Warning: Genies Are Bastards

Genies, leprechauns, and the like are sneaky, devious little bastards. I learned this from a Twilight Zone episode I saw when I was a little kid. Who says TV isn't edifying?

These three teenaged friends caught a leprechaun (what he was doing out of Ireland is anyone's guess) and made him grant them each a wish. The first kid wished for what I would probably have wished for when I was 13, x-ray vision. Why did he want x-ray vision? To check out girls' underwear, of course. What were you thinking? Well, at first the x-ray vision works swimmingly, but then as he focuses, panties give way to skin and then skin gives way to internal organs. The little perv gets sick and faints (also what probably would have happened to me at 13).

The second kid wishes that his parents will do only what he commands them to do. Not a bad wish, I suppose. His wish quickly goes awry when he has to tell them how to do everything. To make a pizza, he has to tell them in excruciating detail to first open the freezer then remove the pizza then unwrap the pizza then turn on the oven then put the pizza in the oven...you get the point.

The last kid wishes for a hot car and a kick ass limo pulls up complete with a driver. They go tear assing around town and soon get pulled over. The driver disappears and the three kids are arrested for driving a stolen car. Get it? "Hot car?" And that's the problem with genies and/or leprechauns. They're always trying to teach you some moral lesson about greed or self-centeredness.

My buddy Barrett reminded me of this on a six hour drive back from a casino in Shreveport, LA (that's another story altogether) after we had listened to R. Kelly's Ignition remix twelve too many times and needed something else to occupy our time.

"If you got one wish from a genie, what would it be?" He asked.

"Hmmm...not sure. You?" I replied.

"I'd wish for the ability to throw a 100mph fastball. That would take care of the money, fame, and women thing. I mean, if you're throwing that kind of smoke, you're gonna play in The Bigs."

He'd clearly wrestled with this important question many times before.

"Good wish," I responded.

There was a long pause while I was thinking of my wish and then Barrett broke the silence.

"Fucking genies. I take that back. I'd wish for the ability to throw a controlled, left-handed, 100mph fastball in a healthy, pain free way for at least ten years. Genies are always trying to teach you some ridiculous lesson and if I just wish for the fastball I'm not gonna be able to hit the broad side of a barn and I'll need Tommy Johns surgery after one pitch."

So true. Damned genies.

A couple of days ago another buddy of mine said he'd wish for a ludicrously wealthy wife so he could be a kept man and coach high school football for fun. I may have saved him a good deal of future misery when I cautioned him about genies and their mischievous lesson teaching.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "Seriously, you've gotta be careful jumping the gun like that. It's a good wish, but no genie is going to pass up the opportunity to make your wealthy wife hideously ugly and/or annoying, dumb as a stump, self-centered, unfaithful, abusive, prone to divorce you immediately, or all about a pre-nup. You've gotta think these things through."

"You're right," he said. "Fucking genies."

So let this be a lesson. Genies and leprechauns are wily and dastardly moral pedants. Take caution and really think through any wishes you might be tempted to make right out of the shoot. You've got time. Don't waste that wish.

You're welcome.