Mulla Nasruddin awoke one morning and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to five. Unable to go back to sleep, he went to the front door to get his newspaper. On the front page he saw the date: May 5th.
“Oh, fifth day, fifth month, five minutes before five,” he thought. “Today will be my lucky day!”
He decided to go to the horse races, so he got dressed and went to the corner to wait for the bus. Soon it came — it had the number five, and Nasruddin noticed when he boarded that there were three other passengers, the driver and himself — five in all.
He arrived at the track and waited for the fifth race. He bet five hundred rupees on number five to win — his horse came in fifth!