Everyone has it. Those who have it least don’t know that they have it. Those who have it most wish they had less of it, but not too little or none at all.
Age. Young children don’t even know their age and extremely old folks wish they could turn back the hands of time, but not so much that they’re too young or they no longer have an age at all.
King Ferdinand has no immediate living relatives and decides to hold a contest to find a worthy successor when he dies. He gives a seed to every contestant and explains that the person with the healthiest and most beautiful plant will win the throne.
When the final day of the contest arrives, the king finds hundreds of plants of all shapes and sizes. However, he ignores them and awards the throne to a girl holding a pot with only moist dirt.
King Ferdinand was a kind and trusting man and wanted to be sure he found an honest heir. He gave small pebbles to all the contestants, claiming they were seeds. Therefore, any contestant with a plant had switched their “seed” in order to win. Everyone but the girl had been dishonest.
A fish. A fish bowl or aquarium is the fish’s house and the people inside are the decorative divers that offer no reply (one might ask how the fish knows, given that they aren’t a talkative bunch themselves).
You have a fox, a chicken and a sack of grain. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the fox with the chicken he will eat it; if you leave the chicken with the grain he will eat it. How can you get all three across safely?
Take the chicken over first. Go back and bring the grain next, but instead of leaving the chicken with the grain, come back with the chicken. Leave the chicken on the first side and take the fox with you. Leave it on the other side with the grain. Finally, go back over and get the chicken and bring it over.
During a math exam, Willy asks Ms. Matilda, the teacher, how much time is left. Ms. Matilda is known for being obtuse and answers that the amount of time left is 1/5 of the time already completed and that is also how much time is left, in a manner of speaking.
15 minutes. The total exam time is 90 minutes. If 15 minutes are left, 75 minutes have already passed, and one fifth of 75 is 15. However, if you follow Ms. Matilda’s hint and pay attention to only the numbers in 1/5, you get the answer of 15 minutes as well.
