Arthur Castle and his wife Edna own an old family business, an antique shop that is basically insolvent.\u00a0 Not only can\u2019t he pay his bills but his neighbors borrow money from him too.\u00a0 An old lady neighbor brings in an old wine bottle she found in a garbage can and tells him it\u2019s a family heirloom.\u00a0 Arthur tells her it\u2019s an old wine bottle but gives her a dollar anyway.\u00a0 Edna sees the \u201cno sale\u201d sign on the cash register and bemoans their fate saying \u201cI wish we could find a way out of this.\u201d\u00a0 Arthur drops the bottle on the floor and a genie dressed in a stylish English suit appears and tells them he will grant them four wishes.\u00a0 Arthur and Edna disbelieve him so Arthur\u2019s first wish is a test.\u00a0 He wishes for the shattered glass in one of his floor-displays to be made whole again.\u00a0 Immediately it is fixed.<\/p>\n
Arthur and Edna become excited and Arthur wishes for a million dollars in five and ten-dollar bills.\u00a0 The genie grants the wish and the money floats down onto the floor of the store.\u00a0 The generous Castles start gifting money to all their friends and neighbors and announce their intention to take a trip to Europe.\u00a0 Just as the last friend leaves a man with a brief case appears and announces that he is from the IRS.\u00a0 After the money they gave out and the taxes they pay they only have five dollars left from the million.\u00a0 When the genie returns Arthur calls him a con-artist.\u00a0 The genie explains that consequences should be expected when an uncarefully considered wish is made.\u00a0 Arthur starts to wish for an after-tax million when Edna tells him that money isn\u2019t a safe wish.\u00a0 They debate about positions of power; a corporate big shot or a mayor or higher.\u00a0 Arthur is worried about the people voting him out of power.\u00a0 So, he settles on a national leader that cannot be voted out of power living within the twentieth century.\u00a0 So of course, the genie makes Arthur into Hitler in the bunker.\u00a0 One of his staff gives Arthur a beaker of poison to suicide with.\u00a0 Considering his options Arthur uses his last wish to be back as Arthur Castle just as he was before all of this started.\u00a0 And as he drops the flask in the bunker, he becomes Arthur dropping the genie\u2019s bottle on the floor of his store.<\/p>\n
Edna and Arthur have a new-found appreciation for their merely unfortunate circumstances and Edna adds that at least the display case glass is still intact.\u00a0 Immediately Arthur shatters the display glass with the end of the broom he was using to sweep up the shards of the genie\u2019s bottle.\u00a0 As Arthur empties the fragments into a garbage can on the street in front of his shop, the bottle is surrounded by the smoke from the genie and reassembles.<\/p>\n
This is an extremely silly fantasy.\u00a0 But as you know I like extremely silly stories.\u00a0 The story is very far from original but the sentimentality is not overbearing so a B seems about right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arthur Castle and his wife Edna own an old family business, an antique shop that is basically insolvent.\u00a0 Not only can\u2019t he pay his bills<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,240,1661],"tags":[38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,1749,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-6249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-the-man-in-the-bottle","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n