The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

"Mom, please, I want to go," Jonah insisted. "We must have something up here that's old and interesting."

Jonah and his mother were in the attic, searching through the piles of clothes and knickknacks and discarded furniture. Carol Bixby sighed as she dusted away a layer of cobwebs. "I don't think Traveling Treasures is going to be interested in your father's moldy neckties," she said, moving aside a box.

"How about these bookends?" Jonah held up a pair of small iron roosters. "They're old and ugly, so they must be valuable." He dusted them off. "What do you say?"

Every Sunday night, Jonah and his mother sat down and watched Traveling Treasures, where hundreds of people brought in their family heirlooms and had them appraised by a platoon of experts. This week, the TV show was filming in Indianapolis, just an hour's drive away. From the minute Jonah saw the announcement on the news, he'd been bugging his mother to go.

"All right," Carol conceded. "It'll be a nice day trip. But you can't be disappointed."

Jonah promised. He really just wanted to do it for the fun and the experience. But by Saturday afternoon, after driving to the Convention Center and waiting in four different lines, it was a major letdown when an antiques dealer from New York evaluated his rooster bookends. The pieces were late Victorian, mass-produced, and worth about ten dollars each.

"There weren't even any cameras around," Jonah sulked.

"They save the cameras for the good stuff," Carol said with a smile. "Come on. Let's see who got lucky."

For the rest of the day, they wandered the hall, looking on as the resident experts appraised everything from baseball cards to gold chandeliers. Carol and Jonah were just approaching the exit when one particular item caught Carol's eye. "Oh, look," she said. "There's a terrific desk. Let's see what it's worth."

They stopped and watched as the furniture expert spoke to the desk's owner, a young woman. "It's an Edwardian piece," he explained somewhat pompously. "Made in England. Fairly common." He ran a hand under the front of the huge wooden desk. "I think it has a hidden drawer."

"Really?" the young owner said. "The desk belonged to my great grandmother, and I never..."

W00t! It's time for another contest collaboration with the excellent What Is It? blog. Can you guess what this odd item is? This week, we are looking for funny and clever answers, not the correct one, but if you guess correctly, you'll win our undying respect. If you have one of the two funniest answers, you'll win a T-Shirt from the NeatoShop!

Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like. You have until the answer is revealed on the What Is It? Blog tomorrow.

Please write your prize selection alongside your guess, so visit the NeatoShop and take a look around. If you don't write your prize selection, then you don't get the prize. I think you'll like the selection of funny t-shirts and science t-shirts -or even t-shirts of your favorite blogs and websites.

There's another image of this thing, along with other mystery items, at the What Is It? blog. Good luck!

Update: This thing is a Sadlak M1A, M14 USGI Combination tool for use on military rifles. See it’s many uses at the What Is It? blog. We were looking for wrong but funny answers, and jasennesaj had one: an S&M bicycle seat with a built in fart muzzle compensator. Ha! That wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! ColShorts had a great answer, too, “The Exhaust Piper.” Replace your car's exhaust with this and sound like Scotland as you drive! Congratulations to both. There are a lot of other funny answers; you should read them all. See the identifications of all this week’s mystery items at the What Is It? blog.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

It was early August, one of the worst days of the heat wave, as Jonah and Sally Smith stood in the sweltering tree house in the Smiths' backyard. They were staring at the spot by the window where the rusty telescope used to be. "Someone stole it," Sally repeated for the third time. "My little brother said he saw someone out here this morning. Some kid."

"That makes sense," Jonah said. He couldn't imagine a grown-up making off with the cumbersome old telescope. The detective's son examined the tree house for a minute or so, then climbed down and inspected the ground around the tree.

"You think we should call the police?" asked Sally.

"Why don't we investigate this on our own?" Jonah suggested. He knew the police wouldn't pay much attention to a battered old telescope taken from an unlocked tree house. "It was one person," he quickly deduced, pointing to footsteps in the dirt. "The thief dragged it over here and lifted it over your back fence."

Sally bent down and saw the line in the dirt where the large telescope had been dragged along. On the top edge of the fence was a scratch of black paint and scuff marks from a pair of shoes. Beyond the fence was a vacant lot covered in waist-high weeds.

