And now, a visit to the silly land of Sarah’s uncaffeinated brain. The superpowered heroine, she is becoming a common little vixen, isn’t she? Women in romance novels, particularly the urban fastasy and paranormal type, are flush with the amplified sumpin-sumpin, which makes for an even more powerful Hooten-Nanny, if you catch my drift.
Think about it: heroines can raise the dead, send the dead back to bed, control the weather, identify all manner of noxious creatures, master hidden depths of earth-based strength, all while pulling the hero’s true love out of his wangster much like removing that sword from that stone.
Those powers are all well and good, but what about the lesser superpowers, the random things that some folks are blessed with, like the ability to always make flawless coffee (I do not has it. Hubby has it, bless him) or the talent of perfect gift giving? While up at 6:00 am on a weekend (PAH) wrangling many creatures in my own home, I came up with a few random superpowers I’d really, really like to have. Feel free to add your own to the list.
1. Wrapping Paper See Through: Seriously. I want the power to see through wrapping paper to identify the gift within, not because I’m a party pooper but because giving a young person a mountain of fingerpaints right before naptime = Bad Idea Jeans. Presents are awesome. Finger paints are awesome. But that momentary dread of, “What is it and should I let a child open it now?” is one I’d like the see-through power to avoid, please.
2. Instant Caffeination: I would like to so much as look at the coffee machine and instantly boot up. It might save me from walking into the doorjam (ow).
3. Fall Back Every Night: You know spring forward and fall back? I want One More Hour Power – wherein I can stay up late and then set the clock back an hour before I go to bed. That way I get more reading time, which makes me a happy, happy Sarah.
4. No DCO: the power to avoid falling into instant lust for any article of clothing that is Dry Clean Only. Or that makes me itchy.
5. FileMaker In my Brain: the power to file, categorize and remember any and all romances I’ve read, so that my entire life isn’t one big Help a Bitch Out session wherein I toss books about on my shelf while mumbling about the blue cover that had a hero who was a spy. I think.
6. Traffic, Please: If I can’t have Fall Back power, then I want traffic control. No traffic when I need to get somewhere, lots of it when I’d like to delay arrival, and freaking TONS when I have a good book on the bus and don’t want to arrive at my destination any time soon.
See, I think any one of these minor superpowers would make for a marvelous heroine. It would certainly make me the heroine of my own day, that’s for damn sure.
I’m sure someone will remember the title, but I recall a novel some years back by, I believe, Linda Howard, where the heroine’s special ability was that she never hit a red light. I think she also talked to the dead, but the never hitting a red light thing was uber-cool.
I would love to have the power to put the world on mute. When my kids are screaming, the cat is meowing, and the phone won’t stop ringing, I sometimes would kill for ten seconds of peace.
I guess asking for the power to snap away laundry or to instantly have a stain free carpet are too mundane. *BG*
I think having the ability to have clothes, any style, that I want THEN would be really cool. Oh, and being able to fit into them would be a plus. LOL
My mom always wished she could save time up for when she needed it. Once in a while, you find yourself with a spare hour and you could then take that and collect it up to use one day when you found yourself totally out of time. I was late for my best friend’s wedding and I could’ve really used it then. Still, a spare hour anytime is rare and should be savored.
I have the super power of greeting cards. I can choose the perfect card for anyone, even people I haven’t really met, as long as I get some input from someone who knows them well. My family can’t WAIT to see what I’ve come up with!
This one is easy: Shower-Cleanness On Demand.
The ability to clean and coif in 10 seconds flat. I love a nice hot shower, but most of mine are 5 minutes, in, soap, rinse, out. I’d love my morning routine to include snapping my fingers and having that shower-cleanness instantly.
I’d still shower and bath, but only for the relaxing/sexxoring quality.
Mine’s a flawless complexion, no matter what time of month or what I’ve been stuffing my face with the day before.
I’d also like the ability to know where my poetry submission sits in an editor’s pile.
And, the ability to try before I buy. Everything. 🙂
The ability to find a parking place on command.
Mine is kind of like RStewie, only it would Hair on Demand. The ability to step out of the shower, simply look at my hair, and bam – it’s dry and smooth and straight with no product, no blow drying, no straight iron, no nothin. The perfect power for those of us with Problematic Hair.
My superpowers would be…
1. The ability to do hair. Or have good hair. My hair is thin, fine and straight. It looks like crap—plus I don’t have the dexterity to do much with it.
2. The ability to lose 10 lbs a week and never regain it. And not the same 10lbs, like I do now!
3. The ability to solve all kids’ arguments correctly
4. The ability to do all housework completely and expertly in an hour a day
5. The ability to keep kids asleep all night, in their own beds, so as to reclaim our love life. How do they know? Seriously. I was writing a love scene the night before last and my toddler woke up to interrupt that!
