This week’s Micro Softy concerns two fellows locked in the trunk of a car.  

Here’s the story: Jimmy the Mooch had borrowed money from loan shark Chicago Fats. Fats had also loaned Tony Two-Toes a lot of money. Like Jimmy, Tony did not pay back Fats back. Purely as a business decision, Fats had to make examples of them. So he had his goons grab Jimmy and Tony and lock them in the trunk of a 1960 Lincoln Continental. The trunk was sealed and no air could get in or out. There was no trunk release inside. The trunk was also encased in thick, impenetrable material so neither gunfire nor repeated jabs with a tire iron could pierce it.

In the airtight trunk, both Jimmy and Tony were soon gasping for air. Tony eventually succumbed to asphyxiation and took his last breath. But Jimmy was able to survive longer. Although he had snuck nothing into the trunk, he had a survival secret that he did not share with Tony. After Tony, Jimmy exercised his genius and was able to live for another 20 minutes.

Luckily, Jimmy’s partner Mikey “Second Breakfast” Caputo found the car they were trapped in and pried open the trunk with a crowbar. Jimmy emerged, panting for breath, but otherwise alive.  

Why did Jimmy live longer than Tony? He and Tony were about the same height, weight, age, and physical fitness. So what was his secret? That’s this Monday’s Micro Softy. Answer next Monday.

Here’s a hint: When Jimmy the Mooch emerged from the trunk he was tired. He had no spare energy left.

Solution to Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You

Here’s last week’s Micro Softy. The solution requires puzzlers to use abductive reasoning, an inference to the best explanation.

Recall that Charlie Glispastavich took good care of his small yard in Jupiter, Florida. He mowed his lawn every Saturday following the same pattern and he had his mower serviced every year so it stayed in good condition. He also kept notes. So he noticed that in 2000 he could mow his lawn six times on one tank of gas. But by 2025, he could only mow five times, even though the mechanic insisted that nothing was wrong with the mower. Charlie was baffled. He told his wife about it.

Charlie’s wife smiled, came over, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She said, “Charlie, honey, I love you. But you’re 25 years older than you were in 2020. Look in the mirror! You’ve put on some weight and you’re not as spry as you used to be. You mow more slowly now. It takes you longer to mow the yard, and therefore you’re using more gasoline.”

She nailed it.

The Monday Micro Softy is a weekly feature of Mind Matters News. Here are the links to all the puzzles and answers to date:

Monday Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You: Why would Charlie’s well-maintained lawnmower apparently be losing energy efficiency over the years? To unraveling the multiple negatives in last week’s confusing sentences, we start by remembering that any two cancel each other.

Monday Micro Softy 89:    Double Negatives Are a No-No. Actually, they do have their uses — for example, if politicians are trying to correctly state views while making them hard to understand. To solve last week’s puzzle: you are told how many heads there are so start by flipping that number of coins.

Monday Micro Softy 88:  Flipping Gold Coins. Computer programmers must be good at math. The solution to this week’s Micro Softy uses math — but you don’t need to know the math to impress your friends. The answer to Micro Softy 87 depends on understanding which number a given sequence of the code represents.

Monday Microsofty 87: Are you as good a detective as you think? Here’s a test from the world of codebreaking To solve last week’s puzzle, look up the definition of “calorie.” Are we using the word to mean the same thing? You can find links to Microsofties 77 through 86 here as well.

Monday Microsofty 76: The Smoking Gun explains a computer scientist or engineer, a law enforcement officer often relies on abductive reasoning to crack a case, so with this in mind, you will have to crack last week’s puzzle. You can find links to Microsofties 55 through 75 here as well.

Monday Microsofty 55: “It happens every spring.” Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball’s summer. To solve last week’s puzzle, you don’t need to know the distance. Check the problem again for the number you do need to know. You can find links here to Microsofties 51 through 54 as well.

Image Credit: Oleksiy - Adobe Stock

Monday Microsofty 50: Cutting through the cornbread. How did Yuri Senior cut the cornbread into eight identical portions using only three straight cuts? You can guess the answer to Microsofty 49 if you try the test question yourself at home, using a small mirror. You can find links here to Microsofties 46 through 49 as well.

Monday Microsofty 45: Can Tony beat the fast-food curfew? An early curfew on fast food service motivated a boy to exercise more vigorously. But how fast was he pedalling? To solve Micro Softy 44, recall that Tony doesn’t need to take the individual pills each day, only the prescribed amount of each. You can find links here to Micros Softies 41 through 44 as well.

Monday Microsofty 40: The fate of a false prophet. He wasn’t actually fired for being a false prophet but for something that his prophecy unintentionally revealed. The solution to Micro Softy 39 lies in considering an alternative possible meaning of a word commonly used in sports. You can find links here to Micro Softies 30 through 39 as well.

Image Credit: FryArt - Adobe Stock

Monday Microsofty 29: A funeral lament in four lines. The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere You can find links here to Microsofties 22 through 29 as well.

Monday Microsofty 21: Finding More of the Deadly Fentanyl Pills. You can find links here to Microsofties 11 through 20 as well.

Monday Microsofty 11: What Happened to That Other Dollar? You can find links here to the first ten Micro Softies. Have fun!