If you’ve ever seen a Spiderman movie or read any of his comics, congratulations, you are just like everyone else. It’s only the most done franchise ever (besides Batman). Just last year, we had three different Spidey’s from three different generations in one movie. The Tobey Maguire era for oldies like me, Andrew Garfield for the Millennials, and Tom Holland for the Gen Z’s. We all know the story. A smart kid from NY gets bit by a radioactive spider and gets the ability to swing around New York City with a spider web shooting out of his wrists or something.

You would think that a guy like that would come in handy. He could protect the city of New York with his ability to crawl tall buildings with a single bound. He could help stop people robbing stores and stuff. We also need him to fight other superpowered baddies.

Bad guys like Doctor Octopus, that has a telepathic ability to control eight mechanical arms like an Octopus. Or Sandman, a guy that can turn into sand, and make you sleepy. Or we have Electo, who has the power to control electricity and fly with his ability. Thank goodness we have Spiderman to protect New York City.

The problem is that I don’t live in New York City. I don’t live near a lot of tall buildings. I live in the suburbs of a mid-sized city. My actual town has a movie theater, an elementary school, a golf course, and a bunch of parks, but it doesn’t have a grocery store, a mall, or an evil corporation run by a megalomaniacal CEO. A guy that can swing with webs through tall buildings doesn’t exactly help us.

That’s not to say we don’t have a heavy crime rate and a bunch of criminals in our neighborhood. There are several gangs of kids in our neighborhood (aged 2-8) that go around intimidating us almost every day. The ring our doorbell constantly and really loudly and shake us down for our candy, in exchange for protection from the rival kid gang on the other side of the neighborhood and the door-to-door salespeople. All we have to do is “give them a percentage” of our candy to protect us from such threats.

As great as it would be to have a superhero to protect us from these grave threats to our peaceful and quiet introverted TV life, Spiderman can’t help. The kids use their power of cuteness and innocence to stave off any serious superhero, who are genetically disposed to protect little kids because “they are the future” and they want to mentor them to be “heroes” in the future. Little do the Spiderman’s of the world know that the kids are the actual criminals.

Other crimes to my humanity happened this morning. One was that my bed kept being uncomfortable to me and my pillow kept not supporting my neck which I consider domestic abuse to myself. I’m thinking that a superpowered being could help me, but it wouldn’t be Spiderman, but his bitter, evil rival Sandman. If that guy could have helped me overcome the sweltering heat, the uncomfortable bed, and the really stupid pillows that constantly twist my neck into pretzels, he would be the actual hero and Spidey would be the villain because of his constant webs left in garage attracting spiders.

The other horrific threat to my introverted, TV loving peace I faced this morning, was a nightmare I thought was in my past. We lost power all the time when I lived near Seattle, because the evil Bully Trees always tried to shake down the power lines, who were just trying to do the noble work of providing electricity for my phone, refrigerator, TV, and lights. The evil Bully Trees cared not for electricity. They only care about humans because we have the valuable carbon dioxide they crave, so they can grow 300 feet tall, and live long past the humans. They suck us dry like batteries and then dispose of us in 70-90 years, when we are no longer valuable. If it wasn’t for Spiderman’s “nemesis” Electro, we wouldn’t have got our power back so quickly yesterday. As you know, with great Power Outages, come great Irritability. At least Electro knew that. It took him a little bit, but Electro knew that yesterday could have been a disaster without a TV to stare at.

Another thing that causes me instant irritability is our friendly neighbors always moving. In and out, up and down. They are always asking for any able-bodied people to load all their junk into a U-Haul without so much as any organized labels to help. So, my TV watching is constantly getting interrupted. Spidey is always “saving the world” or trying to get into Harvard, but even when he shows ups, he’s getting cobwebs on everything he touches or accidentally slamming things in the truck to hard and breaking things. On the other hand, when Doc Ock shows up, he not only lends a hand, but lends 8 hands. Let me tell you, when he is available, moves go so smoothly. He does 8 times the work of any other helper and can lift the heaviest objects with ease. Most of the time when he’s there to help move, I end up just eating the donuts and milk that’s provided for the helpers, while I watch Doc Ock do all the work. He’s even a really great driver.

It’s pretty obvious that we get things a little twisted in our culture. The good guys are the Doc Oc’s, the Electro’s and the Sandmen and women of the world. On the other hand, the Spidermans, the trees and the little kids are the real bad guys.

Oh and losing power is the worst and should be banned forever.

ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Bitter With Great Power Outages Come Great Irritability Ben