An Italian man wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little math test. "Here's your first question," the foreman said.

"Without using numbers, represent the number 9."

"Without numbers?" the Italian says, "Datsa easy." and he proceeds to draw three trees.

"What's this?" the boss asks.

"Ave you got no brain? Tree and tree and tree makea nine," says the Italian.

"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."

The Italian stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Ere a you go."

The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99 ?"

"Each of da trees isa dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree. Dat is 99."


The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire this Italian, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."

The Italian stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere you go. One hundred."

The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"

(You're going to love this one!!!)

The Italian leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and says, "A little doga came along and crapa by eacha tree. So now you gota dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, datsa makea one hundred. So, when I'm a gonna start?"

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.