"He left a path," Jonah said, pointing to the trampled trail curving through the lot. "Come on. Let's follow it."

He started to climb the fence, but Sally stopped him. "No. That lot is full of hornet nests. I got stung there last week— a huge, red, itchy welt."

"Thanks for the warning," Jonah said, studying the trampled trail from a distance. "The telescope was dragged through to Juniper Street. We'll go around."

They grabbed their bikes and raced each other to Juniper, screeching to a halt where the trampled weeds met the sidewalk. "He went this way," Jonah said, following the almost imperceptible scratches in the cement. And then the tracks stopped.

"I guess he carried it from here," Jonah said, a little disappointed. He stood in the middle of the street and looked at the surrounding houses. "Frankie Rooter lives right there," he said, pointing to a two-story house.

"Frankie?" said Sally. "Didn't he steal that baseball from Crazy Kate's shack?" Before Jonah could answer, Sally was crossing the street. He had never seen her so mad. "Frankie?" she shouted toward a figure visible in a second-story window. "Give me back my telescope."

It's Thursday, so you know what it means, Neatoramanauts: it's time for the What Is It? Game, brought to you by the wonderful What Is It? Blog.

What is this thing in the picture? Your guess can win you a free T-shirt of your choice from the NeatoShop! Here's how to play:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks.

You might know what they are, but if you want to win a t-shirt, you'll have to use your imagination, because we are going to select two winners who give us the funniest incorrect guesses. If you guess right, then good for ya - but you don't win anything, mmkay? So, it's up to you, funny people: you have twice the chance of winning that T-shirt.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. We highly suggest you take a look at the NeatoShop's new selection of Funny T-shirts and Science T-Shirts.

Ready? Go for it! (Don't forget to visit the What Is It? Blog for more clues!)

Update: the pictured object is a lid from a mason jar mouse trap, patent number 1,077,104. Mmm, mouse in a jar! A lot of people got the answer right, or close to it, even when they were trying to be funny.

Lucas Gentry wins a t-shirt for the genius idea of a pickle-jar lid, in which a pickle is speared for easy retrieval every time the lid is put on. Someone should make that! The other winner is pascals_force, who said “It's a cleverly modified lid for those that just HATE dropping the lid and having it land on the wrong side.” That’s nonsensical enough to win a t-shirt! Thanks to everyone who played this week. See the answers to all this week’s mystery itms at the What Is It? blog.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr user J Neuberger hates the new Flickr design)

Detective Bixby sighed and looked across to her son. "You like impossible crimes. Why don't you take a look at this?"

Jonah and his mother were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, both of them working on their homework for the evening. In Carol Bixby's case, the homework was a homicide investigation.

"Sure." Jonah liked any kind of crime, especially if it meant putting aside an English class assignment. "What kind of impossible crime?" He got up and walked around to look at the police reports spread out on the table.

"A murder made to look like suicide." And she began to outline the case.

Simon Wentworth had been found on the street in front of the building where he lived. It seemed that the young man used a screwdriver to remove the child safety bars from a window in his high-rise apartment. Then he jumped to his death.

Among the photos was a picture of another window with the safety bars still attached to the outside of the building. "Looks like the bars would be tricky to remove," Jonah observed.

"They're supposed to be hard to remove," said Carol. "Anyway, his prints were on the screwdriver and a suicide note was found in his room. No one else had been at home, according to the doorman. And his friends testified that he'd been moody and distracted lately. It's got all the markings of a suicide. Except..." She sighed.

"We interviewed one his neighbors," Carol continued. "Simon shouted, 'No, no, no,' before he jumped— and he screamed all the way down."

"That doesn't sound like suicide," Jonah agreed.

Carol nodded. "It turns out Simon lived in the apartment with his older brother Teddy. We found a partial print of Teddy's on the same screwdriver. So we had Simon's suicide note analyzed by an expert and found a lot of similarities with Teddy's handwriting. To cap it off, it seems the brothers had just taken out million-dollar insurance policies on each other's life."

