Fair Trade

Stephanie Dalquist, Sam Kendig

HINTS:

• At exchanges: The grafitti on the alley wall next to you says "Looking for Love? Call Klondike 5-3457
• At overlapping puzzles: If you've solved the puzzle correctly, you'll see that the two friends did get together. They met at the corner of Jordan and Justice, and saw they had a few more times in the future when their schedules coincided.
• At pufferfish:
  "But master, we need your skilled hands!"
  "My skilled hands are busy!"
  (Simpson's quote from "One Fish Two Fish Blowfish Blue Fish" where Homer eats fugu and prepares to die)

CLUES IN PUZZLE:

• Title: Trade = exchange
• "Lay it on me, J-chan" - Lay the J's on top of each other
• "our schedules overlap" - Look for things that overlap
• logo and dial a pizza - Domino's
• "direct dial" - old term for phone system
• "catch up on old times" - exchanges were phased out in the 1960's

Japanese stuff is just for atmosphere. Nothing important is in it.

• Hisashi buri ne - long time no see.
• Keizai - business
• apo - an appointment, a date.
• Toshogu - shrine in Ueno, Tokyo.

SOLUTION:

1. Get the matching pizza places! ZIP codes given for efficiency, store numbers for checking
2. Get recommended phone exchanges. AT&T/Bell had these standardized in the '50s; they're widely avialable on the internet.
3. Solve the word puzzle thingies. Note that each exchange has about 5 recommended names, but the constraints of the puzzle and word length given are such that the puzzles are solvable anyway. The tables are listed in alphabetical order to make your lives easier/confirm things are going okay.
4. Overlap the grids starting at the "J" (There's a J in the corner of each puzzle)
5. Any letters that have the same letter overlapping in the two puzzles gets kept
6. Spells out J-mixed-up-pufferfish-L; the Japanese pufferfish is also known as a fugu

ANSWER WORD: Jugful

To see solution to criss-crosses, look here.

Answer: JUGFUL

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2004 MIT Mystery Hunt