Useless Mutant Powers

J.L. and I were talking yesterday about X-Men, who knows why, and the subject of mutants with useless powers came up. I made the comment that it would be my luck to get a power that was completely useless when it came to fighting bad guys. He laughed and said, “You mean like having the power to grow furniture out of your butt?” I said, “Exactly! Or the power to hurl terrifying wads of used facial tissue at your enemies.”

My wife said that I could always have the useless power of creating flatulence. I’m not sure, but I think that was more a comment on my current abilities than a thought for mutant powers.

What would your useless mutant power be?

Pico de Gallo

Have you ever wanted to punch one of those annoying team mascots? Well, when I was sixteen I got the opportunity. S.W. and I were attending an indoor soccer match in our hometown, and while I have no idea what the name of the opposing team was, I do remember that their mascot was named Pico de Gallo. He was this giant jalapeno pepper, complete with sombrero…and he was extremely annoying.

S.W. and I were walking around the arena when we came across Pico harassing fans of the hometown team. He started taunting us, and when that didn’t get a reaction from us, he started pushing me. I turned around and told him calmly to quit. To which he flipped the hat off my head. I reached down, picked it up, and put it back on my head. He promptly flipped it off again. And that was the end of my patience.

I don’t know what came over me, because violence is usually my last resort. But that stupid pepper had pushed me too far. I hauled off and punched him right in his huge, red pepper nose. I didn’t knock him off his feet, but that huge sombrero did throw off his balance, causing him to stagger back into the wall. I must have hit him harder than I expected to because his nose was completely dented in and he wasn’t quite looking out the front of his pepper anymore.

I casually walked away, as a security guard rushed up to help Pico compose himself. I’m sure I would have been thrown out of the arena had Pico’s shouts of anger and surprise not kept the security guard occupied long enough for me to make my retreat.

Be warned, Pico! I haven’t forgotten you! You are still on my list!

River Dance Rap

I like to dance. I love to move to the music in no formed patterns, but simply as I feel led at the time. I do not, however, like to dance in public. You might say I’m a closet dancer. Or a living room dancer, since that is usually where you can find me flailing around, flying through the air, and flinging myself over the couches to land unceremoniously on the coffee table.

The other day during one of these episodes, I noticed that we actually have a nice public view onto the street out the large windows in our living room. Two college girls were standing by the street looking back at me as I danced the River Dance to a rap song. (It’s harder than you think.) They weren’t so much laughing at me as just watching in amused fascination and curiosity. I was so caught off-guard. I quickly quit dancing, put my pants back on, and went to check on my dinner.

You're Weird...

I have this strange habit of bouncing while I’m cooking. As if somehow my increased activity will help the food cook that much faster. My wife attributes it to me being hyperactive. I’m not ruling that possibility out, but I prefer to think of it as “Excessive Energy.”

What really gets her, though, is when I stand in strange poses. The pose varies depending on the food I’m cooking. Pasta might justify a pose on one leg with the other leg sticking straight out to the side like a martial artist caught in the middle of a round-house kick. Beef might justify standing like a stereotypical Spanish dancer; straight and tall, legs crossed, one hand at my waist and the other over my head, snapping. Chicken might justify forming gigantic letters of the alphabet, like I’m a living alphabet soup. You get the idea.

She has taken to ignoring these displays, like a mother might do with a child trying to get attention. When I sense this attitude, I throw in some grunts or humming…something vocal. On nights when I’ve really lost my mind, I do combinations of all three…bouncing, posing, and vocalizing. This usually elicits one cocked eyebrow from her, followed by the words, “You’re weird.”

Rude Awakening

My brother has two little girls. He loves to tell stories about his daughters. Some of his favorites are when his daughters are sleeping with him and his wife. He said that the girls are pretty mobile sleepers, and that it wasn’t unusual for him to wake up in the morning with a hand or a swatch of hair across his face. But one particular Saturday morning indeed takes the cake.

He said he was awoken by a horribly foul stench. He was still mostly asleep, so his brain couldn’t quite grasp the source of the smell, but it was definitely close. As he slowly swam back into consciousness, he became acutely aware of a pressure on his face. He opened his eyes to find his younger daughter’s foot lying on his face, perched just below his nose.

Your Name Doesn't Suit You

Have you ever thought that someone’s name doesn’t suit them; that you look at them and see them as someone else? You know like a man named William who looks like a Chuck, or a woman named Christy who looks like a Jody. I do that with models in magazines. I look at them and imagine what their name might be based solely on their looks.

I wonder why it is that we have some pre-conceived notion as to what types of names fit certain people, or maybe it is what types of people fit certain names. I wonder what people think my name is when they see me.

My Lunch is Insane

My lunch is insane. I had one of those self-contained soups today. You know the one where you pop the top and heat. Before the first minute was even up the thing started violently jumping around in the microwave. When I didn’t give it the appropriate response, it started to fling itself against the microwave door. It sounded like someone in an insane asylum trying to get out of his cell.

Unhealthy Attachments

You know how young children get attached to something, like a blanket or a pacifier, and it is really hard to get them to break the habit? Well, I recall having an attachment to diapers. I was potty-trained, so it wasn’t that I needed them as much as I just liked wearing them. Maybe I liked the support. Maybe I liked the comfort. Who really knows. The point is that I didn’t want to stop wearing them.

