Which Riddle Riddle?

This is a HeadGum Podcast.

This is Hey Riddle Riddle, the podcast where we dive into riddles, into puzzles. We do a mental escape the room for you to play along with at home to try and solve in your own mindscape, in your own brain space. I'm Adal Rifai. I'm joined by two of the fucking funniest people I know that I could think to get on this podcast, Mr. John Patrick Coan.

Hello, hello.

And Ms. Erin Keif.

Hello.

Just one hello?

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Four hellos.

I'd love to do mine again.

Mr. John Patrick Coan.

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

We have a winner.

I'd like to do mine again. Good morning.

That's a totally different intro.

I'm fine with that. That doesn't infringe on my IP, so good morning's cool.

I personally am obsessed with, since I was a little baby boy, I've been obsessed with riddles, with puzzles, love crosswords, any sort of brain exercises. I used to get those, I think there was a thing called Brain Games that was for kids, where it was like different, like ages 10 through 15, and there was like little puzzles and whatnot.

Oh, I remember those, yeah. I haven't thought about those in a long time.

But I think there was like a peg in the middle, it was like long strips of paper with a peg, and then you fold them out, like you fan them outwards. But I really enjoy those. I'm obsessed with escape rooms. I think I've done escape rooms with both of you.

I've done multiple escape rooms with you.

I will say, I wanted to do this podcast just because I was like, what's a podcast I want to hear, and I want to walk around and try and solve riddles. I will say, I hate trivia. Because trivia, you either know or you don't. Versus a riddle, if you have enough time and enough brain power, you can suss out the answer, kind of, for the most part. And I hate logic problems. Logic problems being words. Wait, I feel like that's half of what a riddle is. Well, logic problems are like... I hate words and I hate emotions. But that's why I love riddles. Does that make sense? But like logic problems are where it's like, there's 10 people in a family. Susie is third oldest. Adam is two behind Susie.

Oh, you hate math homework.

That's what it is.

See, I think I maybe don't like riddles because I love problems like that. I love math word problems.

Oh, I despise those.

I like story word problems where it has like a fancy, like, Susie is this, and you know.

That's the example I just gave.

Yeah, now what's like, if all that is true.

Can you choose a different name besides Susie? Because that's the exact one I just.

What other women's names are there?

Erin, do you know any other?

No, I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Susie it is.

Susie it is. There's Susie and there's Kevin. Anyone who comes to me with anything differently is wrong. Boys are Kevins and girls are Susies. I will die on this hill. But the word problems that I like are like, you know, if all this is true, how old is Mark? And it's like, that wasn't part of the information. But I do, I'm a riddle fan as well.

I feel like... Would you call yourself a riddle head?

So in the months leading up to this recording, when I said, Erin, I think you're great, would you enjoy solving riddles?

It's

Hey Riddle

I feel like learning at our own pace would have been a good name. We decided on Hey Riddle Riddle. Here are some other ones that I tossed out that John Patrick Coan, who will hereby be known as JPC, and Erin shot down. Riddle Miss Muffet, we said no to. Chronicles of Riddle.

Should we say, real quick, why we hate all of these? Or is it enough to know that we didn't like them?

Just let them wash over you. Great. Chronicles of Riddle.

I did like that one.

Yeah, that's fine.

I think that was yours. Riddlemas, Riddlemas, Riddlemas can't be wrong.

I don't want to type that out. Or write that out.

Fuzzy Puzzy was a puzzle. Stuck in the Riddle with You. Malcolm in the Riddle. Enigma Ma's Family.

I think I liked Stuck in the Riddle with You. I don't know why that got shut down.

What about The Riddle by Jimmy Eat World? Great album.

Great album. So I thought what we might do is we might start off with kind of a lightning round, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? A lightning round? Yeah. Just to kind of warm up our brains, get the gears going. These are going to be ones that I already know the answer to, so it's mostly to warm you two up because I came in

Oh, so you've been hot for days.

I've been hot for days. Put a week on it. So I don't need warming up. But these will be the only ones that I know the answer to. The rest of the riddles posed during this podcast, I will not know the answers to.

And do you think people will stop listening when we don't get any of these?

I think they'll keep checking in just to see if we use any other names besides Kevin and Susie.

I think we're all presupposing that people have begun to listen to this, which is an unfair thing to do. Good point.

If you're listening, pause right now. Wait.

Oh, dude. Well, there it goes.

Shit, shit, shit. We have to wait for them to press play again. Oh, you're back. Oh, thank God. In just a moment, you're going to pause. Pat yourself on the back for listening. Go ahead and do that now. And they're back.

And we're back.

