If We Were Mutants

Last night, Y and I went to see the third X-Men movie. Now, I'm not normally that big a fan of superhero/comic book movies, but I happened to really enjoy the first two X-Men ones, much to Y's surprise and delight. "The Last Stand," which we saw last night, wasn't as good as the first two, and Y was decidedly disappointed, but I didn't mind it at all.

In case you don't know the basic X-Men plot, it's that there is a portion of society who are mutants, each posessing a unique and superhuman ability or trait, with which they were born - like walking through walls, or changing the weather, or creating fire, etc. As with most comics, there are the good guys and the bad guys, or in this case, respectively, the mutants that want to co-exist with the rest of the world peacefully, using their powers for the greater good, and those who fear being squelched by humanity, who would rather simply take over the world.

Anyway, last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I started thinking about which mutation I would want to posess, had I the choice. There are, obviously, noble answers to that question, ones that might contribute to a greater good, like world peace, prevention of global warming, but when I'm honest with myself, I know that at this stage in my life, I am much more inwardly focused. In fact, I think the way most people I know would answer this question, honestly, would say a lot about where they are in life right now - what they need.

So what superhuman ability would be most beneficial to my existence right now? To start, I know what I wouldn't want. I definitely would not want to be able to read minds - I'd much rather guess what people are thinking and hope I'm wrong, than have it be confirmed. And I'm ok with having no control over the weather, because I like to be surprised. That's two down.

Hmmm. Well, When my thoughts were rudely interrupted at 12:02 AM by Ariel screaming bloody murder, probably waking up from a nightmare, followed by Elan yelling at the top of his little lungs, "MOMMMMMMMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARIEL IS AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" (no shit, sherlock), I started to imagine being able to induce sleep in others at the snap of my fingers, or the tug of an earlobe or something. Yeah, yeah, say what you want about free will. The idea was PRET-TY appealing last night.

Confronted with the sights of clothing piled up in various locations about my bedroom when I opened my eyes this morning, and a sinkful of dirty dishes when I trudged downstairs to start the coffee, I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice to be able to wave my hand over a room and make it instantly clean? Not just neat, but clean? Wow. My life would change. Literally. I guess if word got out, friends would start calling me over to clean up their houses, too. But I could charge a lot! Maybe not. I'll have to think this through.

Anyway, the heal-any-cut quality that Wolverine has is definitely enviable, but I don't know if I'd need it on a daily basis. It's one of those things that would come in REALLY handy once in awhile, but I'd probably feel like I wasn't getting enough use out of it on an average day.

Enough procrastinating. I need to get to work. But I'm throwing the question out there, dear readers: What mutation would you choose? And what does that say about you?

By the way, by round two of Ariel and Elan, at 4:21 AM, I felt pretty certain about the sleep thing.