10 Minute Prompt: What is Your Super Power?

Everyone has a Super Power. Not everyone knows it. Some people spend their whole lifetime without discovering what their Super Power is. Conversely, not everyone can tell when people are using their Super Powers. Sometimes their Super Power is being able sit quietly and look interested while they are really making grocery lists in their heads, or planning keggers, or reliving their last Hawaiian vacation. And some people’s Super Power is super annoying, like when they can remember every singe thing you’ve ever said to them and they remind you of it later when you contradict yourself, or change your mind. But that’s another story for another day. My Super Power is the Laugh Ray. I can shoot the Laugh Ray out of my mouth anytime I feel bored, or stressed, or when things are just getting too serious for no good reason, and whoever I aim at just falls over laughing. I have made robbers drop their loot in a fit of hilarity. But I wasn’t born knowing how to use my Super Power. I have had to learn to use my Laugh Ray judiciously, over time.

Before I was old enough to go to school I would use the Laugh Ray on my mom when she looked harried while trying to get dinner cooked. She would look at me and laugh so hard, doubling over, eyes closed, gripping the spatula to her chest, the food would burn and she would have to start all over again from scratch. So that wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped.

When I was in High School I would use it when I was bored in Mr. Nelson’s history class. While Mr. Nelson was describing the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland he would double over laughing, trailing a chalk line across the green chalk board from the last R in ”Storm Trooper.” Sitting in detention is not the outcome I had in mind.

As an adult I find it useful to whip out the Laugh Ray when others around me stray into social territory that is dangerous to me. Like when I’m on a bus, minding my own business, and some guy sits down next to me and starts telling me how his next door neighbor is using remote viewing to follow him around his apartment, and is shooting rays through the wall into his apartment to burn his linoleum tiles and release asbestos into the air, and how the aliens are abducting people and engineering a whole new race of human beings. I whip out my Laugh Ray and before you know it, he is laughing his way all the way up the aisle to a seat near the driver.

Once I was at a party and the host says “You know if gays are allowed to marry the next thing you know people will be trying to marry their dogs...” When no one was looking I turned on my Laugh Ray and before you knew it everyone was laughing so hard, pointing their fingers at one another, holding their sides, and all intentions to hate on gays was forgotten.

It can come in handy in more personal situations too, like when I’m hanging out with someone new, and I like her, say on a second date, and she starts talking about her feelings, and that she really wants kids but would rather get a dog first to see how we parent together. I open my mouth as if to say “I think that’s a great idea,” but instead I turn on the Laugh Ray. Pretty soon we’re having a good time again.

All in all, my Super Power has allowed me to dodge many bullets.