The King’ero puzzle.

Anyone who has been taught by Professor N D Nzomo must have at one point when taking accounting 101 heard of the King’ero puzzle. He narrates a story of three young men who had thirty shillings and went to King’ero then……………… To be honest I can’t remember what he said. I never really took to accounting. It just did not turn on my creative juices. So to remind me of the puzzle I turned to my friend goggle and was able to trace the puzzle named the “Missing dollar riddle’.

Three guests check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each {guest} pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't know the total of the revised bill, the bellhop decides to just give each guest $1 and keep $2 for himself. Each guest got $1 back: so now each guest only paid $9; bringing the total paid to $27. The bellhop has $2. And $27 + $2 = $29 so, if the guests originally handed over $30, what happened to the remaining $1?

Well the Prof would go on and on and on and on on the missing one shilling. And my feeble mind kept fleeing from the lecture theatre I never even got to know where the one shilling went to. Then something happened to me the other day and I really thought of that missing one shilling. I am one person who likes to shop with a list on account of two things: I easily forget what I was going to buy and the other is to try my best to be frugal. Retail therapy (impulse buying) has been something I have found myself falling prey to so many times and the list comes in handy.

On this particular day, I wrote my list put it in the bag and went to buy the items. The list was short but involved purchasing things in different parts of Nairobi CBD. I purchased the things though two items were not available. I accounted for the money when I got home, I noticed though I had the money for the items I didn’t buy I could not account for KES 540=. And this is even after checking and rechecking.

This happens more than I would care to admit. After every shopping exercise there always seems to be a leakage of some amount of money whether its KES 75/= or 157/=. Some random amount every time would mean that at the end of the year then you can account for say approximately (157*52=8,164/=) and this is just an average.

I have had to learn the hard way. Purchase things as I tick the list and list the price for everything as I shop not afterwards. Leakages of money include buying the pair of shoes not planned for, a limited edition of a to die for top, snacks, coffees, lattes, books and a host of items that make a sizeable hole in your wallet. Slowly but surely am learning to solve my missing shilling riddle every day.

Watch your missing shillings closely; you might be shocked to action.

Sojourner.

By the way the “Missing dollar puzzle” answer is

This is not a paradox (It still is to me), and involves only the switching of subtraction for addition. Each patron has paid $9 for a total of $27. The storyteller adds the $2 that the bellhop pilfered, but he should have subtracted the $2 to make a total of $25 paid. So 3 × $9 = $27, which accounts for the $25 room and the $2 given to the bellhop.