So let's warm up with some of these. I'll maybe give you, I'm not going to have a literal timer, but I'm going to give you maybe 15 to 20 seconds to solve these. Very first one, this is just a warm ups.

Erin's eyes are closed right now, by the way.

I didn't want to comment on that? She's so ready to hear this.

I can only focus on one sense at a time, and right now it's mouth. It's mouth. It's mouth.

Mouth is not a sentence. Here we go. First one. There are seven birds in a tree. A hunter shoots one bird down. How many birds are left in the tree?

It's not six.

Why not?

Because Adal hates math.

Yeah, Adal doesn't like math, so he wouldn't give a shit.

A lot of the riddles I enjoy are lateral thinking, like lateral problems. So this might fall under that umbrella.

OK, ladders have rungs.

Wait, can you read it one more time? I'm so sorry.

There are seven birds in a tree. A hunter shoots one bird down. How many birds are left in the tree?

Oh, seven.

Why?

Because you didn't say he shot one of the birds in the tree down.

Okay. JPC, do you have a... Oh, the sound also.

Nope, too late. The sound would be loud and they'd fly.

I mean, that's the impression that I got, but... This isn't a Mighty Mighty Bossstones recording. Wow, what a reference. Yeah, so I would say six birds left in the tree because a real hunter uses a bow and arrow because a gun is a coward's instrument. So it would not make a sound. It would take the bird down and he would be free to hunt the rest of his prey.

Once again, this is a political podcast. Hey Riddle Riddle. Coming to you about gun control.

I'm from Indiana and I have an uncle that's a hunter and he's like, Real hunters don't use guns. Real hunters use bow and arrow.

Is he a caveman?

I have no more information about this man. What's the answer?

The answer is none, because the rest of them got scared and flew away. So I would give that to Erin. Not that we're keeping track, but I'm keeping a mental tally.

I would put a big asterisk by this because of the cowardly hunter.

Just a quick update.

I'm mad that it wasn't six, because I like math.

All right, lightning round. That's three minutes on the first question of the lightning round. This might be one you've heard before. A plane crashes directly on the border of US and Canada. Where do they bury the survivors?

I know this one, so I'm going to abstain from answering and let Erin make an absolute fool of herself.

They didn't say anyone died.

A plane crashes directly on the border of the US and Canada. Where do they bury the survivors?

I don't know.

I think you're onto it.

They didn't bury, there's nowhere.

Can I blow your mind?

Yeah.

You don't bury survivors. Oh my head hurts. That's what a cowardly hunter would do.

I'm gonna get a nosebleed in 7 minutes.

Erin's face just starts gushing blood when we start doing the answers to these riddles.

Here we go, one more. Gotcha. Why did the ice cream truck break down?

Why did the ice cream truck break down? So this is a pun, correct? I believe the answer to this is a pun.

I'm not going to say yes or no.

Because the driver wasn't in very good humor.

Kevin?

Yeah. Well, wait a second. You think ice cream truck drivers have to be men? Check your privilege at the door.

Speaking of, since this is the first episode, let's toss out the Holy Trinity of riddles. To me, the Beatles of riddles would be the Sphinx Riddle. Do you both know that? The Sphinx Riddle is what walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night. That's the Beatles of riddles.

That is the John of riddles.

I feel like it's the whole band.

Okay. I thought there were more coming. Did you say there were three?

But he's about to be like the Beach Boys of riddles.

I was going to go with a joke where there are three of them and we just don't do a ringo.

Okay. I'd be on board with that. But no, this whole riddle will be the Beatles. Do you know the answer? No. The answer is Man. In the morning it's a baby. It walks on four legs. Barring any abnormalities. In the evening, it's on two legs, which is when you're an upright adult. And in the night, it's three legs because you walk with a cane. That's a lot of assumptions that they're making with that riddle. And also, morning, evening, night doesn't necessarily map onto years and age.

And much like the Beatles, it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.

But the Sphinx was kind of a scam.

I think we can all agree that Oasis just took what the Beatles did and improved upon it sevenfold.

I like that riddle. Everyone knows what that is.

The Rolling Stones of the Holy Trinity of Riddles would be a father and son are in a car accident. The father dies. The son is brought into the hospital. The doctor looks down at the son and says, I can't operate on this boy. He's my son. How is that possible?

That doctor's name is Kevin and only men can be doctors.

So that's a Kevin and Susie situation. That's a classic Kevin and Susie.

That's Rolling Stones because it's a little bit darker, a little more modeling.

Oh yeah.

A little more macabre. And the third one would be maybe like the Elvis of riddles. And that would be a man rides into a town on Tuesday, stays for two days, rides out on Friday. How is that possible? A man rides into a town on a Tuesday, stays for two days, rides out on Friday.

