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I'm going to guess that they changed the thread on
the buttons from 'right hand' to 'left hand'. That way, when the Germans
tried to unscrew the button, they were just tightening it.
I'm still not old enough to have been a spy back
then. Glad too! ha. Donnie.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 11:43
PM
Subject: Puzzler of the week
This week's puzzler:
One of the ways that
allied agents in World War II used to get microfilm past German guards was to
hide it in hollow coat buttons -- not the kind that you have on your shirt,
where the thread goes through, but the kind with the loop in the back like
you'd have on a coat. The top of the buttons screwed on and off like a jar
lid.
This worked for a while, but somehow the Germans became aware of
this particular trick and they started giving a twist to the buttons on the
coat of anyone they weren't sure of, to see if it unscrewed.
When the
allies found out the trick had been discovered, the people in charge of
preparing clothing for new undercover agents had to make a change.
They
made one change, and none of those hollow buttons were ever discovered
again.
What DID they do?
Last week's puzzler:
You
don't need to know very much about cars to get the answer to this
puzzler.
Monday morning, I showed up at the shop and the phone rang. It
was an irate customer.
It's Chuck. He says, "My Volvo's out front. I
had it towed back from New Hampshire. It conked out. It won't run."
I
asked, "What happened?"
Chuck said, "My wife, our son and I and my
mother-in-law were going up to New Hampshire to look at the foliage. Suddenly,
the car began to sputter, especially on hills, and lose power. It was even
sputtering and losing power on the level ground. I happened to notice that the
gas gauge was on E, so I figured I might as well get gas.
"I pulled
into a gas station and filled up the tank. I drove away and everything was
fine for about five miles. Then the same thing started happening
again.
"That's when we decided to give up. We left the car. We had it
towed back to your shop."
Chuck added, "About a month or so ago, you
guys put in a new fuel pump and I'm pretty sure that that's what's wrong. I
don't know how it happened, but the gas gauge isn't working any more either,
because when I filled it up, the needle didn't move."
So, I pushed
Chuck's Volvo into the garage and verified that it didn't start, and that it
was not getting gas. I turned the key and it got a spark, but I put the fuel
pressure tester on the fuel rail�and there was no fuel pressure.
Next,
I inspected the fuel line, thinking there might have been a break. It was
fine. While checking the fuel line, I noticed that there were little spurts of
gasoline and mostly air coming out of the line. I concluded that the pump was
bad.
But before we ordered a new one, I called Chuck. I asked him to
tell me what had happened.
I asked him one question.
He
answered, "Yes."
And I told him, "I know what's wrong with your
car."
In 10 minutes or less, I had his car running and the gas gauge
working.
What did I ask Chuck?
Last week's puzzler
answer:
As I said at the beginning, you didn't need to know very
much about cars to this solve this. And in fact you don't.
And not
only did I ask him a question which I already knew the answer to but I also
told him what else he did. And the question was did you pay for the gas with a
credit card. And he said, yes. And I said and while you were gassing up were
you listening to your mother-in-law go on and on and on about how you should
buy a new car, you shouldn't be such a cheapskate driving this old jalopy
especially when you're taking her and her grandson all the way up to New
Hampshire. And he said, yeah.
And what happened was the following. He
didn't notice that when he put the nozzle in because his mother-in-law was
running her mouth like she usually does that the thing shut off immediately.
And in fact he put like 65 cents worth of gas in it.
Well I knew that
because the gas gauge read empty. So he went in with an empty tank and he left
with essentially an empty tank having put in very little gas into it, and by
not paying cash, if the attendant came over and said 65 cents, sir, he would
have said, oh that can't be right, I'm on empty.
Right, and he was
just tired of listening to that mother-in-law of his. He just stuffed that
thing in his pocket and off they went. He said, all those dopes, my gas gauge
still doesn't work. So what we did very simply was put gas in it and off he
went.
_______________________
Scott
MacLean
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