Nathan Wahl

     Growing up, I wanted to be an X-man. But I just watched X-men, and I realized being an X-man can suck as much as being average ole me. I imagined the powers I could have. I wanted to be unique. How cool would it be to heal in minutes? To conjure ice from air? (What a party trick!) But there are still assholes who’d cut you just to watch you heal, (a new saying), and a drunk guy would be like, “Do it again where you make a rose, but this time make a bouquet!”

     I used to legitimately anticipate my powers, (or hogwarts letter, as the case may be). I wasn’t simply hoping and praying. As far as life was concerned, I was just killing time between being ordinary and HAVING UNLIMITED SUPERHUMAN POWERS. The idea of flying wasn’t just a dream, wings were SUPPOSED to come with puberty. Instead I got patchy facial hair and an overgrown adam’s apple.

     My fantasies were so real. I don’t know when it stopped. When I was 12, I was googling “how to learn telekinesis”. I tried, for hours, to bend spoons, which just means I stared an awful lot at spoons. (My parents must’ve thought I was challenged). Even in college I still got a little joy from thinking, “there’s still time”. There was still time before I’d be reading minds! (The minds of beautiful women! And I would be like Mel Gibson in What Women Want ALL DAY anditwouldbeawesome. If you haven’t seen it, you’re a fool.)

     I wanted to feel like I could do things that were crazy or unheard of. But if I had superhuman powers, they soon wouldn’t be crazy or unheard of. They’d be old hat. (An old wizard hat!) Being superhuman would be a novelty.

     The thing is, there’s so much potential as a regular human and I’m just not living it. I’m squandering it. There’s human shit I can’t do. I can’t do ten pull-ups in a row. I can’t run 5 miles without heaving. These are things that are totally obtainable, but, as of now, I’ve already given up. It’d be the same if I were a mutant. If I could walk through walls, I’d just walk through doors instead of opening them. BEING A MUTANT WOULDN’T MAKE ME LESS LAZY!

     My point is being a human can suck, but so could being an X-man. But just as a being an X-man would be awesome, so can being a human. And shit, man, I just need to do some push ups.