Slip of Paper

So this puzzler is stolen. I know, big surprise. Lots of them are stolen!

Okay, here it is. A perfect automotive puzzler.

A student here at the college a while back owned a late model automobile, Chevy Cavalier. She took the car into the shop because in bitterly cold weather, the car would start very high. It would crank a long time before it would fire. You know, that cranking sound where it is trying to turn over, but it can't.

Also, the car would immediately die once she put it in drive or reverse, but only the first time she started the car each day. Subsequent starts were okay. So when the car sat overnight, in very cold weather, this would happen.

She told us this happened after every visit to her parents' home. Her parents live about 150 miles south. So after every trip home for the holidays or just a visit, this would happen when she gets back, if it was bitterly cold out. So after Thanksgiving, she gets home and the car acts up. After Christmas, the car acts up. You get the idea.

So she takes the car into the shop and has them check it out. They can't find anything wrong. They look for trouble codes and check over everything. The car is perfectly fine. They have no idea why this might be happening.

While this is going on, one of the student mechanics is going through the glove box, probably looking for loose change or the registration or something, and he finds a slip of paper.

And this slip of paper he found in the glove box solves the problem.

Since then, the problem has not returned. The small piece of paper he finds leads them all to the solution to the problem.

What is it?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Ordinances

I stole this from someone named Al, a long, long time ago. So long ago, I don't think it even matters anymore, honestly.

Anyway, here you go.

Long ago, during a war in Southeast Asia, the army wanted to 'deliver ordinances' which means, they wanted to drop bombs on the enemy vehicles that were carrying weapons and supplies. But they couldn't locate these vehicles due to the jungle. It was so thick, the enemy could hide really well in it.

So, they decided way back then, to create a brilliant scheme. They would develop some radio direction-finding equipment that would home in on the radio and TV interference produced by the enemy vehicles' engines. So the government immediately set to work creating this. They got all the top guys, the top engineers at work on this. After a time, the defense contractors created a prototype of this new device. And it was tested successfully. They did all these tests, cars and trucks driving around and the airplane pilots were able to locate them in the tests using this new technology.

But then, when they actually put the technology in the field, in the war zone with actual real-live usage, it failed. It did not work. So, they sent it back to testing, and they worked on it some more. They did a bunch more tests, and each time, the tests were all successful.

So they sent it back into the war zone, and it failed again. It could not locate any enemy vehicles. The thing is acting like the vehicles are not there, but they are. It just can't find them like it could in the tests.

So, at this point, they gather all the big guys, and all the top brass gets together. And they are all trying to figure out what's going on. They are all in this big room talking about it. And just then, an enlisted man who is serving the generals all their lunch says, "Excuse me sir, but I think I know what is going on here."

And the puzzler question is, what did the enlisted man say? What is the answer? And for extra credit, what corrective action was taken to solve the problem?