Lateral Thinking Questions

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ANSWER: L.T.Q. #59  !
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Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 18:29:50 -0500 (EST)

As it turns out, this was "gruesome? no. messy? yes," as Liz put it. Most of you seemed to agree. And speaking of messy, Toronto is currently in the grips of a major blizzard which so far has dumped about 8 to 10 cms of snow on us, with a lot more to follow.

Here is this week's question:

A woman came home one evening and switched on the light in her living room. She was horrified to see the remains of her husband lying on the floor. He had committed suicide. Ignoring the situation, the woman had a cup of coffee and went calmly about her housework, and did not phone for medical assistance or the police. Why not?

ANSWER:

The woman's husband had committed suicide three years earlier. The cat had knocked over the urn containing his ashes. After she finished her cup of coffee, she swept his remains back into the urn.

My family seems to be acquainted with the "crime" in question. Lee observed that the urn "contained Aristotle Papadopoulis' cremains. It was, of course, a Grecian urn." Lew advised that the "husband (who was named Benny) had committed suicide on an earlier occasion, probably over a really bad hair cut. Following his demise, our woman took the only option left to her; She had poor Benny cremated. (Moral: A Benny shaved is a Benny urned.) Now you know where I get it from!   $8-)

In the more gruesome scenario, Jamie suggested "the woman lost it after she saw her husband and experienced some kind of blocking syndrome so she didn't accept what happened and went about her normal activities." Talk about denial!

And oddlystrange, in true form, gave an answer so obscure that even I am going to have to ask for an explanation: "Her husband was way into those home movies... actually I bet he was making a self-portrait for their family home page."

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