Lateral Thinking Questions

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ANSWER: L.T.Q. #70  !
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Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:15:45 -0500 (EST)

In honour of the Hale-Bopp Comet, yours truly receives a Forget the Rules of Journalism Anti-Bonus Point for spelling comet discoverer Thomas Bopp's name wrong!

Here is this week's question:

Galilea is afraid of big, green and blue, pyjama-eating monsters hiding under her bed. She usually runs from her bedroom door and leaps onto her bed so the monsters can't get her. Even though Galilea's bed is twelve feet from the door, she manages to switch off her light and jump into bed before her room is dark. Since Galilea doesn't use The Clapper or any other devices to flip the switch, how is she able to accomplish this remarkable feat and protect herself from the Boogeyman?

ANSWER:

As it is still light outside when Galilea goes to bed, all the monsters will still be asleep.

This one was about as obvious as Hale-Bopp, and everybody who responded got it.

Srikanth had an interesting perspective. "The light switch is outside the door of her room. So she switches it off, charges and opens the door, leaps and makes it to her bed. She still makes it to her bed before dark, because she works as a Night-Duty Security Guard, working all night and sleeping all day. She keeps the lights of her room on all night to keep thieves away from her house while she is away."

"Galilea is only three years old," said Eleanor, "and she goes to bed before it's dark out! Yes? No?" She gets a Reality Check Point because there's a certain almost-three-year-old who is rarely in bed before dark, even in the summer.

I'm not sure if Liz deserves any Bonus Points, because the couple of ideas she had kind of contradicted each other. "I tried to find out where light would travel the slowest, but could not find anyone scientifically inclined who was willing to tell me." That's worthy of a Scientific Inquistiveness Bonus Point. However, her spouse's idea loses a point for its illegal use of devices. Galilea's light "has a pull chain (heavy duty) which is long enough to be looped on a hook by the door. She runs to the door, grabs the chain, and does a tarzan-type swing through the room and into her bed. The weight of her on the chain engages the mechanism, and after she swings over to her bed she lets go and the light turns off, thus thwarting the p.j. eating monsters." Well, ok, I'll give it a Rube Goldberg Point for visual effect.

As for me, I'm off to see if the Easter Beagle left any goodies under my pillow!

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