Oh, I know this one. I don't know it. Tuesday and Friday are both popular names for horses. So he rode in on a horse named Tuesday, had the horse shot, ate the horse with a bow and arrow, ate the horse for two days, feast, and then bought a new horse named Friday, rode out.

The man was a time traveler, is what the answer is. That's how that works. So those are the Holy Trinity. What riddle were we on?

That's on you, bro. It was the third of your Riddle Master riddles.

Why did the ice cream truck break down? Another classic riddle.

I don't know that.

And I don't know either, and I assume it's a mechanical failure. I know that I drove a refrigerated box truck when I was in college. I delivered ice, and they are prone to a lot of mechanical failures.

The answer, and this is the dumbest riddle I could find anywhere, the answer is because it had a bad day.

I was going to say that as a joke and I went, I won't insult everyone.

So are some riddles jokes?

Because I don't like jokes.

I will get ahead of that now, I don't like jokes.

Unless they're math.

We all agree we don't like jokes.

Erin, why was 6 afraid of 7?

Because 7, 8, 9, and if you add all those numbers up.

That's a riddle.

That's a riddle.

Okay, so we're on the right page.

So we're warmed up. We feeling good? Yes. Great. So let's get to the, that was the appetizer. That was a sweet, sweet app. Maybe Maz sticks with some marinara.

Oh, so we're mapping this to a meal.

Oh yeah. Gotcha. And this will be the last supper. Check, please. So let's get to the meat portion of the show. We'll get into our first riddle. This is one, again, I'll mention, I don't know the answer to. None of us know the answer to. Erin is asleep again.

Her eyes close when the focus happens.

Here we go. First riddle. And this is going to be a bit of a story. It starts off, Hey Pop, can I have some money? asked Dana. The Electric Ear Splitters are giving a concert here in town next week and I really want to hear it. His father put down a television listings, turned off the TV, and firmly declined. But that's my favorite group, protested Dana. I want to buy tickets real fast so I can hear them perform as soon as possible. If that's what's most important to you, replied the father, then you won't need any tickets. Explain.

Okay, so we have a lot of pieces of information in this. This is a story riddle, and this is one of my favorite types of riddles. I've just learned that this is a type of riddle, and it's already an immediate frontrunner.

Climb the charts, climb the Billboard Hot 100. So, one thing I want to mention, we have to assume the electric ear splitters are, in this universe that this story takes place in, are like the Beatles.

So they're a second-rate band, and there's an oasis of bands out there that's far superior. Just waiting to... Okay, so this world is presupposing. Why don't they just use normal names like Kevin and Susie, and why don't they just use normal band names like the Rolling Stones? Unless the electric ear splitters, is that like, maybe that's a way, that's like a, there's like a phrase in that name of that band that will be important to the riddle.

Here's some other things to point out. His father put down the television listings. So this is taking place at a time where people probably had TV guides.

Okay.

Because nobody holds a television listing unless you're holding a fucking TiVo, right? Yeah.

I grew up in a time when TV guides were still a thing. Yeah.

So this could be like... I remember getting them in the mail and then circling what I was gonna watch. I'm far younger than the two of you, but I am still older.

Let's go around and list our age. I'm 27.

You know you are. I just turned 22, but a little baby.

Welcome back.

The sooner you buy tickets doesn't mean the sooner you get to hear the band, right? You could buy tickets for a band the night of and you still hear them at the same time that you would hear them if you bought tickets a year in advance.

Now the only advantage to buying tickets early is so that the tickets don't sell out so you can actually go see the show that you want to see. So this kid, we don't even know it's a kid. Could be a full-grown adult man living with his father. Which, with how stupid he is, we have to assume that that's the case.

He also could just be terrified of scalpers. He doesn't want to pay the up fee, the charge.

And he shouldn't have to. Scalpers are a plague. They're the cowards of modern ticket buying.

They're the beetles of modern ticket buying.

I think that I sense, and this is just my gut, I sense that there's at least two intentional... For people listening, I should let everyone know that Erin stood up, lifted up her shirt, and says, this is just my gut.

And this is my elbow, and this is my knee. But I think that there's two intentional distractions.

Okay.

At least in this. And it feels like the band name is an intentional distraction.

The electric ear splitters.

What does the dad say at the end?

He says... He says, if that's what's most important to you, then you won't need any tickets. Sounds like... Sounds like the dad's gonna kill the son.

It sounds like he's gonna... Or like... Honestly, the dad's tone sounds like he's about to teach him a religious lesson of some sort. You had, like, look at the footprints. The tickets were with you the whole time. By the way, footprints is one of my favorite riddles. I think I'm doing this right. But he says you won't need the tickets. If that's what you want, you won't need the tickets.

