The Power of Wishes

The Power of Wishes
         Lisa was always told to never go to bed angry. People should be able to sleep peacefully at night and wake up the next day with that good feeling of a fresh start. If we had all our problems solved and all our faults forgiven before our heads hit our pillows, all that needless anxiety that seems to haunt us at night should already be erased out of our minds. So why then, tonight, did Lisa find herself in her bed, tossing and turning, and feeling just a little bit angry?
         People seem to worry mostly about the things that they really cannot change. Whether it is an accident or some sort of loss, there is really no way to resolve these types of problems except by accepting them and moving along.  Tonight, Lisa was really worried about how her English grade was going to turn out this semester. Earlier that day, she had to turn in an informative essay, which was based on her home city of Montreal, and she completely forgot it on her desk at home. Her professor said that she could turn it in late, but it would go down one letter grade. Also, a week ago, Lisa missed a class quiz in English and she was not allowed to make it up. Lisa really didn’t know what else to do at this point, since fall semester was getting close to the end. After being an undergrad for five years at Cuyahoga Community College, Lisa really wants those good grades that she will be able to one day transfer over to another school. She decided that more effort on homework, ugh how she hated homework, was all she really could do now. Lisa, though, still couldn’t sleep.
         She couldn’t take it anymore. She hopped out of bed, and then she put on a pair of sweat pants and her coat. She grabbed her car keys off the kitchen counter, started her car engine, and started driving down the dark streets of Strongsville around three in the morning.
         Lisa ended up at a Circle K gas station and she decided to buy a cup of coffee. The only other customer in the store was an old man buying cigarettes. Lisa bought her coffee, walked outside, and sat on a bench.
         The coffee was very hot, but very good on a night like this. It was just starting to get cold in Ohio since it was the middle of November, and all you really want when it is cold is to fight against it and stay warm.
         The old man came out of the store and sat right next to Lisa and said,
         “What is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”          
         Lisa rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help it, and then she smiled. The old man wasn’t really one of those types of people you considered creepy. He actually had a nice bright smile and nice tone to his voice, and he also had hair that was as white as snow.
,          “I don’t know, I just wish there were a few changes I could make in my life, you know?”
         She replied.
         The old man was stilling grinning. His smile actually became bigger and brighter.
         “Well, aren’t you just lucky then? Hello, my name is Monongahela,”
         He said, reaching his hand in front of me to shake.
         “I beg your pardon?”
         “Monongahela, like the river,” he said.
         “No, I mean, why am I lucky?” Lisa asked.
         “Well, why, I can grant you three wishes if you would like, but only three wishes. In          order to get your wishes granted though, I would first like to know your name.”
         Lisa just stared at him and she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Maybe she should just run away…but then she replied,
         “Hello, I am Lisa. It is nice to meet you, Monongahela.”
         Lisa shook his hand and then became very curious about this man. Was he some sort of genie? Was he an angel? I get three wishes? She then finally asked,
         “So, I get three wishes then?”
         “Yes, but only three so choose wisely,” he replied.
         Lisa was considering just asking for her master’s degree right there, but then again what if she ended up with a master’s degree in something she did not like? At that moment she still was not sure what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She still wanted to take the time to figure it out. Instead, she took an easy way out and said,
         “I wish I had a million dollars.”
         “Done,” Monongahela said.
         Lisa smiled. Really, did she really have a million dollars? Who is this person, really, who is Monongahela, anyway? Why did Lisa believe him?
         Lisa began to think about her second wish. She wanted to go somewhere that meant a lot to her. She wanted to go somewhere nice and warm.
         “Ok. For my second wish, I wish that I was at St. Jovite, swimming in the lake,” she          ordered.
         Monongahela smiled and snapped his fingers.
         Lisa was then instantly with her husband, in the beautiful lake at St. Jovite.
         “I am so happy that we came up with that money to finally buy that house. It is great, “
         Lisa’s husband said.
         Lisa was confused. What house, what money? Then she remembered her wish for one million dollars. “So much for that,” she thought, “It looks like I already spent it.” Lisa was happy though. The wish also changed the season. It was now the near the end of summer instead of the beginning of winter, and she now owned a beautiful house by her favorite place in the entire world. 
         Lisa began looking around and she noticed that her son wasn’t there.
         “Where is our son?” she asked her husband.
         “He had a cross country meet this weekend, remember?” he replied.
         Lisa just looked at him. It was not normal for them to miss their son’s cross country meets. They were very important to him.
         “Well, shouldn’t we be there then, with him?” she asked.
         Her husband looked at her a little puzzled.
         “But you said that you would rather be here.”
         Lisa couldn’t believe it, but it was true. She did make a wish that she would be where she was right now, at this very moment. It just didn’t seem right to her though. She then wondered where that strange man named Monongahela was. She saw a strange bus sitting in the driveway of their new house. The bus looked like the Partridge family bus, with blasts of red, yellow, and blue all around it.
         “I’ll be right back,” Lisa told her husband.
         Lisa walked up the driveway carrying her swim bag and went to the door of the bus. Inside, she could see that Monongahela was sleeping in the driver’s seat. Lisa banged on the door.
         Monongahela instantly woke up. He saw Lisa, smiled, and opened the door.
Lisa was about to begin to speak, and then all of the sudden her “Sunshine” ringtone went off on her cell phone. It was her son.
         “Hello?”
         “Hey mom, I came in second place today! I wish you could have been there,” her son                    said.  Then he hung up.
         Lisa suddenly had a sad look on her face, and tears began to form in her eyes. She felt like she really let her son down.
         “Are you all right, Lisa? Is making wishes not what you thought it would be?” asked Monongahela.
         Lisa looked at him and replied,
         “I missed my son’s cross country meet.”
         Monongahela felt sorry for her and comforted Lisa and said,
         “You know Lisa, wishing for one thing, and having it granted, can lead to the changing of          a lot of other things, and that is why you should just accept every little event in life,          because they all end up becoming the elements in the story of your life. ”
         Lisa considered this, and she knew that she had one wish left. All she really wanted now was to go back where she left off.
         “For my last wish, Monongahela, I wish that my family could just have good health and that I could go back to where I was, before I started asking you for my wishes,” said Lisa.
         “Done,” said Monongahela, and after a quick snap of his finger, Lisa was back at the bench at Circle K.
         Lisa stood up, threw her coffee away, and drove home. She walked inside her house, took a Tylenol PM to fight off the caffeine, and went upstairs to her bedroom. As she began to lie down in her bed, she told herself to stop worrying about her late English paper; it was just one of those elements in her life that she could not change. Lisa finally fell asleep. She was finally sleeping with a smile on her face, and without any trace of anger or worry in her body and soul.