Lateral Thinking Questions

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ANSWER: L.T.Q. #31

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 22:15:20

Here is this week's question:

Every Tuesday evening Hardy Pyle drives up to his cottage to visit his wife. On these weekly visits he drops off the clean clothes and picks up the dirty laundry. Since Mrs. Pyle changes her underwear each morning, what is the minimum number of underwear she can own?

ANSWER:

Fifteen. Every Tuesday Mrs. Pyle receives seven pair of underwear and also leaves seven for Hardy to wash. That equals fourteen, plus the pair she is wearing.

Wait a second! If he takes seven to wash, and leaves seven clean ones, when does the pair she is wearing get washed??? Isn't the number actually only 14? If he comes up on Friday night, then when he leaves on Sunday night, he can take the ones she was wearing when he showed up on Friday. That makes it 13, because he can take Saturday's with him, too! And if she wears her bathing suit on one of the days, then she wouldn't need underwear on that day... so it would be only 12. Come to think of it, if she does things right, she wouldn't need any underwear at all! Where is the alt.society.underwear newsgroup when you need it?

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