Three men are lost in the desert with no supplies, when the devil appears before them.
The devil looks at their skin and bones, their cracked lips, and says, “I see you’re in a bit of a rough spot. I can help you - let’s play a little game. You each get one chance to name a task I can’t do. If you succeed, I’ll save you.”
The first man immediately replies, “I bet you can’t build a highway that goes around the entire world!”
The devil snaps his fingers, and instantly, a road appears that circles the globe. The first man expires on the spot from a mixture of thirst and despair.
The second man, looking at the corpse of his friend, thinks for a minute. He thinks of his job, his family, his friends, and the life he has to return to.
After spending some time drawing figures in the sand and doing some calculations, he hesitantly says, “There’s no possible way you can build a ladder that reaches space.” But the devil simply smirks and taps his pitchfork on the ground, and at once, a ladder to the stars appears. The second man perishes where he stands, muttering the name of his wife and children until his last breath.
The third and final man calmly looks at the bodies of his companions and sits down in the sand to brainstorm. He thinks of the time his spouse first kissed him, the moment he first saw his son, and the last words of his late father telling him how proud he was of him.
Having made up his mind, he quietly tells the devil, “First make a chair.” Puzzled, the devil creates a simple wooden chair.
“Next, poke 20 holes in it about an inch in diameter.” The devil follows these instructions. The man suddenly pulls down his pants, sits on the chair, and passes a loud fart.
As the devil looks on in amazement, the man stands up and asks “Which hole did I fart through?”
So the devil points to the hole three rows down, in the second column. “That one.” And sure enough, it is.
But the man smiles and bends over, pointing to his rear, and replies, “Wrong - I farted through this hole.”
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