As a whole, I am both safe and secure. Behead me, I become a place of meeting. Behead me again, I am the partner of ready. Restore me, I become the domain of beasts.
Stable. A table is a place of meeting. Able and ready is a common phrase, and a stable is where beasts reside (beasts of burden, not beasts like the one in Beauty and the Beast who lived in a glorious castle but the west wing was forbidden to enter until Belle…I’ve said too much!).
You are a cook in a remote area with no clocks or other way of keeping time other than a four-minute and a seven-minute hourglass. On the stove is a pot of boiling water. Jill asks you to cook a nine-minute egg in exactly 9 minutes, and you know she is a perfectionist and can tell if you under cook or overcook the egg by even a few seconds. How can you cook the egg for exactly 9 minutes?
1. Flip both hourglasses over and drop the egg into the water. 2. When the 4-minute timer runs out, flip it over (4 minutes elapsed, 3 remaining on the 7-minute timer). 3. When the 7-minute timer runs out, flip it over. (7 minutes elapsed, 1 remaining in the 4-minute timer) 4. When the 4-minute timer runs out, flip the 7-minute timer over. (8 minutes elapsed. 6 minutes remained in the 7-minute timer, but flipping it over leaves one minute’s worth of sand on top. When it runs out exactly nine minutes will have elapsed.)
A potato. The roots growing out of a potato are called eyes, when you cut a potato in half it doesn’t produce any moisture and if you leave a poor potato to its own devices, it will die.
A lie. Lies are told, can make people crazy with rage, and most people don’t like to have lies told to them. Lies can’t be harmful though. :) (See what I did there?)
Wind (or anything blown by the wind). It moves all over, reaches the rich and the poor equally and no one knows exactly which way the next gust of wind will blow. You can’t see the wind, but you can see what it blows, like leaves or dust.
Phil asks his friend Stan when his birthday is. Stan replies that he was 32 the day before yesterday and next year he’ll be 35. When is his birthday and how is this possible?
Today is Jan 1st and his birthday is on December 31st. He was 32, then turned 33 on Dec 31st, and this year on Dec 31st he’ll turn 34, so next year he’ll be 35.