I had never been whacked with a magic wand while asleep before. I awoke with a start.

She stood at my bedside, elderly and prim. She had wings and a crown. Her face was solemn — all business.

She smacked me again. There was a tin star on the tip of that wand, and it stung.

"Ow!" I cried. "Who are you? What are you doing?"

"I'm the Good Fairy, you fool," she replied, raising the wand to strike once more. "How deprived a childhood did you have?"

I covered my head with my pillow. "What do you want?"

A loud, electronic zapping sound was followed by the scent of burning feathers. Apparently, her wand was armed with photon torpedoes.

"I've got a job for you," she said.

"I have a job," I replied from under my smoldering pillow.

"You're unemployed."

"I'm self-employed."

"Bingo."

I wedged my head still deeper under my pillow. "What time is it?"

"Three a.m.," she said, vaporizing the pillow with another well-aimed zap. "There's a limit to my patience."

"Put the wand down!"

I heard it clunk onto the nightstand. I opened my eyes.

The Good Fairy glows in the dark, in case you wondered. She wears an outdated gown of faded beige chiffon. She looks disturbingly like Martha Stewart.

I leaned on one elbow. "So what's on your mind?"

The Good Fairy smiled sweetly.

"You're going to write a self-syndicated column," she said, as if that were the best news in the world.

"Right," I said. "Who died and made you Rupert Murdoch?"

She was not amused. She became a horrible fire-breathing dragon and carbonized my favorite Swedish ivy.

She became the Good Fairy again. Smoke drifted from her left nostril, and she coughed once in a ladylike way.

"You're going to write a self-syndicated column," she said, in a slightly higher key.

"About what?"

"Life in the country," she said. "Life on earth. Whimsical ruminations soaked in wry, Yankee wit. Roads not taken, sugar on snow. Chirping crickets, crackling firewood. Spring peepers, fall foliage, darling little bunnies. You're going to break their hearts."

Outside my window, it really was gorgeous: moonlight through the trees, gently rolling mountains. There were cows out there, and bears. There was a lot to write about.

"What about mosquitoes, poison ivy, and winters that never end?"

"It's all material," she said. "Write about the rough stuff if you want. That hornet's nest last summer — the one that fell on your head when you poked it with a broom? That was worth a column. You were fun to watch."

"You saw that?"

"There's nothing like live entertainment."

"So what's in it for me?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? A two-hour work week, a private jet, a condo in Barbados, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice."

"Really?"

"You think Dave Barry does it for grins?" she asked with a merry laugh.

"What's YOUR angle?" I asked. "What's in it for you?"

Suddenly she was holding a black leather briefcase. She snapped it open sharply, removed a sheaf of papers, and thrust them at me in the shadows.

"Sign on the dotted line, Hemingway," she said.

"A contract with the Good Fairy?" I asked. "Isn't that a trifle — well, tacky?"

"It's a jungle out there."

I skimmed the contract; the money was incredible. She wanted 50 percent off the top, but there would be a movie about me, starring Leonardo DeCaprio. There would be global merchandising: T-shirts, posters, stuffed toys and coffee mugs. I would be incredibly rich and famous.

"I could live with this," I said.

"Most people could."

"All right, I'll take a shot at it," I said. "You got a pen?"

Of course she had a pen. I signed on the dotted line.

"Now what?" I asked.

Somewhere nearby, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir began bellowing the Hallelujah Chorus. The ceiling opened up, and a beam of light shone down from above. A gold-plated laptop computer materialized in the center of the room.

Suddenly the place was full of elves.

"Elves?"

"One of the perks," the Good Fairy said, as the elves scampered about and began tidying up my home. I heard dishes clanking in the kitchen sink, and the sound of breaking glass.

"Oh, gross!" said a little voice in the kitchen.

The Good Fairy smiled and lit a cigar.

"You do good by me," she said, "and I'll do good by you."

With that, she vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Where's the vacuum cleaner?" asked an elf.

Honest, folks — that's just how it happened.