A Riddle To Tell Your Friendly Gatherings
A Riddle To Tell Your Friendly Gatherings
When we were living in Zhengzhou, where I had come to teach English (like Tim Walz did), our friends invited us to banquets where we would sit at a round table that sat as many as 10 to 20 people. We were considered special guests and never allowed to pay or even contribute to the cost. Every guest was expected to take a turn to do something to entertain the rest at the table – sing a song, or tell a story, or do a magic trick, or tell a riddle or whatever else would entertain the rest.
I would either sing a song (like Autumn Leaves in both English and French) or tell a riddle. My good friend who was always there and was bilingual would translate the riddle for the rest. This riddle that I told almost always stumped everyone at the table. Keep in mind that it was told, not written, so when you read the last question I want to know if you knew the answer WITHOUT HAVING TO GO BACK to read it again, something that when you tell it nobody would be able to do.
The Riddle
"You are the pilot of an American Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 airplane flying from New York’s JFK Airport to the Lester B. Pearson International Airport at Toronto, Ontario. Lester B. Pearson was a former Prime Minister of Canada who was instrumental in the creation of the UN peacekeeping force. There are five staff aboard the plane: pilot, co-pilot, one male flight attendant and three female flight attendants, one of whom is a dead-ringer for Marilyn Monroe, and there are 121 passengers in economy seating and 11 in first class. The plane flies at 37,000 feet above ground at around 800 kilometers per hour and it takes less than an hour between taking off and landing. It is too short a flight for a movie to be shown, but as it is lunchtime, a light lunch is served that is a choice between a mixed salad or a Burger King hamburger. The passengers are also entitled to a drink and may choose from among water, milk, CocaCola or diet GingerAle, but would have to pay a little for wine or beer. The flight is without incident, and it lands on time."
(For my telling it to the audiences I did of course use Air China instead of American Airlines, and Chinese cities instead of North American ones, and changed other particulars to what they would have been familiar with.)
Now for the riddle question. "The flight attendants are all under the age of 30, the co-pilot is 42 years old. How old is the pilot?"
See my first comment for the answer.
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By this time I'll bet most of you have gone back to the beginning and seen that the answer was in the very first four words of the riddle, it is YOUR age.
You would most likely never have guessed it because of all the intervening erroneous information that would have taken your mind off the first few words. You might have thought about the problems with the Boeing 737 Max, or the flight particulars about speed and distances, or pictured Marilyn Monroe, or a hamburger, or what drink YOU would have ordered, all kinds of information that would have led you astray.
Now try it on YOUR friends and family. I would be willing to bet that almost NOBODY would be able to get the answer if the riddle were told out loud, and not written.
And please let me know if you enjoyed this article by either voting it up at the top of the article or posting a comment. Some of you might even honestly admit that you actually were unable to answer it.
I missed it!
I immediatly thought that somehow we would be deliberately mislead because there was really much too much extraneous information given.
One of the clever way this was made to be so difficult was the fact that the answer was contained at the very beginning! (If it was even near the beginning it might have been easier).....
But its usally a safe assumption that the answer might be near the beginning or not.. but certaining not at the very beginning!
That is one of the reasons why this riddle works so well. It is bound to work almost all the time.
I would guess almost no one gets it.
In fact, it might be quite interesting to meet a person who did-- probably an interesting person.
It's been on the Front Page for two days now, and it\s apparent that only two members have even read it, including you.
I have always been fascinated by people who"think different" (in a positive way)/
A while back a friend of mine had a wonderful garden party. I met a guy there who mentioned he was, IIRC, a semi-finalist on Jeopardy) I assked him how he got so good at memorizing trivia-- and especiallyhow he knew the sorts of questions they would ask.
That's because its not political!
(Perhaps if you prefaced it by saying something like the following, many people would've responded:
My good friend who was always there and was bilingual would translate the riddle for the rest. This riddle that I told almost always stumped most of the people at the table. All of the democrats were able to figure it out, but it was way too difficult for the Republicans.
(Or vice versa).
Stupid. yes! But typical of what's important to most people on social media . . .
On THIS site for sure.
Well now, for some strange reason, its doing better-- 31 comments.
Many people on social media sites seem to always try to impress others. And while there is personal information I do not want to share online, well I don't care if I admit a mistake. Do I care if people know I've been wrong?
Well, as Humphrey Bogart said in The Battleship Potemkin:
Frankly my dear I don't give a damn!
