What is your mutant power?
And I don’t mean that in some corny self-help “everyone has a super power, like being really good customer service” sort of way.
I mean it literally – what is your mutant power?
I’ll go first:
I make it rain.
It all started at Burning Man 2003 – the night I got there it rained at Burning Man for the first time in years. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was memorable.
In spring of 2004, I went to Europe. It rained everywhere I went. This wasn’t necessarily notable – it was spring time. But a weird thing in particular happened – at one my point my traveling companions and I split up. I went to Copenhagen to check out Christiania. They went to Paris. I spent a few days in Denmark then headed south to meet up with them. The day before I left Copenhagen, my friend Mark told me that Paris was beautiful – it had been sunny the entire time they were there.
They day I got there, it rained.
So after the trip to Europe, I moved back to Wyoming. I spent some time saying fairwells to friends in Seattle and Olympia before heading back, and called my dad before I left. He said something to the effect of “Bring some of that Seattle rain with you, we need it here!”
I told him it rained wherever I went. He told me that was depressing. “No, no it’s literally true!” I said.
The night I got home to Sheridan, WY it rained. And it turned into one of the rainiest summers in years.
A year and half later, in January of 2006, I moved from Laramie, WY to Portland, OR. Of course it was raining. But it was raining hard and mean. I found myself wondering if it had always been like that in the northwest and I’d just forgotten what is was like. Nope. I found out around the time I got there torrential downpours started – Portland was experiencing record rain falls.
Since then I’ve just sort of assumed it would rain wherever I go. A couple examples – thunderstorms in Casper, WY the night I got into town from Portland last summer. Rain in the desert around Riverside, CA last November while my wife and I were visiting.
I don’t know if they is a particular useful mutant power. I could try to capitalize on it by getting hired by places with droughts to visit for a while. But I don’t have that much faith in my abilities. And there do seem to be some limitations – if I travel only a short distance, for instance, it doesn’t necessarily rain.
And really, I feel silly even talking about it. Mutant powers. Seriously?
But I know there are others. My college roommate Mark (mentioned above) has a really weird one: he opens doors just as people are arriving, without knowing someone is about to arrive, before they knock or anything – sometimes just as they are pulling up in their car. He just gets some sense that he should go open the door. And someone will be just getting there, or the cat will be there wanting in or something. I’ve seen it happen many times, on both sides of the door. He doesn’t hear anything or see anything, he just somehow knows it’s time to open the door.
My wife has a power that she says is dissipating, but I’ve seen this happen several times: cats just walk up to her. We can be walking down the street and a cat will just come out from under a car or something and run right up to her and meow like it wants her to pet it.
So. What’s YOUR power? (Useful or not).
(Communist Mutants From Space image via Danny Chaoflux, city photo by Burning Image / CC)
