First
by Doug Hawley
“Welcome
everyone to the first super meeting roundtable. Why
don’t we go around the table and introduce
ourselves by telling what your superpower is? No
need for names since we all have placards. Good,
I see that there is only one absentee.”
A nondescript man in a brown suit claimed, “I
can get in and out of the Department Of Motor
Vehicles in fifteen minutes”. The
assembled supers emitted a collective “Ooooh”
in admiration.
The woman on his right said “Everyone falls
in love with me. It might sound like a
good thing, but I’ve had to pay assistants
for some of my love life because I don’t
have time for all the sex myself.”
The man in a cape on her right told her “I
don’t believe it. You’re not
that hot.”
“Then why are you drooling on me and why is
your hand in my crotch?”
“”Oops, I guess you caught my hand in
the honey pot. You win, but I’m
pretty special myself. I’m faster
than a speedy sprinter.”
A man across the table from him asked “How
fast is that?”
Caped man told him proudly “I can run the
hundred meters in eight seconds.”
Amid scattered raspberries, his interrogator
dismissively responded, “So a little faster
than Usain Bolt?”
Caped man shrank into his chair.
The next super said “I’m Hypno Woman. I
have the power to cause men to behave right.”
Caped man said “Something just came over me. I
was about to ask her to send me nude pictures,
but now I want to make a contribution to NOW.”
The man to the right of Hypno-Woman stated,
“I completed my bucket list in three minutes,
and it had three hundred and two things on it.”
The DMV man asked, “You did over three
hundred things to do before you die in a few
minutes?”
“No, I collect buckets. Some are
antiques, different colors, wood, plastic and
metal.”
The other supers uttered variations on “meh”.
The next speaker was another man with a cape. Except
for that and his underwear worn on the outside,
he looked like a mild-mannered reporter. When
he started to list his powers “X-Ray vision,
faster than a speeding bullet, …” the
first caped man shouted him down “Old hat,
boring, let’s move on.”
To his right an attractive woman in something
that looked like a bustier and shorts said “I
was a virgin birth on an island of all women. At
least that’s what my mother told me, but
there were rumors of sailors visiting our island. Plus,
I can do the bondage of truth and I’ve got
an invisible plane, unfortunately with an
invisible bathroom.”
Two or three people fall out of their chairs, and
many screamed when a thunderous voice came from
the vacant chair “I can turn invisible.” After
thar declaration, a small meek appearing man
coalesced in the chair that had appeared empty.
Irresistible woman wondered “Do you sneak
into locker rooms?”
“No! Do you think I’m some
kind of pervert? I take, some would
say steal, money from banks and give some of it
to the poor.”
Irresistible woman persisted “Does that make
you some kind of hero? How much do you
give to the poor?”
“About ten percent. The rest I
spend at strip clubs and on hookers.”
X-Ray vision man added “I’ve looked
into a number of locker rooms, and I’d
advise against it. There is so much I’d
like to unsee.”
The penultimate speaker spoke in a blunt, deep
voice “I put on a tight-fitting bullet-proof
suit made to look like a flying rodent and fight
a never ending battle.”
Caped man asked “Are you winning the battle
for justice/”
“Fight for justice? I never
thought of that. I could try that now
that I’ve beaten mimes.”
“I convened this meeting and all of you have
had your turn, so I’ll finish up. My
power is the ability to get many people together
on short notice with a hundred percent attendance.”
DMV man spoke for the admiring group when he said,
“Now that’s a superpower we’d all
like to have.”
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