January 17th

Fairy Tale 101

A beautiful fairy appeared one day to a destitute refugee outside an American immigration  office.

“Good man,” the fairy said, “I’ve been sent here by President Obama and told to grant you three wishes, since you just arrived in the United States with your wife and children.”

The man told the fairy,  ”Well, where I come from we don’t have good teeth, so I want new teeth,  maybe a lot of gold in them.”

The fairy looked at the man’s  almost toothless grin and —PING!— he had a brand new shining set of gold teeth in his mouth!

“What else?” asked the fairy, “Two more  to go.”

The refugee claimant now got bolder.  ”I need a big house with a three-car garage in Annapolis on the water with eight bedrooms for my family and the rest of my relatives who still live in my country..  I want to bring them all over here” —- and — PING!

In the distance there could be seen a beautiful mansion with a three-car garage, a long driveway, and a walkout patio with a BBQ in an upscale neighborhood  overlooking the bay.


“One more wish,” said the  fairy, waving her wand.


“Yes, one more wish.  I want to be like an American with American clothes instead of these torn clothes.”

—-and —- PING!

The man was transformed - wearing worn-out jeans, a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt, and a baseball cap.  He had his bad teeth back and the mansion had disappeared  from the horizon.

“What happened to my new teeth?”  he wailed. “Where is my new house?”

The fairy said:  ”Tough Shit, now that you are an American, you have to fend for yourself.”

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