The quip in today's Times puzzle...

…is so bad, you’ll have to work it out yourself.

[Spoiler]ZPV DBO MFBE B IPSTF UP XBUFS CVU B QFODJM NVTU CF MFBE.

HPUDIB! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: [/Spoiler]

you can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead. Gotcha!

Wow I figured out the trick in a few seconds. Was it a hard one?

(no sarcasm intended) :slight_smile:

Good job, andrewdt85!

The actual puzzle was not hard. Now, a little history.

In the NY Times last Thursday, Shortz ran a puzzle in which the answer was in a simple cipher, one behind. I.e., Fifteen letters of gibberish were all in a horizontal row, but if you backed up each letter one place you nailed it: E in the code becomes D in the text, N is M, etc., and the answer was:
**
YOU BROKE THE CODE**

It was so delightful, that I posted an alert to Dopers to get the puzzle and do it. I didn’t give it away at all, only told them that this puzzle will have a lot of imitators so they take the opportunity to solve the first of its kind. Many of them did so and enjoyed it immensely.

So for this puzzle, and just for kicks, I (not the puzzle constructor) put the quip in code and did it one ahead: E in the code became F in the text, N is O, etc.

I solved last Thursday’s code almost immediately, figuring the puzzler would address the reader, and sure enough there, at the start of the gibberish was a “YOU” in that simple cipher, and the rest was cake.

And what happens coincidentally with this puzzle? Another “YOU” starts it off.