by Julia Tenney
Answer: DARK LANTERNS
Problem: April Fool’s Day

Solve the dinner bill.

  • The Braille instruction is INDEX ITEM NUMBER INTO ITEM FROM RIGHT.
  • The Morse code (UPC Symbol) instruction is SIXTH LETTER ROT BINARY.
  • The binary referred to is the dots between the items and the prices.

None of these seem useful yet, so look for other instructions. In the starting position of the items, the first letters spell “FIRST GO SORT BY PRICES.”

Sorting by the prices turns the rot-shifted letters into an instruction: “SUM DOLLARS WITH CENTS.” Another instruction is now findable as well. Indexing into each item by the item number reveals “SECOND SORT’S IN BINARY.”

After sorting by the binary values, the indexing from the right (from the Braille) now reads “SORT BY NINTH LETTER AZ.” The last letters of the items, indicated as something to read by the forced justification and “CABOOSE,” read “TAKE BINARY OFF THE SUM.”

Sort by the ninth letter. The doubled letters in each item (indicated by “‘DOUBLES’TREE”) read “DECODE NOS TO ELEMENTS.” Translate the numbers that resulted from subtracting binary from the sum of the dollars and cents by treating them as atomic numbers and converting to the elements’ symbols. This gives “NOW YOU CAN CALL IN DARK LANTERNS.”