Jonah picked up a photocopy of the suicide note. It was short and sweet: "I can't go on with the pain anymore. Forgive me, little brother. You'll be better off without me." He examined the penmanship and saw that it did look a little unnatural, with several fits and starts.

"What did Teddy say about his brother's death?" Jonah asked.

"A cool customer," said Carol, shaking her head. "He pretended to be distraught. He was the first to suggest that Simon's death might be murder."

"Let me guess," Jonah said. "Teddy Wentworth has an alibi."

"A great alibi. At the time Simon fell, Teddy was at his office, on the phone to a client in Los Angeles."

Now it's time for our collaboration with the awesome What Is It? Blog! What is this thing? You don't have to know to win!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. You might know the true answer, but we're going to select two winners who come up with the funniest, most outlandish guesses to win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop. However...

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Don't forget to check out the other mystery items at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: this thing is a reaction propulsion pistol; it was tested in zero gravity aircraft flights as a means of individual maneuvering in free fall, photographed at National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Did anyone come up with a stranger answer? Yes, many folks did! Richard Palmer said it was a “bidirectional flamethrower. Unfortunately the first tester was also the last tester.” And Jaguarfeather described its use thusly: “Put a Tater Tot in each end, open mouths, pull the trigger, and share a romantic, starchy meal with your girlfriend.” Both of those are good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! See the answers to all this week’s items at the What Is It? blog.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr user Emergency Brake)

"Please, Mom, may I go?  I'll be careful."

Jonah had been sitting at an empty desk in the police department bullpen doing his homework and feeling bored. And then Fred Coombs of the Crime Scene Unit volunteered to take him on a short field trip.

"I don't like you being at homicide scenes," Carol Bixby told her son.

"Come on," said Fred. "It's the cleanest homicide scene in the world. In fact, that's our problem. We can't find a fingerprint or a drop of blood." There was a pleading look on Fred's face. Carol knew how desperately he wanted to borrow her genius son to help him out.

She sighed and gave in. "Okay. Just this once."

Thirty minutes later and Fred was leading the twelve-year-old into a bright, sunlit artist's studio in an industrial building across town. As they put on their plastic gloves, Fred explained the situation.

"A young model is missing. Gina Washington. She was last seen walking into this building. She was coming here to visit Chester Hart, her ex-boyfriend. He's a well-known artist. That was Tuesday around noon. A security video shows Chester two hours later carrying a rolled-up rug out of the building."

"Wow. You think Ms. Washington's body was in the rug?" asked Jonah, cringing at the thought.

"We do," said Fred. "Chester returned that night with two buckets full of cleaning supplies. The security video shows him leaving the building three hours later. We think he killed her here in his studio. He came back to clean the place and did a great job. All we need is one of Gina's fingerprints or a hair or a drop of her blood. Without that, we don't have a case."

"What did Mr. Hart say happened?"

"He says he never saw her that day. He says she must have come into this building to visit someone else. Likely story."

The loft was a large, bright room with a small bathroom off to one side. There were various easels and unfinished paintings propped up against the walls. Everything else was spotless and white, from the light fixtures to the sliding dimmer switch to the bright, gauzy curtains.

"Were the curtains open like that when you got here?" Jonah asked.

"We didn't change a thing," said the crime scene technician. "The curtains were open and the lights were on. As you can see, there are no neighbors with a view of this window."

It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you make up something totally wacky? That's what we're looking for: the funniest and most creative guesses. We will award t-shirts from the NeatoShop to two commenters who post the cleverest, funniest, or most outlandish use for this thing!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. You have until Friday evening to come up with great guesses.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

See, you don't have to know the answer to win! There are more pictures of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: the item pictured above is really a can opener. Our readers had many more imaginative ideas! Sandyra said it a “an antique sundial pizza cutter, because it's always time for pizza!” That’s good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! And so is Drew 2’s answer, “Undeniable proof that Trekkies existed as far back as the dark ages.” Congratulations to both! Get the answers to all the mystery objects of the week at The What Is It? blog.

Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?