Maybe he was looking on the television listings and saw that the electric ear splitters were going to be on Carson that night. So the dad's like, you don't need these tickets because you're about to see them live, quote unquote, on Carson.

Yeah, if that's the case, then I'm really mad.

And by Carson, I mean Carson Daly.

Yes, because this is like 96. If that's the case, I'm mad at the riddle because that's not the same thing as seeing a band live in concert. And that dad, albeit a Christian, should know that.

Here's a question I want to pose to the two of you. What do we think the Electric Ear Splitters biggest hits are?

Oh, really good question.

So they are TransRap, right? Trap, please. I refuse to call it by that term.

We're all so overly familiar with TransRap, we can comfortably call it Trap.

It's trap music.

It sounds violent. Just, ow, ow, we're hurting your head in real time.

Electric ear splitters sounds like, another reason why I'm painting the dad this way, it sounds like the name that a Christian dad would make up for a rock band.

Yeah, electric ear splitters are like Satan's coven or something that's like, they're afraid of.

Yeah, exactly.

My son listens to that music. There's not one brass instrument playing at all.

Hey, my son's into that noise pollution lunatics band.

Give me Irving Berlin. Let's see here. So we have some clues available to us. Love a clue. We have clues? We have clues if we want them. OK, yeah, I want clues.

I'm clueless right now, so I would love clues.

Sprint straight to the answer.

I think that you're closest to the, you know, they're going to be on TV because he's looking at TV listings. That part makes sense.

Yeah.

But the son says, I want to go to the concert, which doesn't track. Here's what I love about the clues before we get into them. They're presented in Q&A form. So the first clue is, was the father telling the truth? Yes. Versus just saying, the dad was not lying. I like that they give us a little bit of Q&A to make us feel dumb.

I'm going to guess that from every riddle from now on, they're lying.

Was the father telling the truth? One of the characters is a liar. Some of the basic information is wrong.

That wasn't the name of the band at all. It's not his real dad.

Everyone in Riddles are just habitual liars. Was it a dream?

Yes.

What do you want from us? So was the father telling the truth? Yes. Did he intend to keep Dana from hearing the concert? No. So now we know it's not religiously motivated. So he's a good pappy. He's a good dad. Is it significant that Father was reading the TV listings at the time?

The father had noticed the planned live concert and noticed that it was also to be on television. Microphones would be a few feet from the performers and would capture the sound for television transmission.

So not only is that the answer, but they're also letting us know how TV works.

And how sound works.

Which is really generous of this book.

When was this book published?

1912.

Each answer is like, let me start over.

And I thought Tube would... Radio Wave. The audience potentially, including Dana, would be farther from the performers than the microphones would be. Sound travels at about 800 feet per second. Television waves and the electric currents that create and respond to them travel over a million times faster than sound. The father correctly figured that the television audience would hear the performer sooner than the live audience. For there would be less delay while sound waves travel a short distance on microphones and from TV speakers to viewers than while sound waves travel the full distance from performers to the live audience. The difference is only a fraction of a second, but the father was a sociopath.

Yeah, okay. I want to introduce a new segment on the show called, here's what pisses me off about that riddle. It wasn't just like, it's going to be on TV. That's the answer to the riddle. They had to give us all that bullshit about sound waves and getting to the concert.

We got tricked into learning.

I feel like I got tricked into learning and I caught it early because when the learning started happening, I tuned out. I immediately went red with rage for having listened to learning.

We should have picked up on the fact that Dana yelled to his dad, I want to buy tickets real fast so I can hear them perform as soon as possible. That should have been a red flag because nobody talks like that. No teenage kid says, I want to hear a band as soon as possible. I want to buy tickets real fast.

Especially with that voice.

Dana is a robot. That's obvious. Because that's an anagram. Data analysis. Neuron autopsy.

Dana.

I want to be able to be the first person at the concert to hear the sound.

Not in an enjoyable way. In a mathematical way.

I am a teenage boy.

Papa, can you save me a fraction of a second?

Father, could you fix me a glass of oil before bed? Oh boy.

Alright, so my rating on that riddle is D. See, this is going to be my problem with every riddle is I imagine the person who wrote it and then they put their pen down and they go, nailed it.

Just the biggest shitting riddle. So smug.

God, I'm great at my job.

Absolutely nailed it. Should we move on to number two?

I think we should probably move on to number two.

Here we go. A man called the woman he loved and she cursed at him and hung up angrily. Why was he happy?

Because he got to talk to the woman he loves.

And something better than nothing. In this scenario, they were together. They split up. He still loves her. It's unrequited. And he should have lost that number. There's maybe a restraining order in progress. And just the fact that he got to talk to her made his day, made him happy.

