Careful…

by Jonathan Wood

DISCLAIMER: The story below uses the names of real celebrities. If you think any of the events portrayed even vaguely resemble real events, please contact me—I have a magic lamp to sell you.

Eventually they found me. The media. I figured they would sooner or later, what with everything that had been going on. So I explained to them about the lamp, and about the genie and the three wishes. And I explained about how my first impulse had been to wish for the general selfish things that everyone thinks of, but then how I’d thought about it a bit and done what I think most people would really do if they’d been in that situation.

First I wished for lasting world peace.

Second, I wished for the eradication of all diseases and ailments.

“What about the third wish?” asked Dan Rather, who seemed to be the ringleader.

“I haven’t decided what to do with it yet,” I said. Which was true.

Things got rather ugly after that.

Matt Lauer started smashing my stuff with a baseball bat he’d brought. Crash. Crash. Crash.

“You better wish it back, you bastard!” Keith Olberman shouted.

Bill O’Reilly was sobbing into his hands, just repeating “I’m doing pet detective segments,” over and over.

“Wish it back!” They took up the chant, started advancing on me. “Wish it back!”

“You have any idea what you’ve done to my ratings?” Larry King had a knife.

In retrospect, of course, I should have turned them all into chickens or something, made them feel inner peace. I don’t know exactly, something. But I panicked. Katie Couric had a very vicious looking cleaver and kept letting out short yelps. And, yeah, I panicked. And I put it all back.

So that’s how that all went down, and how things all got messed up so bad again. Of course, nobody in the news is letting me get my story out, which is why I’m putting it here. I guess I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I guess I wanted someone to know.