A father and a son are in an accident, the father dies, the son gets transported to a hospital.
The surgeon in the hospital says: I can’t perform the surgery on this guy, he’s my son.
How is it possible?
Let’s count the maximum number of possible responses.
The surgeon is drunk.
The surgeon isn’t his mother. His mother is actually an anesthesiologist who is elsewhere being informed her husband has died. The surgeon is the guy who just let the whole OR know about his illicit affair with the anesthesiologist…
1.) It’s his mom.
2.) it’s his dad, and his parents are gay
3.) the father’s ghost is possessing the doctor
4.) the doctor is trying to get out of performing the operation
5.) his parents got divorced and this is his stepfather, but it’s one of those really close stepparent-stepchild relationships where you just consider each other family
6.) the dad did not actually die, but that part of the riddle was told from the perspective of the child, who slipped into a coma and dreamed of his father dying, but was actually alive and well.
7.) the boy’s mother slept with two men in a close enough period of time that it’s unclear who the father was, but they never got a dna test and both men consider him their son.
8.) the doctor is god, and since all people are children of god, the boy is his son.
9.) the child is blind and was being kidnapped by a dude with a really good impression of his dad, but the car crashes and his real dad is the doctor.
10.) the doctor is actually unrelated to the boy, but his son, for some reason, looks exactly like him.
i hope to see a movie/show written by you soon
The father and son in the first line might not be each other’s father and son, or maybe the “father” is a priest.
great catch! so true.
They used this riddle in Tin Cup!!
The father is a priest, not his actual father.
haha, nice! very true
I loved that scene. I remember hearing it for the first time on the Cosby Show & hearing the original answer. Fast forward 20 years & now there are multiple possibilities. Funny how times change.
I remember hearing it on All in the Family. Gloria or Meathead (sorry, forgot his name) tells the riddle to Archie &he can’t solve it.
Surgeon is his mother. Or, didn’t specify the father and son are related. Somebody’s father and somebody’s son had an accident. Thus the son’s father could be the doctor. Or 2 Dad’s. It’s a person called ‘a son’ who was in an accident, whose parent is a surgeon.
I will have to rewatch. Don’t remember any answers. I have been a dud here. Sorry.
OP is asking for new answers…
lol then why did you respond
The surgeon suffers from delusions and hallucinations, and thinks people they meet are their children multiple times per day.
Is your point that this really old riddle (that depends on inherent sexism) isn’t valid in a modern society? You’re probably right.
That was the point that the show made.
The surgeon is the child’s mother
Kid found his birth father on 23&Me, but his dad, the surgeon, was unaware they were hanging out.