With great power, comes great responsibility
Comments (...)You readers are probably expecting me to write about football since “The Big Game” takes place this weekend. Well, I’m a Chicago Bears fan so my NFL season actually ended a few months ago, I could not give less of a hoot about the Giants or Patriots. No, I have something much more important to talk about.
Recently my son and I were talking about all of the super powers that we each possess. It is my belief that everyone has their own special set of abilities that have been shaped and honed to the point where in their own way, they have become super heroes without even knowing it. In other words, I think everybody does something that is considered to be ordinary, in an extra-ordinary manner.
Junior started out his list by touting his ability to estimate the exact time that he will arrive somewhere. I must admit, he is very prompt. When he says he’ll be somewhere, he’ll be there. Not much before, not much after, but freakishly on time.
He also lays claim to his unmatched ability to guess the perfect amount of time it takes to cook pizza rolls in a microwave oven without reading the instructions. I don’t know if this is so much a God-given talent as much as it is something that he has learned through countless trials and errors. I personally have seen him eat at least, and I’m not exaggerating one little bit, four to five billion pizza rolls in his lifetime. They’re not just for breakfast anymore.
He also points out that he has a sixth sense when it comes to predicting his opponent’s next move in “rock, paper, scissors.” Although he always beats me, I should point out that he has one of the smaller bedrooms in his apartment due to a crucial “rock, paper, scissors” loss to one of his roommates. I guess that it just goes to show that even Superman meets up with Kryptonite every now and then.
I must admit that the boy has some serious skills. I’ve found that over time, many of my super-human abilities are beginning to deteriorate but are still worth mentioning.
As a kid, I used to be able to be anywhere on the planet, close my eyes, picture myself in my parent’s kitchen and be able to determine which direction I was facing. My family went on a family vacation on the twisty-turny roads through the Appalachian Mountains and I could tell you what direction we were headed without even looking at that big old compass on the dashboard of our Chevy Impala. And I could do this while I was playing the “Pull My Finger” game with my sister. I love that game.
Most of my special powers are television-related. I used to be able to tell you what color a car was on a black and white television. When Johnny Olson, the announcer on “The Price is Right,” used to tell Bob Barker that the contestants were trying to win a beautiful blue 1977 AMC Pacer, I would always turn and tell my Mom, “Yep, I knew that.”
One time while watching “Wheel of Fortune,” back when Chuck Woolery used to host the show, I guessed “Burt Bacharach” with absolutely no letters showing. I don’t consider this a super power in and of itself because that was the only time this has ever occurred for me. The super power lies in the fact that I can still brag about it at any family reunion I attend some 30 to 35 years later. You just try to get Burt Bacharach or Chuck Woolery to come up in normal conversation. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Through the years, I have developed a skill in predicting the amount of time between commercials that I have to flip through the channels without missing much of the program I’m watching. As a guy, I have an incessant need to know what else is on. I could be watching the best entertainment ever created such as an all-day “Swamp People” marathon, and during commercial breaks, I will have this unquenchable need to know if I’m missing “The Antique Roadshow” on PBS. I don’t know why I need to know, I just do. My wife can sit there and watch her entire show, commercials and all, without ever changing the channel. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? That’s why Eli Whitney invented the remote control.
Even though I consider to possess or have possessed these special powers, there are many areas where I am equally deficient. What follows is a partial list of what I consider to be my kryptonite.
• I can never remember if a straight beats a three-of-a-kind when it comes to playing poker. (I’ll bet that I get invited to more poker games after that little fact has seen the light of day.)
• I always have to stop and think if “Balls” or “Strikes” come first when describing an at-bat at a baseball game. I literally have watched, been to or played in thousands of baseball games and I still have to tell myself that the batter has a three-and-two and not a two-and-three count.
• To this day, I still want to put a second “l” in the word “chili.” I’m not really sure why, but it just seems to me that there needs to be two “l”s. Fortunately, up until and including this column, I have probably only written the word less than a dozen times in my entire life.
I’d like to know some of the super powers that are possessed by you readers out there. Drop me an email at the address below to tell me about your special super powers. Don’t be concerned about how mundane they may seem to you. As far as I’m concerned, the dumber the better, which, by the way, is my life’s mantra.
I’ve got to go now and keep the world safe for democracy. Plus, I had chilli for supper last night and my sister needs to pull my finger before I explode.
Go Bears.
You can contact Wallace at gwallace@bcrnews.com. You can follow him on his blog at http://gregwallaceink.wordpress.com.
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picked the GIANTS at the season start take me to vegas Bears need a new coach |
