******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: Busting the Midnight Siphonist RAY: This puzzler is historic, folkloric, automotive-and, hopefully, not idiotic or pathetic. It was sent in by Laura Adamson. Laura writes, "It took place in the early 1970's, during the first gas crunch, when there were long lines at gas stations, and Toyotas started looking really good to people who owned Detroit gas guzzlers. My friend Maryann lived in a rural neighborhood in upstate New York, and someone was sneaking around late at night in the inky shadows, siphoning gasoline, while the honest people were asleep. Maryann and the sheriff got together and hatched a plan to catch the thief. It involved using Maryann's car, and its full tank of gasoline as the bait. "Unlike many of her neighbors, Maryann did not own a locking gas cap, so her tank was very siphonable. The idea wasn't to catch the thief with a secret alarm, hidden cameras, or anything like that. They would catch the thief just by allowing him to siphon the gas and take it home for use in his own car. The thief did strike and siphon her gas, and it was the end of the gas thefts. The question is, what trap did they lay, and what was it about Maryann's car that made it easy to figure out who the gas thief was? Think you know? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce Gift Certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? The Kitchen Carpentry Cure RAY: This puzzler was sent in by Jerry Galloway. Here it is: My friend had purchased a piece of slate to put into the floor in the hearth in front of his fireplace. The slate was 3/4 of an inch thick, by 10 inches wide, by 48 inches long, and weighed on the order of 175 pounds. He had cut a hole in the oak floor that was the same size as the piece of slate. TOM: He had to plunk it right there, and get his fingers out of the way as fast as possible! RAY: The depth of the hole was exactly 3/4 of an inch, the same as the slate. And, of course, there was the sub-floor underneath. When he put one end of the slate into the hole in the floor, he realized that he would have to drop the other end to get the slate into the hole. He realized that if he dropped the brittle slate, even half an inch, it would break. Not only that, but it wouldn't go in the hole, anyway. There was so little clearance that he couldn't even use that thin fishing line to lower the end of the slate. So, he sat there for the longest time, drinking beers and pondering this dilemma. After his 5th or 6th trip to the kitchen he returned with something from that solved the problem in elegant fashion. What did he find there that allowed him to lower the slate into the hole without risk of breaking it? Ready for the answer? Here you goŠ http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* USEFUL INFORMATION ALERT: Tired of paying auto club dues to an outfit that lobbies against environmental causes? Check out Better World Club. It's an auto club with genuinely decent values-- unlike some others we could name... whose initials happen to be AAA. Better World Club cares about... *Your environmental interests--it gives 1% of its revenue to environmental clean up and advocacy. *Your consumer interests. It even has discounts on hybrid rental cars. *And, it has the nation's only bicycle roadside assistance program. Dump your AAA membership and join Better World! If you join via the Car Talk web site, you'll even get an extra month's membership. Check out Better World Club now at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
