Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (9 page)

Nowadays, superpowers are everywhere. At the movies, Spider-Man has superpowers, and so do Iron Man, Sandman, Venom, and whatever the other bad guy is. On TV, all the people in
Heroes
have superpowers, and
Medium
is a soccer mom with superpowers. In books, Harry Potter is a boy with superpowers, and Tolkien’s
The Children of Hurin
has hobbits with superpowers, which may be redundant.

Something is happening in pop culture. I’m no detective, but I think it’s that people want superpowers.

Not me, though. I don’t want superpowers. I don’t want to turn people into sand; I like them the way they are, at least the ones I didn’t divorce.

And I don’t want to spin webs out of my fingertips. I’d settle for ten really nice fingernails, all at the same time.

Come to think of it, instead of superpowers, I’d want normal powers. You may know that I’m picky about really important things, like Splenda and croutons. But I’m flexible on powers. I’d settle for everyday powers. Things that normal people can do, but I can’t.

Right off the top of my head, I can make a wish list of ten normal powers that would change my life:

  1. The power to match a lid to its travel mug. They say every pot has a lid, but every travel mug clearly does not. I have three hundred black plastic lids in my cabinet and none of them fit any of my travel mugs. I can’t find the right lid, ever. And I never, ever will. This is not a metaphor for my social life.

  2. The power to remember the directions that somebody tells me after I pull over to ask for them. Every time, as soon as I drive away, I forget. This phenomenon is impossible to explain, especially considering that I remember the words to every high school cheer. Push ’em back, shove ’em back, waaay back! See?

  3. The power to eat anything I want and not gain weight. If I had this power, I’d fly around in my cape and protect us all from Kirstie Alley.

  4. The power to stop my hair from frizzing. I know it’s wrong to base your self-esteem on your hair, but let’s get real. Good hair helps. I went on a vacation to Paris, and my hair looked terrific. France has no humidity. A good hair country!

  5. The power to find my keys and cell phone at will. In fact, if my cell phone could call my car keys, that would work, too.

  6. The power to walk in slingbacks without the strap falling down in back. This is an often-overlooked normal power. Anybody can walk in heels. Only experts can walk in slingbacks. I don’t qualify. Yet.

  7. The power to watch
Grey’s Anatomy
without being totally annoyed by Ellen Pompeo’s lips. Lip actresses drive me nuts. I was barely over Calista Flockhart in
Ally McBeal,
and now this. Renée Zellweger, watch out. I’m taking you down, girl.

  8. The power to stay awake until the end of
The Colbert Report
. This is no reflection on Stephen Colbert, who knows that I love him because I tell him every night, telepathically. (Okay, borderline creepy.) Yet I barely make it through The Word. I can’t stay awake as late as I used to. Again, no reflection on my social life, real or imagined. (With you, Stephen, only you.)

  9. The power to apply liquid eyeliner without it coming out like a sales chart. I feel sure that my life would change if I could put on liquid liner. Best friend Franca can do it and she looks great. Daughter Francesca can do it, too. Even Paris Hilton can do it. I’ve been trying and failing to accomplish this for the past twenty years. Now it’s probably too late, because my eyelids have fallen like the final curtain.

10. Finally, there’s an array of normal powers that I’m squeezing in here, while I’m making my wish list. I’d love the power to get the Christmas lights working on the first try, find my dry cleaning receipt when I need it, remember where I parked my car, return the DVD rental before the late charges reach $37, and locate a working pen while I’m on the phone—and a working flashlight when the power goes out.

Is it so much to ask?

I don’t want to be Superwoman. Just Normalwoman!

Ka-POW!

I realized the other day that I don’t care about superpowers because I didn’t read those comics as a kid. To me, Superman and Batman were for boys. Girls had Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, the blonde and brunette bombshells of the Archie comics. I loved those comics and still remember their many valuable lessons.

What were they?

Here’s Betty and Veronica’s Lessons For Girls.

Before we begin, let me remind you that Betty and Veronica were best friends who went to Riverdale High School. They were both gorgeous, impossibly curvy, and permanently seventeen.

But their personalities were very different:

Betty was poor, but nice and natural. She wore her canary-yellow hair in a bouncy ponytail and dressed like a tomboy. In fact, Betty has her own webpage these days, which reveals that she sews her own clothes. The website sums her up as “your average small town girl,” and her blog (of course, she has a blog) contains salsa recipes.

In contrast, Veronica had money, and was mean and spoiled. The website says that she’s “gorgeous, sophisticated, sexy and very RICH.” (The capitals are theirs; I save my capitals for
better things.) Veronica is also “ambitious” and “confident.” Veronica writes in her blog: “only three weeks of school left—must buy summer clothes!”

By the way, neither girl is described as smart. Anywhere.

What have we learned, so far?

Lesson One: Poor people are better than rich people. Blond people are better than brunette people. Black people don’t exist.

Unlike Betty, who lives with her normal family, Veronica lives with her father, a family situation which is borderline creepy. Mr. Lodge is most often found sitting in a club chair, reading the newspaper and waiting for his daughter to ask him for things. She calls him Daddykins. He always says yes.

 

Lesson Two: Single parents produce messed-up kids.

Betty and Veronica form the distaff base of a love triangle that peaks in Archie Andrews. The storyline of every comic is the same—Betty and Veronica, theoretically best friends, scheme, plot, and deceive each other in order to win Archie.

 

Lesson Three: Even your best friend can, and should, be ditched for a guy.

Which girl do you think Archie chooses more often—sweet, uncomplicated Betty or neurotic but sexy Veronica? You guessed it.

 

Lesson Four: Men dig crazy.

The website admits that: “Betty is extremely devoted to Archie, but sadly is most often playing second fiddle to
her best friend Veronica for his affections. Through every crazy loving scheme to win Archie’s love, Betty always remains completely unaffected, loyal and sweet.” Of course she does. How Betty of her.

 

Lesson Five: Nice is a waste of time.

But here’s something I never understood. Why do Betty and Veronica want Archie so much? He’s not attractive. His hair is orange, parted in the middle, and he has cross-hatches for sideburns. His nose looks like a jellybean.

 

Lesson Six: Any boyfriend is better than no boyfriend at all.

Archie doesn’t even have a good personality. He’s not smart, and that’s fine with him. The website doesn’t apologize for the fact that he “brings home average grades from school.” On the contrary, in all respects, Archie is a “typical small town boy.”

 

Lesson Seven: Mediocrity rocks!

But Archie does have a “good, solid family background.”

 

Lesson Eight: Learn to settle.

So, growing up, who did I want to be—Betty or Veronica? I’ll tell the truth. I knew I was supposed to want to be Betty, but I secretly wanted to be Veronica.

 

Lesson Nine: It’s okay to be superficial.

It didn’t matter what Betty or Veronica wanted to be when they grew up. In the comics I remembered, they didn’t want to be anything but with Archie. However, the website has more recently assigned them career aspirations, because women have the vote now.

 

Lesson Ten: History can always be revised. If you remember it otherwise, you’re wrong.

So, what are the career goals of these two? The site says, “Veronica would someday like to run Lodge Enterprises.” Presumably that’s her father’s business, or a Mafia front. Knowing Veronica as I do, I wouldn’t put it past her. Veronica could be an excellent crime lord if she’d stay out of Neiman Marcus.

 

Lesson Eleven: Nepotism is a fancy word for born winner.

Finally, what’s Betty’s career plan? “Betty’s goal is to become a famous writer.”

 

Lesson Twelve: Follow your dream, in case you’re a Betty.