Kevin’s School Supplies

Kevin brings his school supplies to the counter. The cashier rings up his purchase for a total of $1.70. Kevin is puzzled, and says, “I bought 2 pencils at 2 cents each, 5 pencils at 4 cents each and 8 notebooks and 12 sheets of colored paper. I don’t remember the prices of the latter two, but the total can’t be $1.70.”

How did Kevin know?

Because 4 cents, 20 cents, 8 notebooks and 12 sheets of colored paper are all divisible by 4, but 170 cents isn’t.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Foot On Each Side

What has a foot on each side and one in the middle?

A yard stick.

Posted in Riddles

After the Tenth One

After the tenth one it didn’t matter that he came from an ethnic minority. Who was it?

Moses from the Bible. The Pharaoh wouldn’t release the ill-treated Israelites (an ethnic minority) from slavery until being visited by ten plagues.

Posted in Riddles

yyyy UR

yyyy U R, yyyy U B, I C U R y y 4 ?

What word belongs in place of the question mark?

Me.
Wise you are, wise you be, I see you are too wise for me.

Posted in Riddles

Come For a Ride

I go up, but at the same time go down,
Up toward the sky and down toward the ground,
I’m present tense and past tense too,
Come for a ride, just me and you.

What am I?

A see-saw.

Posted in Riddles
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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

I Make Memories That Last a Lifetime

I make memories that last a lifetime,
Without me you’ll be miserable,
If you miss me you can gourge and it’s okay.
Some say I am naturally split in two.

What am I?

Sleep. It’s the time your mind organizes memories and knowledge. Sleep deprivation is miserable (as you well know if you’ve experienced it). If you miss a few nights of sleep, you can sleep more to catch up with no problems. And some believe that segmented sleep, where you sleep, wake for an hour, then go back to sleep, was the dominant form of sleep before the Industrial Revolution.

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Yellow Rock into a Purple Stream

What happens when you throw a yellow rock into a purple stream?

It makes a splash.

Posted in Riddles

Reordered Mistake

What reordered word is a mistake?

Errored, which is an anagram of reorder.

Posted in Riddles

Reading Hexadecimal

How many people can read hexadecimal if only you and dead people can read it?

57006

The trick is that the word “dead” represents a number in hexadecimal. That number in base 10 is 57005, and adding one more to include yourself gives you: 57005 + 1 = 57006.

Posted in Brain Teasers