Or, alternately, taking a hint from the answer to one of the ones on the page that Meatros linked to:
The man is a travel agent. He sold the husband one round trip ticket and one one-way ticket. When the wife dies, he realizes that the husband never intended for her to come back, which is why he only bought a one-way ticket for her.
Two American coins add up to 30 cents, and one of them isn’t a nickel! What are the coins!?
No no no…the guy’s in his living room, so he’s not at the ski resort. He’s the travel agent, who sold the man the airplane tickets to the resort. The man’s was a round trip, the wife’s was one-way. Or something like that. Because of course, the murderer would be incredibly stingy and try to save a few bucks, being too shortsighted to realize that he would be pointing a big finger labled “HE DID IT” at himself, all so we could have this riddle to figure out.
I hate these riddles, generally. Some are fine in that all the information you actually need is in the riddle. Some are so ridiculously vague that there are a dozen possible explanations, but nooOOOooo, there’s some silly long-winded explanation that is THE answer and nothing else you come up with could be considered correct. The trouble is, you can’t always tell the difference until you find out THE answer. So half the puzzle is figuring out “OK, is this one of the stupid riddles, in which I’ll have to come up with a story involving a ladder with a broken rung, a surprise rainstorm, a partial solar eclipse, and a Buddhist monk; or is it much simpler than that?” which takes most of the fun out of it.
A quarter and a nickel, only one coins is not a nickel. I hate those problems because I’m not an American and it’s always USD.
Thanks for the answers guys and gals.
It was that he worked in a lighthouse. And I’m kicking myself becuase I already knew that one. The newspaper threw me off.
The man was Superman and the rock was Green Kryptonite, according to stately plump buck mulligan’s link.
He was the travel agent. A very stupid travel agent to be giving out one return ticket for the husband and a single for the wife.
Ok new one:
A boy has just purchased a fishing pole it is 5 feet long. The boy has to take a bus home and when the bus comes he is about to get on when the Bus driver informs him of the rule that no object longer than 4 feet can be taken aboard the bus. The boy then goes back into the store and gets something. He then catches the next bus and is able to board it and get home. What did the boy get? He did not alter the pole in anyway it stays intact.
Those are ridiculous. Several years ago I had a book of lateral thinking puzzles and the solutions were at least solvable.
I’d say he exchanged the pole for a shorter one, but that seems too logical and unconvoluted for this type of riddle.
He goes back to the store and gets a box that’s a right triangle shape. Three feet along the base and four feet on the straight side. The diagonal measurement is five feet. When stood on it’s base, it’s only four feet tall.
Oh, gee. Well then that prompts a new question from me:
How the fuck did he get it in the bus?
I can only assume the bus was built with average height adults in mind. Four feet is about pre-teen kid size.
All right, kiddies, pay attention.
You have 10 different vending machines, all filled with exactly 20 soda cans (which are themselves all filled with the exact same soda). None of the cans are empty!!!
Nine (9) of the vending machines have 10-ounce cans. One (1) vending machine has 11-ounce cans. Your job is to figure out which vending machine contains the 11-ounce cans.
In order to do this, you have a scale, which can only be used once. Not twice, not eleven times, but once.
How do you figure out which machine has 11-ounce cans?
Thanks to Jeremy Goode, for giving this mind-puzzler to me.
Uhm… put all the vending machines on at once, take note of the weight, and then take them off one by one, looking at the weight each time, until one of them takes with it more weight than the others?
ooooooooooooooor…
Take the scale. Beat open the vending machines with it. Read the cans. Or, better yet, look for a size/price difference. No company in their right mind would sell one more ounce of soda for the same prize as one less.
And your point is?
Assuming the vending machines themselves are the same then weigh two of the vending machines on a balance scale. If one is heavier, that’s the one with 11’s. If they are the same it is the one not measured.
BTW, thanks for the answer Mr. Blue Sky 
I love these kinds of “riddles.” Our camp counselors asked us these in the van on the way to the mountains when I was about 10 years old and they were a great time/boredom killer. We got the cabin in the woods one almost immediately but one that took us awhile, and was my favorite (because I solved it 
) was this:
“The music stopped and the lady died”
Short short answer:
she was a blind tightrope walker and the end of the music was supposed to mean she reached the other platform. The guy stopped playing so she went to step off and fell to her death
The fun of these isn’t “figuring them out”, it’s figuring out the right questions to ask. No one expects you to get them on your own; that would be quite impossible.
Ok new one:
A boy has just purchased a fishing pole it is 5 feet long. The boy has to take a bus home and when the bus comes he is about to get on when the Bus driver informs him of the rule that no object longer than 4 feet can be taken aboard the bus. The boy then goes back into the store and gets something. He then catches the next bus and is able to board it and get home. What did the boy get? He did not alter the pole in anyway it stays intact.
My guess is that he bought a pair of sunglasses and then pretended to be blind and that the fishing pole was actually his ‘cane’ and the bus driver HAD to let him on, else be sued to high heaven by the ACLU.
One of my favorites:
A man is found dead in a room with 53 Bicycles. What happened?
Mr. Blue Sky has the answer Tommy. At least it is the best answer yet. I don’t think a driver would believe a 5 foot fishing pole to be the boy’s walking stick.
Bicycle is a brand of playing cards. Since there are only supposed to be 52 cards in a pack (exc. Jokers) the man was killed for cheating, by having an extra card.
Damn, I like this answer.
But, there is an “actual” answer!!
It is not a balance scale, but a big ole digital scale that can only be used once (for the purposes of this brain-puzzler). And, there are 10 machines, not three.
That was my original answer, until I was told that this would be considered using the scale more than once. Nice, I know, but there is a real mathematical answer!
Take one can fron the first machine, two cans from the second machine, three cans from the third machine, etc. Way the cans and subtract 550 from the number of ounces you see on the scale, since you will have 55 cans in all. The result will be the number of the machine with the larger cans.
If the cans in machine two are larger you will have 53 cans of ten ounces, and two cans of 11 ounces, so you will have a total of 552 ounces. So, 552 - 550 = 2 => the number of the vending machine with the larger cans. The same principle applies to the other machines.
That should be “wheigh” the cans. :smack: