I Prefer Mustard

A Story by Fuushin

Second workshop piece for Writing Fiction. Written as a last resort, when I could think of nothing else. The fact that it was so ridiculous made it a hit with the class.

So after you’ve got the genie out of the bottle, how do you get it back in? I thought that when genies appeared, you got three wishes and then they disappeared for another couple thousand years until the next idiot came along and woke them up. I also thought they lived in elegant and fragile lamps. Well, that just shows what I know. Or rather, what I don’t know.
   What kind of homeless genie lives in a ketchup bottle, anyway? There I was, sitting on a stolen lawn chair on my private balcony with a good old American frank in one hand, and the ketchup in another. And you know how ketchup is, it just wants to make you look like as much of a wiener as the hot dog, so it clumps up and sits there and refuses to come out. So I start shaking the stupid thing and I guess I must have rubbed it the right way, because next thing I know, I’m bathing in smoke and clouds on one of the precious few warm and sunny days this area gets.
   I wasn’t really sure what was going on, I’d never seen ketchup do this before. It was ketchup hell, tomato brimstone and fire, the whole shebang. Anyway, the smoke clears, and there’s this enormous, very real, very solid man floating a few inches away from the balcony rail, watching every move I didn’t make. What could I do? Either somebody was floating right in front of me, or I was clinically insane. I’m pretty sure I took my meds this morning. I just assumed he was like the dinosaurs in the movies; if you don’t move, they’ll eventually just go away. He didn’t, though. He hovered there, staring at me.
   Had I seen a man like this out on the street, I would have guessed he was a football player or a wrecking ball. He could easily take down a brick wall or six. His head looked especially thick. I couldn’t tell if there was muscle, it was hidden underneath all the meals he must have eaten to get that big. If he was going to rob me of my hot dog, I wasn’t going to fight him for it.
   “So, come on,” he says. “I’ve got a job to do, and I’m staving away to nothing. If we don’t hurry this up, I could die of starvation.” I seriously doubt that. The guy looked like he was expecting. Not just one, either, an entire family and their pet dog. I didn’t want to say anything though, because I wasn’t sure how much it would hurt if he slugged me. I stammered.
   “Yeah, yeah, genie, wishes, so on and so forth,” he yawned. I was still taking in his appearance. People don’t float. “Listen, man, I’m only gonna say this once this century.” Talk about being obnoxious. “You get the generic three wishes. Make ‘em good,” I think I must have found my voice around that time, because his face changed and he added, “Yes, I’m real. You’re the third person this week to ask.”
   Up until then, I wouldn’t have thought of genies as the jean-wearing, backwards-baseball-hat-sporting type. I always pictured sashes and Arabian turbans. Anyway, now I had to figure out what I would do with three wishes. My mind jumped to the normal things: money, power, long life, more wishes, a lifetime supply of Oreos. The tomato genie was eying my hot dog. If I didn’t decide fast, I’d have to wish for a new one.
   “Well?” he demanded, shifting into a relaxing position in mid-air. Good grief, what a tough life.
   “Wish number one would definitely have to be to ultimately die a peaceful death after a long, full life,” I concluded. That was a wise investment. I could raise a family and know that I would been there for as long as I possibly could. Granting the first wish would eliminate a great amount of fear from my future, as well.
   “That sounds reasonable,” Ketchup Genie agreed. “Better than some wishes I’ve granted.” A wave of the hand was all that signaled the loss of one wish.
   “How do I know that really worked?”
   “Do you want me to shoot you right now to prove it?”
   That sounded like a horrible idea. Painful, too. I decided I would just have to be careful for the rest of my life. Save money, stay away from dark alleys, never eat meat in the presence of vegans.
   Two left. As long as I was going with the intelligent choices, I might as well think about my financial future. I was also determined to wish for something that would prove the reality of this possibly drug-induced hot dog gone wrong.
   “Second wish. I want myself and my future children to benefit financially from our,” I paused, taking in the full sight of a man the size of all ninety-nine red balloons, “vivid imaginations.”
   “Odd,” a tilt of the head and a wave of the hand, “but understandable. I bet you’ll be publishing stories and poems and who knows what else in the years to come.” Oh, you can bet your shiny butt I’d be capitalizing on this crazy encounter. “Just one wish left. Going to make it as boring as the other two?”
   Apparently, this was the type of genie who complained about granting the same boring wishes, but took pleasure in it at the same time. By this point all I really wanted was to go take some heavy sleeping pills and wake up a week later.
   “Nope,” I answered. “I’ve got a good wish this time.” And I did.
   “Yeah?”
   “I wish hot dogs tasted so good that nobody ever needed to use ketchup again.”