Here’s the answer to last week’s shitty lateral thinking puzzle:
The man was a midget who worked in a circus as a star attraction because of his billing as the world’s smallest dwarf. Each day, he measured himself with a piece of wood that was exactly his height. One day, a rival dwarf mischievously sawed two inches from the piece of wood. The man mistakenly thought he had grown and would therefore lose his fame and status as the world’s smallest dwarf, so he committed suicide.
I feel like this whole situation escalated rather quickly – it went from a bit of harmless ‘mischief’ to the suicide of a beloved celebrity in only two sentences. Again, Paul Sloane has indulged in an overly elaborate backstory without giving the reader any relevant information which might allow them to come remotely close to the correct answer. To Sloane’s credit, his book does actually include a help section, only to be used each time the reader gets stuck (which is every fucking time unless you’re the guy who wrote the book). For this particular puzzle, Sloane’s first clue is:
Q: Was the man normal?
A: No.
Not only is that clue offensive to the vertically challenged, it is also NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY HELPFUL.
Congratulations to Dan, whose answer was half correct. There were many other good and bizarre suggestions but my favourite was A’s, which reads as follows:
The man was deeply in love with a vampire; they’d been on the run for months now, evading the Slayer and sticking to the shadows. He went out this morning to the butcher’s to buy some pig’s blood, but when he returned, instead of his true love lying there he saw only a piece of wood lying in a bit of dust. Finally that bitch Buffy had caught up. Unable to cope, the man quickly shuffled off his mortal coil in the hopes of reuniting with his love in the depths of Hell.
Now it’s time for this week’s puzzle:
One day a man received a parcel in the post. Inside, he found a human left arm. He examined it carefully and then repacked it and sent it on to another man. The second man also examined the arm. He then took it out to the woods and buried it. Why should they have done these things?
WARNING: The answer to this one is even less predictable than the first.
Can you solve the puzzle of the severed arm? Or have you reached your limb-it?
The first man was Will Graham. The arm was sent to him by Dr. Hannibal Lecter, as some sort of creepy and poetic message. Will was just like “fuck this shit” and decided to play into Lecter’s little mind games, and sends the arm back to the bad doctor. Impressed, Lecter wants to honor Will’s “present” by devouring the human arm, maybe eating it with some fresh garlic and herbs (he’s classy, after all) but grudgingly buries it instead after realizing the yummy meat has all ready spoiled. Poor Hannibal. Another potential meal wasted.
I don’t think I even answered the question, but—eh—I don’t care.
I don’t care if you answered the question or not either. Can we please just start discussing Hannibal at some point on every post/comment thread please? OBSESSED with it.
I bet Hannibal would cook the arm very elegantly and then accuse Will of being unspeakably rude when he realizes the meat is spoiled.
Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.
Both men are medical researchers. The arm is from a human cadaver The cemetery is in the woods. It is normal for people who have donated their bodies to science to be buried after researchers have examined them.
If that’s not the answer, it should be, but the way this is going, it’s probably not.
You’re right, that would make perfect sense! But yeah Sloane went in a much weirder direction with this one.
I tried to think of a logical explanation for this, but seeing as the last one had a circus star killing himself because he ‘grew’ and our only clue was a stick, I don’t think logic is going to help me out here. In which case, I’m just going to make up something ridiculous and go with that.
The two people involved are part of a ring of smugglers and con artists who steal artifacts and then sell fake ones on the market. This particular arm was nothing special, just the arm of a woman who died in a freak circus accident. However, the woman in question was of Egyptian descent and the same age as an Egyptian Princess who was mummified and whose mummy was stolen from a museum by the smuggling ring. It is sent to the first man who is in charge of deciding whether or not the arm is similar enough to sell in their con. He receives the arm and, after careful examination and measurement, concludes it is a perfect candidate for a fake Egyptian Princess mummy arm. He sends it to the next guy who is in charge of determining whether the arm is capable of being mummified. This next guy examines it and decides it is most definitely capable of being mummified. He then soaks it in some mummifying enhancement chemicals, wraps it up, and buries it in the woods so that it can mummify in peace and be sold at a later date as a genuine Egyptian Princess mummy arm.
