Riddle #1152

Guy de Maupassant hated the Eiffel Tower. So every day, he had lunch in the one place where it couldn't be seen. What was that place?

A young boy went to a Catholic school. During school he started goofing around, so the teacher called him out and sent him to the Pastor. Since this was a traditional school the boy would be spanked, but the Pastor believed in giving people a chance. He said, "If you can ask me a question about something you learned and I don't know the answer on the spot you will go free." The boy may have been lazy, but he was very witty. He asked, "What is it that you can see and I can see, usually every day, but God cannot see." The Pastor stood there, stumped. He couldn't figure it out because he strongly believed that God sees and knows all, and that there is only one God. The boy smiled and told him. What was it?

A poor miller living with his daughter comes onto hard times and is not able to pay his rent. His evil landlord threatens to evict them unless the daughter marries him. The daughter, not wanting to marry the landlord but fearing that her father won't be able to take being evicted, suggests the following proposition to the landlord. He will put two stones, one white and one black, into a bag in front of the rest of the townspeople. She will pick one stone out of the bag. If she picks the white stone, the landlord will forgive their debt and let them stay, but if she picks the black stone, she will marry the landlord, and her father will be evicted anyway. The landlord agrees to the proposal. Everybody meets in the center of the town. The landlord picks up two stones to put in the bag, but the daughter notices that he secretly picked two black stones. She is about to reveal his deception but realizes that this would embarrass him in front of the townspeople, and he would evict them. She quickly comes up with another plan. What can she do that will allow the landlord save face, while also ensuring that she and her father can stay and that she won't have to marry the landlord?

A number of people have broken the sound barrier, either in a super-fast car, or in nice fancy planes. However, hundreds of years ago it was broken on horseback. How?

Farmer Brown came to town with some watermelons. He sold half of them plus half a melon and found that he had one whole melon left. How many melons did he take to town?

Emily was sitting at her study table, home alone, on a cold and stormy night. Her parents had taken a flight earlier in the morning to Australia as her grandmother had passed away. She had wanted to follow her parents but she had an important English examination the next day which she could not miss. The storm was getting heavier by the minute and the wind was howling outside. All this noise made it very hard for her to concentrate. She was on the verge of dozing off when she was shaken alert by a sudden "THUD!" She dismissed it as a window which had been slammed shut by the wind. She tried to concentrate on her books when she heard faint footsteps. Emily got out of her room and looked around when suddenly, without warning, she was grabbed by the neck. She tried to scream but it came out as a mere whimper as the intruder was pressing hard against her throat with his arm. She tried to free herself from his grip but to no avail. "Give me all your money!" growled the man who had grabbed her from behind. "Th-there is none h-here! Please ll-let me go!" cried Emily. "Don't LIE TO ME!" screamed the increasingly agitated man. She felt the man strengthen his grip around her neck. She said nothing and a few seconds passed by in silence. Suddenly the phone rang which alerted both of them. "People will get suspicious if I don't answer the phone," said Emily, with a controlled voice. The intruder let her go. "Alright, but NO funny business, or ELSE!" said the nervous intruder. Emily walked toward the phone. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She picked up the phone. "Hey Em! How's the revision going?" said the caller. "Hey Anna. Thanks for the call. Hey you know those Science notes I lent you last week? Well I really need them back. It would be a great help to me. It's an emergency, so if you could give me them tomorrow it would be great. Please hurry in finding the notes. I need to get back to my books now. Bye," Emily said. She hung up the phone. "It was wise of you not to say anything," said the intruder, although he was more than a bit confused by her conversation. "Now TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY IS KEPT!" screamed the thief. "It...it's...in my dad's room. The first room on the right. Third drawer," said Emily. "SHOW me!" said the man, and removed his grip around her neck. She took a big gulp of air and nearly fell. She swallowed hard and said a silent prayer. She walked slowly, in silence, toward her father's room. All of a sudden, they heard police sirens. The intruder froze in his footsteps. He ran to the nearest window and jumped out of it. Emily ran outside in time to see the intruder being escorted into the car. She saw Anna and she ran toward her and hugged her. "Smart kids," said the policeman. What had happened?

One day, Emperor Akbar posed a question to Birbal. He asked him what Birbal would choose if he offered either justice or a gold coin. "The gold coin," said Birbal without hesitation. On hearing this, Akbar was taken aback. "You would prefer a gold coin to justice?" he asked, not believing his own ears. "Yes," said Birbal. The other courtiers were amazed by Birbal's display of idiocy. They were full of glee that Birbal had finally managed himself to do what these courtiers had not been able to do for a long time - discredit Birbal in the emperor's eyes! "I would have been disappointed if this was the choice made even by my lowliest of servants," continued the emperor. "But coming from you it's not only disappointing, but shocking and sad. I did not know you were so debased!" How did Birbal justify his answer to the enraged and hurt Emperor?

100 men are in a room, each wearing either a white or black hat. Nobody knows the color of his own hat, although everyone can see everyone else's hat. The men are not allowed to communicate with each other at all (and thus nobody will ever be able to figure out the color of his own hat). The men need to line up against the wall such that all the men with black hats are next to each other, and all the men with white hats are next to each other. How can they do this without communicating? You can assume they came up with a shared strategy before coming into the room.

A man puts on a clean shirt every night before bed. On the first nigh he puts on a blue shirt. He than sleeps for 5 hours. Every one hour more he sleeps than the night before he put on a different color shirt the next night according to this scale: blue, black, red, green, white, pink, orange, brown, purple, yellow, grey, neon green, tan, and teal. Every one hour less he sleeps than the last night he put on a different color shirt the next night going backwards on his scale. If he were to wear a blue shirt because he slept more hours than the last night he does. If it was because he slept less hours than the night before he skips it and wears a teal shirt instead. If he goes backwards on the scale and goes to blue but would not wear a blue shirt he still counts blue in his going backwards on his scale. The second night the man wears a blue shirt because he did not sleep any more or less hours than the last night. The man sleeps for six hours that night. The next night he sleeps for five hours. Night number four he sleeps for eight hours. The next night he sleeps for seven hours. The next night he sleeps so well he sleeps for 11 hours. Night number seven he stays up so late he only sleeps for four hours. The next night he is so tired he sleeps for eight hours. The next night he sleeps for eight hours again. Night number ten he sleeps for 14 hours because he is sick. Since he slept so long the last night he only sleeps for seven hours. The next night he is a little bit tired so he sleeps for eight hours. The night after that he had to do so much work he only slept five hours. The next night at work they let him out early and he slept for nine hours. The next night he slept for eight hours. And the last night the man did he slept for ten hours. The next night he put on a different color shirt according to his scale, but the next night he randomly picked a shirt. At what night will the man wear a blue shirt again?

Two Japanese people who have never seen each other meet at the New York Japanese Embassy. They decide to have drinks together at a nearby bar. One of them is the father of the other one's son. How is this possible?

Four cars come to a four way stop, all coming from a different direction. They can't decide who got there first, so they all entered the intersection at the same time. They do not crash into each other. How is this possible?