Someone walked in on me talking to a printer today.
Which is not that unusual, sadly. I talk to printers a lot. I coax them. I encourage them. I whisper sweet nothings in Tray 2.
Does it help? Who knows. The paper either prints or it doesn’t; it jams or it doesn’t. I find that the level of importance of the print job is in direct correlation to how ineffective the printer is feeling that day.
Of course, she asked if my talking to the printer helped. “Of course it does!” I answered. (I mean, otherwise, I’d be labeled as CRAZY, right? Sitting there, stroking a printer while coaxing it along in sing-song tones?) “Didn’t you believe you had special powers as a kid?”
Man, I did. I totally believed that 1) I could summon wind and 2) I was the only person in a sea of robots that were human look-a-likes. Straight up. I believed both of those things with the same certainty that I could tell you my eyes were brown.
I don’t know where the wind thing came from. To my recollection, I was never really talented at creating wind where there was none. I was, however, masterful at wishing for stronger wind on days that were already windy. So maybe I just never reached my full potential there.
And the robot thing .. well, I work in the engineering industry. I still feel this way a large part of the time.
Somewhere along the way, obviously, the world beats out of us the belief that we can be extraordinary. We are pushed down by the thumb of The Man, told to be uniform, and on top of that we’re reminded that we’re slowly dying anyway so what good would powers do you?
I asked her if she had any special powers when she was young. I suggested what we taught the boys – that you can make the stoplights change if you try hard enough. With Tony, we told him to blow hard enough and they’ll change. This was fun until he almost passed out at a malfunctioning red light.
I still think I have superpowers, and I’m holding on to them dearly. I have an intuition about people that is super keen, to the point where I physically react to someone’s .. aura? .. soul? dunno. I can influence people well. I USE THESE POWERS FOR GOOD, PROMISE.
What powers did you think you had as a kid?
(What powers do you think you have now?)
You know the creation episode of Rainbow Bright, where there’s this chick who’s just suddenly transported to a random planet without color, and she has to bring color to it, and she saves a baby and finds a talking horse?
I totally thought when I turned 10, I’d be beamed up to that colorless planet to become Rainbow Brite. I mean, the similarities between us were too uncanny – the blond hair, freckles, side ponytail, and an affinity for bright colors… granted it was the 80′s, but still. How could that NOT be about me? I was bummed when I realized I’d never be “beamed up” to Rainbowland. I’m still a little disappointed I guess. Mostly that I don’t have a talking horse. And Starlight was not just any talking horse, he was sassy. We’d be BFFs.
Aunt Gee wants you to read ..Thanksgiving: A tradition steeped in blood and served with a side of artery-clogging awkward family food moments. And pumpkin.
Oh, man. I could totally be friends with Aunt Gee. This reply made me so dang happy.
Oh, I was definitely the Bionic Woman, I made the sound effects and everything when I ran or lifted something, I also did it in slow motion.
Now? What would my super power be now? Does being able to get up out of the bed every morning to face the day count as a super power?
Now that I think about it, I guess being the Bionic Woman is totally a fake man-made super power. Hmmmm.
I believed I had the POTENTIAL to stop time if I could just figure out the TRICK associated with it. So I tried constantly. I never mastered it.
At least, NOT YET.
I love this!
When I was pretty little, I thought I could … well, not fly, exactly. More like levitate? I was CONVINCED that it had happened to me twice in my life (once down a hallway, the second time, down a flight of stairs) and that surely I could figure out how to make it happen all the time. I think I genuinely believed it HAD happened until I was 10 or so.
Today’s super powers include sleeping for truly ridiculous stretches of time, devouring seasons’ worth of shows on Netflix, and walking in 4-inch heels.
I have pretty good intuition, too, though not as keen as what you describe.
When I was in kindergarten, I thought I was a mind-reader. While we were doing multiple choice worksheets (like, circle the picture that starts with A), I would put my pencil by what I THOUGHT would be the answer before the teacher read the question out loud. I was right a LOT of the time.
I also thought I could control what dreams I had because my mind was a viewfinder. I’d mentally flick through my wheels of dreams, put one in my ear and have my slideshow for the night.
I created whole worlds — castles, royal families (with generations mapped out), etc — and more than half believed in them.
I still believe I’m very good at reading people and making people trust me. It’s a necessity in my line of work.
Hillary wants you to read ..Another baby