musings

i realize that i have some very strange fears. they're not crippling or irrational, per se, just strange and i'm not sure if others feel the same way that i do. an example? food trucks. but not the food borne illness i'm sure will crop up at some point since they have yet to be regulated and don't have the grading system of cleanliness that other, stationary food places have (although yes, it does weird me out). no, me? i'm worried about the walls.

a lot of times, food trucks have side panels that they prop up, thus providing an area to shelter the person who's ordering as well as opening up the side of the truck for said orders, displaying other items such as menus and drinks too. my fear is that when i'm standing under one, the prop will shift and the side panel will come down and smack me in the face. i will become a truck and sue sandwich of pain. no one else has this fear? every time i stand under the metal awning, i get really twitchy and i always stand semi facing away from the truck so that if it does happen, i'll have at least a second to try and protect my head, either with my shoulder taking the brunt of the force or my hands somehow stopping the death trap from snapping shut by doing some major kung fu master zen lightning trick in which my reflexes grab the frame before it falls.

i don't think this is neurotic. i think it's a rational fear. just think about it. you're standing with your back facing toward and under a fairly heavy door, propped open by a thing piece of metal. no? not rational? shut up. it is.

another fear i have, after having discussed a bit about superpowers with stevie, and having now seen episode 1 of haven, is superpower failure. this fear is definitely irrational, particularly because i do not have any superpowers. i just really wish i did. but if i did, i would hate one that would really suck if it suddenly stopped working at a really inconvenient time. i mean, you know how in all these stories, powers suddenly show up, right? like, the person usually hasn't had the power since s/he was a baby and thus, grows up with it while learning how to control it like how a child learns to speak or walk. no, the power happens suddenly when the person is under some sort of stress or something and suddenly BAM! what was that? oh SNAP, i have powers!

so if it can turn on so suddenly... what's to stop it from turning off suddenly too? maybe it's not genetic, maybe it had to do with the weirdness of the environment (e.g. radiation, star alignment, etc.) so when the weirdness ends, wouldn't the powers end too? or maybe it is genetic and it kicked in at puberty or something, when you're body's changing but hey, at some point your body stops doing things it did naturally before (e.g. menopause, hair loss, etc.) so again, what if your powers are affected too? see what i mean?

so what's the fear? well, let's say you have a power like invisibility. what would happen if while you're invisible, the on switch suddenly turns off and you're stuck like that FOREVER? maybe that's what happened to the invisible man. or if you could travel through walls, and BOOM switched off mid way. now you've lost your leg and thank god you were already mostly through the wall before it turned off. if your head had been caught in there... well, now your brain is part of the atoms of the wall. isn't that freaky!?

which is why if i had a superpower, i would want one in which, if they did suddenly turn off, it'd be ok. like flight. or the ability to control weather. if i got stuck while flying, it really wouldn't be a problem. i could mingle with crowds and pretend to walk (but actually be levitating... i'd just have to be careful where it was muddy cause i wouldn't leave tracks) or if i controlled the weather and let's say it got turned off while i was making it rain. too bad for the people who live in the area cause the place just turned into a swamp and another weird wonder of the world, but meh. we have technology, i just move away and the end. the only power i would want and still be willing to risk failure at an inopportune moment that would suck would be the ability to control time. only because if i got stuck in some really weird time period, there would obviously be a reason why i was there in the first place so i probably wouldn't mind. but let's say the power stopped while i was in the middle of trying to get to another time period and my atoms were scattered through all the time between the first point where i left and the point where i was headed, thus ending my sentient life and essentially turning me into a lot of scattered carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on. or my atoms remained in tact, but i got stuck in another time period that i didn't want to be. if the latter, i'd probably still survive and be ok with it. if the former... see, i want this power so much, i don't think i'd mind.

but honestly? i don't have powers. so why am i worrying about the hazards of superpowers that i will never have? since this is an "in my dreams" kind of wish, why can't i just also make it so that in my imaginary world, powers don't fail and are unnecessary to fight crime cause everyone's awesome. also, i rule over the world and delicious food like strawberry cheesecake or garlic bread smothered in butter isn't bad for you, but actually helps my body get strong and fit so that i can ride my horse with wings in the champion races to honor me and totally win due to the awesomeness of my horse and my skills and not just because i rule the world with an iron yet benevolent fist.

i don't know why. like i said. my fears are really strange.