When you whip up a batch of djinns and capture them in the next technological leap after the glass bottle and oil lamp, you want to make sure you label those cans REAL carefully. Don't figure on the batch-number printer to get the barcode right, 'cause the djinns won't be any too happy, and they have this big magnetic field around them.

Which means your six-pack could get on the conveyor belt and not get off until it hits the 'send to Seattle' lot.

Which is not too bad, if you pick up on it on time, 'cause you can send the delivery driver a beep on CB or cell phone, unless he's turned it off.

And even then, you can sort of guess the route he's going to take, because the guys at logistics know that kind of thing, and you can rush into your car, and find out the battery is dead, and get into your brother's car (which is nicer, and happens to be parked right there, 'cause he is the food technologist and you're only a scholar, and you didn't tell him what the problem was, except that you really wanted to try an ancient recipe.)

Now, at this point I thought I'd run out of bad luck, 'cause his car started up, and he navigated and cursed me out, intermittently.

"OK, Eric, what have you got there? What are we chasing? How come a simple telephone recall isn't going to do the trick?"

So when you're stuck in a car and trying to drive into Seattle along the I5 and also explain the deal about Persian texts, and the possible magical properties of aluminum and stuff, a good thing to do is not tell the whole truth.

And another good thing to do, if you've gone ahead and told the whole truth, is pull over.

"Terry? Terry! What the - where can I pull over?"

And when you find a place to pull over, it would be nice to violate Murphy's law and not see the truck you're after pulling out, and the guy in the kiosk pick up a pallet of cans, and load 'em into the fridge with a thump.

"Look, Terry, have you got some cash on you? No? Excuse me, ma'am? Ma'am? Where's the nearest ATM? No, never mind which bank. Thanks, ma'am!"

And it's a good idea to find a drive-through bank that DOES have an ATM, at the first try. And not get lost on the way back, driving up a quaint hill, through some pretty good gardens, around a bookstore and down another hill.

Being fit, so you won't be so out of breath when you run from the parking place to the kiosk, is also a good idea. It spares you the indignity of huffing, and puffing, and not being able to get served, so that a kid in front of you gets one of the cans and opens it, right in front of the kiosk-guy.

Of course, if that kid had been running, as far and as fast as I had, he'd have been puffing, too. He looked out of shape. Sure picked up quick on the eight-inch, golden-tan djinn coming out of the can, though; must be pretty bright. The whole space-needle turned gold, so I guess I know what they'd been talking about. The kiosk guy didn't pick up on it quite that quickly. Terry did. No fool, my little brother. So I got distracted.

Still winded, but breathing sufficiently for speech, I asked the kiosk guy for a can of coke from the same pack. He said there was only one left, and how much was I paying. "I'll give you fifty!" must have been the wrong answer. Right? And that doesn't really explain where the other four cans went, except that broccoli became extinct on the planet that day, surprising some vegetarians and causing an uproar in fine restaurants. Big loss, if you ask me. So was the elevator in the space-needle - had to cut people right out of the gold walls. The firefighters were just in time, too - and it was a good thing it was closer to the ground than the top. And gold isn't structurally strong enough . . . made quite a landmark, for a while, though.

A couple of other strange things happened that day, around America. If you were paranoid, you might think it had something to do with you. If you can avoid that kind of guilt, do it. Of course, you might want to try to avoid playing with magic, too, while you're at it. But definitely avoid putting your djinn-cans on a technologically controlled conveyor belt, unless you can really afford to make it up to your brother, big time. I had to buy Terry a bunch of books to make it up. AND refill the gas tank.

I think I'll stick to translating Arabian Nights stories, for a while. Even if the recipes do seem to work.

This short-short would have qualified for Flash Fiction had the writer not submitted it to our "paid for" story site. It made me laugh and--like Jessica Rabbit--I love things that make me laugh. Howzabout you? Comments to the BBS, please.--gm