The 40-Pound Difference

Dec 05, 2015

RAY: This came from a fellow named Josh Kokendolfer, who says it's a true story.

It was a brisk December morning. A co-worker and I had a simple job to do that day: clean out a job site and take the trash to the local landfill. And we had an F-350 pickup that was outfitted with a dump-truck bed. We filled it up and headed out. When we arrived at the landfill we pulled the truck onto the scale that weighed our vehicle and the woman in the office waved us through.

We unloaded and headed back out to the scale. Once again our truck was weighed. Before getting into the truck I noticed that one of the back tires was low. I decided to stop at one of the local gas stations to check it out and fill all the tires just in case.

After lunch we loaded the truck a second time at the site and headed back to the landfill. Everything went just like the first time. After we were weighed on exiting, I went to pay the bill. My co-worker looked at the paperwork and noticed something strange.

The first time we left we weighed 6,480 lbs. And the second time we exited we weighed 6,440 lbs - a difference of 40 lbs. We were being charged for an extra 40 pounds of trash that we didn't have. I immediately complained to the office manager. She said, "There's nothing wrong with our scales." Well, if that's the case, what happened?

Answer: 

RAY: The reason the truck weighed 40 pounds less is that it had burned 40 pounds of gas, or about six gallons. So who’s our winner this week?

TOM: Congratulations to Ed Oliva from Newburgh, Indiana!


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