Riddle time!

[JoB]

J15: Imagine you are at a store at closing time. Suddenly the lights go out - you have accidentally been locked in! All doors and windows are locked and there’s also a locked grille over them. You have no phone. How do you get out?

JoB, you don't have any phone at all and emergency exits don't open either (they are locked for the night because there's nobody in!). Try again

... let me work through a couple edge conditions, just in case:

• I'm not the night guard and going to get out after my shift, and "just wait 'til the store opens again" isn't the solution otherwise, either?
• I'm not a cat or otherwise going to fit through the grille/vents/mail slot, and there's no trapdoor or skylight or other nonorthodox exit I can use?
• The store getting closed indicates that the surroundings are pretty much deserted as well? No parade with marching bands and whatnot taking place right in front of the shop widows?
• I'm not myself, i.e., a technician who carries enough tools all the time to get the occasional lock open without a key (but I shall keep hold of the flashlight that makes "the lights go out" mostly a nonproblem! )?
• ... much less am I pulling a Rififi and going to dig a tunnel into a nearby bank with the three metric tons of power tools I somehow snuck into the shop?

Edit to add:

• I'm not staff of the shop and the dingus who locked the doors and shut the lights (in that order ... ?) just forgot me announding to do some after-hours work?
• The shop wouldn't happen to sell something I can use for my escape (tools, cars, jetpacks, teraport cages, explosives, ...), would it?

(Maybe I could ask JoB - that's also locked inside with the rest of us - if he also carries matches in his utility belt )

(Nope. Never smoked, never found a lighter that would promise to still work after months or years on a keychain or somesuch, never had any other need for fire that would've prompted me to carry a stash of matches. By now, I have a standard lighter in the car for my weekly visit to the graveyard, but that's it.)

[thegreyarea]

J15: Imagine you are at a store at closing time. Suddenly the lights go out - you have accidentally been locked in! All doors and windows are locked and there’s also a locked grille over them. You have no phone. How do you get out?

All things considered I'd say, as others before, that...

Spoiler: show

I'd get out when the store opens again.

But since that's not the right answer, and if you really need to get out fast and has no way to force your exit, then...

Spoiler: show

Start a fire? It's a desperate measure, but probably the alarm would work and I would be rescued... hopefully before dying!

(it would be even better if I can trigger the fire alarm without a real fire. Maybe I could ask JoB - that's also locked inside with the rest of us - if he also carries matches in his utility belt )

[Jitter]

Sorry guys you are still in the shop

[thorny]

J15: Imagine you are at a store at closing time. Suddenly the lights go out - you have accidentally been locked in! All doors and windows are locked and there’s also a locked grille over them. You have no phone. How do you get out?

Spoiler: show

Isn't there a fire alarm that can be pulled without setting a fire? (Might have to pay a fine to the fire department, though.)

How about an emergency fire exit that's only capable of locking from the outside?

Is there an accessible light switch? Blink the lights on and off SOS.

I think somebody already said this, but isn't there a store phone?

Is there anybody going past the windows, even occasionally? Stand in a window and beat on the glass whenever somebody goes by. Or blink SOS with a flashlight if we've got one or if the store does. Or make a fuss in front of a security camera.

Did I leave a car parked out in the lot, and am I close enough to it for my keys to set off its alarms? (last in the list because I've never seen anybody do anything about somebody else's car alarm going off besides swear at it)

[JoB]

Sorry guys you are still in the shop

... or am I? (As a mathematician, I can define my side of the walls to be "the outside", as they're topologically equivalent. )

(As a more serious sidenote, considering that real shops will sometimes keep a professional burglar from getting back out until the police arrives and helps him out, I seriously doubt that there is any realistic universal get-out-of-a-locked-shoppe method.)

Spoiler: in other news ... • show

.. I just notice that the riddle says that I'm at the shop, not in the shop. Have I been "locked in"to something other than the shop, say, the gate at the parking lot's vehicle exit is now closed? In that case, I just walk out and fetch my car the next morning ...

[muidole]

J15:

Spoiler: show

Maybe if you're imagining that you are locked at the store, you can just stop imagining that you are locked inside, thus "getting out"? So basically imagine that you are outside of the store rather than locked inside? Or stop imagining at all? But this would be a very literal take on the riddle so I doubt it  :'D

[scottishnottish]

J15:

Spoiler: show

Maybe if you're imagining that you are locked at the store, you can just stop imagining that you are locked inside, thus "getting out"? So basically imagine that you are outside of the store rather than locked inside? Or stop imagining at all? But this would be a very literal take on the riddle so I doubt it  :'D

I was about to say this same thing.
 

Spoiler: show

just stop imagining?

[Jitter]

CeilingFan and Scottish, congratulations! You have saved the Minnions from the Shop of Doom!

