I Never Return

What are these three related items? When I am placed somewhere I will never stand up. Whatever you give me I will eat. When I go I never return.

A stove, fire, smoke.

Essentially a duplicate of A Group of Three but I’m keeping it here to avoid broken links.

Posted in Riddles

The Truck and the Plane

A delivery truck from the post office is sent to the airport to meet a cargo plane at its planned arrival time. The plane lands ahead of schedule and its contents are brought toward the post office by bicycle. After a half hour, the bicycle meets the truck and the mail is transferred.

The truck returns from the post office 20 minutes early. How early did the plane arrive? (Assume all transactions are instantaneous)

The delivery truck arrived back 20 minutes early, so it would have taken 20 minutes to go from where it met the bicycle to get to the airport and back. Therefore, the bicycle and truck met when the truck was 10 minutes from the airport. Adding those 10 minutes to the 30 minutes the truck had already driven to meet the bicycle means the plane arrived 40 minutes ahead of schedule.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Pronounced As One Letter, Written With Three

Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Two letters there are,
And two only in me.
I’m double, I’m single,
I’m black, blue, and gray,
I’m read from both ends,
And the same either way.

What am I?

Eye. It’s pronounced like the letter ‘i’, but written with three letters. There are only two letters used (‘e’ and ‘y’). The eye is double with two ‘e’s and represents a single eye. The eye is made up of various colors, some of which are black, blue and gray. And lastly, the eye is a palindrome, spelled the same forward and backward.

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Lennie’s List of Names

Lennie was cleaning up some old papers in his office and found a list with the following names:

Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
Hamilton
Jackson
Grant

The last name on the list was mostly worn away and he couldn’t make it out. What was the last name and why?

Franklin. It’s a list of the men on U.S. currency, $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 and $50. The $100 bill has Franklin. And an interesting tidbit is that Hamilton, along with Franklin, are the only two men in the list who did not serve as president.

Posted in Riddles

The Sheep’s Will

A farmer dies leaving a will dividing his flock of nineteen sheep with the following ratios:

Half to his oldest son, a quarter to the middle son and one fifth to his youngest son.

Without cutting any sheep up, how did the executor of the will fulfill the farmer’s wishes?

The executor went to the neighbouring farm and asked to borrow a sheep for a few minutes. Then he returned to the sons and said, “Half of the (now) twenty sheep is 10. A quarter of the twenty sheep is 5. A fifth of the twenty sheep is 4. 10 + 5 + 4 = 19. Then the executor took the borrowed 20th sheep back to the neighbour.

Thanks to Annette for sending this in.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Almost Catching Fire

People come and watch, from far away to see
Burning brightly, almost catching fire,
The colder it is the hotter I’ll be.
Then I die.

What am I?

Fall leaves changing colors. “Burning” with bright colors, when it’s cold outside the brighter the colors are.

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Four Nines To Make a Hundred

How can you make four 9’s equal 100?

99 9/9 = 100

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Rooster

A rooster lays an egg at the very top of a slanted roof. Which side is the egg going to roll off on?

Neither, roosters don’t lay eggs.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Always Send You In The Right Direction

I always send you in the right direction,
I’m arrayed in black and white,
Ignore me and lose my protection,
No more than two words are in sight.

What am I?

one-way

A one way street sign. It tells you the correct way to go, is black and white (in the United States), going the wrong way can get you a citation and the sign only has two words on it.

Posted in Riddles

Hurt Without Moving

We hurt without moving.
And poison without touching.

We bear truth and lies,
But are not judged by size.

What are we?

Words.

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