Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go????

This might make you question your math skills.

When you get to $27, the $2 dollars need to be subtracted, not added. Thus you get $25, which is what the owner charged.

Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go????
they each paid a lil over 9 dollars to be exact they paid 9.33333333 and that would make the cost of the room 28 dollars 30-5=25+3= 28 the dollar missng is the change!?

Let's look at the equation you wrote in parts.

30 - 5 = 25 <--- this is how much the owner was paid in the end.
25 + 3 = <--- makes no sense, as it tries to bring together what the owner was paid with what goes back to the payers.

They paid originally 30 (10 each). They got back 3 bucks. That makes it 27, not 28.

The problem is that the $2 need to be subracted from 27, not added to make sense.

they each paid a lil over 9 dollars to be exact they paid 9.33333333 and that would make the cost of the room 28 dollars 30-5=25+3= 28 the dollar missng is the change!?

Let's look at the equation you wrote in parts.

30 - 5 = 25 <--- this is how much the owner was paid in the end.
25 + 3 = <--- makes no sense, as it tries to bring together what the owner was paid with what goes back to the payers.

They paid originally 30 (10 each). They got back 3 bucks. That makes it 27, not 28.

The problem is that the $2 need to be subracted from 27, not added to make sense.

EXACTLY!! :). Molodets!

they each paid a lil over 9 dollars to be exact they paid 9.33333333 and that would make the cost of the room 28 dollars 30-5=25+3= 28 the dollar missng is the change!?

LOL LOL .... :lolb: Talk about clueless..