The Bus Driver

You are the bus driver. At your first stop, you pick up 29 people. On your second stop, 18 of those 29 people get off, and at the same time 10 new passengers arrive. At your next stop, 3 of those 10 passengers get off, and 13 new passengers come on. On your fourth stop 4 of the remaining 10 passengers get off, 6 of those new 13 passengers get off as well, then 17 new passengers get on. What is the color of the bus driver’s eyes?

The eye color of the reader of this problem. The first sentence is the key: “You are the bus driver”.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Turn Polar Bears White

I turn polar bears white
and I will make you cry.
I make guys have to pee
and girls comb their hair.
I make celebrities look stupid
and normal people look like celebrities.
I turn pancakes brown
and make your champagne bubble.
If you squeeze me, I’ll pop.
If you look at me, you’ll pop.
Can you guess the riddle?

The answer to this admittedly lame riddle is, “No.” The reason is that the question at the very end asks if you can guess the riddle and there is nothing that satisfies all of the riddles’ requirements.

Some say that pressure is the answer, but they can’t explain how it turns polar bears white or pancakes brown. Nothing turns polar bears white, any more than something turns a snowflake white and heat makes pancakes brown, not pressure.

Posted in Riddles

Sometimes I Enter With a Gong

I’m a word, six letters long,
I sometimes enter with a gong.

All in order from A to Z,
I start with the letter B.

What is the word?

Begins

It has six letters, when a meditation begins they sound the gong, and the letters are in alphabetical order.

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Leave a Grieving Wife

If you throw me from the window,
I’ll leave a grieving wife.
Bring me back, but in the door and,
You’ll see something giving life.

What am I?

The answer is the letter ‘n’. Taking ‘n’ out of window makes widow. And putting ‘n’ back into door makes donor.

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Groups of Creatures

These are names given to groups of creatures or things, but they have been scrambled. What is the correct arrangement?

Colony of Birds
Horde of Spiders
Den of Wild Pigs
Clutter of Crows
Nest of Snakes
Park of Elks
Doylt of Ferrets
Gang of Machine Guns
Business of Swine
Volery of Artillery
Hover of Gnats
Drift of Frogs

Colony of Frogs
Horde of Gnats
Den of Snakes
Clutter of Spiders
Nest of Machine Guns
Park of Artillery
Doylt of Swine
Gang of Elks
Business of Ferrets
Volery of Birds
Hover of Crows
Drift of Wild Pigs

Posted in Brain Teasers

Marble Walls White as Milk

In the marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with skin as soft as silk,
Within a fountain crystal clear,
A golden apple does appear.
No doors are there to this stronghold
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.

An egg or egg yolk. This is a variation of A Box Without Hinges.

Posted in Riddles

Complete the Word Square

A word square is a combination of words that can be spelled horizontally and vertically.

The most well known is called the Sator Square (in Latin):

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

What five words complete this word square?

I T C H E S
T _ _ _ _ _
C _ _ _ _ _
H _ _ _ _ _
E _ _ _ _ _
S _ _ _ _ _

Thrust, Crisco, Hussar, Escape and Stores.

Making this lovely word square below:

I T C H E S
T H R U S T
C R I S C O
H U S S A R
E S C A P E
S T O R E S
Posted in Brain Teasers

Jim’s Canoeing Adventure

Jim was canoeing on a lake when a sudden thunderstorm blew in tipped his boat. He swam to a rocky island about a mile from his family’s cottage and found a small, abandoned shack. Inside was an old kerosene lamp and a few matches. All the wood on the island was too damp to burn and the lamp was his only means of signaling for help but it only held an inch of kerosene, not enough to reach its short wick. How did he get the lamp burning to summon help?

Knowing kerosene and water wouldn’t mix and kerosene is less dense than water, he dipped the lamp in the lake and filled it with enough water so the kerosene rose to the top to cover the wick. The lamp was still burning an hour later when a motorboat rescued him.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Three Cuts to Turn a Round Cake Into Eight Equal Slices

How can you cut a round cake three times to make eight equal slices?

Cut #1 – Down the center of the cake (vertically) leaving two equal halves.
Cut #2 – Across the center of the cake (horizontally) leaving four equal slices.
Cut #3 – Through the middle edge of the cake slicing all four of the pieces in equal halves, leaving eight equal slices (four equal tops and four equal bottoms).

Posted in Brain Teasers

Hard Boiled Kiwi Bird Eggs

If you can hard boil a Kiwi bird egg in 20 minutes, how long would it take to hard boil four Kiwi bird eggs?
Note: Kiwi birds are about the size of a chicken, but they lay eggs that are close to the size of an Ostrich egg. So one would assume they must take a long time to hard boil.

20 minutes. You can boil them all at once in a large pot.

Posted in Brain Teasers