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THE MATH PROBLEM FROM HELL
Greedy Merchant A has fourteen bolts of cloth to sell. Each bolt
of cloth is worth twenty dollars, and is either red, green, or gold.
Greedy Merchant B also has some bolts of cloth to sell, which are
colored either magenta, chartreuse, mauve, or lavender, and worth the
same amount of money.
Now, knowing that Greedy Merchant B once worked for greedy
merchant A as a clerk in his twenty third year, and that greedy
merchant A never payed Greedy Merchant B all that well, and knowing
that Greedy Merchant B has six hungry, screaming children, one wife,
and three mistresses to support, while Greedy Merchant A only has two
children, one wife, and one mistress, and that Greedy Merchant B
really doesn't like Greedy Merchant A all that much, even though they
were once lovers, it is easy to infer how many times a week each of
them bathes, and whether or not the amount of dirt on their bodies
increases geometrically or logarithmically as they fail to bathe.
However, Greedy Merchant A has recently made a pact with the
Devil so that no one in town (the name of the town being either Grog,
Meriden, or Sloth) will buy any other cloth but his. Greedy Merchant
B, sensing this, has clandestinely stolen all of Greedy Merchant A's
cloth, and replaced it with his own so that when the cloth goes to
market, everyone will buy from Greedy Merchant B because the cloth
ACTUALLY belongs to Greedy Merchant A, which stands to reason since
Greedy Merchant B is just slightly more greedy than Greedy Merchant A.
While it stands to reason that Greedy Merchant B did very well at
the market that day (his net profit being either 5! 8! or the square
root of the sum of his net profit over the past two months), it must
be taken into account that Greedy Merchant A knows who has betrayed
him and wishes revenge. It also must be taken into account that
Greedy Merchant A also knows where Greedy Merchant B lives, and has
had a crush on Greedy Merchant B's wife since she and Greedy Merchant
B were married seven years ago (in either a chapel, a barn, or a
swimming pool). Since these are true, it stands to reason that greedy
merchant A, seeking both sex AND revenge, would travel to greedy
merchant B's house, rape his wife, and steal all his money.
But in order for the latter conclusion to be valid, it must first
be noted (in order to preserve precision to seventy decimal places)
that Greedy Merchant B was aware of Greedy Merchant A's adulterous
schemings and took measures to prevent said schemings from becoming a
set of unfortunate and illogical (the proof of the illogic being
beyond the scope of this text) circumstances. Now, knowing that
Greedy Merchant B has connections with almost every clandestine
organization in Europe, and knowing that the probability of such
organizations coming to help lies somewhere between the amount of
fluid produced by the average garden snail and the amount of methane
gas (in picoliters) produced by the average nine-year-old cow, it can
be inferred that Greedy Merchant A will probably trip on a salami on
the way to Greedy Merchant B's house and be beaten sensless by a group
of rogue mules (said mules having been spotted looting the countryside
for either a day, a month, six months, or a year).
However, what has not yet been taken into account is that greedy
merchant A despises salami and can smell it from either three, seven,
or nine and a half yards away. Knowing this, and that Greedy Merchant
A will purposely avoid ANY salami, no matter how innocent-looking,
that happens to lying in the middle of the road, it stands to reason
that Greedy Merchant A will make it to Greedy Merchant B's house
completely intact and will carry out the aforementioned set of
adulterous schemings.
But, for accuracy's sake, it is necessary to understand that
Greedy Merchant A is quite possible the LEAST liked Greedy Merchant in
the entire town (which may ALSO be named Milton, if this is happening
on a Tuesday) and that the probability of a disgruntled customer
dropping a flower pot on Greedy Merchant A's head is tantamount to the
probability of rainfall in Florida during the summer months.
Knowing all of this, it is easy to find that Greedy Merchant A
sells green cloth, that Greedy Merchant B sells mauve cloth, that
Greedy Merchant A bathes twice a month while Greedy Merchant B bathes
only once a month, that the amount of dirt on the bodies of the Greedy
Merchants increases geometrically as they fail to bathe, that the name
of the town is Meriden, that Greedy Merchant B's net profit was 8!,
that greedy merchant B and his wife were married in a barn, that the
probability of clandestine European organizations coming to help
Greedy Merchant A is the amount of urine produced by the average
german shepherd, that the mules have been looting the countryside for
a month, and that greedy merchant A can smell salami from three yards
away.
However, for OUR purposes, all of this information is irrelevant.
Using all the facts from the above paragraphs, prove, in ten
steps or less, that Greedy Merchant A was struck by a flying horseshoe
and that said horseshoe was hurled by a person named Horace. Also
prove, in that same space, that Greedy Merchant B ate the salami which
was avoided by Greedy Merchant A.
For extra credit, prove that Greedy Merchant B got food poisoning
from the salami and died within a week.