Someone asked me recently if I thought I’d grow up to be a professional superhero like my mother. Professional? I wasn’t even aware that superheroism was a profession. Do they teach you how to shoot eye beams at people in college? Invent rocket boots? (Well, okay they’re doing that one in college these days . . . .) I’ll tell you what I’ve seen in my lifetimes of experience: There aren’t many of us that do this for the money. Granted, my mom did–does–but I don’t think she’s the norm. Most superheroes find out that they have some kind of special ability, want to do something to help people, and if they’re too afraid to join the police, they put on a mask and hit the streets.
There was this one guy in the news lately. He called himself “The Assinator” as if it were all a big joke. You know what his power was? He lit his farts on fire. No kidding. Okay, so Assinator corners a bunch of thugs in an alley and is about to perform his . . . uh secret move . . . when he finds out that his lighter–the thing he lights his farts on fire with–has run out of fuel. So there he is, standing there with his pants pulled down around his ankles, his butt pointed at a bunch of angry guys with bats and guns and now he’s going, “Oh shit.” Lucky for him, another hero called The Blue Stripe jumps down into the alley. Now, The Blue Stripe has superhuman agility and superhuman senses to go along with it. Unfortunately, The Assinator has already blew it. I mean he was going for big fireball time. The poor Blue Stripe is gagging and writhing on the dirty street and the thugs beat the crap out of him and all The Assinator can do is run away. I mean, what else can he do? Stink up the alley even more?
So here’s where I get to the point: The Blue Stripe, a bona-fide crime fighter, doing the down and dirty on the street retires for health reasons; The Assinator ran away and fought crime for about another month before hanging up his tights. You see a lot of people going out there and fighting crime, but for one reason or another a lot of them just can’t keep it up. I don’t blame them, really. I mean, how many people want to charge into extremely dangerous situations for no pay when they still have bills and family to go home to? If that’s the kind of profession you’re thinking of going into, I think you should remember what happened to poor Mr. Blue Stripe. Be an accountant or be a stand-up comedian–at least then, maybe fart jokes will actually be funny.