Yeah, he's like, I love her so much that anything's better than nothing at all.

I'm going to say that he called her, that they were husband and wife. He called her, he does love her, but because he loves her, he sets her free. So he basically calls to say I want a divorce, but he's happy because he got to fulfill that idiom of if you love someone, set them free.

Cool. I have two different answers and I don't know which one to go with. It says that she cursed at him and he hung up happy. So, not to be crass, but he calls her... Dirty talk? Exactly. And she's like, I want to fuck you so bad. And he's like, I'll be over in a minute.

Not to be crass, but I didn't just have to say dirty talk. Let me give you an example of dirty talk.

What the fuck is perfectly acceptable for a phone thing to say?

My other answer is... The first answer is going to actually lead us to a very popular segment that we're doing for the first time called, Let's Roleplay That.

Alright Adal, you ready?

First of all, can we start over? I'd like to be included in this. Can I be the sound of the phone?

Only if you don't state the word bring over.

You can be a phone and stage directions.

Okay. It's evening. A phone. It rings.

This is Susie.

Susie, it's Kevin, your husband of 11 years. I just got off the big client call. And I'm gonna come home and eat that ass to completion.

That sounds so fucking hot. Click.

And the man was happy.

She said click.

Oh, she didn't hang up. Oh, never mind. Hold on. The segment's still going. Click is what I want to watch when you get home tonight. The classic Adam Sandler movie.

Oh, we're going to watch Click. My jaw's going to click.

Click.

Oh, good.

When I do it, it's real because I'm stage direction.

It does say, she cursed at him and hung up angrily. So to be fair, in that role-playing, I did not hang up angrily.

She didn't finish.

Yeah, so, oh yeah, he came. He came and she did.

Over the phone?

Is this a dirty book? Because it looks like a nerd book.

What is this? Oh, it's the Bible still.

This is the same one as that Christian rock band one, so I don't think that they'd mix both of those in. I had another thought, which was that he's happy because she She's cursing at him, and she's angry, which means that she hates him. And if she didn't want anything to do with him, she'd be indifferent to him completely. But since there's passion there, he's got a fighting chance, because passion can be converted over into love.

It sounds like my life. I relate to both of them.

Let's read some of the sweet, sweet clues here.

Oh, there's clues for this one.

The Q&A clues. Was the man a masochist who generally liked being unpleasantly treated?

No. Well, all men to a certain degree.

Did the woman love him? I thought that maybe it was unrequited love, so this will be a big answer for me. Did the woman love him?

Yes.

I think your initial dirty talk.

My first one is right.

Did he believe that her angry words were really directed at him? No. So he thinks she's a liar. He thinks that her angry words... Did he believe that her angry words were really directed at him? No.

Maybe she was recalling a story. Like something happened in her day.

Oh yeah.

She's like, I just remembered I'm adopted. You just remembered it?

Susie and Kevin at work are really getting on my nerves.

That's fair. People who are adopted never forget. Every day, they wake up.

They wake up, they tear a page off their adopted calendar. They remember their adoption.

Do you think that's a farsight calendar?

Yeah.

OK, I got to know the answer. I mean, I still feel like my dirty talk one is the answer that I believe.

Okay. Ready for the answer?

I'm ready, yes.

She was married to another man. Oh, damn! And he suggested that she pretend that he was an obnoxious telephone solicitor if he called, while her husband might overhear. His ruse apparently worked, and he was pleased.

Affairs hurt people.

Yeah, I think that this is predicated on the destruction of the sacrament of marriage.

So let me get this right. So we'll say Kevin is the man who called. Susie is the woman who picked up. Her husband will call Kevin, for a lack of a better name. So Kevin called Susie and Susie let him know, if you do call, I'm going to pretend you're a solicitor.

If my husband's here.

If my husband's here. So that our sin beneath God's ceiling seems

I'm not rooting for them.

I don't want them to be together.

No, but you know, Kevin, the guy who's calling, he's got his own problems because cheaters are going to stay cheaters, right? So what's his endgame here? She leaves him, marries him, now you just married someone who you know is prone to having an affair. These people, they have no foresight with the way that this is going to turn out.

That took a real ethical turn. Yeah.

Your moral compass is... That's not sustainable living. It's really not. When you know someone's going to do something bad.

I'm honestly rooting for Kevin, her husband, because he's going to realize that this is going down, and he's going to come out as a better person, you know?

And he'll find another Susie.

Yeah, a better Susie.

What do we think? This brings us to a favorite segment, first time on the podcast, six months later. What do we think is going down? Six months later, are they still playing this game of cat and mouse on the phone while the husband is none the wiser?

