BEING SUPERMANLY

If you ever want to do a full-on Superman impression at two a.m., I’ll tell you how it’s done. It’s a creative process that begins with a single flying swoosh out of bed, making sure your feet don’t touch the floor until you’ve soared at supersonic speed for at least six feet. This maneuver is not optional. True heroes do not simply sit up and assess the situation; they vault into action at full speed.

Next, you race around the house like a speeding bullet, leaping over tall objects with a single bound. Wearing a cape or blanket hastily draped over your shoulders is optional, and highly fashionable, but don’t waste precious seconds pondering your wardrobe, just go as you are. No one will notice, least of all the dog …if you have a dog.

Screaming is voluntary, but it’s not very Supermanly, so try to contain it…and besides, it will be drowned out by the screeching smoke alarm anyway. Stubbing your toe, on the other hand, is mandatory and guaranteed to happen 100% of the time, but save the cursing for later. It will be nearly impossible to form words in that moment; adrenaline will have commandeered all nonessential functions, including coherent speech. Every cell of your body is now laser-focused on finding the fire…and the forever disappearing phone. Using your nose to sniff out smoke is completely futile. In the heat of the moment, you will imagine you smell it in every nook and cranny as you dash from room to room, so forget the nose, it will make your search all the more frantic and absurd.

If you live with someone, and even though I truly hope you do … I have to honestly tell you there is a drawback. That person instantly becomes your biggest obstacle. With both of you in frantic perpetual motion…pushing, shoving, stumbling, and limping, you will ricochet off each other like a pair of billiard balls suddenly struck by a cue. Collisions are inevitable, grace is impossible, and apologies are postponed until further notice. It is vitally important to take note of any new bruises later on; now is not the time. In the chaos of your heroic Supermanly dashing, you won’t even feel them until the adrenaline wears off much later.

By the way, when you actually do find your phone, chances are it’s been in your hand the whole time, but in your panic, you will have no recollection of how it got there… let alone how to simply dial 911 for help. In the heat of the moment, it’s very likely you will punch 119 over and over again with a wild sense of urgency, and the notion this will summon help from somewhere… The Police, Fire Department, maybe Animal Control. It won’t, but don’t let that bother you. Odds are, you turned your phone off before going bed, and now you are far too frazzled to remember how to turn it back on. Turning on a phone is a task so simple a child could do it …but at 2 a.m., in the middle of your superhero moment, it becomes an advanced technical challenge. You’ll stare at the black screen, willing it to spring to life through sheer force of will… It won’t.

Meanwhile, your mind is frantically searching through your mental checklist of fire drill rules. What should you grab? Where’s the dog? Wait…do we actually have a dog? Where’s the fire extinguisher? Should you take snacks? (To be honest, the snack question will linger in your mind far longer than it should; priorities get strange at 2 a.m.) Try to focus. There’s a fire somewhere, remember?

The screeching smoke alarm along with the surge of panic is overwhelming; and it’s impossible to focus with so much pandemonium running through your mind. ..Ahh, but then, just as suddenly as it all began, it’s over. The house falls silent, except for the jackhammering of your heart. There’s no smoke. There’s no fire. There’s only a traitorous, malfunctioning smoke detector. You glance up at it…there it is, perched on the ceiling, looking smug and innocent, as if it had nothing to do with the chaos it unleashed. For a fleeting second, you consider forgiving it, but then, you quickly think better of it. With all the dignity of a weary superhero at the end of an exhausting battle, you remove the offender, drop it to the floor, and deliver a heroic, Supermanly stomp to it. The plastic cracks with a deeply satisfying, and entirely justified finality.

The house is exactly as it was before, unchanged, undisturbed, and completely unthreatened. The dog, when you finally locate it…if you have a dog, will be utterly unimpressed with your heroics, perhaps giving a disgusted sigh, as it goes back to sleep.

Eventually, as your breath slows and your heart’s pounding fades, you shuffle back to bed. No speeding bullets or leaping single bounds now, just the soft, defeated flopping of your feet against the floor. You might think that after all that, you would feel just a little bit heroic. But as you lie in bed and the adrenaline slowly ebbs away, what you mostly feel is exhaustion and the lingering embarrassment at your undeniably un-Supermanly performance. As you lie there you replay the mad dash to nowhere, with all its panicked fumbles. You are amazed at how quickly a normal night turned into a slapstick emergency fire drill… Ultimately, you’re just grateful it was just a false alarm, and you tell yourself you’ll brush up on your superhero skills...but probably not.

You close your eyes, hoping for sleep, but your mind insists on running through your checklist once more, but stalls when you come to the snacks: Maybe you should have grabbed those snacks after all.

Before long, as the rush gives way to relief, you realize there really was something truly heroic in all that chaos after all: you cared, you acted, and you kept going, even when everything went terribly wrong. Maybe you weren’t exactly a super hero tonight, but you gave it your best shot

Take life as it comes, Superheroes…sometimes, the only thing you need to save is your sense of humor.