It stares down at me, the last humiliation in an unending line, part of what I laughingly call my life.
The other kids have their own embarrassments- the dads with beer guts, uncontrolled belching, the ones who try a little too hard to be hip. They admire me, think it’s great that I have parents who are as cool as mine. At least I still have both parents, and neither one of them is a dork.
Little do they know.
I’m the only kid on the block who has a father who likes to go out in public in his underwear. He’s famous for it, and there have been more pictures of him than any other male celebrity.
That’s part of the problem now. I stare up at it and wonder how my life came to this.
It wasn’t so bad when I was a kid. There’s a cool factor to having a dad who is a superhero, even if it means that he can’t come to every play or baseball game. At least he tried, which is more than can be said for most of the other fathers I know.
The occasional trips to other dimensions and other times, and the vacations to exotic places didn’t hurt either.
But it’s been harder and harder lately to see this as a good thing. I’ve started to come into powers of my own, and it still horrifies me a little that I’ve started being able to see what my father does when he spins into his suit.
It’s an image I’ve been trying to get out of my mind for a while now, though it seems to be indelibly burned into my retina.
The occasional bouts of x-ray vision sound good in theory, but when the first time it kicks in is when you are volunteering at a nursing home...well that was pretty traumatic too.
But now that I’ve started dating girls, this is the last thing I need.
My girlfriend has my father’s picture on the wall. It stares down at me, and I can’t help but feel horrified at the thoughts creeping around the edges of my mind.
Has she had fantasies about Superman? Was he her first crush?
I have a sinking feeling that this is just the first time I am going to come across this. It makes my flesh crawl a little, seeing his picture in the middle of the wall, surrounded by more normal pictures of boy bands and rock stars.
It’s not like I can compete at him with anything else. It’s a little unfair when both your parents are better than you at everything, even when one of them isn’t super.
I’ve seen my mother’s grades from when she was young. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to compete with those. I don’t have either of my parents talent for writing, I’m not all that interested in school, and...
“Are you ready?”
The voice behind me puts a shiver up my spine. This girl is everything I’m not. She’s smart, strong willed, determined. She reminds me of my mother a little, but in the good things. She’s not nearly as domineering.
I close my eyes for a moment, then force a smile. I turn, and say, “You’ve got all the books we need?”
She nods. She’s the most beautiful girl I can ever remember seeing, and all it takes is looking at her to make my doubts wash away.
Maybe I lied a little about her being my girlfriend. She’s just my study partner. But if I’ve learned anything from my parents, it’s that things can change if you work hard enough.
If I have to put up with a little humiliation along the way, well so be it.
