While the speaker of the post X-mas celebration was talking about the miraculous nights surrounding the birth of the baby Jesus, I couldn't help myself of thinking about the parallel scenes in the Life of Brian. Oh, the blasphemous me. :p

Well, anyway, last Saturday, I happened to wake up in time for this one fun show on a public radio. It is still entertaining to listen to the Brothers Magliozzi bantering and discussing automobile related problems with the call in audiences.

The following is one of their newest puzzlers. Think you know the answer? No Googling allowed. ;)

RAY: John and Mary are married. They agree to go out to dinner with four other married couples. So, there are five couples, or ten people, altogether.

They arrive at the restaurant, and, because there are some people who don't know other people, there are some handshakes that take place, and introductions. Anyone who doesn't know somebody will shake hands with that person. People will not shake hands with anyone they already know, and, of course, you don't shake hands with your own spouse.

TOM: Unless you're meeting her for the first time.

RAY: Right. At the end of the dinner, John asks all the people there, including his own wife, how many hands each of them shook.
He gets the following answers: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8.
There are 9 other people there, and they give him 9 different answers.

Here's the question: How many hands did John's wife Mary shake?
Now it may seem that you don't have anywhere near enough information to solve this problem. But you do.