I searched the board but didn’t find anything similar to this. My friend told this story to us last weekend and I’ve been tearing my hair out ever since. Can someone shed some light on it or point me to the logical answer?
As the story was told….One Saturday night three guys traveling together decide to share a hotel room to save costs. The room is $30 a night so they each pay $10 at the front desk and head to the room.
About 30 minutes later the hotel clerk remembers that there is a sale that weekend and the room is only $25. So he gives a bellhop $5 and asks him to return it to the three men in their room. The bellhop realizes he will have a tough time splitting $5 amongst three people and since he thinks he deserves a tip for returning the money, he decides to give them $3.00 and keep the remaining $2.00 for himself.
He gets to the room and gives them the $3.00. So now each man has paid a total of $9.00 for the room, for a total of $27.00. If you take that $27.00 and add to it the $2.00 kept by the bellhop it comes to a total of $29.00. So what happened to the other dollar?
Brazin
The $27.00 that the three men have paid includes the $2.00 that the bellhop has in his pocket. The correct way to look at it is that each man has paid $9.00, for a total of $27.00. Of that $27.00, the front desk has $25.00 and the bellhop has $2.00.
Sorry :), just a little joke - you might want to wander over to the About This Message Board forum and look at the sticky posts there. An any event, welcome to the boards fellow ignorance fighter!
Oh, when you’re searching the boards, make sure you check “Yesterday and older” - MUCH more likely to find the answer
Hijack: How come these don’t seem to suffer from inflation? This room has been $30/$25 for decades now.
Urban legends constanly change, and are made more current all the time. How come not so with these “riddles”?
Oh shit you’re right Critter. Just looked at searches again and it defaults to yesterday and newer. Gah…now I don’t just feel ignorant, I feel stupid! Think maybe I better re-register under a new name. :smack:
Brazin
A person who can figure out the math finds this puzzle boring, so they don’t bother repeating it. And a person who can’t figure out the math doesn’t know how to translate it.
True, the room has not gotten more expensive but it has gotten much crappier and seedy according to what I have heard. The neighborhood has gone to hell too.
Instead of adding the $2 to get $29, you need to subtract to get $25. After all, you did subtract (NOT add) the $3 to get $27, it makes sense to subtract the $2 instead of adding it.
Please don’t do that. That is against the rules here and would result in your banning. If you wish to change your UserID, you can e-mail TubaDiva at AOL dot com and ask her to change your ID.
