You might try these out on your kids, or grand-kids.

1. A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?

2. Jim left home running. He ran a ways and then turned left, ran the same distance and turned left again, ran the same distance and turned left again. When he got home, there were two masked men. Who were they?

3. What is special about these words: job, polish, and herb?

4. A man pushes his car to a hotel and tells the owner he’s bankrupt. Why?

5. A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any timepiece. Which has the most?

6. What makes this number unique: 8,549,176,320?

7. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a long one. Michael J. Fox has a short one. Madonna does not use hers. Bill Clinton always uses his. The Pope never uses his. What is it?

8. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?

9. Your parents have six sons including you and each son has one sister. How many people are in the family?

10. An Arab sheik is old and must leave his fortune to one of his two sons. He makes a proposition: Both sons will ride their camels in a race, and whichever camel crosses the finish line LAST will win the fortune for its owner. During the race, the two brothers wander aimlessly for days, neither willing to cross the finish line. In desperation, they ask a wise man for advice. He tells them something; then the brothers leap onto the camels and charge toward the finish line. What did the wise man say?


Here are the answers.

1. The river was frozen.

2. The catcher and the umpire

3. They are pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.

4. He’s playing Monopoly.

5. An hourglass. It has thousands of grains of sand.

6. It has each number, zero through nine, listed in alphabetical order.

7. Their surname

8. Short

9. Nine. Two parents, six sons, and one daughter

10. The rules of the race were that the owner of the camel that crosses the finish line last wins the fortune. The wise man simply told them to switch camels.

Very clever. With #1 I guessed a dry river, but then, I am from South Africa.