Lateral Thinking Questions

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ANSWER: L.T.Q. #54  !
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Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 16:12:48 -0500 (EST)

Today's Hider-and-Seeker is tomorrow's Great Explorer.

Here is this week's question:

The children had been playing Hide and Seek for some time when Little Roald said, "I can't play anymore. It is obvious that anyone could find me now." "It depends who is doing the seeking," said Little Amelia. "Because your condition has changed, most of us would find you easily. But because of Little Edmund's disability, it would be just as hard to find you as anyone else who was hiding." She was right. What was going on?

ANSWER:

Little Roald [Amundsen] had a sudden attack of the hiccups. These were so loud and regular that most of the children easily heard him. Little Edmund [Hillary], however, was deaf.

All the replies received had a sense of what the problem was, and were all correct in a different sense. Am I making sense?

Andrew was a little confused. "I'm not entirely sure," he wrote, "but is it healthy for Little Edmund to be playing with Dahls?" When corrected, he replied "Alright, is it healthy for Little Edmund to be playing with Amundsens?"

Liz made a spectacle of herself. "They have been playing a really long time and Roald had by this time grown a beard mustache and arm hair. Edmund's disability would then have to be that he is really nearsighted and thinks Roald is a bear." But why would a bear be "wearing all light colors, likely glow in the dark"? (That was another of Liz's guesses!) That would be the sense of fashion, or perhaps the sense of taste.

Lynne put up a big stink, saying "Little Roald had just been sprayed with a skunk, and Little Edmund had lost his sense of smell."

Bonnie had a similarly foul-smelling answer, linking it to Roald's "indulgence in an immoderate serving of Mama's famous and delectable home made baked beans, a secret recipe tasted and loved by four generations of Roald-relatives. This simple act, now manifesting itself in a posterior shadow of most unsavoury fragrance, threatens to reveal Roald from even the cleverest of hiding spots with one small sniff!"

I am positively touched by the response that was received. Some might suggest I was a little touched to begin with!  $8-)

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