Our school is having its Fall Book Fair right now and Kendrie bought a book today called “Coke or Pepsi”, or something like that.  Basically, a book of questions for the reader to ask their friends to get to know them better.  Mainly yes or no, short-answer, or “choose between” type questions ….. silly, fun, you get the picture. 

Kendrie bought the book today and on the way home from school was quizzing Kellen and his friend Kollin (why no, we don’t know a Cullen, but wouldn’t it be cool if we did?)with questions from her book.  I found the following conversation particularly enlightening:

Kendrie:  “If you could have any one superpower, what would it be?”

Kellen:  “Superpower?”

Kendrie:  “Yeah, you know, superpower.”

Kristie: “Like the ability to fly, or move things with your mind.”

And because I’m 12 years old at heart, I started thinking about which superpower *I* would want.  There are several that would be so awesome it would be difficult to choose.  The ability to read someone’s mind would be cool, until I secretly discovered they thought my shirt was ugly, or that I had bad breath or something, so maybe that’s not a good superpower to pick.  I would love to be able to time travel at will, or teleport myself, or even just have that ability like Samantha on Bewitched to wiggle my nose and BAM! be dressed.  It would save me half an hour each morning, and really, how great would that be?!?

So I was listening in on the conversation, wondering which awesome superpower Kellen would pick, when he answered, “The ability to grow Wolverine claws!”

Kollin:  “You mean, like that time …”

Kellen:  “Yeah, when we taped popsicle sticks to our fingers and had claws!”

Kollin:  “Dude, that would be so awesome!”

Kellen:  “Yep, that was awesome!”

Kristie:  “Wolverine claws?  Seriously?  That’s your amazing superpower?”

Kellen:  “Mom, do you GET how awesome that would be?  I could win ALL my ninja fights that way!”

Kristie:  “Since when have you ever had a ninja fight?”

Kollin:  “And we could climb up trees and stuff really high and fast.”

Kellen:  “And just slash through our enemies!”

Kristie:  “I still don’t get it.  Claws?  What about the ability to be invisible?  Or travel through time.  Wouldn’t that be better?”

Kellen {exasperated sigh}:  “Mom, if you can hide good enough, then you’re practically invisible.  What’s so superpower about that?”

Kollin:  “I would use my claws to climb up walls!”

Kellen:  “And nobody could get near you in a fight because you could just claw them!”

Kellen and Kollin, simultaneously:  “Dude, AWESOME!!”

And I realized the superpower I should probably be wishing for is a bigger vocabulary for my son.  Or at least one with a few additional synonyms for “awesome”.  And that really, I would miss him if he could fly or teleport himself, so maybe Wolverine claws, that let him be a ninja right here at home, would be just fine after all.