How to Make Wishes with Your Magical Genie

Yeah... no, genies are not gonna be like this. Disney's full of it. Believe you me.

In the interest of writing an astoundingly impractical, nearly useless how-to, I have decided to share my thoughts on how one is to make wishes. We've all, I think, had fantasies about what we might wish if we, like our buddy Aladdin, found a magical genie. We might have wished to have a box of calorie-free chocolates that never goes empty, a yacht, and the cure for cancer. What we don't think about is that the box of chocolates is left on our kitchen table, which is then crushed under the yacht the genie drops there--along we you! And he put the cure for cancer rolls out of your blood hand into the eager paws of an exploring squirrel, never to be seen again. In other words, genies are jerks and not to be trusted. There's no reason to think otherwise. So there you go: it's a scientific fact. That's why when you make your wishes, you have to beat them by carefully laying out the terms. Even if your genie is a good genie, he could still be stupid and screw everything up. Trust me, it doesn't always turn out like a Disney cartoon. I've seen genie experiences that'll put hair on your chest and turn it white.

You're thinking, "Oh, this'll be fun, I'll just wish for--" Let me stop you right there, Lucy, cause I have some 'splainin' to do! You don't just dive into your wishes. Good heavens, no! You have to think, think! If your first wish is for one of every animal, then where are all your cages? You'd have to wish for the cages first! Think! Now for your first wish, because you just don't know how big a jerk your genie is, you have to make yourself indestructible somehow. You gotta make sure you can't die. Protect yourself, folks.

That's why my first wish would be for indestructibility. Don't just say that, though! Genies thrive on stupid wishes like that. He'll say to himself, "Haha, okay, I'll make you a proton!" (What an ass!) Nuh-uh, none of that. Here's what we'll have to do. We'll have to stipulate the implications of indestructibility. It'll seem like making a whole bunch of wishes at once, but it's not: indestructibility is a pretty nebulous word and if you don't give it definitions, he'll never get it. So of course you keep your present form. That's important. No turning you into a diamond statue or something. Okay, the next thing is to explain just how it's going to work. It means, for instance, I can't age. Because if I age, right, that's cellular damage. That's not indestructibility at all! So no aging. The negative side is that I can't lose or gain weight, build or lose muscle. And certainly no plastic surgery--what knife can cut me? So I'm stuck looking like this forever.

If I'm hit by a bus, what'll you think will happen? That's right, I won't be hurt at all. Not a cut, not a bruise. BUT! I will go flying. I'm not superheavy, just indestructible. If I were superheavy, I could never go ice skating. And here's a scientific fact: every single year, there is a 1/200 chance you'll decide to take up ice skating. Since I'll be living well over 200 years, I'll certainly take up ice skating eventually. So I don't want to be heavy. Besides, that'd take another wish.

If I get chucked out of a boat in the middle of the ocean--it could happen--I can sink down to the bottom of the ocean and just walk around down there. The tons of pressure won't harm me at all. I don't even have to breathe! Breathing is something I can do if I want to on land, but I don't have to do it. I'm indestructible. If I hold my breath, I'll be fine. My body'll just keep working anyway. So maybe the genie'll have to make it so that my body either doesn't need oxygen or can make its own or something. But I certainly can't have brain damage and I shouldn't even pass out. Because if I'm on the ocean floor and I pass out, I'll have to wait down there until someone finds me and fish will be laying eggs in my nose and stuff.

If I get chucked into outer space without a space suit--it could happen--I can just float around out there. I won't suffer decompression, of course. Nor do I have to breathe. And the extreme cold of outer space won't affect me. My cells can't freeze, after all. Even if I get sent directly into the sun, I'll be fine. Won't even get a tan. Won't even hurt my eyes. I'll just be like, "Oh yeah, I'm in the sun."

The problem is, if someone puts cement on my feet before chucking me in the ocean, or I get caught in the gravity of the sun, or somebody chucks me into lava or wet concrete or quicksand, I'll be stuck! I'll be alive and unhurt, but it'll be really boring getting stuck there forever. So I'll have to have some second ability to get me out of those jams.

You see how the second wish just flows out of your first? And the first was necessary if you didn't want to be cheated by that genie. So there's two wishes used up just to make sure you can make your third wish safe. But anyway, them's the rules, so without further ado, let's get to this second wish.

You have to be able to teleport anywhere you want whenever you want. But, y'know what?, I haven't a clue how that would work. I mean, there are places you've actually been to, so you know what they're like. And there are places you can actually see, so you can just teleport there, 'cause you see it. But how does the magic teleportation ability know exactly where you want to go? See, it doesn't make any sense. If you think, "I want to go to Brazil," well, where in Brazil? If you've never been there, how do you know? You might just say the biggest city you know, but where in that city? It's like your brain will have to have some graphical interface with dropdown menus that you can click through to find where you want to go. But that'd be cumbersome and really inefficient. It should be like moving your arm. You don't think, "Move arm" and then your arm moves. You just do it, Boom, like that. Except without the boom sound, usually.

It also seems you'd need some sort of coordinate system. But that would require a graphical interface again! Or it would require you to keep way too much information in your brain. I mean, we're not talkin' just earth here! If you want to teleport to some distant star, you can do that! After all, you're indestructible now. You should also be able to have a point that you call 'home' and you can just POOF appear there safely whenever you like--except without that poof sound.

So I don't know how that would work, but you just have to explain all of this to the genie so HE knows just what it is you're looking to be able to do and that you really don't want to have a graphical interface in your brain. Then you let him make the arrangements. He's the magic one.

Okay, now you can finally wish for anything you want. It should probably be something selfless, or I think people will generally think ill of you until the end of time. That would suck. But if it's a genie who specifically says, "Oh yeah, you can only wish for stuff for yourself," then you shouldn't feel guilty. Also, just out of courtesy, ask, "Can I free the genie?" He'll tell you, y'know, "This isn't Disney, moron!" and you'll be thinking, "Up yours, pal, I was just trying to be nice."

So if your third wish is a selfish one, it's up to you, but I think for me I'd really like to get anything I want off eBay instantly. It's important that it be the real item, though, and not some magically-produced duplicate. Also, I don't want to take the item without paying, because I don't like to steal, right? The genie's going to have to give me some way of producing money out of thin air, then. But it has to be in a way that won't negatively affect the economy, because I don't want to cause severe inflation just because I went crazy on eBay one night.

So there you go, be careful what you wish for and remember: THINK!