I wish I had a million dollars

When Punkinhead was a little girl and we were at a store, we would often re-enact a typical scene in the checkout aisle:
Punkin: "Mommy, I want ______ [fill in the blank with your choice of gum, candy, pez dispenser, chapstick, shoelaces, any odd item located in the check-out to appeal to small children]!"
Me: "How does it feel to want?"
In the beginning, there ensued a bit of a whiny wheedling, but she quickly learned that when Big Mean Mommy said "no," Big Mean Mommy ALWAYS meant "NO." By the time she was four, she would put forth the "Mommy, I want gum. Pleeeeeeeese." And if I said no, it was pretty much the end of it. But usually my response was either the above quoted, "How does it feel to want?" or "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." (Both of which amount to the same, no, but are slightly more poetic.)
Yesterday, I used the "If wishes were horses" line at work and my adult coworkers looked at me as if I were odd (which, in their defense, I am). Not one of them was familiar with the proverb that Wikipedia says has been around in some form since before 1600 and in its modern version noted here since 1721. 290 years is a pretty decent run for a proverb about how wishing for something does not make it so.