The Simple Repair

Time for the new puzzler.

This one is short. Very short. But very clever.

Here we go.

Years ago, there was a guy named Billy. He lived somewhere in the midwest. Not sure where. Anyway, doesn't matter. It just matters that it was a while ago.

So, every morning on the way to work, Billy stops at the corner gas station and spends 25 cents for gas.

Every evening on his way home from work, he stops at the same station and again, spends 25 cents for gas.

He continues this pattern for some months. The amount he spends never varies, nor does the twice a day schedule.

Finally, the attendant who has observed Billy's routine says, "You know, if you'd spend about 10 bucks on a repair, you wouldn't have to stop here so often."

So the puzzler is this.

What is the simple repair the attendant has in mind? And the hint is that this has nothing to do with the fuel system.

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The Cold Salesman

Time for the new puzzler.

This comes from a friend of mine from a long time ago. He used to be a customer in the garage.

He was a traveling salesman for 30 years. Sold nuts and bolts, or something like that.

When he first started out on this job, I guess he immediately fell into disfavor with the company hierarchy, because he started in the middle of winter, and they assigned him such exotic places like Moose Jaw, Maine and Freeze Your Butt, New Hampshire... Places like that. Really, really cold places.

So he would have to travel by car from one location to another in the dead of winter. He often found himself driving from town to town in the winter looking for cheap motels in which to spend the night.

His route was very cold and snowy, it was Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, upstate New York... Places like that.

And he began to notice something disturbing on his travels. When he would stop at these motels, oftentimes the owner of the motel was also the front desk clerk. And the clerk would ask him to register for the room with name, address, home phone, credit card... Just in case he decided to skip out in the middle of the night. In some of those hotels they would ask for an occupation, and in some cases they would not ask for that.

But it seemed to be always the case that the motel owner would ask him what he did for a living when checking him in.

And then when he said he was a salesman, he would almost always be assigned a room on the second floor if they had one, or if the hotel had a second floor.

And my friend asked me if I knew why this was happening.

And I told him I did not have a clue as to why they would do this. So he gave me a clue.

I asked if it had anything to do with the car he was driving. And he said, I guess you could say that, because he was driving a Volkswagen then.

And from that, I was able to figure out the answer.

So, why was this happening?