Facebook, set thy giraffes free!

I go out of town for the weekend and look what happens! Someone comes up with this “challenge” on Facebook, which sounds awesome and hilarious and results in a whole lot of giraffe profile pictures. (If nothing else, it speaks to the integrity of people who come up with the wrong answer.)

Here’s the premise:

I’ve had to change my profile picture to a giraffe. I tried to answer a riddle and got it wrong. Try “The Great Giraffe Challenge.” The deal is, I give you a riddle, if you get it right you get to keep your profile picture, you get it wrong and you change your profile picture for the next 3 days. MESSAGE ME ONLY SO YOU DON’T GIVE AWAY THE ANSWER!!!

RIDDLE: 3:00am, the doorbell rings and you wake up, unexpected visitors, it’s your parents and they’re there for breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. What is the first thing you open?

And the answer is…

The answer I chose was “the door” because I figured it’d be easiest to share breakfast if my parents were inside the house. The sneaky, riddle-y answer that’s led to all the giraffe profile pics? “Your eyes.” That thought had popped into my head at one point, but I decided that answer was ridiculous and opened the door. Honestly, there are plenty of possible right answers, but “your eyes” isn’t one of them.

I know what some of you might be thinking. “How are you supposed to open anything without opening your eyes first? LOL”

First, lay off the LOL crap unless you’re actually laughing out loud. Second, why are you assuming your eyes aren’t open? (If you claim that “blinking” is an acceptable explanation, this is a seriously shitty riddle and ignores bodily functions that happen more frequently like opening heart valves, etc.)

Let’s lay out what we already know before trying to solve the riddle. These are all conditions that must be present before the answer is discoverable:

1. It’s 3:00 in the morning.
2. The doorbell rang.
3. You’re currently awake.
4. Your parents are at the door.
5. They’re visiting unexpectedly.
6. They want to eat breakfast (presumably with you).
7. You have lots of yummy food to eat.
8. You drink wine for breakfast.

This may not be an exhaustive list, but it includes the most important point: You’re currently awake. If these are the present conditions, the riddle itself proves that “open your eyes” is the wrong answer.

But maybe we could change things around chronologically, shuffle the order of what’s on the list so that Condition #3 is at the end. If all of the other conditions are established before waking up, “your eyes” could be a feasible answer.

Now try to imagine how you could gather all of that other information with your eyes closed:

Food and wine are easy. You stocked the fridge yesterday and enjoy a nice Chianti with your Cheerios. 7 and 8, check and check!

It’s 3:00 in the morning and the doorbell rang. You can hear the doorbell and your clock may chime on the hour to indicate that specific time, so you could gather that information with your eyes closed. 1 and 2, check and check!

Who the hell is at the door?! Your visitors are unexpected. 5, check!

That’s when things get muddy. The remaining necessary conditions are knowing that it’s your parents who rang the doorbell, that they want to have breakfast and learning these things before you wake up and open your eyes. I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which that could occur and it’s tough.

I’m asleep in bed. Mom stands at the door while Dad sneaks up to my bedroom window. At exactly 3:00am, the clock chimes, Mom pushes the button for the doorbell and Dad yells through the window, “SHAWNITSYOURPARENTSTIMEFORBREAKFAST!!!” I’m jolted awake and then my eyes open. I sit upright, look at the bedside mirror and see a giraffe staring back at me. “What the fuck…?”

Soooooo… yeah. I guess I can come up with a hypothetical scenario in which all conditions of the riddle can be met before opening my eyes. Realistic? Check! Wait… no. No, if Condition #3 is present before I choose “the first thing I open”—if I’m currently awake—I’m going to open the door.

For those of you who like giraffes, feel free to keep them as your profile pictures. For those who don’t, feel free to pull them down. Me? I’m feeling free to ask my parents when they started eating breakfast at 3:00 in the morning.