There is a superhero in all of us ...
How many people know the real Superman story? Would it surprise you to discover that Superman’s real superpower is telling believable lies? Think about it. Clark Kent. An incorrigible nerd. Working for a newspaper. Have you ever walked into a newsroom and scanned what’s on offer? No woman is going to go into unscheduled ovulation at the sight of these underwhelming sexual specimens.
I can’t think of a more apt environment for an overactive mind to conjure up a hero who can fly, pierce through a building with laser eyes and have X-ray vision to see through women’s underwear than a newsroom.
What most people don’t seem to appreciate is that they, too, possess superpowers. This obviously doesn’t apply to Batman because ... well, not every superhero has to have superpowers. After all, Mcebisi Jonas said no to R600m. I might be really shitty at choosing friends because I do not know one who would say no to R600m if they found themselves in a compound at Saxonwold. Especially if there was the smell of lamb biryani wafting through the house. I would have sold out the lot of you for just six hundred bucks and a mutton curry.
If you really apply your mind you will realise that you, too, probably possess a superpower. My friend Spunky can burp the national anthem in tune except the Uit die blou van onse hemel part when he starts diving for cover and complaining about the sting from the teargas. We normally stuff a Fizzpop in his mouth and assure him that Adriaan Vlok died many moons ago.
My own superpowers are far less impressive. For instance, I am able to tell you the time within 10 minutes’ accuracy even if I last checked it 10 hours ago. I just always know what time it is. I’ve often suspected that I was a train scheduler in 1930s Rome when Benito Mussolini was busy fixing the broken railway system in Italy. I must have seen too many of my colleagues’ severed heads on the tracks and decided that no train was going to be late on my watch as long as I still wanted to inhale oxygen and expel carbon dioxide.
Another superpower I possess is blocking out all the sounds in a restaurant and eavesdropping on a conversation happening eight tables away. If you asked me nicely I could tell you what Markus and Lily were fighting about at The Baron in Bedfordview on Wednesday, at around 4.56pm. For the record, Lily was right; there’s no rational reason for any man to have a nose ring. Markus should have known better.
Everyone has a superpower. Bill Clinton’s was telling Americans whatever they wanted to believe and they believed him. George Dubya could convince Americans that the Pope was hiding weapons of mass destruction under his papal robe and they would have cheered as his head was blown off. Our own former president Thabo Mbeki has the superpower of never having been wrong about anything. And he’s right about that, hey. His successor, Jacob Zuma, inherited Eskom’s loadshedding, brought in the experts to fix it and then declared load-shedding would never visit us again under his presidency. He didn’t lie. And this is why his successor, Ramashocked, is perpetually amazed when the lights go off.
Another superpower? I can guess anyone’s profession by looking at them, given just two guesses. There’s a certain utilitarian, confident, useless look about engineers. As for IT geeks, they try way too hard to look cool — and they always look at you like they know something you don’t.
We all have superpowers. We just don’t recognise them as such. Take Danny Jordaan, for instance. I hope everyone knows that his superpower is our national football team doing well under his leadership. This is without any sense of irony that if you’re in the same position for 37 years there’s a miniscule statistical probability that some things will go right in spite of you.
But the superpower I yearn for most is that of the fellow who used his R350 grant the president gave him to start a profitable ice-cream business with several employees. I’m a poor man but I have a few lots of R350 in my account. With sufficient focus I’m convinced that I could drive Magnum out of business using our president’s superpowers.
My friend Spunky can burp the national anthem in tune except the ‘Uit die blou van onse hemel’ part when he starts diving for cover and complaining about the sting from the teargas