Howard decided that watching a VW beetle eat a hot dog was definitely something he didn't want to see again. He found the whole experience frankly gross. James first had to drive over the hotdog multiple times making the once delicious magical hotdog mush on the floor. Once the hotdog became little more than weeks old roadkill mush, James managed to lower his chassis until his air intake grate was scraping on the floor before driving into the mush. The goal seemed to be to get as much hotdog mush into the air intake as possible. If he looked closely Howard could see bits of hot dog floating in the waters of the beetle's interior. With the hotdog chunks now in the interior James could happily eat at the mush.

  “I’m not sure you should be eating hot dogs. Don't fish normally eat bugs?” Howard asked of the little car.

  James, too busy attempting to eat said hotdog to answer, left Howards question to be answered by Donny instead.

  “ If that's true let the car eat a friggen hotdog, what are yous his mother?”

  “ No I'm not his mother but last time I had a fish it died pretty quickly, so forgive me if I'm just trying to look out for James.”

  “It's a friggen hotdog, leave off. Either way yous still gots wishes left. Better make the wish better this time.”

  Howard realized that he did have some choices to make. If he wanted to keep on the good side of Donny and want to get any mileage out of his wishes he would have to make a good wish. Or he could just say screw it and make another random wish. After all he did supposedly have two more wishes. The problem was that a lot of the things that he would have wished for were either already partially explained or not allowed. He definitely would have gone for an infinite sub sandwich if it didn't cause irreversible damage to the universe. Theoretically the second rule didn't really matter to him as he had never really been a sports fan. He supposed that the closest thing to sports betting that he had any connection to would be esports. If esports were like regular sports it did make a bit of a difference, as he did enjoy a few esports teams but only on occasion, like when big tournaments were happening. He was more of a single player rpg gamer.

  “ Hold on, I need a rules clarification. Out of curiosity does rule two apply to e-sports or just regular sports.”

  “ Are yous kidding me! It absolutely applies. Do yous have any idea how much money goes into E-sports? MIllions, Millions! If yous started messing with E-sports there would be hell to pay. Never, never ever mess with E-sports!” Donny exclaimed agitatedly.

  “Ok no need to get touchy I was just curious. I'm trying to think of a good wish. I can't go home apparently. I can’t have an infinite sub sandwich, which is what I would have wished for next. And I've already got an ability or something for talking to people. On top of that I've already got good hair, so I'm sorta at a loss for what to wish for.”

  “Yous got the whole world to choose from for wishes and you dont know? Yous spoiled is what yous are. I bet if I gave the fish wishes he wouldn't give me any of this wishy washy bullshit.”

  Howard glanced over at James who had constructed a little town out of coins and was busy rampaging through it. Howard had to suppress a shudder at the thought of the little fish having access to the power of wishes.

  As he thought of the little car Howard remembered a half wish he constantly had while working at the dealership. He had constantly been stumped by overly technical questions about the cars and their engines. More than once Mr. Donnovan had chewed him out for making stuff up instead of referring the customer to him or the mechanics. Howard in those moments used to wish that he knew all about cars. Really just the internal combustion engine in general. It was easy enough to find out about cars but he had always had a hard time with the engines and their specifics.

  “ Ok fine you win, I have a wish. I wish that I knew all about the internal combustion engine. I used to work at a used car dealership and would get stumped on engine stuff all the time.”

  “Ok finally! We gots a good wish outa yous. See I get the wanting to know bout cars and all that. Cars are wacky man. I spent some time with Ford, you know. No not the company before you ask, and not Harrison Ford neither that was a different Genie.”

  At Howards blank look of incomprehension caused Donny to shake his head before continuing.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “How do you think Star Wars was so friggin 'good? You thought that Lucas was a good writer? HA! Have you seen an attack of the clones? Trash! And don't get me started on those new ones. After all, Star Wars being that good doesn't come from guys like Lucas without some magic.”

  “You know Donny you didn't really strike me as a star wars guy.”

  “You kiddin best god damn space opera ive ever seen! And I've been to some actual space operas, as in operas performed in space. They aren't as exciting as they would seem, most of the time the directors forget that they are in space so you can hear anything without pumping oxygen around. Anyway, where was I?”

  “Uhhhh Henry Ford I think.”

  “Oh right yea. Miserable bastard that ford but yea granted him some wishes and all that. Oh by the way, speaking of Henry Ford, there's another rule I forgot to mention. No wishin ill will on entire ethnic slash religious groups. I didn't bring it up but you didn't seem the type.”

  “Is that a extreme space gods of sport betting rule or a Donny rule”

  “ It's a Donny rule. You think the powers that be give a shit about that sorta thing? They are frankly too busy with the whole sports betting stuff.”

  “ Well that's not really a rule that I disagree with or don't understand. I don't really hate anyone enough to try and doom an entire ethnic group.”

