RAY: Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, of course, the answer to last week's Puzzler. And this was an automotive Puzzler, I guess.

TOM: Not only do I remember the Puzzler, I even know the answer.

RAY: Well, no one likes to follow a city bus. They're ugly, they're noisy, they're smelly, they're big, they're slow. As I recall correctly, I just described my brother. And, anyway, in Our Fair City they don't even have the decency to pull over to pick up and discharge passengers--they just stop in the middle of the street. But I discovered something interesting lately, and I don't know why I didn't discover this before. About half the time, I drive to work in the early morning. I repeat, early morning. Some of us go to work in the early morning.

TOM: Barbaric! Barbaric!

RAY: I don't mind following the bus. In fact, I look forward to it. The question is: Why?

TOM: Get a nice whiff of diesel fumes. Wakes you right up. It's like ... is that it? There's caffeine in diesel fuel?

RAY: But I gave this hint: If it's snowing, I usually don't want to follow the bus. I didn't want to mislead anyone, thinking that the bus would be blazing the trail for me.

TOM: Yeah. Oh ... oh, right. Ah, good.

RAY: You know, and I'd be following behind, so I wanted to put that to rest.

TOM: So, if it's snowing you don't want to follow the bus.

RAY: I don't want to follow the bus.

TOM: Wow.

RAY: And the reason I don't want to follow the bus is when it's snowing, the sun isn't out. Now, everyone knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

TOM: Get out!

RAY: But it doesn't. It only does that a couple of times a year. In the winter, in fact, in the dead of winter, the first day of winter, it rises the farthest southeast that it ever rises, and it sets the farthest southwest. That is, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. And when I drive to work, one leg of my long, long journey to work is facing the rising sun, southeast. And because I leave so, what? Early ...

TOM: Early.

RAY: In the morning, it's right on the horizon and nothing except a big, fat bus will allow me to see well enough. So, he gets blinded. You let him run the pedestrians over.

TOM: I mean, all you can see, of course, is the back of the bus. That's good enough.

RAY: It's better than anything else you can see.

TOM: Better than having a bright light shining in your eyes, which is what usually happens when the police pick you up.

RAY: So, who's our winner?

TOM: Oh! The winner is, oh, Doug Jammel or Jimmel from Everett, Washington. And for having his answer picked at random from among those thousands of correct answers that we got this week, Doug is going to get a $25 gift certificate from the Shameless Commerce Division, which is at the Car Talk section of cars.com. And with that $25 gift certificate, what's going to happen?

RAY: Well, if he throws in a few extra bucks he can get something good.

TOM: He might be able to get something good. He might be able to get "A Haircut in Horsetown and Other Great Car Talk Puzzlers," volume one. Mr. Doug Jammel from Everett, Washington, that's it; you can get anything you want. Go to the Car Talk section of cars.com, go to the company store or whatever it's called, the Shameless Commerce Division, and pick out anything that's 25 bucks.

RAY: Yeah, and talking about Puzzlers, there'll be another Puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show, and I hope it's as good as all the fine Puzzlers in that volume one of our Puzzler book.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]