A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled upon an old lamp.
He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie. The genie said “OK. OK. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the 4th time this month and I’m getting a little *&%#@ sick of these wishes so you can forget about three. You only get one wish!”
The man sat and thought about it for a while and said, “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I’m scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?”
The genie laughed and said, “That’s impossible! Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete, how much steel!! No, think of another wish!”
The man said OK and tried to think of a really good wish.
Finally, he said, “I’ve been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don’t care and that I’m insensitive. So, I wish that I could understand women . . . know how they feel inside and what they’re thinking when they give me the silent treatment . . .know why they’re crying, know what they really want when they say nothing; . . . know how to make them truly happy . .”
The genie said, “You want that bridge with two lanes or four?”
In order to pay his medical school tuition, Thomas Merrick was working two jobs over the summer.
By day, he worked at LeClaire’s Market—a butcher shop. He wore a stiff white coat splattered with crimson and trimmed fat.
By night, he transformed. Down at St. Ambrose Hospital, he traded cleavers for stretchers. As an orderly on the graveyard shift, his white coat now clean and crisp, worn over hospital scrubs.
One night, long past midnight, Thomas was called to prepare a patient for surgery. Room 216. Elderly woman. Appendectomy.
He arrived with his usual calm, smiled softly, gently eased the gurney beside her bed, and began to help the nurses ready her for the trip down to the OR.
She was pale. Small. Her eyes fluttered open, cloudy but alert. As Thomas leaned in to adjust the straps, the room froze. Her eyes locked onto him—wide, horrified. Her lips trembled.
Then, as if struck by lightning, she bolted upright and screamed with the terror of a woman who believed her last hour had come:
“God save me! It’s the butcher!”
