A Houston construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a Norwegian. "I'm not hiring any Norwegians, the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a test to avoid hiring the Norwegian without getting into an argument.
"Here's your first question," the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."
"Without numbers?" The Norwegian says. "Dat is easy," and proceeds to draw three trees.
"What's this?" the boss asks.
"'Ave you got no brain? Tree and tree and tree make nine," says the Norwegian.
"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."
The Norwegian stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "'Ere you go."
The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"
"Each of da trees is dirty now! So it's d! irty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree. Dat is 99."
The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire this Norwegian, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."
The Norwegian 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!" The Norwegian leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree, and says, "A little dog come along and crap by each tree.
So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which make one hundred. So when I start?"