I Appear In The Morning But Am Always There

I appear in the morning but am always there.
You can never see me though I am everywhere.
By night I am gone, though I sometimes never was.
Nothing can defeat me but I am easily gone.

What am I?

Sunlight.

Posted in Riddles

Little Miss Eticote

Little Miss Eticote
In her white petticoat
And her red nose
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows

A candle.

Posted in Riddles

A Leathery Snake

A leathery snake,
With a stinging bite,
I’ll stay coiled up,
Unless I must fight.

A whip.

Posted in Riddles

The Case of the Missing Matchstick

Chuck and Ruby were going to meet at a hotel for their anniversary dinner, but Ruby didn’t show. Chuck was angry and left her a passive aggressive message on their kitchen table in the form of fifteen matchsticks spelling “hotel” and went to bed. When Ruby got home and saw the matchsticks, she removed one and went to bed. When Chuck woke up the next morning and saw Ruby’s new message, he realized his mistake. Which stick did Ruby remove and what was the new message?

Matchsticks

Ruby had removed the top of the T and the new message could be seen upside down from where Chuck sat at his breakfast of sadness and anger. What he saw was 7 3 1 0 4, or 7/31/04, the date of their anniversary. In his excitement, Chuck had gone to the restaurant a day early, on July 30th. All was forgiven by both parties and Chuck and Ruby had a wonderful dinner together. They also promised to buy a whiteboard for the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to use matchstick messages ever again.

Posted in Brain Teasers

How Far Does a Dog Walk?

How far can a blind dog walk into a forest?

Halfway. After he gets halfway, he’s walking out of the forest.

Posted in Riddles

Around the House Without Touching It

What goes around and in the house, but never touches the house?

The sun.

Posted in Riddles

Banana Dresser Grammar

What do these words have in common?

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

If you move the first letter to the end of the word, it forms the same word backwards. Banana = ananab, dresser = resserd, and so on.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Robbers Took Everything They Could

Two robbers took everything they could get their hands on. A police officer saw it but did nothing to stop them. Why?

It was Halloween. The robbers and police officer were all kids dressed up in costume, and all they took was candy.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Alfred’s Tough Cash Request

Alfred is at the bank to cash his $200 check. He tells the cashier he would like some one dollar bills, ten times as many two dollar bills and the rest in fives.

How many of each denomination does the cashier need to give Alfred?

Five $1 bills, 50 $2 bills and 19 $5 bills.

We know that in order to give the rest of the amount in fives, the sum of the one and two dollar bills needs to be divisible by five (i.e. end in 0 or 5).

If we start with a single one dollar bill, we’d need ten two dollar bills to satisfy the request, making $21. But we need a sum that is divisible by 5. So we keep going up, like so:

$1 + $2 * 10 = $21
$2 + $2 * 20 = $42
$3 + $2 * 30 = $63
$4 + $2 * 40 = $84
$5 + $2 * 50 = $105 (Aha! It’s divisible by 5)
$6 + $2 * 60 = $126
$7 + $2 * 70 = $147
$8 + $2 * 80 = $168
$9 + $2 * 90 = $189

So the only option that works is 5 $1 bills and 50 $2 bills, leaving $95 (95 / 5 = 19) to be paid out in 19 fives.

Alfred is one tough customer.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Mystery Six-Digit Number

Find a six-digit number containing no zeros and no repeated digits that satisfies the following conditions:

1. The first and fourth digits sum to the last digit, as do the third and fifth digits.
2. The first and second digits when read as a two-digit number equal one quarter the fourth and fifth digits.
3. The last digit is four times the third digit.

192768.

If you call the number ABCDEF, then you get the following equations.

1. A + D = F and C + E = F
2. AB = DE / 4
3. F = 4 × C

The only numbers that work for C and E are 2 and 6 or 4 and 8, and in order to make F a single-digit number, we can deduce that C = 2, E = 6 and F = 8.

So far, our number is AB2D68.

We know A + D = 8 so A and D are both odd numbers. The only odd number less than 8 that we can use for D to make one-quarter of two-digit number D6 also be a two-digit number is 7, so D = 7 and A is 1. This makes the two-digit number AB 19.

Posted in Brain Teasers