42-year old Joseph Murray walked down the alley, handing out pamphlets to the homeless, for the opening of his new church. It was going well. Almost all the people he met took what he was giving them. Maybe not all of them would attend on Sunday, but at the very least he made them aware. It was when he was walking around a corner behind a dumpy motel that he spotted something lying behind a dumpster. It sparkled in the sunlight - that's what brought it to his attention. He leaned down and picked it up. He chuckled, realizing that it looked like the genie's lamp from that Disney movie. He rubbed it a little, to get the dust off of it, when suddenly, a man seemed to appear out of thin air next to him, in a poof of blue smoke. He didn't look like a genie, though. Just like an average guy in a shirt and jeans.
"Hello, Master!" the man boomed at him. "I am the genie of the lamp. While you own the lamp, you own me. I can grant any wish you can think of with two exceptions - I can't bring back the dead and I can't make someone fall in love with you."
"You can't be real. This can't be happening," Joseph said, his eyes wide.
"Oh, but it is happening. And any wish you make will become true, as if it had always been that way."
"So ... I get three wishes?"
"Three?" The apparent genie laughed heartily. "Oh, no. You get as many as you like."
"Infinite wishes?" Joseph asked.
"Yes, that's right. But only for the next 24 hours."
As a man of God, Joseph was skeptical. "Prove it. Prove to me that you can do as you say."
"Just make a wish."
"Okay. I wish I had more pamphlets."
The genie didn't augment this one. He wanted his new master "untainted", for now. From what the genie could see, this man was a religious type. The genie was going to have a lot of fun with this one.
"Your wish is my command!" the genie said, crossing his arms and nodding his head.
Suddenly, the amount of pamphlets in Joseph's hand doubled. He looked down, amazed. This man really was a genie!
"Genie, that was amazing," Joseph, the genie's newest master, said.
"Please, call me Gene. When we're around other people, it's less conspicuous."
"Oh, of course." Joseph smiled. He couldn't wait to show this off to his wife and his two daughters.