Three Wishes Challenge

I have been challenged to make three wishes by @ladybug146 as part of a challenge started by @guiltyparties. Now wishes can be a very dangerous and tricky thing. As my mother used to remind me:

And then she would always say:

But when I was young and foolish, I ignored whatever my mother had to say because I am and was a real certified genius! Well the "certified" is accurate.

Once I saw the first star of the night. I said all the correct words: "I wish I may, I wish I might . . ." and I made a wish for a million bucks! And the very next morning what happened:

These fellas showed up! Not exactly what I was wishing for and they made a huge mess. I pretended as if nothing happened. Undeterred, the next night I saw a shooting star and I wished for a million "smackers"!

That night there was a knock on the door and this guy showed up!

Yikes! I ran out the back door as fast as I could!

Now you would think with two wishes, one that left a huge mess and the other that almost got me killed that I would give up on this wishing thing.

But as I mentioned, I was and am "certified", or at least that is what the doctors tell me.

Now, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I am a certified genius.

At least that's what my wife says every time I try to fix something around the house, and somehow my efforts make matters worse. "Genius" and "way to go Einstein" those are in fact real quotes from my wife!

Getting back to this wishy thing, I gave up on the stars, the first star and the falling star, as neither of those wishes really came out as I had expected.

I started chasing rainbows, having heard that at the end of every rainbow was a pot of GOLD owned by a leprechaun. I figured that if I could just get to the end of that rainbow and get the gold, the leprechaun would surely grant me THREE WISHES to get it back.

Well, I have to tell you that after chasing dozens of rainbows over several months, I have concluded, and you have the word of genius on this, there is in fact NO END OF THE RAINBOW!

I should mention that I got in great shape and the next year I was the fastest kid in the Fifth Grade! I even won a GOLD Medal. As it turned out, according to the guy at the pawn shop, it really was not GOLD but some sort of plastic colored gold. I must confess, when he told me this, it was the first and only time in my life that I ever questioned the fact that I am a certified genius!

In those days there was no such thing as the internet and I could not just Google "best way to make a wish", so I did as every genius would do I went to the library. I read about touching blue and wish comes true, about leaving coins in a tree, pulling apart a wishbone (my sister always won), the first robin of the spring, three birds on a wire, holding your breath while walking across a bridge, and throwing a coin in a wishing well.

This wishing thing turned out to be a great deal of work, and work is something that I do not ever wish for. Besides who needs to work when you are a certified genius!

And then it happened, I wasn't even expecting it, it just happened. My mind was wondering as I walked home from school one day in the early Spring of my eleventh year of life. As young boys often do I was daydreaming about castles, great battles and swords. I spotted a robin pulling a worm from the ground and without even thinking I uttered, "I wish I was a knight!" The rest of the way home, I started to walk funny, not really walking more like swaying. The really weird part is I started to sing a Motown song about trains and Atlanta. And I must say I sounded pretty good.

When I got home I looked in the mirror and to my horror this woman was looking back at me:

I had turned into Gladys Knight! Oh crap this wishing thing is dangerous. My mom was so pissed when these dudes showed up calling themselves the PIPS. They kept saying "wherever Gladys goes we go!" Fortunately, as it turns out "robin wishes" only stay true for the Spring and by the end of June, I had returned to my old, young self.

But I have to tell you, playing little league baseball in high heels is murder! On the plus side, I crushed the Talent Show at Foggy Bottom Elementary School that year! My mom filmed it:

That's me on the right and the PIPS providing back up! Damn I was good, although Principal Mulligan disqualified the performance stating that since the Pips were not students we were not eligible for the contest. TOTAL RIP JOB!

So as to this Three Wishes Challenge, I hope you grant me a slight indulgence, before my official entry, while I once again ponder the wisdom of wishes!

source: none of the photos are mine and I will not confirm nor deny the veracity of the video, though all are license free or made available from the wonders of Youtube