You and your roommate are on your way home from work
together when you, fresh from an out-of-town business trip, ask, “Is there
anything for dinner?”
Your roommate answers, “No, I was going to stop at the
grocery store on the way home to pick something up.”
You nod your head and say, “Great!”
When you get to the grocery, your roommate asks, “Are you
going to stay in the car?”
You think for a moment and then say, “No, I’ll come in with
you. It’s getting cold outside and I don’t have a warm enough jacket on.” So
you both proceed into the store.
Upon entering the store, your roommate picks up one of the
handheld baskets and as you are both about to walk towards the back in search
of “something for the grill,” your roommate says, “Wait here for a minute, I
have to go to the bathroom,” at which point your roommate hands you the basket.
You then stand in this spot where you parted ways,
occasionally glancing to the other side of the store where the bathrooms are
located in anxious anticipation of your roommate’s return. You are starting
to get a little hungry and would like to get home so that dinner can be
started, you can unpack your dirty laundry, and if all goes well, catch up on
some reading—in particular the “Week in Review” section of the NYTimes you missed yesterday because the people you were
staying with while away “wouldn’t pay 50 cents for that piece of crap.”
You wait and you wait, watching the numerous people enter
and exit the store, now and then a bit concerned about what’s taking so
long—it’s been ten full minutes. Finally you figure that this trip to the
bathroom has turned into something of an event, so decide to go ahead and just
pick out the few things needed for dinner in order to expedite.
You walk to the back, pick out a steak and a 12-piece
pre-packaged sushi, grab a bag of Pepperidge Farm fishy crackers (because you
love them), and just as you are about to head, less than two minutes later, to
the check-out, your cell phone rings.
“Hello?” you say.
Your roommate asks, “Where are you?”
You answer, “At the end of aisle 10.”
Your roommate says, “Okay, I’ll come back and meet you.”
A few seconds later your roommate meets you halfway down
aisle 10 and clearly puzzled, asks, “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean? I figured I’d just go ahead because you
were taking so long.”
Your roommate says, “I’m already done. The groceries are out
in the car.”
You are, to say the least, stunned.
“Why didn’t you come back and get me?” you ask, a note of
irritation definitely betraying how you feel.
“I looked all over for you but couldn’t find you so I went
ahead.”
You are further mystified.
“I didn’t move one inch from the spot where you left me, and
was there for ten minutes.”
Your roommate maintains that an effort was made, but you
were “no where to be found.”
What is the most logical explanation as to why this
happened?
- You are living in a parallel universe where you can see everyone in a universe you do not belong to, but they can not see you.
- Your roommate did pass by you, but didn’t recognize you and you didn’t recognize your roommate because your memories of one another were temporarily erased.
- You became invisible for ten minutes.
- You actually did move from the spot, wandered all over the store in a stupor, and therefore were unaware that you had moved.
- You moved and then lied about it.
- Your roommate forgot that you had come into the store and thought you were sitting out in the car.
- Your roommate didn’t look for you at all and then lied about it.
- Can’t decide between a, b, or c.
- Can’t
decide between d, e, or f.
This problem is worth 100 points. Good luck!
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2007
