Help me remember a math riddle

[The Bartender]

I have posted this elsewhere with damn near no luck. Got told how to multiply by 9 using my fingers, count cards...blah blah.

Now I know I cannot offer much help, thats where you guys come in. Here's what I recall:

It has something to do with apples/oranges/whatever you want. You gives someone x amount, take x amount back, x this x that, and all the while you are counting this out on your fingers and at the end your fingers do not match your verbal answer.

Any help?

 

[Vincent]

oh ok

 

[The Bartender]

Originally posted by Vincent
oh ok

Hey cool thanks.

Got a little help on another forum

"something like if I give you three apples, take one back, eat one and then give one back how many apples do you have sort of thing."

Thats the concept...i need the numbers.

 

[flyinshark]

Funny...i thought u were actually interested in the concept, and not the numbers. Why are the actual numbers so important?

 

[The Bartender]

Originally posted by flyinshark
Funny...i thought u were actually interested in the concept, and not the numbers. Why are the actual numbers so important?

The numbers are the riddle my friend. Without the numbers there is no concept. Its like know what you want to cook but not knowing any damn ingredients.

 

[VIVAlasVEGASBaby]

Here are some of the ones i found that match your description, although im not sure they're what you're looking for.

http://www.justriddlesandmore.com/math.html.

Joe bought a bag of oranges on Monday, and ate a third of them. On Tuesday he ate half of the remaining oranges. On Wednesday he looked in the bag to find he only had two oranges left. How many oranges were originally in the bag?

http://www.allriddles.com/riddle.php?riddleid=118&PHPSESSID=75ab3e7680f1af1b2a3eef3b4ded5be3

Three persons go to the fair to sell their apples. The first person had 10 apples, the second one had 20, and the third one had 30. They all sell them for the same price, and sell all their produce. In the end, they all end up with $10. What was the asking price?

 

[The Bartender]

No wasnt those. This is something that doesnt ask a question. It shows you as you follow along that your fingers dont match your work.

It's conceptually like this one:

"Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go???? "

 

[diablo]

When the bellhop got the 5 bucks from the front desk, the 3 guys had then paid the hotel 25 and the bellhop 5. When the bellhop returned only $3, the 3 friends had still paid the hotel $25 and $2 to the bellhop... 25 (hotel) + 2 (bellhop) = 27 + 3 (what they got back) = 30.

Easy.