No. So, Kevin, the husband, has drank himself to death. Completely unrelated, it was going to happen anyway. He's an alcoholic. Also, Man, the idea that Susie is gonna be like that mean to a person on the phone, that's a human being that you're talking to. Now I know they're calling you during dinner time, but... Right.

Like, that's a good enough cover-up that she's doing that enough? Like, she's calling, like, yelling at people? I don't know. Just hang up.

Why is it a yell? Why isn't it just like, oh, no thank you, we don't want AT&T.

Riddle number three. A man locked his son out of the house. The son thanked him. Explain. I think I know the answer. He was being sarcastic.

A man locked his son out of the house. The son thanked him. Explain.

Thank you.

Oh, thanks a lot, Dad. You locked me out of the house, which is just what I wanted.

There was a fire inside the house.

I love, oh, and the dad was... Saving him.

My thought was that there is a killer inside the house and the dad is saving his son by being like, you go.

For both of these, for fire or killer, and fire is a silent killer, well, depending on the noise of the fire.

Oh, I've heard some terrible things from fire in terms of it killing.

Why couldn't the dad slip out with the son and then either use keys or just shut the door and run?

So I think the dad is going back in to fight the killer, which wouldn't work for fire, unless the dad's a firefighter. And firefighters are the ultimate fire killers. Why don't we call firefighters fire killers? Well I guess for the most part firefighters don't always kill the fire, sometimes they let the fire kill the building.

I put out this fire, you're under arrest.

We should call, well we can't call firefighters fire killers for that reason, but we should call fires building killers. So we should call firefighters building killer killers.

And then what do we call the prodigy song? A man locked his son out of the house. The son thanked him, explained. Do we need some clues?

No, well, hold on. So I have one more. I have one more. So they're talking about the U.S. House of Representatives. And he's locking his son out of the house by ruining his reputation so his son never has to follow in his father's footsteps and become a United States representative. It's the end of nepotism. They're killing nepotism.

Honestly, that's... I don't like that idea, but let's call Netflix. I think we have a series.

I don't like that idea, but let's call Netflix.

I don't like it for this context, but as a TV show, I'd watch the hell out of that.

I hate it for what we're doing now, but I like it for something different.

Red, white, and blue.

I think it's garbage, but I feel like most of America would watch it. Here's some clues. Did the son live in a father's house? Yes. Was there a physical danger in the house from which the father wanted to protect his son? Holy crap. Did the father own the house and unquestionably have the legal right to have his son live with him? Example, the son was not a fugitive from justice. Yes.

Damn, so those question and answers totally nuked my... So the father's locking the son out of the house and the son's thanking him.

Because it's a nice day?

Maybe the son is like a drug addict and his stash is in the house and he's like, if I ever, you know, if I ever shoot up, lock me out so I can't get to my sweet, sweet druggies.

Does he say that he thanks him immediately or that he'll thank him eventually?

I think he thanks him immediately. Because there's a... Because he thanks him.

They have a problem and they've sprayed poison in the house.

Well, what did they say? There's not a physical... Oh, right. Danger. Ugh. And I think drug addiction is a physical danger.

The dad is a gremlin. He spilled water on him. He's locking him out so he doesn't have to witness this horrible... Yeah.

So he's a magui. He's not a gremlin.

What did I say?

You said gremlin. But if he's a gremlin that spilled water on him, that's fucking nothing.

What's the title of the movie? It's not magui. It's gremlins. Mogwai's a gremlin. Mogwai's the name of the gremlin, right?

The name of the gremlin is not Mogwai.

Mogwai's turned into gremlins. Gizmo's the name. Mogwai's the genre. So his dad's the gizmo. Gremlin's the species. Are we ready for the answer?

I think we can get this one. Yeah, maybe Tho's the answer.

What's our score right now?

I think we haven't gotten 0 for 2.

I think I've gotten all of them.

Oh, the TB one we got. Oh, yeah. We got the TB one. We're 1 for 2.

We didn't know why with the way that sound waves work, but we're 1 for 2.

I knew one of your warm-up ones. We're not keeping score.

No. I'm keeping score. Those are warm-ups. Those are warm-ups. Oh, okay. Interesting turn in this NBA game. We are going to count some of the baskets for warm-ups, so it looks like the Bulls do win. All those layups.

We're also counting the baskets those little kids played during halftime.

And two points for any time a player touched his toes. We just want a word stretching properly.

Warm-ups count now and nothing's important.

Let's hear the answer. The sun in his late teens was spoiled and idle. Where is this going?

This book is a Christian book.