Anything more would just be greedy!
I really like the ability to save up spare hours, or even just freeze time for a bit.
Something I’d really like to do is have the ability to send messages back in time to myself so I could prepare for problems or just dictate that essay that was due yesterday to my past self and thus get it in on time. These wishes may or may not be influenced by current essays that need to be finished yesterday…
Or even just an instant motivation power, to be mostly used on myself…
I’ll take One More Hour Power, please, or some other power of time manipulation. I’ve a nasty habit of staying up too late playing video games.
(spambot word – even17. Even when I was 17 I wanted this power. Never enough time…)
I wish for the ability to copy-and-paste from whatever I’m reading or thinking straight onto the computer. This would only be used to improve time management and instead of copy-typing, not for plagiaristic purposes.
I also wish for a modicum of telepathy. Just enough so that I can know if something is actually bothering my children, and not have to walk the difficult line of appropriate support/unwarranted interrogation. And so that they don’t finally start to tell me at half past ten at night.
Oh, and the power to make large spiders be elsewhere without having to go anywhere near them.
I want the power to be slender. Drop 40 pounds by will alone.
The power to put my obsessive compulsive never-give-up-on-anything son on mute. And give up when I say “no.”
I have a heroine who turns blue when she orgasms. Does that count as an unusual power?
I can’t work out how to embed this, so here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz4f_e02RFM&feature=related
Fall asleep when tired power
Instead of staying awake half the night TRYING to fall asleep.
I have sleeping issues. Sigh.
The ability to zap wrinkles…in clothing, that is..with a single look. The instant I put freshly pressed pants on, they wrinkle. I merely look at a shirt and it is creased. I want sharp creases, dammit.
The ability to make dust, dustbunnies and pet hairballs not accumulate in my home. (Yes, I know the solution to this is called a dust mop, but I’m lazy and the mopping/sweeping is perpetual.)
The ability to make the person who burns popcorn EVERY AFTERNOON in our office’s communal microwave get a clue. It stinks and grosses everyone out, but she doesn’t notice the stench apparently.
I’d love to have the following…
Heel! – The power to automatically grow three inches when surrounded by female friends who are veritable Amazons, no matter what kind of shoes I’m wearing.
Pot Luck – The power to sail magically over the pothole-ridden streets of New York without tripping, shredding pantyhose, and skinning a knee.
I would love the ability to remember peoples names.
I’m so bad with names AND faces. I hung out with a gal for one full weekend, saw her two months later, and had no memory of her. (granted, it was a wild and wooly weekend!)
I felt like such a jerk.
I even play the little memory games – BOB- looks like a FROG. nothing.
My very mild superpower (I’m going to be singing that ALL DAY) would be Stop Time When Reading. Never again will I have to say, “I want to read this, but I don’t have time!”
The ability to connect with a computer while I’m thinking of scenes I want to write. My mind would have a command function to record my thoughts while I’m cooking dinner, falling asleep, or chasing my children around the park as they ride bikes. If I had that power, I would have at least six books written. They’d be all crazy, but I can edit as the children roam around or finger paint. I can’t write when a possible paint disaster looms.
I think Terry Pratchett used that in one of his books…Thief of Time, maybe?
My superpower? Having people be available when I need to talk to them. (I hate waiting for people to return my calls.)
I’d like the extra time, please. Or perhaps the ability to be refreshed and ready to go with, say, six hours of sleep. Or less.
Or some superpower that results in dinner being made without taking OVER AN HOUR no matter what I make (other than spaghetti). (Yes, I know it’s called a microwave, but you can’t make MY tuna noodle casserole in a microwave.)
Or, oooh, a cup or bottle or something that always has EXACTLY what I want to drink, when I want to drink it, in it. Of course, I’d have to remember that cup/bottle, but I could really use some orange juice right now and I don’t feel like shelling out $1.25 for a bottle from the vending machine.
Oh, NOW YOU SEE HER by Linda Howard…that was a great story but the heroine also saw dead people… so maybe the trade-off for her, not so much. *grin*
My wished for power would be that whenever a book has a great online review/excerpt it would magically appear in my hands…. because waiting for delivery sometimes makes me crazy… er, crazier.
The ability to download my ideas directly into my writing, so that they come out just as clear and pristine and orderly as they are in my head. Somehow, IRL, the transmission gets lost through my fingers. ::sigh:: I’m brilliant in my own head.
Also, I’d like to give UP the abilities to walk into every piece of furniture in a room and get pen ink on my hands without opening the pen. Talk about useless superpowers.
Thanks, Joanne! Truly, all wisdom resides within the Bitchery!