[scottishnottish]

CeilingFan and Scottish, congratulations! You have saved the Minnions from the Shop of Doom!

Hah I only knew because I heard a very similar riddle growing up

Spoiler: show

something along the lines of "imagine you're in a room with no windows, no doors, and the walls go up forever. How do you get out?"

[Yastreb]

I was thinking of using the age-old method.

I rub my hands until they're sore.
I use the saw to cut a table in half.
Two halves make a whole, so I crawl through the hole.

(Of course it's better verbally, but hey...)

[scottishnottish]

I was thinking of using the age-old method.

I rub my hands until they're sore.
I use the saw to cut a table in half.
Two halves make a whole, so I crawl through the hole.

(Of course it's better verbally, but hey...)

Ahh, I'm from the U.S. so it took me a minute to figure out sore/saw must be an accent thing, here they're pronounced very differently! Our version includes a mirror in the room, and the answer is "I look in the mirror to see what I saw"

[Mirasol]

I and a few other people too I think really enjoyed that one logical riddle Grey posted a while ago. Since these kinds of riddles are a little underrepresented here so far, I googled a few (translated from German by me):

M1: Shopping

On the counter of a mall, five friends are waiting in line (Dana, Ingo, Jessica, Sören, Valerie). They are all of different ages (26, 27, 30, 33 and 35 years) and want to buy different kinds of shirts (button-up shirt, turtleneck, pullover, sweatshirt, regular shirt) for themselves. They all have different colors (blue, yellow, green, red, black) and different sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL).

Who is standing in what order, how old are they, what are they buying and in what color and size? ("first" person is the one standing the closest to the counter. Nobody else is waiting in line.)

- Dana wants to buy a shirt in the size XL, and stands closer to the counter as the person who wants to buy a black shirt.
- Jessica stands directly in front of the person who wants to buy a turtleneck.
- The second person in line wants to buy a yellow shirt.
- The regular shirt isn´t red.
- Sören wants to buy a sweatshirt. The person right in front of him is older than the person right behind him.
- Ingo wants to buy a shirt in the size L.
- The last person in line is 30 years old.
- The oldest person wants to buy the shirt in the smallest size.
- The person directly behind Valerie wants to buy a red shirt, bigger than size S.
- The youngest person wants to buy a yellow shirt.
- Jessica wants to buy a button-up shirt.
- The third person in line wants to buy a shirt in the size M.
- The turtleneck is either red, yellow or green.

M2: trapped at the stake (this one might be quite popular, I think I heard it before...)

Three people got kidnapped and handcuffed to three stakes while blindfolded. The stakes are standing in a line. Now, the blindfolds are removed. Their kidnapper tells them:

the first one of you sees no other stake, the one in the middle only the stake of the first one, and the last one only the stakes of those in front of him. I have five stakes in total, two of them are red, and three of them are black. Those of you who can correctly guess their stake´s color will be set free. If your guess is wrong, you will be killed.

After five minutes, the person right in the front shouts: "My stake is black!" He is released. How did he know his stake´s color?

M3: The princess in the lake (this one´s a little mathmatical)

One day, a princess decided to go for a swim in the circular lake far away from her father´s castle. As soon as she was in the water, a witch appeared to try and kidnap the girl.
The princess quickly swam into the middle of the lake to think of an escape-plan. She noticed four things:

- The witch can´t go into the water (but I can´t stay in the water, or else I will drown)
- The witch can walk four times as fast as I can swim
- The witch always tries to stay as close to me as possible
- On land I am faster than the witch

How did the princess escape?

[RanVor]

M2: trapped at the stake (this one might be quite popular, I think I heard it before...)

Three people got kidnapped and handcuffed to three stakes while blindfolded. The stakes are standing in a line. Now, the blindfolds are removed. Their kidnapper tells them:

the first one of you sees no other stake, the one in the middle only the stake of the first one, and the last one only the stakes of those in front of him. I have five stakes in total, two of them are red, and three of them are black. Those of you who can correctly guess their stake´s color will be set free. If your guess is wrong, you will be killed.

After five minutes, the person right in the front shouts: "My stake is black!" He is released. How did he know his stake´s color?

Just to get it out of the way, am I correct to assume that "betting on the 60% chance of guessing correctly" is not a valid answer?

[Mirasol]

Just to get it out of the way, am I correct to assume that "betting on the 60% chance of guessing correctly" is not a valid answer?

You are correct, it is not a valid answer.

[Jitter]

M2

Spoiler: show

The last person in the row didn’t yell black, which they would have if both of the stakes in front of them were red. So persons 1 and 2 know that the two stakes are either both black or red and black, i.e. there is at least one black among the two first ones. If the second person had thus seen the first stake is red, the second one would have known their stake is black.

So the first person knows that either both his and the person’s behind them stakes are black, or that his is black and the second one is red. In any case theirs is black.