Well, I am one of the few members here who will actually openly apologize and admit that another was right, because I'm honest and have personal integrity. How many members here have you seen do that? Most will just bitch if they feel they've been wronged by the moderators. I'm sure a lot of members have read through the riddle but don't have the balls to admit that they didn't get it. YOU DID admit that you missed it, which is one of the reasons why you are one of my most favourite members on this site, but then of course you were the first friend I had on NewsVine, and I always considered you my mentor there.
Is that what's known as a "mixed message"?
Actually I like my messages shaken, not stirred!
Well, fortunately, You've Got Mail, so I know you're not Marooned, or Cast Away.
Strange as it may seem, I am actually a very honest person and do have a lot of personal integrity. But those are not the main reasons I admit it when I'm wrong. One reason I do it is that over the years I've come away, to a large degree, from being s attached to..."approval seeking behaviour'..
click here
Do you mean that literally? (I actually just check my email, nothing new)
Did you mean that first paragraph to be a quotation, or else that it is totally applicable to yourself as well so you repeated it as your own?
I often post articles or comments that I KNOW will not be approved by others, including berating others for not being interested in the topics I've posted or the comments I've made. I admire those whose interests are more varied and universal. After all, isn't the adage "Variety is the spice of life"?
LOL. Yes, I know. I even get a notice on my screen when I do get mail.
Thanks for the compliment.
BTW one other person said that (you'll never guess who it was)
(you'll never guess who it was)
So I;'l tellyou-- it was kpr37 (remember him?)
(Maybe is wasn't 37 but another number I ferget).
When he joined Newsvine he was totally computer illiterate-- incredibly so.
ooops-- it was a quote from you-- I am very tired tonight I forget to put it as a quote from you I replied to!
Ah yes, a good person, I liked him. He really did have problems with a computer. He tried coming back to post here again a couple of years ago but had problems. I tried to help him, then asked the R.A. to see what she could do. I guess he was just frustrated by the problems.
I'll fix it for you.
I also sometimes post things I know will not be approved by others. (If you really want to freak people out and get insults hurled at you, try telling them you believe in Astrology, LOL!
Personally, I probably have more interests than most people here. (There are a few that also do, but they are few).
I don't often berate others for having few interests-- I've been on social media many years (decades actually) so I'm used to people with few interests -- and extremely boring people. And especially-- people who think they know it all (but actually don't). And it bores me to confront them.
There's an old saying:
Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!
Thanks
But be safe, wear a condom.
He was very genuine person. Construction worker. Rode a motorcycle, was annoyed the law (Massachusetts) required him to wear a helmet. Had a Bulldog he loved. He explained to me the difference between French and British Bulldogs.
I don't currently own a pet. If I were to get a dog it would be an Australian Shepherd! (Malamutes are aslo really great). I also like cats.And there is an amazing bird called a Cockatiel (they act a lot like humans, have amazing personalities).
.
He supported the right things (which I guess were those things you or I would support).
LOL. We really ARE starting to go awry here.
Are those still legal? (I had thought the Republicans had outlawed them).
@ Krishna 2.2.21
Did you fall asleep on your keyboard?
If so, they would've wanted everyone to have a say as to whether they should be legal-- so they would've let each state decide!
Don't know. I'm not Al Pacino.
Possibly! I am really tired, I should be going to sleep now.
Great actor!
Did you see the movie Barbie? He was great in that movie!
But I bet you played one on TV!
Pretty soon it's lunch time for me.
I am really tired. going to sleep now. Good night.
Hasta Banana!
Barbie? No, except for first run theatres movies aren't shown here until they're 3 years old - copyright laws. And I was in a movie theatre here only once, about 10 years ago, when one of my students took me to a 4D movie theatre to watch the last Hobbit movie. I didn't particularly enjoy getting sprayed in the face, jiggled in my seat and punched in my back. I watch movies on our TV that has a 4.5 foot screen, so it's pretty good.
Not sure what you meant - was I an actor on TV? Did I play an Al Pacino movie on TV? The only time I was ever an actor was in a high school play, I was Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. "For Andrew, if he had so much blood in his liver as would clog the foot of a flea, I'd eat the rest of the anatomy." I still remember some of my lines.
Sleep well.
I didn't get it. Went back and read it again, still didn't get it. Sigh.
Okay, Steevie, Here it is. The question is, HOW OLD IS THE PILOT? The first 4 words of the riddle were "You are the pilot...", so how old are you? When you tell this puzzle to people at a gathering (not in writing) they don't have the opportunity to go back to the beginning to see that answer, and they are so distracted by all the intervening information that they will forget those first four words. Thank you for your honesty.
LOL. I just read it again myself and noticed that I had said FIVE crew members when if you count them, there are SIX. Nobody noticed that, AND NEITHER DID i. LOL
good one.
Thank you JR.