“Reaching things
off the top shelf,” which anyone could say, really, as long as they owned a
step-stool. That was kind of a dumb
Super Power.
But he
surprised me. He gave a wicked grin and
then breathed on me, directly in my face.
I at first thought he was going to kiss me, but it was only his hot,
smelly breath. I grimaced and backed
away immediately.
“Argh! You need to brush your teeth! Did you eat garlic pasta again for
lunch?”
“See? Death Breath.
That is my Super Power.” He opened the refrigerator, grabbed a raw
onion, and took a big chomp.
I was
suddenly jealous. This would be a very
useful Super Power to have if, say, you were avoiding talking to your boss
about that new project she assigned you, or if the PTA president was trying to
corner you into selling more wrapping paper (or any wrapping paper).
Turns out,
this was not the only Super Power that The Husband possessed.
“Sweat,” he
proclaimed proudly, “I also sweat a lot, and that makes people stay away from
me.”
It was
true. I mean, at our own wedding, had I
not loaned him my powder compact so he could dab his greasy nose before we
spent three grand on pictures?
“Sometimes,
at the office, I purposely put my suit jacket back on when I am really
hot.”
“Wait a
second, isn’t that counter-intuitive? If
you are hot, you should take your jacket off,
not put it on.”
“MOV, my
shirt is soaked under the arms and around the collar. If I put the jacket on, then it hides all
that. If I don’t have a jacket handy, I
just grab a sweater.”
“That is
silly! You are just going to make
yourself even hotter and sweatier that way!”
“I turn on a
floor fan and blast the air-conditioning in that case. I have been known to crank it down to 60
degrees.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, so
you don’t want to catch me on a blazing hot day right after lunch. Sometimes, so many people avoid me that I get
about eight hours of work done in one afternoon. I don’t even have to close my office
door.”
Right at
that moment, I discovered a latent Super Power of my own that I had not even
realized existed: pretending to be
interested.
MOV
