Aaron and I discuss loopholes after being granted three wishes

Aaron: are you allowed to wish for a state of mind? Or do things have to be tangible?
me: I don’t know. If I had a zillion wishes I’d try it, but with three I’d really worry about blowing one.
Aaron: True. Big risk
me: Some sort of Monkey’s Paw situation is a worry too. Like, “I want $10 million” but the way I get it is for my family to get crushed in a supermarket collapse and I get the $10M from a the legal settlement.
Aaron: Yeah, seems like there must be a bunch of movies about that
me: It’s something I’ve thought about way more than a guy who has been to college should ever have thought about. Also: used my legal training to construct massive, multi-part wishes with subheadings so as to get around the three-wish rules. Wondering if that would fly.
Aaron: Yeah, subsection Z of Wish 1. I feel like wishes cant have commas. Definitely not semi-colons.
me: I’d use (a), (b) and (c) I think. Anything to couch the “perfect body without exercise” in together with “make all women irresistible to me” in the space of one wish.
Aaron: Right. Thats a good point. Its key to know if 1 wish could be “eat anything i want AND have the perfect body without excercise.” Actually, i guess thats 3 things. Perfect body + no exercise + eating. Very complicated.
me: I know. Some asshole genie is like — bam! — all three wishes are gone, dude. And I hadn’t even gotten to the money yet.
Aaron: You need the money for all that food, too. I guess you have to start modeling at that point, to pay bills.
me: Yeah. Or you could short-circuit it all with a “I wish for omnipotence” wish, but something tells me that they’d consider that off limits.
Aaron: I think I would wish first for an endless pasta bowl. That seems like it would be pretty great, although breadsticks eat up a second wish.
Aaron: Eat up. I’m the worst.

Craig Calcaterra

Craig is the author of the daily baseball (and other things) newsletter, Cup of Coffee. He writes about other things at Craigcalcaterra.com. He lives in New Albany, Ohio with his wife, two kids, and many cats.

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