Wishin'

    “What I wouldn’t give for a nice Hawaiian Pun-, OWE!” Jordan said, as he stubbed his foot walking down the beach.

    “What did you do?” Dan asked.

    “I stubbed my foot on something.” As Jordan bent over and dug an odd shaped object out of the sand, he said, “You know how I am trying to get to volunteer to clean up the beach? This is why.” He straightened up, turned the object over in his hands, and started to brush the sand off of it. He suddenly stopped.

    Dan reached for the object saying, “Let me see it. It looks like one of those lamps with a genie in it!”

    “Wait, what if it is? What if we get wishes? Sometimes genies try and push you in to making a decision. We need to think about it. They only give wishes in odd numbers. Most of the time it’s three, right? What if we only get one wish? It has to be good.”

    Dan said, “Wishes! Gotta always save one to wish for more wishes.”

    “More wishes? You have to be kidding me,” Jordan replied. “Those never work.”

    “How about all the money we would ever need?”

    “Are you dense?  He would plop a pile of money of us so big it would bury us. People would run up stealing money left and right. What we would need is a bag or a wallet that when opened would always have exactly the amount of money we would need for any situation.”

    “I still want a pile of money. Jordan, why did you say they always give wishes in odd numbers?”

    “If you make a bad choice with an even number of wishes you can always undo it with the second wish. An even number always allows for a chance to back out of your pervious wish. Let’s think on it.”

    As the two guys walk back down the beach, they saw a hot dog stand. Hot dogs were two dollars and thirteen cents. Jordan said, “Wouldn’t this be perfect for a wallet that always had correct change?”

    “I guess. I would still rather have a pile of money.”  As Dan said this he dove for the lamp, and sprinted down the beach. “I’m going to rub it!” he called back. Jordan ran after him. Dan started to rub the lamp as he ran. Slowly at first, but gradually got faster and more violent with his rubbing. He finally stopped running and applied all of his energy to rubbing the lamp. First with his hand, then his shirt, the inside of his shirt, the leg of his shorts, and finally Jordan’s shirt.

    “What a crock!” Dan said, as he cocked his arm back to throw the lamp into the ocean. “I wish this lamp didn’t exist!” He then threw the lamp as far as he could.

    A rumble shook the beach, and a deep voice boomed across the water, “If my home is destroyed, I too cease to exist. All of my previously granted wishes will cease to exist. Your wish, and my final wish has been granted.”

    Dan’s polyester swimming trunks disappeared. The hotdog stand disappeared. A plane in the distance took a nosedive into the ocean. The air became much warmer and the water level started to rise.

    Dan said, “Oops.”



-P