Frozen Nightmare

Puzzler time.

This one was sent in many years ago. It goes like this.

"On the hottest day of the summer, my mother was driving her decrepit 88 Toyota Corolla from New York City to Philadelphia with her significant other.

They were going to a wedding, and the bride had asked them to courier a shipment of gourmet frozen sorbet centerpieces from a little known sorbet Emporium in Queens, believe it or not, sorbet center pieces are considered quite the thing at wedding receptions.

They loaded a crate packed with sorbet centerpieces into the backseat of the car. The merchant warned them that they had three hours before the sorbet would begin to melt.

Philadelphia is two hours away.

Flushed with the urgency of their charge, they set out.

Yeah, all went well until they ran into bumper to bumper traffic heading over the 59th Street Bridge. At this time, her significant other began showing symptoms of cardiac distress, and Mum changed course to New York Hospital.

The next thing she knew, a policeman was reviving her. She had lost consciousness and crashed into a guardrail, but was miraculously uninjured.

She recovered sufficiently to drive her significant other to the hospital. A full cardiac workup showed no medical problems, so they set out again, having lost an hour.

Now they're in trouble. Significant had a few more rough moments as they passed through the Lincoln Tunnel, but he seemed to have recovered on the Jersey Turnpike.

They made it to the wedding with moments to spare and without further incident. The sorbet was a smashing success."

And the puzzler question is, what happened here?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Fishing for Thirds

Puzzler time.

Here it is.

Three guys go out fishing. They decide in advance that whatever they catch, they're going to divvy up three ways evenly.

So they finish fishing for the day, they pull back into port and they're going to sleep on the boat overnight, get up in the morning, divvy up the fish to go home.

In the middle of the night, however, one of the guys has a severe hemorrhoidal flare up, and he's got to get to the drugstore right away to buy some stuff.

He goes to take his third of the fish, and he notices that the number that they caught is not divisible by three, unless he throws one of the fish overboard.

So he does. He throws one of the fish overboard. So he takes his third of the remaining fish and he leaves.

Then, in the middle of the night, another guy wakes up with horrible stomach pains and he has to go home right away.

He says, "I'll take my third of the fish and then I'll go home, because I can't stay here like this."

So he goes to take his third, and he notices, interestingly, the same thing, that he can't take a third unless he throws one fish overboard. So he throws one fish overboard, takes his third and goes home.

The third guy who isn't sick, he gets up in the morning and he realizes that he hasn't taken his third of fish, but he's got to go home anyway. He figures the other guys are still sleeping.

So he says, "I'll just take my third and I'll go and when they wake up, they can take their third." But he realizes he can't take a third without throwing one fish overboard.

He throws one fish overboard, takes his third and leaves.

And here is the puzzler question.

What is the smallest number of fish by which this little scenario could have taken place? The smallest number that they could have possibly had when they pulled into port that evening, in order for this whole thing to work?