Lateral Thinking Questions

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ANSWER: L.T.Q. #62  !
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Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 09:28:41 -0500 (EST)

This was such an oldie but a goodie Classic Question that I even got responses from people who aren't yet on the mailing list!

Here is this week's question:

A man was travelling across the country carrying a fox, a duck, and a bag of corn, when he came to a river. There was a small boat in which he could ferry only one of the three items across the river at any one time. He could not leave the fox alone with the duck or the duck would be eaten. And he dare not leave the duck alone with the corn or the corn would be eaten. So how did he get all three across?

ANSWER:

First the man took the duck across, then he came back and took the fox over. He left the fox on the far side of the river and returned with the duck. He then left the duck on the near side and took the corn over. Then he returned and took the duck across.

Liz said that after all that rowing back and forth, "this guy will have muscles like Schwartzenegger and could probably carry the whole lot on his back in the canoe." Don't you know you shouldn't overload a boat? Blub, blub, blub.

Alice isn't even on the mailing list, but over-compensated by sending several answers.
  Second answer: "The water which you must cross is frozen, so you all just toddle across together."
  Third answer (and her favorite because she is so impatient): "Remove your belt and slip it loosely over the duck's neck. Put the duck in the water holding onto the end so that the duck floats along side the boat. Take the corn over to the other side. With your floating duck, you go back for the fox and take it across. Now all three are on the other side."

Woody wanted to know if "it be much more complicated if we added, let's say, a lady-fox? The man couldn't leave both foxes together in order not to have too many foxes within a couple of weeks."  :-)  That sounds more like the one about the nun!

Jamie suggested "he sent the fox over in the boat, carried the corn and made the duck swim!"

According to Yosa, "he turned the fox into a coat, the duck into a hat, and the bag of corn into the padding for his false breasts." But how did he turn them back once he got to the other side?

My Mom, who reads these over my Dad's shoulder, was able to do this in one trip. "Put the bag of corn in the bottom of the boat. Tie the duck to the bow, and let it swim across. Ditto the fox at the stern, also swimming." I wonder: Does wet fox smell as bad as wet dog?
And in typical Mom fashion (eat, eat!), the alternative is to "make duck and corn soup, and have the fox swim over, pulling the boat, while you have lunch... assuming of course that you are on a stream with a gentle current flow. If it's the Niangorra River, forget it. Stay home!"

Jim was a real tease about it. "He lured the duck with the corn, and the fox with the duck, so the little beasties soaked their tootsies swimming behind the boat." What happens if the fox swims faster than the duck?

As for the old joke about a nun, a duck, and a rubber hose, I think the punch line is either "I was talking to the duck," or "Twenty bucks, just like downtown." Oooopps, now that I have young, impressionable minds (our newest, youngest subscriber is 14 years old) on this list, I'd better behave myself!

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