The Tricky King

Time for the new puzzler.

This one is not automotive.

Here we go.

Once upon a time, there was a princess in a far away land.

The beautiful, young princess had a dilemma. She was in love with Igor, the blacksmith's son. She wanted to marry him.

However, she knew that her father, the king, would not approve. Furthermore, if the king knew of their love, he would surely have the young man executed.

So the young lovers devise a plan. They will elope. Sadly, their plan is foiled, and they are stopped at the castle gates by the guards.

They are brought before the king. Now the king was indeed furious, but decided to offer Igor a sporting chance. He said he would write the word Princess on one piece of paper and Death on another, and the young lad could decide his own fate by selecting one of the slips of paper from a jar. The two slips were crumbled up, throw into a jar.

And young Igor's fate in his own hands. If he picks out Princess, he gets the princess, if he picks out Death, he gets death.

However, the king was sneaky and he writes the word Death on both pieces of paper.

Despite the king's trickery, Igor manages to win the princess's hand.

And the puzzler question is, how did he thwart the king"

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The Fuse Issue

Years ago, a customer shows up at the garage, an elderly gentleman who's got an old car. A really old car.

He says, "Hey guys, my car is really running lousy. I need some of that fuel system additive that you guys sell."

We had this stuff at the time, I don't know what was in it. Just a bunch of random stuff. So I sell him a can of this stuff, which he's going to put into his gas tank.

And I'm not really listening. He says, "The car is really running lousy. It's getting terrible mileage. I need to do something. So, what do I do with this stuff I just bought?"

And I said, "Well, you put it in and you fill the tank up with gas, and then you drive it."

So he does it. He says, "Is this going to help my terrible mileage? I can't afford to really fix it, but I need to do something. Will this stuff work to make it run better?"

And I was honest and said, "No, I don't think so." But he buys it anyway, and off he goes.

Several hours later, he calls me up. He says, "I've been driving the car all day. As luck would have it, I had a bunch of errands to run, but I've been in stop and go traffic on the highway for the last hour or two."

And I said, "Oh, so the car is fixed then?"

And he says, "Not really. I don't have any brakes now. The pedal went down to the floor. It's being towed in. It won't get there before you close, but you'll find it there tomorrow morning."

Anyway, we arrive the next morning to find his car with the keys under the mat. And I tell one of my guys, "Check out this car, pull the thing in to the garage. But be careful, because I think he blew a brake line or something."

About 20 minutes later, the guy hands me the keys, and he says, "It's all fixed."

I said, "What did you do?"

He said, "I replaced the fuse."

And I said, "What? He said he had no brakes!"

And he said, "I repeat. I replaced a fuse, and the car is fixed."

And indeed, it was fixed.

So the puzzler is how did replacing a fuse fix the car?