Spandex and rubber

Wouldn’t it be great to be a superhero? These are the kinds of things I think about when nursing a sever caffeine deficiency and my harmless insanity. I would just like to know what it would be like to be the hero coming to the rescue. I don’t mean one that’s established like Wonder Woman, I mean if that *you* were a superhero. Whatever your greatest strengths are would be your superhero powers.

Let me give you an example: I would be Captain Cynicism. I’d wear vintage T-shirts with smartass sayings, loose jeans, and steel toed boots. If asked why I wasn’t wearing spandex or a ridiculously short skirt; you’d receive a lengthily diatribe about how that’s just another way to make women fall short of meeting society’s impossible expectations while holding them back as if they were nothing more than a mere sexual object. I would have a procrastination ray gun that I’d use to incapacitate would be criminals by making them continuously put off making plans to rule the world in favor of a bag of chips and the TV remote. I could blind them with my horrible dancing of doom, or bring them to their knees with my super screech like singing. I could confuse them with my losing laser that would hide their keys and make them unable to find the bank they were going to rob. If all else fails, I could tempt them with my cooking that would bring death faster than Poison Ivy’s kiss. Look out evil doers, Captain Cynicism is on duty.

These ludicrous thoughts were running through my mind as I waited on the side of the road with a flat tire. More people than I care to think about refused to stop. Now me being a liberated woman, I know *how* to change a tire. My problem was the Hulk couldn’t have moved the tire lock. My cell phone was so helpfully out of juice, and most people didn’t even look at the girl on the side of the road twice. This gave me all the time in the world as I contemplated who to call collect. Oh, did I mention that I had no change seeing as though I used it for gas, and my wallet was probably under my bed where it does me the most good?

So, just as I was about to head to the nearest convenience store, that wasn’t so convenient as it was about a mile away, a car stopped. An older man in a three piece suit stepped out of the car. He walked over to where I was. I was overjoyed, here was my help. However he said nothing to me, dumped out his old coffee from a travel mug on the side of the road, and got back in his car. Are you kidding me? I was starting to wonder if I was invisible, or perhaps he didn’t notice me standing not 50 feet from him, next to a car that had its hazard lights on. Stranger things have happened. Though, these thoughts didn’t stop me from cursing him as he drove off. Clearly those lessons in etiquette that my mother gave me were tossed right out the window sometime near puberty.

Just as I was about to cry, yes frustration can do that to a girl, a minivan stopped. A frazzled mother of two got out of the drivers seat and walked towards me. She had a stain on her shirt and looked like she hadn’t slept in the last decade. I could understand why judging by the wail I heard from young lungs in her van. She offered me a smile, her cell phone, and even a pop. Then she offered to wait with me until help arrived. She clearly wasn’t having the best day herself, yet she stopped to help me improve mine. Today, this harried mother with wild hair and exhaustion in her eyes was my hero.

Yes, today a woman was my hero and she didn’t even need any superpowers. She just needed kindness and the ability to think of someone else. Of all the people that could have stopped, she probably had the most reason not to. She probably would have been better off with a nap or getting her kids to the babysitter faster, but she chose to stop. She made a choice to use her compassion to help another in the real world. What kind of superhero would you be?

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.” -- Benjamin Disraeli