Why I Couldn’t Sleep Last Night:
What Spiderman really stumbled upon is an incredibly risky situation with an unbelievably lucky outcome. He strikes me as the guy that wins Bingo a lot.
Given my experience, raffles strike me as a shady investment. Seeing that I never ever win anything, it's a lot like paying four dollars for a tiny piece of coloured paper with a number on it. I figure I could just do that at home. Whoever's organizing an event like a raffle will always be annoying chipper and say that the fun is in the game, the possibility of winning. Paying four dollars is fun and exciting! I’ll admit it must be fun for them. But I’m more of a ‘me’ person.
Anyway, Spiderman won the raffle draw of a lifetime. He got bit by a radioactive spider and, not only did he not die, he garnered all the benefits of the spider, like walking on walls and shooting webs, while getting away with none of the inconveniences.
Now if it were me, and if I did not die, not only would I not be able to walk on walls and shoot webs, but I would probably grow hair and legs in funny places, my eyes would compound together into blood-red kaleidoscopes, my lips would be replaced by two rubbery tentacles, I’d hatch a thousand eggs every spring, and I bet I’d be ugly too.
So, basically, I hate Spiderman. He's the guy that won, all the time. I only won once, at Bingo, on a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship. I won and got a travel-size Battleship game and a tiny walkman. I was ecstatic until they decided "everyone's a winner" and everyone else got a Battleship and walkman. The one time I am to ever win anything, I didn't really win. If everyone's a winner, by deduction, everyone is also a loser. Many people will tell you this incident stands as the main reason why I'm such a bitter and pessimistic person today.
At least Spiderman didn’t wear a belt, though. I never understood that part in his colleagues. Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman. All of them had belts. When wearing an excessively tight bodysuit, as is their wont, having a belt, an article conceived of and used principally to keep our pants up, is, if you ask me, downright stupid.
See, if I were a superhero, the only thing that makes sense about the get-up would be the cape. Frankly, it's been a while since my glory days as Mr. Universe. If I were a superhero, my outfit would be all cape.
Anyway, then, you have the X-Men. The whole idea with them is that they’re mutants that didn’t choose to be the way they are. They are simply ‘different’. We’re supposed to accept this. I say they’re just ‘lucky’. I can see many things going wrong in this whole mutant process.
Knowing my luck, the only way I’d get to be an X-Man is if I suddenly developed some sort of embarassing mutant super power – like the ability to fart powerfully. It’d be powerful enough to produce jet propulsion and fly away; powerful enough to blow away mountains and turn winter foliage into spring harvest. I'd imagine meeting the whole crew on initiation day. And everyone’s wondering what my super power is. I can just see myself with my hands getting all clammy not wanting to tell anyone.
Cyclops, who has a very cool ability to level mountains with his eye beams, is like, “So, kid, what are you here for? What's your super-power?”
“Uh, I’m just really, really smart.”
My childhood friend and I were talking about our old conversations about what superhero I’d be. Supposedly, when I was young, I wanted to just be me. He told me that I had told him I am a superhero. Now, Adrian had quite an ego even at seven, but I believe that I spoke better than I knew. When given the option of being a superhero, when it comes down to chance, I’d rather not. This isn’t some ‘be yourself, don’t do drugs’ sap. I just figured, superheroes never get to pick their powers and, with that being the case, I'd probably get something completely useless, really embarassing, or both.
Being a superhero is risky.
Seeing that I spent well until two in the morning to come to this brilliant conclusion, I will make sure I impart this wisdom to my kids one day. Well, if they ever hatch, I mean.
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