this admittedly lame riddle is, “No.” The reason is that the question at the very end asks if you can guess the riddle and there is nothing that satisfies all of the riddles’ requirements.
Some say that pressure is the answer, but they can’t explain how it turns polar bears white or pancakes brown. Nothing turns polar bears white, any more than something turns a snowflake white and heat makes pancakes brown, not pressure.
Where I Never Was
You saw me where I never was and where I could not be. And yet within that very place, my face you often see. What am I?
A reflection
I Am, In Truth, A Yellow Fork
I am, in truth, a yellow fork
From tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropped
The awful cutlery.
Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The apparatus of the dark
To ignorance revealed.
— Emily Dickenson
Lightning.
Whoever makes it, tells it not.
Whoever makes it, tells it not.
Whoever takes it, knows it not.
Whoever knows it, wants it not
Counterfeit money or poison.
As I went over London Bridge
As I went over London Bridge
I met my sister Jenny
I broke her neck and drank her blood
And left her standing empty
A bottle of gin.