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.
TOM: But first, the question.
RAY: Oh, yeah.
TOM: The sparrow. It's coming back to me. Is there a big truck involved, and a bridge?
RAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TOM: Yeah?
RAY: You remember the story of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder?
TOM: I've read it.
RAY: Read it. When did you read it?
TOM: Couple of years ago.
RAY: No, you read it when he first wrote it in 1937.
TOM: I read the galley proofs.
RAY: Well, this is the story of The Bridge of Tom and Rey. In Borneo, there's a bridge connecting two islands that's constructed from bamboo lashed together with hemp. It's been used for hundreds of years. Pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic move in both directions, and the bridge is four miles long.
TOM: I'm with you. I can see it now.
RAY: Is the whole picture painted?
TOM: I can see four miles of hemp holding up people and things. And cars.
RAY: And bamboo.
TOM: Bamboo, yeah.
RAY: And the bridge has a weight limit of 20 tons. So, one day, a truck pulls up to the bridge, and the officials stop him and say, we have to weigh you, because it looks like it's going to be close to the weight limit.
TOM: Mmm-hmm.
RAY: So, he drives onto the scale, and the truck is full of sedated pigs, pig iron, and dead chickens. With the driver in the truck, it weighs exactly 20 tons.
TOM: Oh, man.
RAY: What are the chances of that?
TOM: What are the chances?
RAY: So, the guy at the other end of the bridge gets the signal. He waves all the other traffic off the bridge. Clearly, if the weight limit's 20 tons, they can't allow anyone else on the bridge.
TOM: No.
RAY: So, now the bridge is empty, and this fellow is allowed to drive across. As he is crossing the bridge, a sparrow begins to follow alongside.
TOM: No! What are the chances of that?
RAY: Then it begins to hover over the truck, flapping his wings, and just when he's a little beyond the half --
TOM: This sparrow hasn't had like chili for lunch?
RAY: It may have. And just when he's a little beyond the halfway point in the bridge, the sparrow gets ready to land, and does land on the truck. What does the driver do to keep the truck and the sedated pigs and the dead chickens from plunging into --
TOM: The abyss.
RAY: -- the abyss, or the four feet of water that's below the, under the bridge?
TOM: Wow! What a great question! What does he do?
RAY: What does he do.
TOM: Not what happens, but what does the driver do?
RAY: Or, what can he do?
TOM: What can he do.
RAY: Well, he could do a lot of things. For example, figuring that his shoe weighs more than a sparrow --
TOM: He could throw a shoe out there.
RAY: -- he could throw a shoe out the window.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: Or he could jettison something else.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: But he needn't do anything.
TOM: Wow!
RAY: Trick question, what does he do? He does nothing, because in driving the beginning of the bridge to the halfway point --
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: -- a 20-ton truck is going to what?
TOM: Consume --
RAY: Consume fuel.
TOM: Oh!
RAY: And it'll easily consume an amount of fuel that's greater than the weight of the sparrow, so when the sparrow lands on the truck, nothing happens.
TOM: Oh, man!
RAY: Do we have a winner?
TOM: And you know what I would have done? I would have been already diving out the truck window into the abyss.
RAY: Exactly.
TOM: Ah, man.
RAY: The winner is Dave May, from Cedar Falls, Iowa, and for having his correct answer --
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
