Talking Genie

Tuesday at the thrift shop my wife and I bought a mysterious-looking bottle. Why, you ask? It's what we do. We go around to cheap stores buying inexpensive junk that we don't need. It satisfies our shopping instinct without breaking our tiny budget.

Wednesday morning my wife yelled for me to get in the kitchen quick. She had been cleaning the bottle, she said, and when she uncorked it... HE appeared!

I stared at the half-naked man sitting at our kitchen table. I say half-naked, but I suppose shirtless would be a fairer word to use. Or to be specific, all he was wearing was a pair of what looked like ladies purple silk trousers and a yellow turban. No shirt, no shoes. He bowed toward me and said, "Vud iz yer vizh, muzter?"

It took me a moment to figure out what was going on but when I did I yelled it at my wife. "Holy Smokes! That's a genie in a bottle! Now we get three wishes! We'll be rich!"

Her mouth fell open. "A genie? He was in the bottle? That's impossible. How can a man fit in a bottle?"

"He's not a man! He's a genie!"

I addressed Mister Barechest. "Am I right? Are you not a genie?"

"Vud iz uh genie?" he said. "I um uh vizhkiver. Vud iz yer vizh?"

"See?!" I said.

My wife was skeptical. "What did he say? You could understand that gibberish? I think you're hearing what you want to hear and I think he is a tramp that snuck in my back door. Get out of here, you tramp, or I will call the police!"

The genie flinched back from her verbal assault, much like I often do. I grabbed her arm. "Wait, will you! This is a genie. Don't you understand what that means?"

"I think it means you've gone bananas," she said, grabbing her broom and raising it threateningly at the genie.

"Pleuze ne hit!" he said. "I vill ge buck in the bettle."

"Noooooo!" I wailed, but he vanished in a puff of smoke.

I looked at my wife who had just recorked the bottle. "Thank God!" she said. "Lord keep us safe from the demons."

"That was no demon! That was our ticket to paradise. Let him out so we can have our wishes. Darn it, woman! Don't you want to be wealthy? No more thrift shop shopping for us! We'll go to Sears!"

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. "That was a demon. Couldn't you tell he was speaking Demon Tongue?"

"What the heck is Demon Tongue?"

She pointed at our television. "If you paid attention when I watched my shows you would know." Her "shows" were an assortment of psychic and religious channels. I myself am too practical for that "other world" stuff.

I reached for the bottle. "That was no Demon Tongue. That was Genie Talk. He promised us the world and you gave him the broom."

She smiled triumphantly. "What profits a man that he gain the world if he loses his soul?"

"He didn't ask for my soul in trade! He was offering a free wish! Give me that bottle!"

"No!" she yelled. And then, so typical of my life, in the ensuing struggle for the possession of the bottle it slipped from our grasp, fell to the floor, and shattered.

Once again my genie appeared. He made a deep bow. "Thunk yee. I um free new. Huve uh geed life." Then he vanished for real and for good.

As my wife swept up the remains of the bottle she said, "Good thing we only paid a dollar for that bottle at the thrift shop."

"Yes," I said, feeling my usual weariness. "Good thing."


WORD COUNT: 650