Lateral Thinking Questions

===============
ANSWER: L.T.Q. #68

Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 19:47:01 -0500 (EST)

"He who approaches the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three..."
   What is your quest?
    What is your favourite colour?
     What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
      —Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Here is this week's question:

In classic mythology, there is the story of the Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman. The Sphinx lay crouched on the top of a rock along the highroad to the city of Thebes, and stopped all travellers passing by, proposing to them a riddle. Those who failed to answer the riddle correctly were killed. This is the riddle the Sphinx asked the travellers:
"What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening?"

ANSWER:

This is part of the story of Oedipus, who replied to the Sphinx, "Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff." Morning, day and night are representative of the stages of life. The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.

Oedipus must not have heard about oddlystrange's cat!!!!
    "Azrael tends to sleep a lot in the morning, which is kinda like being on four legs. She does eventually wake up sometime to walk around a little and make sure that everything is in order and that Trixie, the other cat, is safely in her place as the howler in the family.
    "But by the middle of the day, she hears the can opener and of course she's on two legs looking up at me with those eyes that say "this better be for me, because I'm fat and cute!"
    "By the evening she's so plum tuckered out, and has eaten so much that she must indeed visit the little litterbox. Of course that's where you can use your own imagination and picture it for yourselves."

Yosa said it was "humans, or really talented dogs." Why does that remind me of an Animaniacs! episode?

And sketchy replied that it might be "Odo from Deep Space Nine. Yes, Trekkers we be. It could happen," he insists. "Actually I think it has happened."

Woody, who said "Oh boy - isn't it a man?" also wanted to know if we "have you tried to estimate an average number of legs each of LTQ subscribers walks on. If this exceeds three I will unsubscribe!"

Return to Questions.

This web page is maintained by Mike Jourard using HTML Notepad from cranial software.
Last modified on March 16, 1997. Converted to dot-com web site on May 22, 2000. Copyright © 1997,2000 by Badinage Publications. All rights reserved.