Back To The Queer Future #3: Xolo Shenanigans

Photo in feature image by Bettman via Getty Images

You wake in a walled garden, overlooked by a bright house painted cobalt blue, a shade darker than the cloudless sky overhead. Inside the house, you see a woman with a lush monobrow stood at an easel, pondering a half-finished painting of naked women surrounded by slightly suggestive vines. It’s Frida Kahlo! It looks like Frida is having some serious trouble with her painting, probably because there’s a ruckus outside the garden walls from what sounds like an army of barking dogs.

You see Frida slam down her paintbrush and dash out through the garden to the streets beyond. You follow behind her and watch as Frida pets a variety of stray dogs roaming the streets of her well-to-do corner of Mexico City. Frida decides that she must rescue as many of the dogs as she can, so she can house them in comfort of her basement in Casa Azul. Then maybe they’ll stop barking and she can concentrate on her art!

Frida Kahlo sits in a window seat holding one of her dogs, gazing out wistfully

Photo by Bettman via Getty Images

Can you help Frida round up the dogs so she can get back to finishing her classic queer painting Two Nudes in a Forest?

There are 3 breeds of Mexican dogs roaming the streets: xoloitzcuintlis (aka xolos, which are Frida’s faves), chihuahuas and chamucos.

You know that:

  • A xolo and a chamuco together weigh 18kg
  • A xolo and chihuahua together weigh 10kg
  • A chamuco and chihuahua together weigh 12kg

The floor in the Casa Azul basement can hold 96kg. Frida wants to rescue at least one of each breed, and as many xolos as she can, without breaking the floor!

What’s the maximum number of dogs Frida can rescue?

Scroll to the bottom of the page after submitting to check if you got it right!

If you need help, enter hint into the answer box!

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Listen to an audio file of Nicole describing the puzzle below:

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Sally

Sally lives in the UK. Her work has been featured in a Korean magazine about queer people and their pets, and a book about haunted prisons. She never intended for any of this to happen.

Sally has written 81 articles for us.

10 Comments

      • Thank you for your encouragement! Math is not my strong suit either, but using allll the hints I managed to get it right eventually and feel very accomplished :3

  2. This was a fun one! I like math puzzles. I love this whole puzzle series, what a treat! (and I’m enjoying figuring them all out on the dot grid pages of my new Gay Agenda journal!)

  3. MATH!!! Love it! Although that was 3 too many chihuahuas for me. I would be all about the chamucos, though!

  4. Whoever says algebra isn’t useful in everyday life obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about!

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