If I had one wish...

The subject of wishes is prevalent in folklore and even contemporary pop culture. Genies, wishing wells, stars and Abe Vigoda are all said to grant wishes to those few souls who discover and believe in them. Sometimes your heart has to be true, but that's not always the case. Like the time Jafar wished for a 6-inch Subway™ cold cut trio in Aladdin and got it. Damn product placement...

Speaking of Aladdin, that movie set the so called "Clements' Rules" for wishing. I'm sure we all know them, but they are as follows:

1. No wishing for more wishes
2. No wishing for somebody to die
3. No wishing for somebody to return to life from death
4. No wishing for somebody to fall in love

Pretty fair, really. Of course, my first wish would probably be that there were no rules. Then I'd wish for a million bajillion wishes, and for everybody in Hollywood to fall in love with William Shatner, Christopher Walken and Steve Buscemi. We'd get some sweet ass movies out of that.

For some reason, wishes come in threes. Don't ask me why or I'll use my 1048th wish to kill you...or have you fall in love...with Courtney...Love. Jibbly. Wish 1049: for the jibblies to go away. Maybe they come in threes because 3 is the magic number; just ask Blind Melon. Often, the first two wishes will go horribly wrong and the third will be used to make things right again. Some kind of Lamp Lesson, but not Christopher Lowell style. In 2000's Bedazzled, it was seven wishes, but it followed the "last wish makes things right" idea. And I think one of the wishes was for Elizabeth Hurley to lose her career. But she's a wish granting Devil, so it all works out. Especially for Hugh Grant, who wished for some Divine intervention.

Speaking of the Devil, his/her wishes usually come at the expense of your soul. Kinda crappy, if you ask me. Is it worth it? Let me work it. I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it. Ti esrever dna ti pilf, nwod gniht ym tup I. Ti esrever dna ti pilf, nwod gniht ym tup I...ahem, sorry about that. Is it worth it? Wishes for your soul? You have to decide for yourself. But might I suggest using your last wish to wish for your soul back? Suck it, Satan!

Wishes often go bad, either when wishing for selfish things or otherwise. Wishing for something greedy usually ends up with the wisher in trouble. "I want a million dollars" - the money's stolen. "I want a million unstolen dollars" - it gets taxed away...or stolen by another wisher. "Phenomenal cosmic power" - itty bitty living space. Even wishing for altruistic things ends poorly. "World peace" - every human in the world disappears. "Clean air" - every human in the world disappears. "For every human in the world to diappear" - clean burning fuel. These kind of wishes teach some kind of pessimistic, anti-humanity lesson...like a goth kid's blog. These lessons are Unamerican, and should be reported to the gub-ment immediately.

Ray-J set a whole new standard in wishes with his recent song "One wish." In it, he considers what he would do if he had one wish. He then proceeds to wish for roughly 40,000 things. You can't wish for more wishes, Ray-J! His main wish is for some chick to love him. Damn it, Ray-J, you can't make people fall in love! This guy! I'm using one of my wishes to kill him. Then another to bring him back. Maybe then he'll learn. I guess it's a good thing he's wasting his wish on impossible things. It would end badly, as greedy wishes always do. She'd fall in love, then her head would explode. Or maybe something more poetic. I don't really know. I'm not Abe Vigoda.

But what if I did have one wish? What would I do? I've thought about it long and hard...giggle. I'd want something good for me, but also good for humanity as a whole. Something to better mankind and further civilization. Something, when all of society crumbles at the thought of a new Ashlee Simpson album, that will be remembered as the best thing to happen in the 21st century. Although maybe I should just wish for Ashlee Simpson to fall in love with Ray-J and for both to retire from music. Nah, not good enough. I need something truly grand...

And then it hit me. The perfect wish. One which can have no negative repercussions. Something which will make the world better. A wish that will make everybody happy, but me most of all. That wish? For Pixar to make a zombie movie.

Think about it, man. Take the greatest film production team and set them to work on the greatest film genre. It would be the single greatest item in all of space-time. A nexus of greatness so immense it would cast a glorious golden light over all of existence, bringing everything to a plane of higher being. Instant Nirvana.

This piece of cinematic achievement would funny, poignant, engrossing and undead all at the same time. Watching the movie would be the real world equivalent of rolling around in toxic waste in a comic book. Viewers would be able to cure cancer, clean the environment and solve Sudoku puzzles in seconds, all from watching this film. And maybe shoot lasers from their eyes. The only possible downside would be that no movie could ever compare. No, not even Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Unless there was a sequel...

If anybody happens to stumble on a genie lamp on the beach, a leprechaun in the men's room or Abe Vigoda at a gentleman's club, I urge you to consider my wish idea. Only good things can come of it. Or maybe you can wish that Al Gore won in 2000. Or for a cold cut trio. They're delicious. I defy you to come up with a better wish than those three options.

Whatever happened to Wish Kid, starring Macaulay Culkin? Does anybody remember that show? His wishes always ended poorly, too.