Why This Blog is So Necessary to Humanity

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Why I Just Can’t Be A Hero

  
I’ve always known I could never be a super hero for the obvious reason. I mean, I have zero super powers right? So that pretty much rules that out in insulting permanent ink.

However, up until recently I have been operating under the assumption that if ever given the opportunity to do anything heroic I could find it within myself to rise to the occasion. I now know this to be thoroughly untrue.

I’ve had moments in the past where I had the chance to do something every-day heroic and failed…like giving directions to a blind lady using hand gestures and the time I could have saved the day by covering someone’s shift...but I opted to hide indoors for no other reason than I was ‘peopled-out’ and behind on my Dragonball Z. These should have been decent indicators of my lack in valour but somehow I still managed to limp along in my daily life on the false leg of hope that I might somehow save the day eventually.


All of this changed the other day when I was on the train.



I was standing on the train that day as there were no open rows of seats (I feel funny to plonk down next to someone and essentially hem them in against the window or side panel) and I took my usual ‘no seat’ position right near the door and gripped the handle bar as the train rattled and swung all over the place. I had in my headphones and I completely zoned out as I stared at nothing in particular through the door's window. I don’t know where my mind was. I’m guessing that it was comfortably dozing in the space between the lyrics of my Pearl Jam playlist and my faint recollection that I was still in public and not in my bed so I shouldn’t nod off.





Somehow from this nowhereland I vaguely acknowledged the fact that we had reached yet another stop and I continued to stare blankly out at the street. People pushed into the train but I had tucked myself strategically in a way that I was neither in the way or in a place that anyone would want to stand. So I continued to meander between being semi-conscious and completely oblivious of my surroundings…that includes the straggler cyclist who was evidently fumbling with his bicycle.

I zoned in enough for a moment to think to myself, ‘He’s moving slowly…’ and then off I went again into space. I zoned in again to think ‘Hm…he might not make it…he should probably push the button to hold the door.’ Again, I went off into la-la land.
I continued to stare blankly in his direction until the scene had already played out.

The poor cyclist tried to quickly scramble through the train doors while holding his bike with both hands but it was too late and the train doors had closed on him as he was going through them.
The tail end of the thought ‘He should probably push the button’ morphed into ‘Someone should probably push the button because the door is closing’ but I was still a bit absent to what was really happening in front of me…until the pained look thrown in my direction by his partially squashed face alerted me to the fact that I was the jackass by the “Open Door” button and I allowed the poor man to be wedged between the doors like a fat kid on a playground slide.









When it finally dawned on me that I was being called to action to end this poor man’s suffering, I did so in a state of panic from the sudden jar to consciousness from my dreamworld. I proceeded to frantically slap the button and everything around it like I had flippers for hands. It was a pathetic display. Not to mention that the whole ordeal had me shaking for 10 minutes and drowning in a pool of self-condemnation and guilt. It was my moment…my chance to make someone’s life a little bit better and I completely missed it for no apparent reason whatsoever. Thankfully the man didn’t want to murder me.

Now that the truth is out in the open I am noticing more tell-tale signs that I could just never be a hero.

Like I mentioned, I don’t have super powers or even remotely quick reaction time.  If I somehow acquired an incredible sum of money I still couldn’t be like Batman or Ironman.

Take the scene in Batman Forever where Batman painstakingly deciphers The Riddler’s riddles that he keeps imposing on his property. There is no way in hell I would have the patience for that.

Here is how the scene would play out:
















I could never be Ironman because I’m allergic to most metal. Therefore apart from the obvious, the shrapnel that the bad guys put in my chest would kill me regardless of my ability to keep it from impaling my heart…or it would at least leave me really fucking itchy and I’d spend my days painstakingly trying to develop the best way to administer anti-itch cream internally instead of focusing on more important things like…oh I don’t know…building my hypoallergenic suit and privatizing world peace?










I also don’t speak more than one language unless you count Pig Latin. So being someone like Black Widow is out of the question.



















I could never be the Hulk because I’m just not smart enough. I’ll never have access to the sort of things which result in lab accidents capable of producing something more impressive than catching the table on fire or really stubborn sleeve stains.



























Now being Spiderman is possible. I am definitely skilled enough to get bitten by a spider. However, Spiderman is male and girls just don’t respond to performance
enhancers in the same way that men do.  Knowing my luck I would end up displaying all of the shitty side effects of the spider bite like getting really freaking hairy spider legs, the big ass abdomen along with some rare blood disease and dark urine.
Sorry world…there is no way I am coming to save you in that condition.
















I couldn’t be the Flash because women are twice as likely than men to develop knee problems from running so I wouldn’t even need an arch nemesis to eventually be thwarted.













I couldn’t be Captain America because I only have a tourist Visa.














After much deliberation it seems that the only hero that I could probably be is Catwoman…














...and that is nothing to be proud of.






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