40-year-old Greg Anderson sighed. Even with the door to the den closed and locked, he could faintly hear his wife Susan snoring in the next room. 18 years of marriage, and here’s what he had to show for it: a wife who had really let herself go, putting on a substantial amount of weight. And 16-year-old twins, Jessica and Josh -- Jessica was doing fine in school, and was on the cheerleading squad, but had become a bitch who hated her father. Josh, meanwhile, didn’t fit in -- not doing well in school, and not really part of any of the cliques, and seemed to pretty much hate everyone.
And that’s why, late on a Sunday evening, he was in the den of his house surfing porn sites. He’d found a video of an exotic-looking brunette, thin but with big tits -- so much different from his sandy-blonde wife, pear-shaped, pasty-skinned, undesirable -- who looked like she was really enjoying giving a blow job to a 20-something, well-muscled guy with an enormous cock, in the living room of a California mansion somewhere --
He had the sound turned almost all the way down, but for some reason the chime indicating new email seemed way too loud. He quit the video and brought his email program to full-screen in what seemed like milliseconds -- years of practice hiding porn from his wife and kids.
The email’s sender was listed only as “Gene,” making Greg scratch his head for a couple seconds, since he didn’t know any Genes. He opened the email and chuckled as he read it. Someone was offering him the chance to have a wish granted. Surprisingly, no mention of Viagra -- they didn’t even seem to be selling something. Must be one of his friends joking with him, he finally decided.
It got him thinking, though -- if he really could have one wish granted, what would it be? Just for fun, he hit “reply” and typed in a wish.
Nah, too boring. Maybe he should think big. He deleted what he had typed and tried again.
Well, maybe that one was too big -- maybe he didn’t want to change the entire world. Just his life. Or maybe the life of someone he was close to. He got an idea and typed it in.
Ugh, what was he doing, spending time on this? Wishes were for little kids playing around with toy magic wands, or for blowing out birthday candles, or if you had a couple of pennies in your pocket and were near a fountain. He moved the mouse toward the “close” button on the window that contained his draft email and jabbed at the button.
He hit “send” instead.
He silently cursed, figuring he’d either just told a million spammers that his email address was good, or given one of his friends something to tease him about. Oh, well, too late to do anything about it now, and probably a sign that he should get to bed. He shut down the computer for the night, and headed to his bedroom, putting his earplugs in as he lay down on the other side of the king-size bed from his wife.
What he'd accidentally sent was, "I wish...