I, Superhero!! :. Mike McMullen
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things do I need? First, I seriously need to get in shape, unless I want to cause spandex futures to skyrocket when I start making my uniform/outfit/costume. Diet. Check.
Second, I also need an alter ego, obviously. Don’t want all my superpowered archnemeses knocking on my door while I’m away supherheroing it up with the Justice Brigade or Hero Herd or whoever and the Wife and the Boy are home alone. New name. Check.
Finally, I need some advice. There are obviously many people who’ve been doing this for a long time before I ever thought of it. I’ve already met Geist, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to visit some more of those people and see what “the life” is like before I jump in with both feet. Mentor. Check.
Okay, Name, Diet, and Mentor don’t start with the same letter, but the Baptist in me feels compelled to alliterate. So if I’m ever going to patent and sell the Threefold Path to Superheroism, I’m really going to need the whole same-first-letter thing as a marketing tool.
Nutrition, Name, and Nurturing? Sounds vaguely New Agey. “Nurturing” doesn’t really reflect my desire to kick as much ass as I hope to someday kick.
Meals, Moniker, and Mentoring? “Mentoring” makes me think of big-brother programs for underprivileged schoolkids, which in turn makes the “Meals” part remind me of Meals on Wheels. Both good programs, but not what I’m shooting for here.
Abs, Alias, and Advice? Sounds like a radio show where people call in and Jennifer Garner gives them workout tips. I realize this is a stretch, but that’s just how my mind works.
Glutes, Guise, and Guidance? Oooh. Not bad. At least, not as bad as the others. I better just run with it or I’ll be up all night with a thesaurus trying to find the perfect triumvirate of synonyms.
Okay, so the first step on the Threefold Path to Superherodom is Glutes: getting into shape. As you may have gathered from previous chapters, this isn’t going to be my forte. I’ve been in shape for a total of four nonconsecutive months in my entire life: June through August 1988, and May 2001. I had it all: that six-pack, those thighs like the animated Disney version of Tarzan, and those cool little lines in my shoulders whenever I moved them, which was constantly, because, hey, I wanted to show off those cool little lines in my shoulders.
Before that window of time, and ever since, I’ve been utterly incapable of and unwilling to stick to any kind of diet or exercise plan. For example, some months ago, in a particularly violent fit of “let’s get healthy,” my wife and I purchased a workout DVD called, for the purposes of not being sued by its producer, March off Your Ass: Xpress!
Don’t blame me, that’s more or less what they named it.
Said DVD has, since purchase, acted primarily as an inanimate reminder of my failure to follow through with anything, glaring at and mocking me from the far corner of the bottom shelf of the living room media case.
Secondarily, it has served as a coaster.
But tomorrow, however…lo!…tomorrow shall be different. Tomorrow, I shall exercise.
First Day of the Rest of My Superhero Life
The day starts out with the initially inoffensive but exponentially less so as it becomes more insistent alarm on my phone that goes off at 6:15 a.m. I immediately hop out of bed at 6:24.
Okay. So far, so good.
The air conditioning is out, and it’s the middle of a particularly nasty summer, so it’s hot.
It’s humid in my bedroom.
It’s muggy in my bedroom.
It’s swampy in my bedroom.
I make my way down the hall, stopping to check the thermostat. It reads 78. Lying piece of—. It’s 105, at least. The humidity is hovering somewhere within spitting distance of 98 percent, and the barometer is falling. In this, I’m going to March Off My Ass.
Xpress!
Rounding the corner, I pass the kitchen and hear the sweet siren’s song of Frosted Mini-Wheats calling me (generic, actually, called Tiny Iced Grain Pillows or something), but I don’t stop. I don’t even pause. I’m on a mission. Would Batman stop for a deliciously saccharine yet surprisingly fiber-rich breakfast cereal on his way to the Batlivingroom? I dare say he wouldn’t, and neither will I. When I reach the living room, it’s dark and hot. I turn on the light. Now it’s bright and hot. Damn.
I take the DVD from its becobwebbed spot on the shelf, and host Susan Marchoffyourassington eyes me from the disc label as if I’m an unexpected guest, which I suppose I am. I shove her smug face into the machine. That’ll shut her up, I think.
Then the video starts.
Far from shutting up, she babbles on and on, nonstop. It’s horrible. This little woman with her fat, riding-pants thighs, news anchor haircut, and her banter about how fun it is to be walking in place in the comfort of your living room when most people are still sound asleep—this little woman, she kills me.
Speaking of which, as I pretend to walk, I start feeling my chest pound. It’s been so long, I can’t tell if this is a healthy “Hey, you’re finally using me! Yeah!” pound or a “Hey, what’s going on out there? Keep this up and we’ll see how far you fake walk without me!” pound. I put my hand to my carotid artery and check. Yep, it’s official. I’m dying. My heart is having none of this sudden change of routine. I’m going to die, and the last person I will see before Jesus is Susan and her lumpy thighs. Great.
But wait, says my brain, what if this isn’t a heart attack? What if this is just, you know, what happens when you do something other than sit, lie, or, when no one’s watching, Electric Slide? I decide that if this is going to kill me, the damage is probably already done and I might as well keep going. I continue pumping my size elevens and swinging my arms like a pathetic ape walking. Minutes later, I’m still alive. Fifteen minutes in, not only have I yet to die, but it’s starting to feel a little…good? Hmm. That was the last thing I would have expected. I start to sweat, what with the mercurial temperature in the house and all. So I whip off my T-shirt in midpretend stride. I look down and wonder if the view from the front is as bad as the view from the top. Good gravy, if I had met the present version of me in junior high, I would have kicked my butt. My body looks like a balloon full of half set concrete. It sloshes around, but very slowly. It takes its time. Even my fat is lazy. Maybe the walk will whip it into shape.
This gives me an idea. I need to look into having fat liposuctioned and then using the suckings to form a sidekick. All I’d need is the fat, a few sausage casings, and some sort of incredibly advanced artificial intelligence. Maybe aliens or hyperintelligent monkeys would have something I could use for this.
Wow…Okay…the exercise is making me delusional. It must be from all the blood rushing to my gut. I look at the clock, and there are only a few minutes of pseudowalking left to do. I Batman up and stick it out, skipping the stretching at the end of the tape. Stretching can come later. Cereal comes now. I turn off the TV. ( good-bye, thunderthighs!) and make a beeline for the kitchen and some generic sugar-coated smallish wheat packets. That’s when I see it.
There—this is hard—there’s a bag on the kitchen counter. There’s a bag, and it’s empty. My heart starts to pound again. The sweat starts to flow. I pick the bag up, hoping against hope, but my first impression is right: they’re gone. They’re all gone.
I promise myself I won’t cry, and then I lovingly place the bag in the trash can, draping it with a dirty paper towel. I consider saluting, then realize I don’t know the bag’s military status, so I just shut the trash can lid as quietly as I can and walk away in respectful silence.
Batman probably eats Wheaties anyway, I tell myself, and that makes it a little better. I retreat to the bedroom, trying to decide if I want to shower or get more sleep and just blame the smell on the guy in the next cubicle all day.
I see my beautiful wife lying in the bed in the dark room, and suddenly, like the bolt of lightning from the heavens when Billy Batson yells “Shazam!” it hits me: at some point,