A set of soccer games is to be organized in a round robin (e.g. every team plays a match against each other one time). If 45 games are played, how many teams participated?

Think you know the answer? Find out at Pzzlr!

Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

Meet Jonah Bixby

(Image credit: Flickr user Public Information Office, City of Marietta, GA)

The art gallery owner sat in a folding chair in the interview room. He looked bruised and nervous as Detective Carol Bixby sat across from him and listened to his story.

"I just closed up the gallery for the night," he told her. "We had a lot of cash in the register, very unusual for us. I wanted to get the money to the bank as soon as possible."

"So you drove over to Beaverton Federal Bank," Detective Bixby prodded.

"That's right," the gallery owner confirmed. "They have a walk-up night depository."

"Did you notice that you were being followed?"

"No. Not until the other car pulled up and the guy got out. He was wearing a ski mask. I tried to get back in my car, but he was too fast. He pulled a knife, like a hunting knife, and demanded the deposit bag."

"You shouldn't have resisted," Carol said. "You could have been killed."

The owner winced and nodded. "I guess it was just instinct. I swung the bag at him. But somehow he managed to stab me." He pointed to his right thigh. His pants were torn in a bloody slit, and under the slit was a flesh wound, perfectly centered with the slashed fabric.

"Anyway," he continued, "I fell down screaming with pain. The guy took the bag and ran off."

"What did you do then?" Carol asked.

"I got to my car and grabbed a towel from the floor." He pointed to a hand towel, folded neatly in quarters, with a splotch of blood covering the right half. "Then I called 911 on my cell phone. Look, can I go to the hospital now and get this wound looked at?"

"No, I don't think so," Carol said and smiled.

The art gallery owner, otherwise known as Detective Peter Pauling, smiled back, then stood up and faced the one-way mirror. "All right, rookies. You've just seen an interview with yours truly as a robbery victim. What's your first impression?"

Hey look! It's time for our collaboration with the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Two winners who submit funny and/or clever (albeit ultimately wrong) answers will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

If you guess the correct answer, you'll get a big pat on the back.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

There is another picture of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: the mystery object is an ice cleat for attaching to the heel of a shoe. A handy item, no doubt, but we were looking for funny guesses. One of the best answers came from Berhard, who said,

This is obviously a tool-less mountable „space saver“ spare horseshoe... just enough to get you and your mustang to the next farrier... without the need to carry a forge and an anvil..
The wild west ancestor of the „limited use donut tyre“...

That’s good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But how does he make those upside-down quotes? The other great guess came from Randall:

Don't be put off by the seemingly crude appearence of this device, for without it the astronauts would have never reached the moon! This an artificial orange squeezer that was used to make Tang, the delicous vitamin packed space drink you can enjoy right here on earth, if you have a taste for watery sickly sweet orange colored sand. I can't describe exacltly how it worked, because thats still so classified, even Snowden won't tell us. I think it was fitted to a space boot, and the artificial orange was stomped on like they do grapes when they make wine.

Congratulations to both on such clever ideas! We’ll do it again next week. See the answer to all the mystery objects of the week at the What Is It? blog.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

The witch and the young Sherlock Holmes had just left their car in a parking lot and were making their way along Center Street toward the Detective Division's annual Halloween party.

"What if there's a homicide tonight?" Jonah asked with a chuckle. "Are the detectives all going to show up in costume?"

Carol whacked her son playfully with her broomstick. "That's right. Napoleon and Frankenstein will be on the case. And Sherlock Holmes, of course."

It was October 31, and a festive assortment of ghouls and ghosts strolled up and down the street. Adding to the spirit were the decorations—paper skeletons stapled to doors, comical tombstones. Jonah and his mother took a shortcut down a side alley on their way to the party. Jonah saw that someone on the third floor had placed a Dracula dummy in a chair on a balcony, with a stake through its heart.

"Mom," Jonah said, tugging on her sleeve. His face was suddenly ashen. "That's not a stake—it's a corkscrew. And that's not a dummy. It's a real man."

As they looked on, the door opened and a zombie and a gypsy woman stepped out onto the balcony. The gypsy woman smiled and touched the corpse on the shoulder, then took a closer look at the corkscrew. Her scream was piercing.

