I have found that a foolproof way to lend a little eccentricity to any party is to make one simple query: "Flight or invisibility?"
The question never needs explaining, and as answers are offered, it becomes obvious that many have pondered this before.
Partygoers, interrupting each other to give the final word on the matter, work through the unexpected problems and benefits that a classic superpower would bring.
I'm skeptical of both. Flight? Please. A routine zip over the Valley would garner intrusive media and military attention, and a jaunt over a rural area would risk attracting the notice of every gun-toting trophy-seeker who thinks he's seen an angel.
And invisibility? I think the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has conclusively shown us the negative social effects of perfect concealment. And given today's litigious culture, you'd be lucky to eke out your last few spine-curved years chomping raw fish in an underground cave.
More likely would be lifelong incarceration with other Peeping Toms, you voyeuristic pervert.
The classic comic book superpowers tend to be magnifications of stuff ordinary people can do. You can jump a rope? Superman can jump a building. You can take a punch? The Tick can take an I-beam. You can nuke a burrito? Radioactive Man can survive a nuclear blast.
The appeal of the classic superpowers isn't hard to see. But it's easy to lose oneself in these fantasies and miss the everyday superpowers possessed by people around us.
Most superpowers would not be useful in the real world in which we study and work, form friendships and raise families.
Adamantine claws have limited use in the workplace and would probably scare kids.
The power to freeze things on command would not be terribly handy as a lawyer, though it might be practical for a Coke delivery driver.
I'm interested in more nuanced, useful superpowers: uncanny abilities that could help one through the mundane parts of American life. Specifically, I yearn for two: charisma and organization.
Charisma is that intangible "it" which separates the leaders from the losers, dividing the guy screaming "I'm the Christ!" on the corner of 5th Street and Mill Avenue from the serious messianic candidate.
Legally and ethically more prudent than mind-control, charisma causes people to want to follow you.
Charisma is powerful stuff. Much more than attractiveness, it allows some women to hold sway over every man they meet. And it was Hitler's odd magnetism that united nations and drove tens of millions to their deaths.
Charisma can be specialized, too. Some, for instance, have the ability to befriend animals. I myself am charismatic to the 6-10 age demographic.
Put me in a room with even the most problematic of children, and I will make lifelong comrades. If 9-year-olds ever get the vote, I will be elected Supreme Chancellor.
While charismatic people collect devotees, it's the super-organized who get the work done.
Muscle-bound superheroes are regularly described as possessing the strength of "100 men!," but how useful is that?
I'd take organizational skills any day - the ability to accomplish three times as much as the ordinary slob, for example, before passing out in bed at nightfall.
I know a woman who regularly takes 18 credits a semester, coordinates volunteers for a nonprofit and holds down a job. She also holds a prestigious scholarship and is preparing for a trip to East Asia.
Such amazing people walk among us with these and other abilities - the ability to always dress impeccably, to boldly host dinner parties, to sing any song with perfect pitch and full mastery of the lyrics, and to always have the perfect retort in an argument.
The power of these talents to give shape to a person's life or to bring him or her into the halls of influence pushes them far beyond the realm of ordinary "skills" and into superpowers.
This Thanksgiving, be thankful for the things around you, especially your everyday superpowers.
Brandon Hendrickson cannot fly, manipulate gravity, or project optic blasts from his eyes. He does work well with children and knows how to drive stick shift. A mild-mannered tutor by day, he can be reached at: brandon.hendrickson@asu.edu.