The father correctly inferred that evicting him and forcing him to earn his own way would benefit him, however unpleasant it would be at first. When the son found a job and had worked at it for a while, he understood how his father's actions had made his life more respectable and constructive, therefore he thanked his father. So you were right in terms of like, it matters when he thanked him.

That was actually my gut. It was inspired by your drug addiction thing. Years later, he thanked him for it.

I wanted that to be more clever. You know that, Anne? I just wanted it.

Maybe the riddle wanted you to be more clever.

Wow, damn. We can't even do our famous six months later on that because that scenario had a built-in like years down the line thing in there, which is like ugh. Oh, I give that riddle a D. For Dana?

I give it also a D because that person was also smug after they wrote that.

What did they say when they put down the pen?

Wow, I hope this really helps a couple teen boys turn their life around.

I feel like it was written by a father who was like, how can I covertly send a message to my dipshit son? And then he one day taped it into a newspaper and was like, son, anything good in the newspaper?

Hey Kevin, did you see your old pop's riddle in the newspaper? Maybe thank your old pop for locking you out of the house and you're going off to college.

Let's do our second segment of this episode of a little thing we like to call roleplay. So Erin, I'm going to cast you as the son, Kevin. JPC, you'll be the dad, Kevin. And I want this to be, versus Years Down the Road, I want this to be the actual moment where you lock Kevin out of the house. Okay.

Excuse me. Hold on, hold on. Oh, stage direction. Excuse me, I'm trying to get into this.

Hello, who is this?

Dad, I'm trying to get into the house.

Kevin, I've locked you out of the house.

Uh, I'm outside with my skateboard. Let me in.

Kevin, I know you're 13 now, and today is your birthday. Today you are a man, and you'll never step foot in this house until you own a successful franchise business.

No, no.

It doesn't have to be Papa John's, but you know that would make me proud.

Let me in.

Papa Kevin's? Let me take that again. As Kevin walks away, the dad is still looking through the screen door.

We see a mysterious shop that wasn't there before pop up in front of the door. Excuse me, are you looking for a pet to buy?

Oh, that's a pretty racist accent you're using.

Really? It sounds just like the voice you're using.

I'm just saying it won't age well.

Regardless. Not age well. Just like your son? There it is.

Dad, I'm back. And seen. And I own a Domino's.

Yes, he is seen. You are seeing your son for the first time. I'm selling gremlins.

You're selling gremlins? Unfortunately we did, as funny as that was, we introduced the names John and Mark into the official canon, which... Now they're there. Now they're there. Oh boy.

So the last riddle we'll do here, this will be listener submitted. Since this is our first episode, I posted on Twitter to see if anybody would send me some riddles. We got quite a few, but I'm going to use one from a person we all know and love, Alice Stanley out in LA. And here is the riddle sent to us from Alice. Alice says, there's a cabin in the middle of the woods.

OK, I'm into it.

Everyone in it is dead.

Well, I'm still into it.

They were not murdered, but they did not die of natural causes or an act of God. Again, it takes the religious turn. How did they die? There's a cabin in the middle of the woods. Everyone in it is dead. They were not murdered, but they did not die of natural causes or an act of God. How did they die?

Oh, I have so many questions.

Ask away. I've seen the answer for this one, I will admit, just because I had to have that ready.

My first thought is that it's some sort of cult drinking poison all going up to heaven in a spaceship.

It was not suicide.

It was not suicide.

What cult goes up to a spaceship? There was the Hale-Bopp, what were they? Oh, the Comet? The Comet one. They all wore purple Nikes or something, right? Very cool. I think they thought they were hitching a ride on that Comet.

On the Comet, yeah.

A lot of people died, Erin, and you're right, it was very cool.

Oh, yeah, yeah, no.

Good branding for Nike, too.

I'm gonna close my eyes.

The crime scene was probably the hippest crime scene.

So it's not suicide?

It's not suicide.

But it's not natural causes.

It's not murder. It's not natural causes or an act of God.

There was a leak. There was a gas leak they put on the stove and then they fell asleep. Oh yeah.

Propane.

What kind of gas? Natural gas? Because it wasn't natural causes. Oh that's true.

Carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide.

Let's

A car.

Does it matter how many of them there are?

An ice cream truck. Driven by Susie. Thank you. Barreled through the house.

For fun, we'll say that there's 20 people. And that's, I remember, that's for fun.

So 20 people dying is fun for you.

Don't forget. I could make it three people.

And what shoes were they wearing?

But I want as many people to die as possible.

20 people. They're in this cabin. Oh boy. And then they all die, not natural causes.

Have you seen the movie Cabin in the Woods? I have. Yes. Then that will help you.

Will it really? No.

Oh, why say that then?

