Re: Lateral Thinking

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed Dec 27 2000 - 16:54:30 MST


>Since we were talking about GATTACA I thought I'd share the first
>lateral thinking puzzle I was ever told:
>
>A man hates his job.
>
>One day he comes home and begins to drink...
>
>He drinks till he passes out.
>
>He gets up in the middle of the night, and goes to the bathroom.
>Then he turns out the light, and goes back to bed.
>
>When he wakes up in the morning, he looks out his window and see's
>hundreds of people laying there dead.
>
>The man kills himself.
>
>Q. What did the man do for a living?

I have not heard this one. But, here are some guesses.

He's a lighthouse operator and the "light" is the lighthouse.

He's a cemetery caretaker and lives in the middle of the cemetery and
there are always dead people lying around outside.

He's a psychodelic drug chemist and the "drink" he prepares is a hallucinagin.

He's a military grunt who lives in a missile silo. It is his job to
launch the counter attack after we have been attacked with nuclear
war. World War III starts, he launches the counter attack, drinks
all night, and wakes up and thinks he is the last human left.

He's a postman or some other disgruntled employee. He killed all the
people on the way home. He drinks all night, looks out the window,
realizes what he has done and kills himself. (I.E., the story had
nothing to do with the killings.)

(The hard part is not getting the first possible explanation which
the story was probably tailored for. The hard part is inventing
multiple explanations so that some are even beyond the expectations
of the storyteller!)

-- 
Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>



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