Little Johnny was a bright child, and one day he was sitting in his maths class, learning all about addition and subtraction. At the end of the class, his teacher decided to ask the children a fun question to see if they had learnt anything.
“Imagine,” she said, “that there are three birds sitting on a fence. A farmer comes up and shoots one of them … how many are left?”
Immediately Johnny’s hand shot up. “Please miss!! I know the answer!” he yelled.
“OK Johnny, let’s see if you can work it out,” she replied.
“Well, miss, I think there would be no birds left!” he said.
“Umm … and how do you explain this Johnny? Let’s go through this again, there were three birds on the fence, the farmer shoots one of them, so there will be … “
“No birds left miss!” he interrupted.
The teacher looked at him quizzically and said, “Well Johnny, how do you explain that?”
“Well miss, when the gun goes bang the other two birds are scared and fly off … so there are no birds left, miss!”
The teacher smiled a little and said, “Hmm, in this case you’re not quite right, but nonetheless I like your thinking.”
A week passed by and there was another maths class. This time the teacher, a quite young and attractive lady, decided to ask the class if they had any questions of their own.
“Oh yes, miss! I have a question!” exclaimed little Johnny from his desk at the back of the classroom.
“Well, come on then Johnny, what’s the question you’d like to ask this time?” she said.
“Well miss,” he beamed, “imagine that there are three ladies sitting on a park bench, and they’re all holding an ice cream in their hand. The first lady is nibbling the ice cream, the second lady is sucking the ice cream, and the third lady is biting the ice cream. What I want to know is ….. which one of them is married?”
This question stumped the young teacher and she was momentarily lost for words, failing to see what it had to do with maths, but anyway she decided to say something. “Well, Johnny, I couldn’t be sure but I’d have to say that the lady who was married was the one who was … sucking the ice cream.”
“Oh no, no, noooo miss, not at all!!” he grinned. “The lady who was married was the one wearing a wedding ring on her finger. But I like your thinking ….”
