# Last edited on 2014-08-26 18:06:03 by stolfilocal
# POSTED ON THREAD "Answer the above question with a question"

A classic question penned many years ago by an unknown author, for which no fitting answer appears to have been found yet, was about a young couple of the social climber type (think of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in [i]Eyes Wide Shut[/i]) who went to play at a posh golf course, and it happened that on his first swing the husband threw the ball over the perimeter fence and smash into the panoramic window of a mansion on the other side, and after the due remostrances of his wife the two of them walked over to the house to make amends; but imagine their surprise when they saw, standing in the living room besides the hearth, a dark-skinned giant, almost seven feet tall, muscular like an upside-down mountain, with a pointed black beard and solid gold bracelets and dressed in a funny red silk robe, holding in one hand their golf ball, and in the other the neck of a broken antique bottle of black glass, who in a thunderous voice asked whether they were the owners of that ball; and imagine also their surprise when, on hearing their timid and trembling 'yes', the giant beamed a broad smile, and told them that he was a genie who had been imprisoned in that bottle for three thousand years, and had long given up hope, but then he was unexpectedly freed by their ball, and so, by the customs of their kind, he was bound to grant three wishes to his liberator; but seeing that they were in two, and not wanting to be unfair, he would grant one wish to each of them, and would keep the third for himself; at which the astonished husband, with words that stumbled over each other, immediately asked for a treasury including a large mountain of gold coins and a huge cellar full of the finest wines and a gold-plated sports car and a fifty-foot luxury boat, and he would have gone on asking for more, but the genie raised his hand as to say 'enough', and turned his face to the ceiling and made a grimace and muttered some incomprehensible words through his teeth, and then smiled at the young man and told him that it was done, the treasury would be waiting for him at his home; and then the woman immediately asked for a huge mansion with Greek marbles and a huge swimming pool and a huge garden and a huge wardrobe with hundreds expensive designer dresses and purses and shoes and jewelry including an emerald necklace with the largest diamond in the world, until the genie finally got her to stop, and after looking again at the ceiling and grimacing etc. he told the woman that her wish had come true too, so that the mansion, with her husband's treasury inside, would be waiting for them where their modest home once was; but when the couple was about to rush out he ordered them to stay, and said that it was his turn now, and told the husband that he surely must understand that after being locked up for three thousand years he had certain manly cravings that he needed to urgently appease, and so his wish was to have sex with his wife, there and then; a request that left the young man furious for a second, but then he thought that it would be unwise to cross a genie, especially considering that he might take back his treasure as easily as he gave it out; and so he told his wife that he was not at all pleased with the idea, but if the genie's wish was acceptable to her he would not object; to which the wife, after scanning the genie again from head to foot, replied that she wasn't happy either, but for the good of their common future she would make the sacrifice; at which the genie took her in his colossal arms and carried her to the bedroom upstairs where they made wild sex for two hours, until finally, exhausted and relaxed, the genie asked the woman how old her husband was, and she said he was twenty-nine, and asked why he wanted to know, but the giant only pondered to himself aloud: amazing, he's twenty-nine, and still believes in bottled wish-granting genii?