You meet/find a real-life genie, what do you ask him?

Which brings to mind the old Farside cartoon -------

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My question to the Genie: Why do you always give out ***three ***wishes? Why not two? Why not four? Why not seven?

I’d ask what the djinn wishes for.

ETA: Djinn, No Chaser. I liked the story better, but I could only find the video.

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Obligatory Orange Head Joke mention

Are you one of those evil genies that turns my wishes into nightmares?

Or are you the good kind where my wishes turn out to be awesome?

How the Fresh Hell did you get into that little lamp?
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Fun Fact: Although that video was from Tales From The Darkside, it came from a Harlan Ellison story first published in 1982…in The Twilight Zone Magazine.

Yes. I bought The Twilight Zone Magazine regularly. I read the story.

Does anybody really care?

Before I would have come up with some very broad cosmic level wishes that would benefit me and those around me in many different ways,

But now I’ve decided that the first wish has got to be to cure my wife of her physical, and emotional ailments. I owe her that much. We’ll deal with the other two wishes later.

The problem with my first idea is that it would likely lead to the following scenario.

Wish one: I wish I had all knowledge of everything in the entire universe.
Wish two: AGGGGHHHH! No its too much I can’t handle it. I wish I forgot everything I learned in the last 5 minutes.
Wish three: I’m on my third wish? Huh I wonder what happened to the other two? OK, I wish I had knowledge of everything in the entire universe.

I’d be curious about the extent of his powers. Could I wish for the universe to cease existing?

Oh, so you’re one of those, are you?

No more wishes for you!

OK, I admit it, both of those had me genuinely laughing out loud!

And this is just genius, I’m going to print it out and carry it around just in case :wink:

Those were basically what I would ask him as well. :slight_smile:

I actually didn’t know that was part of the genie mythology, interesting.

I really like this one, like someone else mentioned I would ask what he would do if I released him from his bondage with the intention of doing so after my wishes (checking of course that taking my wishes first wouldn’t antagonise him!)

How do you know he would tell you the truth though? If I was feeling brave and assuming making a wish is not in itself a dangerous thing to do my first wish would that the genie would answer any questions I have truthfully before checking whether it would be safe to make any other wishes.

I actually thought about this one, given the generally depicted abilities of genies if they existed we should have some evidence of it just by someone making huge reality changing wishes, perhaps each person making a wish branches off into their own alternate reality where the wish has come true and everyone else carries on in this reality as if nothing has occurred?

Thanks for the answers everyone, they were all really interesting reading! :slight_smile:

Well, there was a stoner who found and rubbed a lamp. The genie who appeared offered two wishes, which led to an inordinate number of questions about three versus two, but finally the stoner gave in and made his first wish.

“I want o joint of the finest weed. One hit wonder type smoke, and after each hit the joint returns to its original state, so it’ll last forever.”

Poof The stoner has a giant spliff in his hand. He lights it and takes a ginormous hit, burning it to the halfway point. He exhales a cloud so thick he cannot see the genie and as he wished, it’s the best weed he’s ever smoked. A breeze blows the cloud of smoke away and the stoner sees the joint is in his hand, whole!

The genie asks the stoner for his second wish.

Predictably, he replies, “I’ll have another one of these!!”

First question: Is there a trick to your wishes, or are they straightforward. In other words, if I wished to live to the age of 318 in good health, would I be less than I am now or subject to some strange conditions of the wish?

I don’t need ‘to the heat death of the Universe’ immortality, but if I could live a couple of hundred years in decent health, I’d be interested.

You might want to see this movie, The Man From Earth. Good movie.

The subject of the thread reminds me of this The Far Side cartoon.

If the genie is Barbara Eden, I sure hope I get more than 3 wishes.

Just how many times do you need to see her naked?