I don’t mind being considered greedy. I want several:
Zap Casa Chaos Clean Power = I’d do the I Dream of Jeannie wink and Casa Chaos would self-clean. Like an oven, only cooler.
Boom Box Mute Power = with the sheer force of my mind I could quiet, without damaging, every teenager muscle car that drives by going THUMP-THUMP-THUMP in the bass speakers at 12:30 AM.
Voice Mail Punch-Through Power = you would not be able to put me into your voice mail or into an auto-attendant. Ever. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing that you think is more important, my phone call would hunt you down. No escape.
Mwahh-hahh-hahh!
Security word: talk89. You betcha—at LEAST that fast!
I would like a magically self-replenishing bank account, please. Nothing too extravagant—I’m not greedy. Just make it so that when I pay utilities and other necessities, my bank balance won’t dwindle to nothing. I’m really sick of pumping gas and freaking out over the total!
Perfect Hair. No matter what time of day or night.
I’m with SaraBeth and Snarkhunter on having my thoughts transmitted to my computer. For websurfing, Outlook, whatever. The slowness of typing is really pissing me off. And I’m fast.
I have a friend at Ball Aerospace who really wants teleportation as her superpower. She’d like to have breakfast in France and be able to get home from a bar instantly.
I’d like my gum to never lose its flavor, and to be able to eat as many Reece’s peanut-butter cups as I want without gaining weight.
The ability to download my ideas directly into my writing, so that they come out just as clear and pristine and orderly as they are in my head. Somehow, IRL, the transmission gets lost through my fingers. ::sigh:: I’m brilliant in my own head.
Me three!
Basically, I’d just like to be Bewitched – only not with the required nose twitching. Mostly I’d like to be able to blink myself places in an instant. Talk about convenient – no traffic! No more airport security! No more baggage claim!
(Can you tell I’ve been planning my marathon summer vacation??)
I want the power to go back in time 20 years and kick my own ass for thinking i was fat because i went from a size 5 to a 7.
Well, I guess I’m greedy, too. Here’s what I’d want.
The Ability to turn excess weight into an equivalent weight in flawless gemstones. Solves my weight problem and money problems at the same time! Lose weight, get the gemstones and sell them, get money!
The ability to fly. No more traffic jams for me. Just up, up and away, and I’m there! Teleportation would also work for this, but I like the idea of flying.
Superspeed. Because, honestly, who *can’t* use that?
The ability to make stupid people be gone forever with just a look. You know, they are acting like idiots, you give them THE LOOK and they are gone, never to trouble you again.
Ahh, see people, per the link (which would have worked better if it was embedded), for every superpower, you have to have a weakness…so, walking into things, and the pen issue…sorry, but you gotta keep those. Them’s the rules.
lalalalala…very mild superpowers..lalala (song is also in my head, and shall be, for days, likely..)
I’d love to have 20/20 hindsight with projection abilities. It would be so handy during an argument with my mother to replay events from the past so that she can see them as they really happened, rather than the self-serving way she remembers them. Of course, I’m probably just as likely to be hoist with my own petard, sigh.
I think I have “very mild superpowers” too—yep, stuck in my head for the rest of the day, I’m sure. And I definitely have the accompanying superweaknesses!
Most of the powers listed by my fellow Bitches sound cool to me—I’d take almost any of them. A common thread seems to stem from the desire to use less time doing things that need doing but aren’t much fun TO do. I’m down with that.
My older son gave me a little stuffed bear for Christmas with two red pens strapped crosswise on his back. I was informed that this is the Ninja Grading Bear, who will use his superpower to instantly critique and grade my students’ tests and papers. Talk about a boy who knows what his mama wants for Christmas!!!
The power to pick THE winning Lotto numbers when it’s the biggest jackpot ever.
I can only use it once, but, hey, I’m okay with that.
I’d like the power of immediate book release. Instead of having to wait another six months or a year for the next book from my favourite author, I could have the thing right away.
And I have to ask… all the superpowered heroines in books and movies are always supremely hot. Does that come with the territory, or is another power altogether?
spam filter: how76. Yes, I’m sure it’s been at least 76 times I’ve wondered just how this thing knows…
The whole idea behind this post reminded me a bit of Andrew Kaufman’s novella All My Friends Are Superheroes.
It’s such a weirdly wonderful little bite of fiction.
The ability to make perfect coffee every time would probably be a bit more useful than most of the super powers in the book. hmmm.
Have you read CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM, by Melanie Lynne Hauser? It’s about a mother who finds herself with super powers after a Horrible Swiffer Accident. One of her abilities is to put people into a “super time out.” It’s a great book—I enjoyed it a hell of a lot.
This is going to sound stupid, but I’ve always wanted the ability to play my own funk theme at will. Just shopping for some tomatoes, playing my funk theme, would be awesome.