Brain Teasers
Reds in the Forest
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
A little eight year old boy went to confession and told the priest that he murdered a red.
The priest was sure the boy meant Indian because "red" was a non-politically correct term for Native American. He thought the boy's parents were old-fashioned because it was just wrong to say Native American that way. Also, there was an Indian reservation just past a forest next to the school.
The priest thought that the boy did this by accident, but the little boy said he and all his white friends were murdering reds in the forest together. The priest was shocked and said for penance to go apologise to the family of the victim.
The next day when the boy came home he was covered with red bumps.
Why?
The priest was sure the boy meant Indian because "red" was a non-politically correct term for Native American. He thought the boy's parents were old-fashioned because it was just wrong to say Native American that way. Also, there was an Indian reservation just past a forest next to the school.
The priest thought that the boy did this by accident, but the little boy said he and all his white friends were murdering reds in the forest together. The priest was shocked and said for penance to go apologise to the family of the victim.
The next day when the boy came home he was covered with red bumps.
Why?
Answer
The boy had meant "red ants" and there was an ant hill in the forest. When the priest said apologise to the family he went to the ant hill and got bitten by the ants while he was sitting next to the ant hill begging for forgiveness.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
Red roses. Murdered. Try to apologize. Blamo. The thorns cut you up like cut up stuff.
that would work too
Red Ants! I was thinking Red Uncles! Sorry that was bad.
cool, i got that one right
Jan 06, 2003
I was thinking poison ivy; they have berries in the winter...oh, but those are white. good one.
ever since i saw the title i thought it was redwood trees
hahaha Favorited
Hahaha, MARAL:not all priests know what god does.
lol silly little boy.
I was thinking he was hunting foxes. Great job!
I got that one right away. YES!
Technical problem: in the Catholic Church, absolution cannot be made conditional on anything except contrition. Confession is 100% secret, as is well known - the priest cannot reveal what he has been told, even it was a murder or an act of terrorism, and if legally required to testify will simply go to prison rather than talk. But the secrecy also implies that the penitent cannot be compelled to confess to someone else. So the penance described here is not possible, though the priest could strongly urge him to apologize.
Of course this is clearly a somewhat stylized puzzle so we can overlook small technicalities. In jokes you can ignore bigger ones - most of the good jokes about Confession actually involve technical impossibilities.
Of course this is clearly a somewhat stylized puzzle so we can overlook small technicalities. In jokes you can ignore bigger ones - most of the good jokes about Confession actually involve technical impossibilities.
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