Riddles

The answer to each riddle is written in the same color blue as the background, (beneath the question), so just use your mouse to highlight the blue space and read the answer.

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1. A man lives in on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Every day that it is not raining he takes the elevator up to the 10th floor and then walks up the stairs to the 20th floor. When it is raining, he takes the elevator straight up to the 20th floor. Why?
HINT: Both the elevator and the stairs are on the inside of the building; the answer has to do with a physical trait of the man.
Answer: The man is a midget and when it is not raining, he is not able to reach the elevator button for the 20th floor- he can only reach up to the 10th. When it is raining, the man has his umbrella with him, and can then use it to reach the button for the 20th floor. So why doesn't he carry his umbrella with him all the time? No one ever said he was smart.

2. You are walking through a field, when all of a sudden you come upon a pile of sand, then a pile of clothes, then a few hay straws, and finally a naked dead man. How did the man die?
HINT: The order of the piles is important; the sand and straws are not native to the area; there are no tracks or footprints anywhere near the body or the piles.
Answer: The man was riding in a hot air balloon with a bunch of friends. They started to lose altitude, so they dropped the sand bags (the pile of sand). They were still too heavy, so they took off all of their clothes and dropped them over the side (the pile of clothes), but the balloon was still losing altitude. Finally they decided that one of them would have to jump. They drew straws to see who would be the unlucky one (the pile of hay straws). The dead man is the one who drew the shortest straw, and he had to jump off, causing his death.

3. You walk into a room and you see Sally and Danny dead on the floor. There is no way that anyone could have broken into the room. You look for blood, but see none. All you see are a table and chairs, a few bits of broken glass, and a small puddle of water. Who are Sally and Danny and how did they die?
Answer: They are goldfish. Their goldfish bowl fell off the table (thus the broken glass and water) and they died because they couldn't breathe outside of the water.

4. You're walking through the woods and you come upon a trail. You follow the trail to a cabin. You look inside the cabin and see many dead bodies. The doors of the cabin are locked. How did the people die?
HINT: There is a lot of blood and broken glass.
Answer: The cabin is that of an airplane. The plane crashed in the woods and all of the passengers (the dead bodies) were killed.

5. Why are man hole covers (for sewers, etc) round?
Answer: Because any other shape (a square, rectangle, triangle, etc.) would be able to fall into it's own hole. There is no way to force a round man hole cover into it's hole.

6. A farmer has a wolf, a chicken, and a pile of grain that he has to take across a river on a raft. The raft is only big enough for him to take one at a time, but he cannot leave the wolf alone with the chicken or the chicken alone with the grain. How does he get them all safely across?
Answer: First he takes the chicken across. Then he goes back and brings the wolf across, but on his way back, he brings the chicken to the first side. Finally, he takes the grain over and leaves it with the wolf, and then goes back and brings the chicken over a second time.

7. You are walking along a road and come to a fork in the road. One path leads to eternal happiness, and the other to hell. Standing before the fork are two brothers, one who always lies and one who always tells the truth. The problem is as follows: you don't know which road is which, and you are allowed to ask ONE brother ONE question only to find out which is the happy road. You don't, however, know which brother is which. By asking the correct question, you find out which road is which and which brother is which. What question do you ask?
Answer: You ask one "what would your brother say if I asked him which road is the road to eternal happiness?" The answer you get would always be the opposite road. Both would say the wrong road, so you would then take the opposite one.
Alternate Answer: You wait for a car to come. since the brothers are standing in the middle of the road, they would have to move or get hit by the car. The truth telling brother would say "look, there's a car coming" and move out of the way. The lying brother would lie and say "no there isn't" and would stay put. The lying brother then gets hit by the car, and you ask the truth telling brother which path to follow to get to eternal happiness.