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Mon 8 Dec, 2003 08:47 am
A rich old man has died. After his death, his children are surprised to learn that he has left all of his money to his oldest son Jeremiah, who loved him dearly, and ignored his other children, who hated him.
So, the funeral is a day or two later, and the other sons and daughters have decided to kill Jeremiah and take his inheritance. Since his father's death, Jeremiah has taken to drinking, and they know that, at the wake, he's going to be gulping down the liquor like it was nectar of the gods. So they decide to poison the drinks. One of the other sons, Wallace, tends bar, and gets the poison all ready.
So Jeremiah comes up, crying and depressed, and orders a scotch on the rocks. Wallace serves him one, and he chugs it down in two seconds. "Give me another." Wallace gives him a second glass of scotch, which he also drinks in a matter of moments. The other siblings are puzzled...the poison is fast-acting; Jeremiah should be convulsing on the floor and retching his guts out. Finally, fifteen minutes later, a rather inebriated and very much alive Jeremiah orders one last glass of scotch, but as Wallace hands it to him, he changes his mind and leaves, sobbing. The other siblings come over to Wallace, and wonder what's going on. They talk about what could have gone wrong for a few minutes, and figure the poison's harmless. So Wallace sips the drink he poured for Jeremiah, and is pronounced dead thirty minutes later.
Why did Jeremiah live? (He had no immunity to the poison, he didn't know it was coming, and the poison was obviously deadly.)
Grief is a very physical and releases hormones in the body along with varying levels of adrenalin. Did this change in the bodies composition negate or dissolve the drugs effects so that Jermiah did not succumb? Was the dosage such that it couldn't perform against the possible antibodies within Jermiah that would not normally have been there and as a result when Wallace drank it, the effects were different since he did not have the physical grief symptoms and he was also conscious of the poison within the drink which also has the effect of him expecting it to work. Jeremiah being unaware of the poison was probably just thinking that he felt this bad because of his grief. Perhaps he didn't realize that some of his angst could have been due to poison since he wasn't aware of it. Wallace was aware of it and he died. Was it a result of his body not having the same adrenaline and grief-stricken content of Jeremiah and also the fact that he was conscious of the poison. Did his brain know and expect his body to become poisoned and so participate in his expiring?
and his daddy was a man? some cross-breeding goin' on there!
Query:
There seems to be a discrepancy in the times.
They are surprised that Jeremiah is still fine, even if inebriated, after considerably less than fifteen minutes; I assume considerably less because we are told he left on fifteen minutes.
We are told that the poison is fast acting. Yet it takes Wallace, by implication, thirty minutes to die.
Is this an oversight or is it necessary to the puzzle?
If it is not an oversight then, as we are not specifically told that Wallace died from the poison - only that he died - there is no basis for deducing that it was the poison that killed Wallace.
He was so drunk, he didn't know he was dead.
I know it! But I won't say it. I will PM it.
Got it!
He's drinking scotch on the rocks and he is sinking them fast. That Wallace is pretty stupid!
Bingo Mungo!
At least, that's the answer I had as well.
Doh! I don't get it - is the poison in the ice or the scotch? If it's in the scotch then it's going into his system. If it's in the ice then it doesn't get a chance to mix with the drink and get into him. What is it?
you mean that the poison is incorporated into the ice? and only a lethal dose is acquired by7 melting ice?
The deadliest chemical poison is sodium flouracetate and that would kill even in an ice cube. if its somethin like cyanide, the odor would warn one before ingesting a lethal dose.
Naaah, I dont buy it
Perhaps we are living in an alternate universe, where poison can be contained in ice.
Suspend your disbelief, guys, its just a riddle =P
I heard this one different.
Two guys walk into a bar (ouch). They order the same drink. One drinks his fast, the other drinks his slow. The guy that drank slow died. Why? (It's the same answer, so you don't need to answer it)
Pardon me, Tetsuodowntime, but that little video piece on your last post is disgusting and has no place amongst civilized people. Please remove it.
Joe
YOUR one sick puppy there down time.. But I , will defend your right to be a flaming asshole, even though others think that you should not allowed to be an asshole in a public forum..Thats where I differ from Joe above. His tolerance of assholes is at a much lower level than mine
I'm not sure where my toleration comes on the Joe/Farmer scale, but I am in entire agreement with their opinion of the animation.
I am speechless that your Japanese cartoon was pulled. I for one would like to know, what aspect in their culture celebrates beheading schoolgirls as something even mildly entertaining?
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