The Traveling Journeyman and the Three Wishes

A weary journeyman, having shown kindness to an old beggar who was secretly a powerful spirit in disguise, was granted three wishes as a reward, told he could ask for absolutely anything his heart desired.

Exhausted and hungry after a long day's walk, he sat down to rest and, without thinking, muttered irritably, "I wish I had a sausage to eat right now." Instantly, a sausage appeared before him. His wife, furious that he had wasted such a precious wish on something so trivial, snapped angrily, "You fool, I wish that sausage were stuck to your nose!" And instantly, it was, fixed there firmly no matter how hard either of them pulled and tugged.

With only one wish remaining and a sausage now permanently attached to his face, the couple had no real choice left at all — they used their final, most valuable wish simply to remove the sausage, ending exactly where they had started, save for one satisfying meal already eaten. The couple, humbled by their own carelessness, understood too late that even the most extraordinary gift, handled thoughtlessly in a moment of irritation, can be squandered entirely before its true value is ever realized.