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.
YES! And to tell my boneheaded younger self to start flossing regularly before the gums started to recede, and stay active, and make some smarter flipping choices. Ergh.
The ability to project my thoughts at will to specific targets.
You know, the car in front of you going 25 mph in a 40 mph zone and you have to be somewhere NOW! I want to project the thought in their direction that makes them either speed up or turn now. And of course this works for husbands as well – thinking hard in his direction – *schedule that cruise now* and off he goes to arrange vacation.
and kids *do chores* and off they go.
And annoying co-workers *go away* and they do.
Not exactly mind control, but mindful influence perhaps??
That’s not stupid! I always wish that “Heart of Glass” would start playing when I’m out walking around town and the breeze is blowing and the sun is shining. Once, that actually happened at an outdoor shopping mall and I had to make a conscious effort not to gliiiiiide along in time to the song.
The ability to make your theme song play at will would rock.
Okay, Fall Back power would be AWEsome… I so want that!
And, in conjunction with Traffic, Queue Power would be great. You know, like when you go to the DMV and there’s absolutely nobody there, and you turn around to get the form you need from their handy little form nook, and turn back, and suddenly there are ten people who have come out of nowhere to get ahead of you (in fact, they haven’t even seemed to have opened the door to come in – they were just waiting around a corner until you looked away or something), and they all have a stack of papers taller than a basketball player?
Yeah. Queue Power. That would rock. 🙂
Like Shiloh, I think I’d choose the ability to fall asleep as soon as I get in bed, and the corresponding ability to get out of bed 7 or 8 hours later easily.
Perfect skin all the time and insta-clean would be bonus powers 😀
You know all that “extra” time you get by living healthfully? Not smoking, running an extra 10 minutes, not eating 172 chocolate chip cannoli with an equivalent number of espressi…that sort of thing.
I would like my superpower to get back the extra time at any point in my life.
“Let’s see, December 15th, 2005 was mighty nice. I’d like another 20 minutes there. And August 14th, 1973 was pretty cool. How about another 14 minutes there?”
Wouldn’t that be lovely?
I’m with December- I’d like the ability to match faces with names at better than my current, er, 20% or so success rating. Now… if I’ve seen your name in writing (email, nametag, etc.) I’m probably 50/50. But, yeah… my facial recognition skills? Nil.
Even sadder, I remember pets really well. Unfortunately, stuff like “Hey, you’re Blaze’s mom!” only gets me so far…
Probably an evolutionary trait: no competition from younger siblings, ever!
My 4 year old had the super power of detecting precisely when mom was about to… errr… get there, and would systematically wake up screaming for me to come and get him RIGHT NOW! Fortunately he lost it a little after his first birthday (and traded it for the power of whine the following year, but that’s another story).
I love these! I would love the Casa Chaos cleaning power, and the ability to sleep when tired, but what I want most is the ability to show people their intrinsic worth – that so and so really is pretty, smart, and gosh darn it, people really do like you! and conversely, you are not all that and a bag of chips, although you are quite good at remembering trivia. (cough *boss* cough)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve always wanted the ability to pull people’s heads out of their asses. Seems to be a whole lotta nog-nog-in-the-butt-butt going on in the world.
I want the power to bring food and water into Myanmar.
I want the super ability to flat iron my hair every day and never get a split end.
Sigh.
I would love it if I were super charming. Like when I forget my coupon and all I have to do is smile at the cashier and she would be all “Oh sure, we can take that off for you, no problem.” And the mean icky people who own my credit card (and probably my soul). “Ten weeks late on your bill? No big deal. Whenever you get around to it, no interest hikes necessary.”
Also, the ability to snap my fingers and automatically have every stray dog hair ground into the carpet and floating in the air instantly vanish.
surface71- and what clean surfaces they would be!
I’m sensing a definate theme to these super power wishes…
On that note, the power to motivate people to do what I wanted them to do. It wouldn’t work if they emphatically don’t want to do something for ethical reasons. I would use it to motivate people to keep the kitchen clean, and to vaccum their house once a week, and de-mould their shower in a timely manner… So I don’t have to do it in order to have some peace of mind.
This power could also be used on myself
While I would take all those powers (especially the time saver and the refilling bank account), I really want the ability to remember everything I’ve ever read or heard.
And people actually have this gift and waste it (*cough my brother cough*)
gm: you can! just download your song on your ipod and put it on repeat and crank the volume up. I do that with the pink panther theme. Just keep in mind there is no way not to look like an idiot when slinking around to that theme song, esp in daylight, but it’s so much fun! Ha, I’ve already got a mild super power- the ability to not be embarassed easily at all. Cool.
The insta-clean house would be Teh Awesome, but I’ll have to go for the power to pull a $50 bill out of my pocket at any time. Then I could hire a maid.
And afford to fill up the gas tank. Oy…
This is totally out of place, so I apologize in advance. Where is Candy, why am I not seeing more of her? Where do you disappear off to? Candy, when will you be back? Are you working on that book of yours or do you not want to come and chat with us no more? Please, please come here more often or I will commit suicide very soon. ïŒ
In Robin McKinley’s book Sunshine, a minor character has the ability to pour coffee that is always hot. I thought that was a useful trait. 😉
I would love to be able to turn into any animal (yes, like one of the Wonder Twins)….preferably one that eats their own young
Actually, I first heard this in a dirty joke, but it’s definitely convenient and kind of neato: I’d like to have the superpower that, whenever I opened my wallet, I would have exactly the right amount of money for whatever I was buying, whether it was a can of soda or a private jet.
On a similar note, the power to fit into the clothing at hand, no matter the size, would also be handy for when you’re shopping and the most fantastic dress is only available in a miniscule size.
This blog sounds something great.Had a feeling of watching super woman picture.Really enjoyed reading it.
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