The Red Cape Doesn’t Do Much For My Complexion
Posted by Moose on September 12th, 2006. Filed under: My Brain Needs a Drink.Everyone wants to be the hero. You watch a movie, read a book, stare blankly at poorly-translated Anime, all with one emotion: keen desire to identify with the protagonist. Unfortunately, I’m always the girl who’s two feet to the left of Angelina Jolie, digging around in my bag for a snack while Angelina bounds to the rescue of a small child who’s fallen onto the tracks of an oncoming train. I’m the woman on the phone who gets her nose smashed into a plate glass window when the hero rockets by to save the world from an evil archnemesis who, strangely, resembles a penguin.
I recently watched an old episode of the X-Files. We have Mulder, gamely trying to defeat the mounting odds by bludgeoning everyone into submission with his crackpot theories. We have Scully, deadpan scientific trivia and ever-perfect lipstick at the ready. We have a third, unnamed agent whose petulant ineptitude is demonstrated with, “We’re going to miss the wine and cheese reception!”
Guess which one I am? What’s saving a child from a hideous Floridian bog monster when there’s wine and cheese to be had? I’m not proud of this, but wine and cheese, people. Priorities.
Besides, I can’t be relied upon to turn off the oven, so how on earth would I manage to save someone from a burning building? (Yes, the cake’s done. It came out two hours ago. The oven’s still on? Really? What do you mean I have to turn it off? It doesn’t just turn off automatically? No? Oops.)
I comfort myself that most of the world is with me on this. Heros need people to save. They need foils to offset the brilliance of their plan and the chiseled contours of their chin. They need people with cars to borrow so they can chase down the kidnapper. I’m happy to oblige. Take my car to rescue the golden retriever puppy from the villainous puppy-napper.
Just keep those heroic mitts off my wine and cheese.
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September 12th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
LOL, I am such a nerd that I knew which X-Files you talked about, but being a “hero” is not all what it’s cracked up to be. Think about what happens to the hero when he/she doesn’t save the person they are always suppose to protect.
p.s. please double check that the oven is off.
September 13th, 2006 at 6:28 am
A hero is just a small cog, albeit necessary, in the world’s greater machinery.
September 13th, 2006 at 7:03 am
So I read this last night on bloglines. Then I turned off the computer and, I shit you not, my husband informed me that I had left the oven on even though dinner was done and devoured an hour ago.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:09 am
J: Ha! So glad someone recognized that episode. I do like to think that I’m not the only X-Files geek left.
M: And if there were no squeaky wheels, there would be no one to save.
M101: Oh that is too excellent. You are now MY hero.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:38 am
You are my style/shopping tip hero, so don’t sell yourself short…In other words, you are much more ‘red shoes’ (Louboutin, preferrably) than ‘red cape,’ and that’s definitely a good thing. ‘Cuz red capes? >
(Wine and cheese rock.)
September 13th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I meant to say:
Cuz red capes = Tacky.
September 13th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!
(It is true, I am not completely unlike a drunken frat boy.)
September 13th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Moose that is one of my favorite episodes, I love it when Mulder says “No Scully, I don’t want to wrestle”…and Scully singing.
Fantasic show!
p.s. Double check the oven