RAY: I read an Elmore Leonard novel called "Out of Sight." And he mentioned this in the book, and I had never noticed it before, but here it is.
Last weekend, I was doing a little shopping and some little errands in our little village, so to speak -- downtown in Our Fair City. And, as you might expect, I was going from one business establishment to another. Opening doors, closing doors, going in, transacting business. Upon opening the door of one of the places I entered, I was surprised to see something affixed to it. There were attached to the door three brass strips. They were about four inches long and a half an inch wide, and they were nice and shiny, and each was affixed with two little screws.
As I opened the door to this establishment, I find myself looking right at one of these bars, which would put one of them right at eye level with me. One was six inches higher than that, and one was six inches below it. And I thought, hmm, that's unusual. I went to another place of business and opened its door, and saw no such little bars. So, I went back to this first place and I looked at not only the door I had first entered but another door. It too had these three little brass bars attached. They were horizontal bars.
The question is: What was this building that I had entered that had this on the door?
And the answer is that I had entered the bank.
TOM: I figured that, but I still don't know what it means.
RAY: Oh, you don't? Why wouldn't the hardware store have these things? What significance could these things have? These things are situated so that one is five feet above the ground, the next thing is five and a half feet, and the highest one is six feet high.
TOM: Ah!
RAY: So, when the guy is making his escape with the bags of money, the teller can say, "...And he was over six feet tall."
TOM: Over six feet tall.
RAY: Or, "That little runt was under five feet."
TOM: Excellent!
RAY: Who's our winner this week?
TOM: The winner is Steve Vagner, or Wagner, from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. And for having his correct answer selected from among the thousands of correct answers that we had...
RAY: Oh, yeah. Indeed.
TOM: Steve is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk Shameless Commerce Division.
RAY: OK. Now, Steve Wagner from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, when you get this $25 gift certificate, you can pick up our brand-new CD, "Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father When It Comes to Cars," and if you don't want anything from the Shameless Commerce Division, you could use the gift certificate as kindling, since it's made of paper. You just roll it up and you put it in the fireplace and put a match to it, and that baby will go right up and help all that wood to burn.
TOM: So, thanks very much.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
