It happened once upon a time that Mullah Nasruddin’s wife needed some things from the pharmacy, and she asked Nasruddin to go and pick them up.

“But I know you, husband,” she said. “If I don”t give you a list you will come back with the wrong things, or perhaps with nothing at all.”

Accordingly, she wrote her needs on a piece of paper and gave it to her husband. He obediently put it in his pocket, placed his turban on his head, and set out in the direction of the pharmacy.

When he got there, the pharmacist greeted him warmly, for they were old friends, and soon they were deep in conversation over a cup of tea. After a time, though, the pharmacist asked, “But tell me, Mullah – perhaps I am neglecting my duties. May I serve you with something today?”

“Yes,” said Nasruddin. “I have a list. Just a minute.” And he began to look in his pockets for the paper his wife had given him: first in one pocket, and then in another, each time with no results, and with every empty pocket his face grew longer. At last, he gave his friend a look of defeat. “I can’t find it.”

But the pharmacist was a very observant man. “Mullah,” he said, “I have seen that there is one pocket you have not looked in. Perhaps it is in your inside jacket pocket.”

“You are right,” said Nasruddin, “but that pocket is the last possibility, and if I look there and don’t find the list, I will have to give up hope entirely!”