Support for Car Talk is provided by:

The Puzzler

Puzzler Answer, 12/20/97: Hum A Few Bars

RAY: OK, it's time to find out if my brother remembers last week's puzzler.

TOM: I certainly do.

RAY: Oh you do?

TOM: I even know the answer by the way. It has to do with the guy who goes into the library.

RAY: That's right. Wow. Here it is. Very few people know this, but we have a barber shop quartet at the garage. We also have a barber shop. Even though we've got six guys. The reason it's a quartet is a couple of the guys can't sing. So one of the guys decides he is going to go to the library and get a book on how to sing. Use his tax dollars.

TOM: Why not?

RAY: But he is so bad he figures he has to start from square one so he figures if he can learn how to hum first, then in fact he's got a shot at learning how to sing, right? Because if you hum, you carry a tune. Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. So anyway he goes to the library; he hasn't been to the library, and he doesn't know anything about the Dewey Decimal System or card catalogs or anything. He walks around. He's embarrassed to ask anything.

TOM: They don't use card catalogs anymore.

RAY: No.

TOM: But that's all right.

RAY: He doesn't know that.

TOM: He doesn't know that.

RAY: He walks around until he finds a book - because he's embarrassed to ask - that says How to Hum. Perfect, he says.

TOM: What a deal.

RAY: Takes the book, sits down at a table, begins to read but there is nothing in it about singing, music, or how to hum. What was this book that he pulled off the shelf. He just kind of wandered around and he saw this book and said ooh!

TOM: Sure, there it was.

RAY: Just what I want.

TOM: This is for me. Yeah.

RAY: And...

TOM: And it happened to be one of the H's in the set of encyclopedia.

RAY: Exactly. H-O-W to H-U-M.

TOM: And in fact if he had gone far enough, he would have gotten to hum because it was the last thing in the book.

RAY: Maybe.

TOM: But probably...

RAY: Didn't tell him how to.

TOM: No, it certainly didn't tell him how to.

RAY: What it was. Who's our winner this week?

TOM: Oh, you always spring that on me, and I always have to go...

RAY: You should be ready.

TOM: Ah, here it is. Our winner is Diane Konkel from Ft. Meyers, Florida. You got your answer chosen from among the thousands of answers that we got this week that were correct, and you're going to win our latest dog frisbee, which you can also use as an audio CD.

Search Car Talk
GO
Eat my shorts!" and other useful phrases — in Latin; a modern take on classic literary quotes.
Save a boat payment. Check out our new collection of Car Talk columns.
What really causes roadway hell? We talk with best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt.
Who lived in a van? Hear Tara's call and tell Tara what you think.
No kidding. Check out our new special edition Martin guitar.