Incorrect. But, going by this answer, I could definitely see a future for you in writing lateral thinking puzzles if the mood ever takes you.
I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult, haha
He’s an arms dealer
😉
LIKE.
I think I just got out-punned.
The two are brothers and the arm is their father’s. He was blown to pieces in war and all that was found was the left arm. After DNA matched the family, the sons were allowed to visually examine the arm for confirmation. The second brother recognizes his father’s wedding ring and then takes the only remains of his father to the family cemetary and buries it out of respect.
this seemed plausible because the author seems to favor the events of WWII.
Lol I love the idea of these sons sending their dad’s mortal remains around in the post. Going with WW2 would usually be a sound tactic, but unfortunately it’s not the way to go this time.
I’m going to assume that the arm is actually a human arm and not a prosthetic. This is a dangerous assumption, but I fear it must be done.
The two men were once travelers of the world, along with a man who was at this time still intact. The three travelers crossed paths on their many adventures and eventually became the only consistent, although entirely coincidental, friends that they could think of. One day as they were climbing Mount Everest they stared off of a cliff, gazing at the depth of the abyss before them and seeing the possibility of their own deaths before them. As they set up camp the discussion of what they believed happened after a body died. The first man was an atheist, and did not believe anything happened after death. The second man was a Christian and believed that his soul would transcend to heaven where he would tell his fellow deceased of his many adventures. The third man was spiritual, and believed that his soul would stay on Earth as a ghost, but may not be able to easily cross the ocean due to the supernatural properties of salt. He decided that he wanted his ghost to continue his travels after he had died, so he made the other two promise to scatter the parts of his body on different continents so he would be tied everywhere and could hop from continent to continent. Because he was superstitious he wanted his body parts to remain in the correct order – the left arm on a continent to the left of his torso, his right arm to the right, ect. The men aged, one moving to Canada, the other moving to Australia, and the superstitious man moving to Asia. When the two men heard of the third’s passing they traveled to Asia and, per his wishes, they took his legs and arms to scatter to the continents. They managed to package the limbs in discreet containers, but unfortunately they had to act quickly so as to not get caught red handed (six red hands to be exact). In their haste they forgot to label which arm they put in which container. In order to quell any confusion they had both arms shipped to the man in Australia. He opened the first package, which contained the left arm. He examined it to make sure that he didn’t make a mistake and send the wrong arm to Canada, and once he was convinced that the thumb and pointer finger indeed made an “L” instead of a flat “J” he had the arm resealed and sent to the man in Canada. The man, upon receiving the package, examined the arm to make sure that he had the left arm so as to not make a mistake that would require digging up a now pretty rank arm from the ground. Once he recited “Lefty Loosy, Righty Juicy” and was satisfied that he had the left arm he took it outside and buried it to fulfill the dead man’s wishes.
Also customs sucks in this scenario. I mean really, nobody in the shipping department noticed dead arm smell? Geez, these people really get paid too much.
Hahaha this is great, and up until the fifth sentence it’s sort of headed in the right direction! And maybe, after being shipped halfway around the world, the package smelt so bad that no one wanted to look inside.
Aw, I feel so special! Does make me wish I’d come up with a more interesting name, though…
I assumed the arm was prosthetic because actual body parts in the post? Ew. Prosthetic limbs via Craigslist is much more plausible. When I say plausible I mean ridiculous, obviously.
Man A ordered a prosthetic limb online. Sure it was a cheap and possibly dodgy option, but after a brief email exchange with the seller, Man B, Man A was convinced the buy would work out okay. However, upon receiving said limb Man A was disturbed to note it contained the security details of its original owner that only show up under UV light. He returned it and Man B buried it to cover the tracks of his crime. Which was that he’d pinched it off some other poor bloke. Sad story.
Good answer, but it is actually real arm. And if you think that’s ridiculous/disgusting, just wait for the real answer.
I was going to type the right answer and shock you, but I did both of those in grade 8 english class, so I’m just going to say-the answer is fucked up and took 25 kids three days to get it
That’s hilarious and impressive that you lot got it at all. I’m getting more and more tempted to start making up my own puzzles instead.
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