This
isn't a joke, but more of critical thinking problem. Try and figure it out.
Three
friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each
pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged
the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this
as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so
he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets
the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9
for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you
get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go????
SOLUTION
The facts in this riddle are clear:
There is an initial $30 charge. It should have been $25, so $5 must be returned and accounted for. $3 is given
to the 3 friends, $2 is kept by the bellhop - there you have the $5. The trick to this riddle is that the addition and
subtraction are done at the wrong times to misdirect your thinking - and quite successfully for most. Each of the 3
friends did indeed pay $9, not $10, and as far as the friends are concerned, they paid $27 for the night. But we know
that the clerk will tell us that they were charged only $25 and when you add the $3 returned with the $2 kept by the bellhop,
you come up with $30.
From Ward, another way to look at this one:
My answer:
The following night two friends check into
the same motel. Once again the clerk charges them $30, or $15 per person. After the clerk remembers the total rate is only
$25 he sends the bellhop upstairs with five $1 bills to pay the two friends back. The bellhop knows he got away with larceny
once so he tries it again. But this time he pockets $3 and returns $2 to the hotel guests ($1 per guest). So each of the two
guests got $1 back from their original $15. Therefore each paid $14 which is a total payment of $28 for the room. Now the
bellhop has $3, the guests paid $28, for a total of $31....THERE'S THE MISSING DOLLAR!!!!