  “Yea well yous not really a bastard, a bit weird I guess but not an awful person. Now the car I can't vouch for, he's fun, but probably a menace.”

  James at hearing himself being mentioned stopped rampaging through the coin village to beep indignantly at the genie before continuing its rampage through the coin town. James seemed to be paying particular attention to what looked like a medieval hospital made from coins. Despite being a fish inhabiting a car, shockingly realistic screams and monstrous roaring seemed to be coming from the little beetle.

  “ See look at the little monster, hes recreated 12th century Prague entirely out of coins just so he can drive over it. “

  “How does he know what 12th century Prague looks like?” Howard asked, confused.

  If the beetle was a reincarnation of his previous fish James, the most exciting place he would have ever seen was the kitchen of Howard's studio apartment. James’s bowl had occupied a roost above the fridge overlooking the kitchen for approximately two weeks before Howard had almost knocked the bowl off the fridge by opening the freezer too quickly.

  “Who knows, the little bastard is a magic fish now I guess.” Donny said with a shrug, clearly uninterested in the unanswered mystery of James' mysterious knowledge.

  “Any ways back to the good part, wish granting! Since your wish is a good one and I don't want vomit all over my beautiful money piles, you're gonna need this.” Donny said, reaching his now comically small and misty looking army into his lamp before pulling a bottle of sparkly Pepto Bismol out of the spigot.

  While the bottle was obviously Pepto Bismol the usually vibrant pink of the substance seemed to be muted but included spots of light that seemed to be floating in the liquid. Howard noticed that If he looked to long and the motes of light floating in the greyish pink liquid his peripheral vision began to get fuzzy like static on an old tv and he would get twinges of pain behind his eyes. The combination of the off color, strange floating lights and pain made Howard very nervous at the prospect of drinking the liquid.

  “Do I really need to drink this donny?” Howard asked as he looked skeptically at the strange but familiar potion.

  “Like I said earlier I don't want yous throwing up all over my gold. Do you know how long it takes to get the smell of vomit out of gold? Ages! Yous would think that you can magic it out but noOOoo. Some dim wit god or other magic being made it so that magic cant influence smell. Any ways if yous want the wish yous gonna drink the potion.”

  “Fine you win.” Howard said with some resignation before bringing the off color Pepto Bismol to his lips.

  Thankfully the potion was cool like it had just been refrigerated. Unfortunately it did not taste like bubblegum like the usual of Pepto Bismol, it tasted more like Caesar salad dressing mixed with way too much cinnamon. The worst part about the abhorrent taste of the vile potion was that it made his mouth numb, like it was chalked full of szechuan peppercorns. It was only the thought of the wish at the end of the bottle that motivated Howard to continue drinking the vile substance.

  Howard looked up sharply as the genie said with a bemused tone of voice

  “You know yous didnt really have to drink the whole bottle.”

  “Then WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP ME!” Howard yelled, throwing the bottle at the genie.

  Donny laughed as he quickly became incorporeal causing the bottle to fly unstopped through his stomach. Continuing its trajectory the bottle sailed through the air before bouncing off of James and smashing what looked remarkably like the King Charles Bridge, much to the delight of the little beetle.

  “Because that stuff is gross and i've been trying to get rid of it for the last 300 years. Any ways hold onto your buttocks here we go!”

  Howard found the act of actual magic fairly underwhelming as Donny didn't even pretend to do anything mystical this time around. What he did do was tap Howard on the forehead before snapping his fingers yet again. As soon as Donny had snapped his fingers a strange hollow ringing seemed to fill his ears. His vision quickly began to spin, causing him to quickly lose his balance and fall backwards onto Prague castle.

  “Donny is the room supposed to be spinning?” He said, trying not to throw up.

  “Yea it's a side effect of a shit ton of knowledge filling your head. Why do yous think I wanted you to drink that gods awful potion?”

  “I thought that was supposed to stop the nausea?” Howard asked in alarm as the spinning seemed to get faster. He had already tried to close his eyes in an attempt to stop the spinning but regardless of whether or not his eyes were open the spinning sensation only seemed to get faster. Howard faintly registered that Donny was laughing at his question before hearing his response.

  “Nah theres no way to stop the nausea I just made it temporarily physically impossible for yous to throw up. Yea your brain doesn't know how to handle the sudden increase in capacity so it's gonna spin for a while.”

  Howard barely registered what Donny had said as the world kept spinning consecutively faster. He did try to look up briefly in incredulity as he thought he heard a donny mention something about how defenestrations and the soxs were connected to James, but the effort caused him to dry heave, much to the delight of the little car.

  The spinning had now reached a crescendo as a blackness seemed to be spreading across his vision. Consigned to his fate to spin Howard let the blackness take him as he slipped into unconsciousness.