Sometimes, a change of perspective is all you need to solve a good riddle. Can you adopt the right mindset?

Riddles start out fun. Although, let’s face it, they can get super frustrating super fast. Possibly, they’ll take over your entire life.

We’ve all been there. A person gives you a riddle that you think can be completed in just a few seconds. Next thing you know, it’s hours later. Damn, you’re still mulling it over in your head, trying to make some kind of connection between things you don’t often associate as being similar.

Well, that’s exactly what happened with this brain teaser written on a sign outside of a cafe:

A young woman photographed this riddle and posted it online. She said that it really screwed with her head, but it’s not just her.

The riddle then went far and wide.

In no time, it had gained hundreds of thousands of shares and tens of thousands of reactions.

People from all corners of the globe were trying to piece the answer together.

Some thought they were making progress, only to end up back at square one. You may be doing the same thing now:

“Is it something to do with religion?”

“Could it be different kinds of water?”

“Eh, is the answer hidden by writing out the first letter of every sentence of this article and forming the letters into their own sentence?”

Sadly, the answers to those questions are no, no and no (sorry if you went back to the start of this article and wrote out the first letter of each sentence. At least now you know what it spells out. It still has nothing to do with the answer.)

But what’s the answer to the question on the sign? If that’s what you’re thinking, then you need to look at that sign again. Because there is no question on the sign.

“Of course there is,” you may be thinking. But where’s the question mark? There is none, because the sign is actually making three statements. Yes, what has four letters. Yes, sometimes has nine letters. And yes, never has five letters.

All the sign is doing is making that clear for you. If your brain melted with frustration, then that’s entirely your own fault.

What’s the moral of the story? There is none. It’s just a sign. But if you want one, then you could use this to always remember the importance of spelling and punctuation.

People online have had mixed reactions to figuring out this particular riddle.

They have been saying things like this:

This sign belongs to Inversnecky Cafe, located in Aberdeen, Scotland.

And this isn’t the only brainteaser that the cafe has posted. Here is another beauty:

Clearly, whoever it is who works at the cafe and writes out these sayings has all the makings of a criminal mastermind.

It’s good news that they’ve found this outlet for their talent, as opposed to, say, world domination. Although, if the crime of the century does take place within a couple of hundred miles of this cafe, we’ll all know who was behind it. These signs are the only evidence a jury needs.

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Source: Lacey Read-Cue, Inversnecky Cafe, Buzzfeed