"Looks like we'll have to skip our own party," Detective Bixby told her son. "I don't even have time to take you home."

"That's okay," said Jonah, trying to act as though he didn't care. The only thing better than a Halloween party, in his mind, was a Halloween party with a real crime to solve.

His mother brought him up to the third-floor apartment, and they walked in on twenty costumed guests, all looking shocked and ready to leave. When the other officers arrived, Carol instructed them to take statements.

It's Thursday, so you know what it means, Neatoramanauts: it's time for the What Is It? Game, brought to you by the always amusing What Is It? Blog.

What is this thing in the pictures? Your guess is as good as mine! No, yours is better, because your guess can win you a free T-shirt of your choice from the NeatoShop! Here's how to play:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks.

You might know what this item is, but if you want to win a t-shirt, you'll have to use your imagination, because we are going to select two winners who give us the funniest incorrect guesses. If you guess right, then good for ya - but you don't win anything, mmkay? So, it's up to you, funny people: you have twice the chance of winning that T-shirt now.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. We highly suggest you take a look at the NeatoShop's new selection of Funny T-shirts and Science T-Shirts.

Visit the What Is It? Blog to see an addition picture. Then make your funniest guess!

Update: the mystery item is a dock worker's tool for moving burlap wrapped bales. That’s neat, but you had even neater made-up answers! Happycrab had a good one: “Oh come on! This one's too easy - everyone knows it's a spoon for Klingon gagh. You need the spines to keep it from wriggling off.” Unfortunately, happycrab did not specify a t-shirt. Bo Culjan said it was “a reverse-shoehorn - a tool for yanking your heel out of that shoe you put on with a shoehorn.” That wins him a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! See the answers to all the items of the week at the What Is It? blog.

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr user AtavicArt)

Detective Carol Bixby did her best not to bring Jonah to murder scenes. But sometimes it couldn't be avoided, like today. They had been at the mall, happily buying supplies for the new school year, when the call came in. Judge Roberta Morton had been found shot to death in her home.

"This is really bad," Carol kept repeating as she raced out to the murder scene, screeching around corners with a red, flashing bubble attached to her car roof.

Jonah found himself belted into the passenger seat, along for the furious ride. "Why is it bad?" he asked.

"Judge Morton had been receiving anonymous death threats. She was under police protection until today."

"And she gets killed the same day?" Jonah whistled. "Wow. That is bad."

Jonah and his mother arrived at the secluded country house and entered through a side door. A crime-scene team was already on the premises, along with Carol's partner, Detective Peter Pauling. He said hello to them both and quickly brought them up to speed.

"Dr. Morton was the last person to see his wife alive." They eyed a tall, angular man in hospital scrubs sitting on a sofa, his head buried in his hands. "This morning, he says, was like any other morning." Pauling looked over his notes. "Morton is a surgeon. He's up at six every day and out of the house by 6:30. Judge Morton gets up around seven. She makes coffee and then sits down and watches the morning news."

Carol Bixby crossed to the television. It was still on, and a technician was dusting it and nearly everything else for prints. There were slippers in front of a comfortable-looking chair and a cup of cold coffee on an end table.

"Did anyone hear the shot?" Carol asked.

It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you make up something wonderfully wacky? That's what we're looking for: the funniest and most creative guesses. We will award t-shirts from the NeatoShop to two commenters who post the cleverest, funniest, or most outlandish uses for this thing!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. You have until Friday evening to come up with great guesses.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, see? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Now, you don't have to know the answer to win! Go see another picture of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: this odd tool is a Crandall hammer, it's a stone dressing tool made from several sharpened spikes which are held together with a frame and wedge. It was used to roughen the face of cut stone so that mortar would adhere to it. You learn something new every day! Erin Geddes guessed it was "For when you need to repair or make comfort adjustments on your bed of nails." Ha! That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! So was Edward's guess: "Neatorama's Ban Hammer." Yeah, this would be a good tool for that! Congratulations to both. See the answers to all the items of the week at the What Is It? blog.