The Geezer or the Giraffe

A Problem With the Logic...

 















My sister posted a riddle on Facebook, the answer to which, she claims I got wrong. She also got it "wrong" and has changed her avatar to a Giraffe.  Here is the riddle: 

• 3:00 am, the doorbell rings, and you wake up. You have unexpected visitors. It's your parents, and they have arrived for breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread, and a variety of fine cheese. What is the first thing you open? If you get it right you have bragging rights on the post, but do not tell the answer! If you get it wrong, you must change your profile picture to a giraffe.

My answer:  THE DOOR
The supposedly correct answer:  YOUR EYES

Sis was doing some serious gloating over my mistake let me tell you, but I disagree with the "correct" answer and I ain't doing the Giraffe. The story asks its question about what I need to open first after I've already opened my eyes and gone to see who's at the door. The decision-making process it asks about begins there, not in the bed. You cannot know it's your parents or that they are at the door if your eyes are closed. The question is deliberately flawed to play the "gotcha" when you get it wrong as you surely will if you do not think logically about the question. The answer is a logical cheat. It gives you information that your parents are here, at the door and you have all this stuff for breakfast and then asks you to make a decision based on information, that you cannot have with eyes closed, as to which thing to open first. You cannot know any of this stuff if you are asleep or your eyes closed. 

At the point the question is asked, you must already be awake and up. The decision asked about, must therefore be made at that point, not while you're back in the bed, eyes closed. To get the answer "your eyes", you must ignore the context of the question or rewrite the story so that you're lying in bed with your eyes closed when you make the momentous decisions "What do I open first?" This is not specified, so, based on the information given in the story, one must deduce that the decision point is after your eyes are already open, but before the parents are admitted to the house (which we are not told has happened yet). So, "your eyes" is not the correct answer to this puzzle - Quod erat demonstrandum.

The problem is that kids who make these things up are not learning logic in school and precious little about the niceties of the English language apparently. To quote Professor Digory in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, "What are they teaching in schools these days?"

So which is it to be............the geezer (me) or the giraffe?

© 2013 by Tom King

The Cowlick Conundrum

Unlike Alfalfa, I didn't have to
grease mine to make it stick up

I used to have a cowlick right on top of my head when I was a kid.  It stood straight up like Alfalfa's on The Little Rascals.  For years, I just wore my hair in a burr and looked like Zondor from Planet Zoombar what with my skinny physique, big head and flappy Dumbo ears.  As I drew close to maturity, Mom let me grow my hair out and we had to let it grow at least three inches long on top in order for the Royal Crown Hair Grease to hold the cowlick down successfully.  So I wore a Ricky Nelson pompadour held in place with this icky grease stuff.  What I would have given for a tube of hair gel. Brylcream and Vitalis were totally ineffective and guys in them days did NOT use hairspray unless they wanted to be beaten up and left for dead on the playground. 

For years I had to tell the barber not to cut the hair on the crown of my head short or it would stick up. As I got into my 30s however, my instructions about leaving it long on the top seemed to cause my hair stylists some confusion. Then one day I gave my standard instruction to the old-fashioned GI barber I had gone to that day, about not cutting it too short on the top because of the cowlick.  He just kind of stopped and you could see him trying to decide something in his head.  Finally, he reached over and took a mirror off the counter, turned me to face the wall mirror and held the hand mirror up so I could see the back of my head.

"I don't think you need to worry about that cowlick anymore," he said. "I think it fell out."

I could see in the mirror, to my horror, that my Father's bald spot had broken out on top of my head. "Oh, well," I thought philosophically, "At least I won't have to wear Royal Crown hair grease on top of my head anymore."  I never did like that stuff anyway.

I'd been wondering why I hadn't seen my cowlick in a while.  I just thought the Royal Crown was doing its job exceptionally well. Nowadays I'm 59, white-haired and am growing my hair down my back. One day I hope to get it long enough to braid into a sailor's queue.  It's kind of a race as to whether I'm going to reach the requisite length or go completely bald first.  I'm hoping the stuff will quit falling out because I'm tired of being stuck in the perpetual pony tail phase. I'd like to get ahead long enough to achieve my sailor braid. It's on my bucket list next to taking disco dancing lessons.

I tried tying two pony tails, one on each side, the other day but it made me look like zombie Pippy Longstocking.  The dog hid under the desk and Sheila threatened me with scissors.

Oh, well, que sera sera as Doris Day used to say. I bet Doris never had trouble with cowlicks.

© 2013 by Tom King