There's a cabin in the middle of the woods. Everyone in it is dead. They were not murdered, but they did not die of natural causes or an act of God. How did they die?

Were they dead? Did they die in the cabin or were they... Taxidermied.

Ashes. They're all in ashes. Hold on. Everyone else shut up. Erin. Erin, what?

You think these people were taxidermied?

I do, and I pictured it, and now you are too.

What poses do you think they're in?

Oh, cabin poses. They're playing cards.

Cabin poses.

A coupler in the hot tub.

You know, cabin poses. Hey Kevin, get the kids. Let's do some cabin poses.

Well, so my other guess was that this is not correct. When they do nuclear testing and they put the dummies, they stage them. So this could be bodies that were staged for science. The experiment is to see how bodies decompose in a cabin. Right.

Are they dead when they got there?

I guess is our question. When they got to the woods, they were dead, probably.

Oh, but not the cabin.

Depending on how long it took them to die. I assume immediate death.

You assume immediate death. They froze to death.

That's natural. And we're trying to figure out how they died, right?

Yeah. OK.

But he's saying that they didn't die in the cabin. They died before they got to the cabin.

They definitely died in the cabin.

But they started to die before.

Oh, but what Adal's saying is, philosophically, we're all dying right now. Oh my gosh.

We're all already dead. But I'm not sure. I assume they all died immediately at the same time. But I can't be, since I was not there, and I don't know how physics works.

We really are making a big deal of how you weren't there.

They died from too much gravity.

But I know that there are 20 people dead. Do you want the answer?

Hold on. Hold on.

Or I can answer some more questions.

Answer some more questions. Yeah, answer some more questions. We're not going to ask any more questions, but we'd love the answers to some questions we're not asking. Give us a clue a la the clues that you read off from your Christian book.

This isn't from the Christian book, but here's a clue I just made up. They were most likely eating peanuts in this cabin.

Dude.

What?

I got it. Thank you. Okay. I now know the answer.

Erin, it's on you.

Hold on. Oh my. No. All right.

Wait. Can you read the prompt one more time? Oh, I feel so smart right now. This is a great feeling. When you experience this, you're going to love it.

There's a cabin in the middle of the woods. Everyone in it is dead. They were not murdered, but they did not die of natural causes or an act of God. How did they die? Also, there's a clue that they were probably eating peanuts.

I don't know.

I'll give you one more clue. The cabin was in a plane accident.

The cabin was in a what?

A plane. It was a plane crash. They're all in a cabin, they crashed in the middle of the woods.

What cued it off for me was when Adal said the word fuselage. And I was like, fuselages are in planes.

Oh my gosh.

Alice, thank you so much for saying this. Here's my big qualm with this. Isn't a plane crash, I don't subscribe to any religion, but isn't a plane crash an act of God? What are the acts of God?

Like a hurricane.

But isn't that nature?

A plane crash?

That's mechanical. A tornado is nature. Lightning is nature. What is an act of God?

I want you to list three more things that are nature because I don't quite know that you have it yet.

Earthquake. Flood. Hurricane.

Lightning. You're good on nature.

Too much wind.

Trees. Grass.

Bees.

Bees are nature. Cabin. Like an airplane.

What is an act of God?

That's an act of God.

So we're conflating natural causes.

Well, sometimes an act of God is just where everyone's dead at once. For no reason.

Oh, you're thinking of a rapture.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

So a rapture is an act of God, but it's also a fake thing.

So the answer to this could have been, this was a plot in the show Leftovers.

Yeah. Cabin. Alice, your riddle stands. Adal is wrong. He doesn't believe in any god. If he believed in the powers that I believe in, he wouldn't understand.

Yeah, that was my favorite one.

I don't give that one a D. No, that one gets an A for Alice.

Yeah.

And Alice is an anagram for anatomical lady in control of her emotions.

You can email us. Suzy. You can email us, submit your own riddles or lateral thinking problems or puzzles, whatever you want. These can be ones you know or ones you made up yourself that you want to pose to us. You can email us at hrrpodcasts at gmail.com. That's hrrpodcasts at gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter at HeyRiddleRiddle, spelled as it sounds. So check us out there. Please send us your riddles or puzzles. Send some math for Erin, if you like.

And if you have any workplace disputes you want to talk about, you can email me at hrpodcasts at gmail.com. I'll be doing my best to answer sensitive workplace questions.

Thank you to all you Kevin's and Susie's listening to us, and we're going to take you out with some music from the Electric Ear Splitters.

This has been Hey Riddle Riddle, created by Adal Rifai, starring Erin Keif, and John Patrick Coan.

Katie Snyder did the editing, and Arnie Perrins did the music.

That was a HeadGum podcast.