This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t been 15 years old. Do you know how hard it was to find diapers that fit a 15 year old? Well, you can’t. I had to just tape several of them together. Changing in the locker room after soccer practice was interesting, but I think when it really became a problem was when I started dating.

The Birds Have It Out for Me

The birds have it out for me. They seem to target my car and leave all the others alone. I have tried to move it to different parts of the parking lot, thinking that I was just too close to a tree or something. It didn’t help. They found me. I’m pretty sure the flying target practice even increased when I did this. It was almost as if the birds knew I was trying to avoid them and decided that they would show me what they thought about it. This last time was the worst, though. The birds went too far. Apparently, one of the birds crawled under the front of my car, flipped over on its back and pooped up! I have no other explanation as to how bird poop would get on the underside of my bumper.

No Sharks Allowed

J.D. is going to Florida with her daughter next week. Her daughter is excited about going to the beach but has already adamantly told her mother that she isn’t going into the ocean. When J.D. asked her why, she matter-of-factly replied, “Because I’m afraid of the sharks.”

J.D. suddenly remembered back to her childhood and the pond her family had behind their house. Her dad asked her one day why she didn’t like to go swimming in the pond. J.D. told him that she was afraid of the alligators in the pond. Her dad, without skipping a beat, said that there weren’t any alligators in the pond. J.D. asked him how he could be so sure. He replied, “Because I put up a sign near the pond that says, ‘No Alligators Allowed.’” That appeased J.D., and she swam without fear.

Deciding to try the same psychology on her own daughter, she told her daughter that there weren’t any sharks in the part of the ocean that they were going to. Waiting for the same answer she had so long ago given her own father, she was quickly rewarded when her daughter asked, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because, Sweetie, they put up signs on the beach that say, ‘No Sharks Allowed.’”

Her daughter was not so easily calmed, however, as she looked J.D. straight in the eye and asked, “Can the sharks read the signs?”

J.D. was speechless. She later told me that she couldn’t believe that she had been outsmarted by a four-year old.

The War of Switzerland

My wife and I have a sort of no-man’s land between us in the bed. It is the narrow strip of “land” that designates the border between her side of the bed and my side of the bed. It is considered neutral territory, so we call it “Switzerland.”

On chilly nights it is not uncommon for me to feel the presence of an invading army crossing Switzerland and heading into my territory. These savages bring terrifying weapons of war with them. They are weapons so heinous that it instantly demoralizes my troops. They are paralyzed with fear. What sort of weapons could cause such an emotion in such a land born of the strongest and fiercest of warriors, you might ask? Rolling siege weapons made entirely of ice.

But this can’t be normal ice, for it is so cold it makes the very air drop with their frigid bite. They must be forged in the depths of the earth itself, these ice blocks from hell. (Yes, I’m fully aware of the irony there.) One touch from these Ice Siegers is enough to bring the strongest of my defenses down in mere seconds. They seem to sap the warmth and life from my very bones until I am but an Ice Sieger myself. I have found no weapon to deal with these terrors of ice.

I have made attempts to build walls along the border between my land and Switzerland, but the infidels figured out how to tunnel and soon the wall was useless.

I once tried a preemptive strike, trying to invade Switzerland before the invading host. However, I was met on the field of battle by not just Ice Siegers, but an entire army of ice warriors. They surrounded us, enveloping my entire force in their icy embrace.

I devised these sacks made of sheep's hair that we were able to successfully throw over the Ice Siegers. At first we cockily thought this would work. However, we were soon to learn the error of our ways when the biting cold from within slowly seeped through the sacks and grasped us with their frozen fingers anyway.

I even waited until the enemy was absent from her land, fighting some other horde, and moved in to take her land over. I was reveling in my victory, when I was surprised to find the Ice Siegers attacking again. But they weren't coming from the edges of her other border as I expected but from MY own land!

I have given up all attempts to fight these ice beasts. I am resigned to the fate that has befallen me. The Ice Siegers are apart of our daily lives now, and their reign of terror will continue for years to come.

Woken by Your Own Snores

Why don’t your own snores wake you up? Most people don’t think they actually snore because apparently they can’t hear themselves doing it. It doesn’t matter if it is so loud that it shakes the very foundation of the house…still they sleep through it. Yet, they can hear a barely audible squeak of the door or a wife tip-toeing across the carpet. What's up with that?!

I have to admit that I have actually woken myself up with my own snores before. But for some reason I didn't come completely out of my sleep mode, only just to the very edge of the surface. I lay there thinking how rude it was that someone would be snoring in my room while I'm trying to sleep. It is funny how my unconscious mind never registered that I was the only one in the room.

Me on the Internet

Have you ever looked yourself up on the Internet just to see how many hits will come up for you? I have and the result was disappointing. I used to have a single hit for some 10K run I did in college, but now even that’s gone. Oh, you can still find my name splashed across the Internet in reference to job-related blog sites I’ve asked questions on, but gone are the days when my name was associated with something significant. I guess I need to be more involved, so I can get some name recognition. Because as everyone knows your accomplishments in life aren't considered significant if they aren't somehow recorded on the Internet!