RAY: Hi! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, duh, the answer to last week's Puzzler. A few weeks ago, Tommy calls me up one day at work and says that our sister, Lucille, is sick and that she needs some care.
TOM: The chicken soup Puzzler! I remember this!
RAY: Duh! He said, "I'll make her some chicken soup if you deliver it to her." So, after work, I show up at his house just in time to see him pouring the soup into this plastic container, and he's mumbling something about not having the right cover for the thing.
TOM: Hmmm.
RAY: Anyway, he tries the cover on, and it pops off. I try another one, and it pops off, and I try putting tape on it, and the tape won't stick to the plastic. And anyway, he says, "Good luck. Do your best." So I carefully carry it out to my car, the Dodge Colt Vista. This is the automotive part. And I put it on the floor on the passenger side. Anyway, I carefully pull away from the curb, worried that the slightest little stop or sharp turn will spill the stuff all over the place. Now, I realize that my house is on the way, so I decide to stop off at home and see the wife and kids, you know, the hounds, and have dinner. So, I stop.
TOM: Mmm-hmm.
RAY: Give my wife a hug, hug my son, I pet the dogs. We exchange pleasantries and --
TOM: And you eat your chicken.
RAY: And I sit in front of --
TOM: What kind of chicken did she make that night?
RAY: I don't remember, but it must have been chicken broccoli ziti, I think. Anyway, I sit in front of the TV and I fall asleep watching Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Hours later, I wake up, remembering that my sister is probably clawing at the front door for her soup.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: So at about midnight, I say, "Ah! The soup!" I go back to sleep. I wake up again around 1:30 and hurriedly grab a few old National Geographic magazines and some fruit that we were going to throw away anyway, and I jump in the car and drive to her house, which is several miles away, never concerned that I would spill a drop of soup. And in fact, I don't spill any of it. I drive like a maniac.
TOM: As you usually do.
RAY: How did I manage not to spill a drop of soup? And I failed to give a hint. I mean, the hint should have been that I don't think anyone, any of our listeners living in Florida --
TOM: Would have gotten this one right.
RAY: -- would have gotten this right.
TOM: Right.
RAY: Right?
TOM: Did the National Geographics have anything to do with it?
RAY: The National Geographics and the rotten fruit had nothing --
TOM: Nothing to do with it.
RAY: -- to do with it probably
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: When I went into the house, I left the soup in the car.
TOM: Of course.
RAY: And in the hours that it took to eat supper, fall asleep watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, gather up the magazines and the like, the soup, which was in the cold Vista, froze.
TOM: Of course. Man, it was so cold that night.
RAY: It froze. It was about four degrees, and the soup froze solid, and of course, it didn't spill --
TOM: No.
RAY: -- because it couldn't. And who's our winner this week?
TOM: Wow! The winner is Amy Moore from Powell, Vermont. Hmm. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers, Amy's going to get a $25 gift certificate to Car Talk's Shameless Commerce Division, with which she can get a Car Talk t-shirt, or our special kid's Car Talk t-shirt, which says, Help! My Parents Make Me Listen to --
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
