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 the answer to last week's Puzzler. OK. Here it is. I brought this old Puzzler back because it's a perfect lead-in for the new Puzzler that's coming up later in the show.
TOM: You drew a blank last week, huh? You had nothing else to do? You had to pull out old ones?
RAY: Yeah.
TOM: OK.
RAY: Well, anyway, here it is.
TOM: This is a good one.
RAY: It's a beauty.
TOM: And if it leads into something a hell of a lot better, that's even better.
RAY: I didn't say that was going to happen. Anyway, here it is. A girl and her mother are out shopping in a store. You know.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: And they overhear a conversation between a customer and a salesperson in the next aisle. The customer asks, how much does one cost. The answer is 99 cents. OK. "How about 12?" asks the customer. Oh. That will be a $1.98. OK. In that case, I'll take 128.
TOM: And he says, that will be $2.97. Plus tax and gratuity.
RAY: Question is. Of course. Question is, what kind of a store are they in and what is the person buying? Well, it's not obvious because there really is only one thing that you could buy --
TOM: I think there's only one but that would be interesting if there were two answers to this Puzzler.
RAY: Well, I don't think so. The only thing that works for me, it only works if the answer is, house numbers.
TOM: Sure.
RAY: They're in a hardware store or some such store.
TOM: And they live at 128 Blue View Terrace.
RAY: They're buying 128 for the cost of three things, because you're buying three things. You're buying number one, number two, and a number eight.
TOM: Wow.
RAY: Anyway, do we have a winner?
TOM: Yeah. Barry Ransom from Charlotte, North Carolina.
RAY: Wow.
TOM: And, for having his answer selected at random from the dumpster-full of correct answers that we got, Barry is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of Cars.com, and with that gift certificate he can get a copy of our new CD, "Car Talk Car Tunes, the Car Talk Compendium of Disrespectful Car Songs." Isn't that nice?
RAY: It is. And we should mention that this is a real CD, or cassette if you're not CD equipped, with real songs on it, 21 in fact, and they're all songs about lousy cars or related subjects.
TOM: Yeah. Like lousy mechanics, lousy drivers, lousy car show hosts. If you want a copy Barry, or if anyone else wants a copy, they can go to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Boy, that was shameless advertising we just did.
RAY: Good, too. Anyway --
TOM: Great.
RAY: -- we'll have that brand new Puzzler coming up in the third half of the show today--so don't bail out on us yet. If you have a question about your car or anything else for that matter, give us a call. The number is 888- Car-Talk. That's 18, 88, 22, 78, 25, 5. That ought to confuse them for a while. Hello. You're on Car Talk.
TOM: Isn't it interesting how complicated it is when you say it that way? 18, 88, 22 --
RAY: Well, you know, we're not conditioned to hear phone numbers, like in Europe they do. We got the threes and the fours in this country.
TOM: Yeah. You've been giving up on the double business, the double, triple stuff.
RAY: It's coming. Hello. You're on Car Talk.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
