Super powers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

I’m a Marvel Universe fan, chiefly because my daughter is a fan. We have, over the years, gone to see all the movies, usually on opening weekend, because that’s what she wanted to do. So while I don’t know that I would have chosen to see Marvel movies left to my own devices, I did for my daughter and became an accidental fan but a fan none the less.

Here’s the thing, I’m pretty much willing to try or do just about anything, even things I wouldn’t do by my own choice, if it means more time hanging out with Olivia and making her happy. That’s how I ended up being a gymnastics mom. It’s how I ended up learning to care for, ride (sort of) and trailer horses all over God’s country and back again. It’s also how I, from time to time, find myself at some new micro-brewery tasting beer, which I dislike with a passion. It’s how I occasionally end up at pro baseball games. It’s how I find myself once a year with my eyes squeezed shut, screaming, with a death grip on the handle bars riding the Incredicoaster at Disney’s California Park.

OK so back to Marvel. While a fan, I have never day dreamed about having super hero powers but Thursday I discovered I had, at least that day, an amazing power: invisibility.

As far as I know I hadn’t been zapped with some cosmic electromagnetic energy blast or bitten by a radioactive arachnid nor had I discovered I was actually the daughter of a God. I had gotten hosed by a sprinkler that morning but the last time I checked our well water didn’t have any supernatural properties. Nope, I was just spontaneously invisible.

It took a bit for me to realize this but after two people stepped on my foot, another cut in front of me in line at the bank and a third person struck me with his shopping cart, I could come to no other conclusion than I was imperceptible. It was either that or everyone around me had come down with a serious case of blind rudeness.

As I was exiting a store, a woman entering walked right into me. I’m not talking an accidental bump. Nope, she pretty much full-on body checked me. I staggered and she just kept on walking. Yeah ooook.

In a crosswalk, a car zoomed up nearly hitting me. Now I know that I’m not a very big person and am reminded of this regularly as my daughter and her friends refer to me a “tiny momma,” but “helloooo!” I’m wearing bright pink in broad daylight and I’m in the middle of the crosswalk. How could you not see me? I jumped out of the car’s path, stumbled and ended up awkwardly half-falling.

I went to the next store and though it wasn’t crowded, I was pushed, cart bumped (again) and several people simply stepped in front me blocking me from shelf access. Three times I tried to get the attention of store associates to ask a question. Three times they looked right through me and kept on walking. It was like I wasn’t even there. It was like I was, well, invisible.

By the time I arrived at my fourth stop of the afternoon, after having been cutoff in traffic twice and having someone zip into a parking space I was clearly waiting for with my blinker on, I knew the super hero power of invisibility was mine, whether I wanted it or not.

When the sixth or eighth or seventeenth person bumped into me, I’d had enough.

“Hey! Do you not see me standing here? I’m a short, round, past-middle-aged woman with fire-red hair wearing a neon pink shirt pushing a large silver cart. Can’t you see me?”

The offending person, also a past middle-aged woman, just kept walking.

I turned to a man standing not far away, “Hey buddy! Can you see me?”

He too just walked away.

I proceeded down another aisle and asked a family of four, “Hey! Can you all see me?”

Nothing. Nada. No response. Again, moments later, another clerk breezed on by as I repeatedly said, “Excuse me? Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? I need some help.”

Now as a kid, being invisible might, I thought, have been a great big fun adventure. As an adult? Not so much. But there I was, running errands, and invisible for all the world not to see. Despite my new super ability, I didn’t feel like a super hero. I just felt exhausted.

I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I had, in addition to invisibility, other super hero powers. So, I began extending my arms and seeing if electrical currents or, in my case, invisible energy blasts would emanate from my fingertips. I also made the appropriate special effects sounds — zap! chewww! zap! (and others I can’t spell) — to go with my clear-the-aisles, get-out-ofmy-way blasting.

It worked. It felt good. It felt empowering. It felt super hero-ish.

Suddenly people were scurrying out of my way so fast they were tripping over themselves and each other. This is great, I thought continuing to blast my way through the store. And it was, right until the store manager found me and asked me to leave. Apparently, blasting interfered with my invisibility and scared the general public.

So much for super hero powers.