"Genie, for my third wish," my friend said with a wicked glint in his eye, "I wish for infinite wishes!"
"No," the Genie said with a scowl, folding his arms across his chest.
"What?"
"You can't wish for infinite wishes," the Genie said with a shrug. "I told you at the beginning, you only get three wishes - no more, no less."
"But how is that fair?"
"Fair?" the Genie scoffed, leaning forward to poke him in the chest. "How fair is it if I grant everyone else who's rubbed my lamp three wishes only then I turn around and give you infinite ones? Is that fair to them? No! You cannot wish for infinite wishes! It's not going to happen!"
The Genie turned his back to him, buffing his nails on his chest. "You'd have to be a genie for that!"
"What?" my friend yelped. "Genies get infinite wishes?"
The genie smiled slyly, but turned to face my friend soberly. "Oh yes, although there are some conditions..."
"I want to be a genie!"
"No!" I yelled. "He doesn't want to be a genie! Tell him you don't want to be a genie!"
"But I'll get infinite wishes!"
"Master," the genie almost purred, "Do you desire for me to turn you into a genie?"
"Yes!"
"Without reservation?"
"Yes!"
"NO!" I yelled, but neither one paid me any attention.
"By your own free will?" he asked, placing his large hands on my friend's shoulders.
"Oh, for the love of... yes! I want you to make me a genie!"
"Very well," the genie said, taking off his turban and placing it on my friend's head and nodded. "So shall it be!"
Light blossomed around them, and then it was gone. My friend floated in mid-air, his skin blue, wearing the brass cuffs around his wrists. While where the genie had been standing was a ragged sailor, hand on the hilt of his cutlass.
"Thank you, my master," the sailor said, doffing his hat with a flourish as he bowed. "I thought I was never going to be free of that curse!"
"What did you do?" I demanded.
"Why, only what he wished of his own free will! I made him a genie!"
"And with it, I get infinite wishes," my friend beamed.
"Well, sort of," the former genie shrugged. "I did say there would be conditions. You get infinite wishes to grant other people! You, my former master, are now servant to those whom have wishes! The only ones you may grant are those they ask for! And I remind you, each receives only three wishes."