Puzzler Answer, 5/24/97:
RAY: You've got to tell me...
TOM: You mean about the prisoner?
RAY: Now, last week you made up this story about how all these years you were just pretending....
TOM: I was.
RAY: to not remember the puzzler....
TOM: I was.
RAY: to boost my ego.
TOM: That's right.
RAY: But anyone who knows you...
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: especially me...
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: knows that that's a lot of baloney.
TOM: No no. I have always remembered the puzzler because I truly do have a magnificent memory. What was your name again? And I remember this puzzler...
RAY: Well you may remember this one and you may remember last week's and the one before that, but for 18 years...
TOM: 18 years.
RAY: you bumbled along...
TOM: Yeah. Without any idea.
RAY: Without a clue. And all of a sudden....
TOM: Well, I put my mind to it.
RAY: You had a reawakening.
TOM: I put my mind to it. I realized that it was important for me to build up my self-esteem because I noticed that my self-esteem was dripping lower and lower.
RAY: Drooping.
TOM: Drooping, that's it. Lower and lower and I needed something to perk myself up.
RAY: You did!
TOM: And I said... I figured...
RAY: Well what about me? I mean you've lowered mine now. I have nothing to gloat about anymore.
TOM: Now we're even.
RAY: Alright.
TOM: Now, we're back to -- now we're back on level ground.
RAY: Level playing field.
TOM: Right.
RAY: Alright. Here's the puzzler...
TOM: OK. Now get this. Starting now, I'm also going to start giving answers to automotive questions.
RAY: This I want to see. This I want to see.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: Alright. We'll see. Alright, here's the puzzler.
TOM: I know the puzzler.
RAY: Well, nobody else does or remembers it.
TOM: OK.
RAY: In 1918 a man was arrested for a crime and sentenced to life in prison. Thirty years later, with the help of a friend, they concoct an escape plan. And very simply, the friend was to leave a get-away car in the field near the prison -- and the guy is going to dig a tunnel or climb the wall or bribe a guard -- I don't know what he's going to do. Anyway, the escape goes like clockwork. The convict finds the get-away car just where his friend said it would be and all he has to do is get in the car and drive away. But he can't start the car. There's nothing wrong with the car, and by the time he figures out it -- they're what?
TOM: On him.
RAY: Putting the cuffs on him with the dogs and the whole bit and making plans to exile him to New Jersey...
TOM: I've got the answer to this one too. His friend forgot to leave the key because he was afraid someone would steal the car.
RAY: Well....
TOM: It was a bad neighborhood. Well we know that already.
RAY: Of course. If the prison's there it must be a bad neighborhood.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: No, his friend left the key and that is, in fact, the answer.
TOM: That was the problem. Yeah.
RAY: When he went to jail, cars didn't have electric starters -- cars had cranks. He gets there, he finds the car, he's not looking for a key...
TOM: He's looking for the crank.
RAY: The crank. And he's trying to figure out "where do I crank up the car?" Because in the intervening thirty years they had made this wonderful advancement in automotive technology that allowed people to get in and turn a key and step on a starter switch and he didn't know about this and while he's fidgeting around, and futzing around trying to figure out how to get the get-away going...they slap the cuffs on him.
TOM: The guards come.
RAY: Back he goes, man! Our winner this week?
TOM: Oh! Carolyn Greenwood from Knoxville, Tennessee who sent us her answer -- and get this -- via CarTalk.msn.com.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
