Ray: 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.

Tom: Now, we're going to do the answer now?

Ray: Right now, Charlie.

Tom: Go for it. I remember the puzzler now.

Ray: This was a great puzzler. It is from our new puzzler book, and I might add an excellent example of how mathematics is applicable. Essential, you might say, to everyday life.

Tom: That's right. And this kid would never had gotten home had he not taken geometry in the eighth grade.

Ray: If he didn't know about a certain famous Greek.

Tom: That's right.

Ray: A boy gets a bunch of money for Christmas and decides to go downtown and buy a fishing rod. So, he takes the bus downtown and goes to the sporting goods store and buys himself, what?

Tom: A fishing rod.

Ray: There you go. Soon after that, he's standing at the bus stop. The bus comes. He goes to get on, and the bus driver says, sonny, where are you going with that thing. The boy says?

Tom: I'm going hunting for deer, you moron. Where do you think I'm going? I'm going fishing.

Ray: The boy says, well, I'm going home. The bus driver says, not on this bus you ain't. How tall are you? The kid says, four feet. The driver says the fishing rod is taller than you, and it looks pretty close to five feet in fact. The kid says, yeah. And the bus driver goes on to say, don't you know there's a city ordinance that you can't carry anything on the bus if it's longer than four feet? The kid says, yeah, I didn't know that, but I have to take the bus home because I've got a meeting of the young existentialists this afternoon. If I miss it, they'll kill me. The bus driver says, toughity; boots the kid off the bus. Anyway, the boy goes to the sporting goods store and tries to return the fishing rod. They laugh at him and point to the sign that says, no return on fishing rods over four feet. So, the kid stands there --

Tom: And what are the chances of that?

Ray: And what are the chances of that. The kid stands there in bewilderment, and then he asks the store clerk for something. Five minutes later he's riding the bus home with the fishing rod. Now, he didn't ask for a saw so he could cut the rod in half, or a string so he could bend it. He didn't hold it out the window. He didn't alter the rod in any way, yet he legally got on the bus and rode it home with his fishing rod. And how did he do it?

Tom: Wow. He got a box that was three feet by four feet --

Ray: Yeah, and just deep enough to hold a rod. So, the rod became the hypotenuse of a right triangle, the diagonal of the box.

Tom: Now, how could he have ever gotten home had he not taken geometry?

Ray: Well, the ironic thing is, he hadn't taken geometry, and he's only ten.

Tom: He's only ten.

Ray: He's only ten. Who's our winner this week?

Tom: The winner this week is Margery Butcher from West Hartford, Connecticut. No kidding. And for having such superb mathematical skills, Margery gets a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk shameless commerce division, and with that --

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]