Washington Post Post Hunt – Urban Safari at its finest!

20 May 2009 2 Comments

Washington Post Post Hunt – Urban Safari at its finest!

If you’re one of my Twitter followers but you don’t live in the Washington, D.C. Metro area you were most certainly very confused this past Sunday as I flooded my Twitter stream with various tweets containing #posthunt09 (< — Click for a recap).

About maybe a month and a half ago my mother approached me with one of her psychotically excited smiles, the ones that normally follow or are in conjunction with her “Happy Dance.” She had seen an advertisement in the Post (if you don’t get it, you don’t get it) about The Post Hunt which would be held on May 17th from noon until 5:00pm, rain or shine. Further investigation lead us to learn the following:

The Post Hunt was created by none other than: Dave Barry (literally an icon in journalism to me, I was floored I got to stand in the shadow of greatness when we were actually hunting), Tom Shroder and Gene Weingarten.
The Post Hunt is part brain teaser and part urban safari.
And finally, all you need to participate is: a pencil, The Washington Post Magazine (Post Hunt 2009 edition), possibly rain gear (it goes rain or shine), a cellphone with texting capabilities, and a sense of the absurd.

Score! That sounds totally up our ally!!

So, this past Sunday, May 17th, my husband, my mother, my father, and I all hit the streets of Washington, D.C. to participate in this year’s Post Hunt. We were at a slight disadvantage going in… The Washington Post Magazine had five “pre-Hunt” questions that you had to answer. Answering these would give you the coordinates to the 5 puzzles that you had to locate and solve in order to get the clues to solve the “End Game” and win the prize!

I should mention that the Grand Prize was $2,000.00 cash.

Pre-Hunt Questons

Because I want you to share fully in my experience of the hunt you should get to see the pre-Hunt questions to know what we were up against.

Question 1

There are four brown dogs and five black dogs in the park. If each brown dog sniffs each other dog’s butt three times, and each black dog sniffs each other dog’s butt four times, what is the total number of butt-sniffings that will occur?

B. 18
D. 46
H. It was my understanding that there would be no math.

Honestly this one had us going for awhile. We had scratch paper after scratch paper trying to figure out all that butt sniffing (secretly wishing that we had brought Magnolia or Rebel along because they would know all about butt sniffing). In the end, we figured the only answer that made any sense was:

H. It was my understanding that there would be no math.

Question 2

One day Congressman Bob decides to actually read a bill before voting on it. Assuming the bill contains 36,300 words, and he can read 220 words per minute, which of the following statements is most likely true?

J. It will take Congressman Bob one hour to read the bill.
N. It will take Congressman Bob two hours to read the bill.
O. Congressman Bob is imaginary.

This one was pretty simple with the reasoning. First, if you divide the number of words in Congressman Bob’s bill by his WPM reading speed you get the number of minutes it will take Congressman Bob to read the bill.

36,300 words / 220 WPM = 165 minutes

Then since we really want to know how many hours it will take Congressman Bob to read the bill we need to divide the number of minutes it took him to read the bill by 60 (cause that’s how many minutes there are in an hour).

220 minutes / 60 minutes = 2.75 hours

So, in light of that reasoning, it will certainly take Congressman Bob one hour to read the bill. And it will likely take Congressman Bob two hours to read the bill as well unless he suddenly gets Hooked on Phonics. But let’s face it, the only real answer out there is “O. Congressman Bob is imaginary” because what congressman reads a bill before he votes on it?!

Question 3

For years the New York Yankees have had by far the largest payroll in baseball, yet they have been unable to win a World Series since 2000. Why is this?

E. They suck.

Clearly, the answer is “E. They suck.”

As an aside, I did neither write these questions nor endorse their answers, I simply participated in the Hunt. I therefor cannot be held liable for any blasphemous remarks towards the Yankees *cough*Christina*cough*.

Question 4

What can the letters in “Adrian M. Fenty” be arranged to spell?

A. “Darn Yam Feint”
C. “Damn Fiery Ant”
F. “Fanny Am Tired”
K. All of the above, as well as “May End In Fart”

It’s simple… the answer is “K. All of the above, as well as “May End In Fart”" Isn’t it obvious?

Question 5

Why is the National Aquarium located in the basement of the Department of Commerce?

I. It was placed there as a prank by the Department of the Interior.
L. It was delivered there by mistake, but when workers tried to remove it, they were attacked by the National Octopus.
S. Beats me.

We actually Googled it and found out that the National Aquarium is located in the basement of the Department of Commerce because the Fish Commission became part of the Department of Commerce in 1903, and changed its name to the Bureau of Fisheries and it seemed natural to put the National Aquarium in the basement. (Click here for more about the National Aquarium’s history.)

All that set aside, since we did have to Google it, it only makes sense that the answer is “S. Beats me.”