Defeatable Me
With extraordinary power comes extraordinary limits.
Nobody’s perfect. Achilles? Bad ankles. Superman? Rock sensitivity. Ryan Reynolds? I’m sure he’s got something.
That even applies to me. Despite my deep and glaring perfections, I do have a few weak points. So, rest assured, if I one day become too powerful and must be thwarted, vanquished or otherwise neutralized, here are a few ways to do it:
Make me pursue you on foot. If you can outrun me for about five seconds, I’ll promptly twist both my ankles and double over from side splints.
Make me perform basic arithmetic with non-round numbers. You can slap on some handcuffs while I’m holding up my fingers up trying to add 57 to 93.
Surrender your location by using cardinal directions. Hell, I can barely manage left and right, you think I can consider the sun? Include words like “northwest” and you can rest assured that I will starve to death before I find you.
Cut me off from my crime ring by bombarding me with a whole bunch of texts and emails. I wig out when I get too many notifications at once and will hurl my phone into the ocean. (Adding me to a group chat won’t work, I mute that shit immediately.)
Gun.
Cripple my resolve by showing me something scary. It doesn’t even have to be “scary” scary, since I’m a lifelong hardcore weenie. I refused to watch Ghostbusters as a kid because it was about a ghost, and I haven’t gotten much better since.
Quell my wrath with a peace offering of hazelnut-flavored anything. I love hazelnuts, but I’m allergic to them — I won’t die or anything, I’ll just break out in hives, and that isn’t always enough to deter me. A few ferrero rochers and a vat of Nutella is all it takes to make me too happy (and eventually too itchy) to continue.
Unleash a single cockroach into my secret lair, the bigger the better. Most bugs don’t bother me too much, but a filthy roach will never fail to curdle my bones. If you can get it to touch me, god forbid, I will simply pass away.
Steal my dog. (Please don’t steal my dog.)
Put a 15 minute phone call between me and world domination. I’ll put it off for six months before just dropping the issue entirely.
