It wasn’t the first time I’d had to defend Jimmy, and it wouldn’t be the last. He’s got to be one of the most-litigated genies who’s ever lived, which is a little unfair, since he’s also actually one of the most genuinely benign. He just gets things wrong a lot.
See, all genies will, to some extent, screw with wishes. It’s their nature. With some of them, if you wish for ‘a horse’, they give you a heavily insured and very identifiable race-horse and watch the catastrophe unfold. Others will just mess with the wish a little bit, say, by giving you a foal instead of a currently rideable horse or something. But everyone knows they need to be careful with their wording, these days, so it’s not usually too bad. (Unless you violate the three rules. Wish to raise the dead, to kill someone, or to make someone fall in love with you, and they will get *very* unpleasant.)