Allen and the Genie

Allen wishes to understand women. Things don't go as planned.

Allen sighed into the mirror. He had a pimple growing again. Time to use the new crème his mom had bought him. He opened the bathroom drawers, looking for the bottle and thinking of Shari: her smooth, firm skin, her long, shimmering light brown hair, and her mercurial smile. Why were women such a puzzle? She seemed to like him, and when she had forgotten her lunch money on Monday, she came to him. He bought her lunch, but then the next day, he saw her eating lunch and laughing with a whole bunch of guys he didn’t know. She didn’t even notice him walking by. He had to go up to her, and then she had treated him as if she didn’t care he was there. Maybe his pimple had already been showing? Finding the bottle, he opened the cap and squeezed out a bit of the pimple crème. “I wish I understood Shari,” he said. Funny. He thought he heard a little voice saying ‘Your wish is granted’.

***

When he got to class, there was a new girl sitting in the seat next to his, on the other side of him from Shari’s seat. She had long dark hair and a waistline made for hula hooping. She smiled at him. He smiled back. “Hey, what’s your name?” he said.

“Jasmine,” she said. “What’s yours?” “Allen,” said Allen. “Nice to meet you.” For the next five minutes, he talked quietly with the new, interesting, beautiful girl on his left until he noticed that Shari had just arrived. “Hey, Shari,” he said, “this is Jasmine. She’s from Virginia!”

“Oh,” said Shari.

To his credit, Allen thought hard. Let’s face it, he said to himself, I’m not so sure Shari is that interested in me. On the other hand, this Jasmine is new, and she seems to like me. And maybe if Shari does like me, this will make Shari jealous, and she’ll understand what yesterday felt like for me. For a second he felt guilty, but just for a second. So during slow moments in that class, Allen spoke mainly with Jasmine. He promised to find her at lunch and keep her company.

Over the course of the day, his good mood seemed to act as a talisman. Two other good looking girls who he had had his eye on from a distance, Allie and Barbra, were assigned to groups with him. They both turned out to be very friendly; he had simply never had an opportunity to talk to them, since they were usually talking to their girl friends.

At lunch, he met up with Jasmine. She had bought an extra cookie for him. He was flattered, but on the other hand, wasn’t that a bit desperate of her? He would definitely want to sit with her at lunch again, but he didn’t want to make lunch with Jasmine a daily thing yet; after all, there were also Allie and Barbra to explore, and he didn’t want to rule them out just because he had met Jasmine before talking to them. How was he supposed to know which he liked best after just one class of talking to each? No, he would try to find Allie or Barbra either tomorrow or the next day, and eat lunch with them. Jasmine didn’t own him just because she bought him a cookie. Looked at that way, the cookie was almost insulting. But hey, free cookie.

***

On his way home from school, his mother let him drive. Allen was in such a good mood, he didn’t pay attention to the road, and ran a red light. A cop showed up out of nowhere and he pulled over, his stomach turning to lead. His mom was furious. When the cop turned out to be a lady cop, Allen must have looked so chastened, practically in tears, that she let him off with a verbal warning. She didn’t even ask for his license. Huh, thought Allen. I always thought those traffic rules were serious.

***

The next morning, Allen stared into the mirror again. The pimple crème hadn’t worked. He sighed and decided to give it another few days to work its magic. “I wish this pimple would just go away!” he said.

“Your wish is granted,” said a little voice.

“Hey!” he said. He took another look at the pimple crème bottle: IN-GENIE-OUS SOLUTION! WISH YOUR PIMPLES AWAY!

“No way…” he squeezed and rubbed the bottle vigorously. Out came a puff of pharmaceutical-scented air, and a little pinkish figure formed at the bottle’s entrance. No sooner had it emerged than it began talking.

“Now you understand Shari, don’t you?” it said. The genie was shaped like a chubby little man wearing an open vest. He had a vaguely unbalanced face, with a big nose ring, one earring, and legs that faded vaguely away into a cloud.

“No, I don’t,” said Allen.

“Don’t be deliberately daft,” said the genie. “Yesterday you had a day just like she has. Several pretty girls dazzled you, so you didn’t take any of them particularly seriously. That’s what life is like to Shari. You can’t buy her affection with lunch. Remember your reaction to the cookie?”

 “I guess,” said Allen. “The cop was also your doing, wasn’t it? What was I supposed to learn about Shari there?”

“That when you’re a pretty girl, guys will bend the rules to make you think they’re nice. You can get away with breaking a lot of rules. That’s why beauties are so dangerous,” said the Genie, “and why pretty girls can be callous and get you in trouble. They learn from experience that the rules don’t apply to them.”

“Great, great, I get your point. Shari doesn’t feel anything special for me,” said Allen. “Now what about my pimple?”

“It will ‘just go away’ on its own within a month. Sooner, if you don’t pick at it, like your mom tells you not to,” said the genie.

What a waste of a wish! Allen could have cried, but he was too manly for that. Besides, he didn’t remember a third wish in between those anywhere. “Those were the only wishes I made, right?” he said.

“Yes. Only two,” said the Genie.

Allen considered the old “I want three more wishes” ploy, but rejected it. Better not play too greedy. “Great.  For my third wish, I want a hundred million dollars!” he said.

“Yeah, right,” said the Genie. “I only grant two wishes. You know, I only go around doing this because you kids make the stupidest wishes, and when you realize you’ve wasted your chances at wealth and glory, your faces are priceless.”

The genie pulled a tiny vapor camera out of his vest and took a picture of Allen. “There. Like I said, priceless. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to pretend to be some girl’s shampoo. I can’t wait to see how she wastes her wishes. She’ll probably want the water to be hotter.” And with a poof, he disappeared.

Reviews

[MoriartyMesa]

That was awesome, I dig that the jokes are really blanket for everyone. Wish i could do that, but im a dirty b*****d so thats my thing. But this was really funny and the end was just great, talk about "Red Tape Wishes"