Ask an Evil Genie

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

16-145B wishes: I wish my roommate would let me adopt a penguin.

The Evil Genie replies: You have a penguin in your home! He’s small and formal and black and white and wonderful all over. He’s adorable, with the marching and the flapping of his nonwings and the general peguinity of him.

You ask your landlord to lower the thermostat in your apartment to freezing, which he strangely agrees to, and you bundle up in what will now be semi-permanent winter gear. You set up your penguin, who you have named Penrod, in the bathroom. You let the tub overflow, and watch him as he slides on his belly across the icy tile. You invite friends over to watch, and they clap and dance with joy to see his tiny penguin face. Other than persistent frostbite, you have never been happier.

As the days turn into weeks, the allure of having a penguin in the apartment begins to fade ever so slightly. Aside from your hacking cough and inability to shower, you have found that having a new roommate changes the dynamic in your apartment. While your human roommate, who, for the purposes of this post, we will call Katie, was not initially ultra-jazzed about having a fish-bird hybrid for a roommate, she has bonded with Penrod strongly, and you often find yourself the odd man out. They stay up late into the night whispering secrets, and you are left to sit outside the bathroom door and eavesdrop.

Penrod is also a terrible roommate… »