Old Fashioned Coffee

We have a non-automotive puzzler for you all today.

This one is about coffee, not about cars.

Here we go.

I like to make my coffee in the morning the old-fashioned way.

I still use a percolator. None of these K-cups, espresso machines or drip stuff with timers and internet connections. None of that. I just like the pure bubbling coffee that comes from a percolator.

Anyway, imagine you use a percolator too. You're getting up in the morning, getting ready to go to work. You've made yourself a boiling pot of coffee. And as soon as it finishes its last perk, you remove it from the stove. And while it's still boiling, you pour yourself a cup. It's probably on the verge of boiling and still 210 degrees. Very hot. You realize it's too hot to drink. And as luck would have it, you have to go and shave.

So, you got 5 minutes in which to shave, while you're coffee is still boiling hot. And you like to put cream in your coffee. So here is the question.

Do you take the cream and put it in the coffee now, while you go shave, as the coffee is boiling hot? Knowing that the cream will start to cool off the coffee now, while you're shaving.

Or do you go and have your shave, and then when you returned, you put in the cream and stir it and drink it down?

Which scenario will make the coffee the coolest, so you can drink it after that 5 minutes?

Add cream and then shave for 5 minutes?

Or let it alone, shave for 5 minutes, and then add the cream?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Rusty Oil Pans

We have a great new puzzle for everyone. A very automotive puzzler.

Here goes. A while back, a long time ago back in the 1980s at our shop, an odd thing happened. We had occasion to replace not one, not two, but three oil pans. Three!

Now the oil pan is that stamped steel reservoir that holds the motor oil that's in your engine. And from the beginning of time, oil pans are made in the same fashion.

Okay, listen. All three of these were replaced because they rotted away. Now, you might say how could an oil pan rot away? After all, throughout its entire life, it's bathed in oil.

So the inside always has oil in it, so these rusted from the outside.

There we were, we had just completed the third oil pan replacement and the guys and I was standing around, which we did a lot back then. We were looking at the brand new oil pan, admiring our work.

It should be noted that the oil pan replacements were not working on the same car. It was three different cars. But the cars don't matter in this one.

Anyway, we were looking at the new oil pan, and thinking about how years ago, there were oil pans that have never rotted away. So one of the guys says, "Boy these oil pans must be made out of real cheap junk that they rot away this quickly."

And one of the other guys said, "That's not it at all."

And as soon as he said that, I said, "You know, you're right. It has nothing to do with the quality of the steel. There's some other factor involved."

I'll give you a hint. The hint is that all three of these cars were front wheel drive cars.

What is going on here?

Good luck.