Thank you so much, Superman!

Thank you so much, Superman! No one is as heroic as you.

When you saved me from the alien invasion, I wondered how I could ever repay you. The sky was falling! The streets were burning! Before I could even scream, there you were, your cape billowing behind you, arriving just in time to pull me from the wreckage.

Thank you so much, Superman!

Then there was the time I tried to cross the street outside of the crosswalk. I didn’t see any cars coming. Not even a bike, really. But before I could take another step, you swooped in so fast the wind nearly knocked me over.

Thank you so much, Superman!

And who could forget when a villain was threatening my building? What’s funny is I had been thinking about leaving anyway. But then the walls started shaking, and suddenly, there you were again. Your strong hands and green cape… never fear! Superman was here!

Thank you so much, Superman!

You always seem to show up when something is going badly. Still, I keep looking for you when things are going well: when I got the promotion, when I bought the new car, when I finished the thing I said I was going to finish. I looked up, expecting to see you somewhere. Were you behind a screen or a newspaper? In disguise, surely.

But there was no cape in the sky, no heroic entrance in the middle of the good news.

Maybe happiness does not make the same kind of titillating sound as disaster. Maybe I should only look up when something is falling. Maybe all I need to do, so I can finally say thank you properly, is fall from a cliff, or stand beneath a crumbling building, or find a cat stuck in a tree and wait.

I bet you’ll be there then. You always show up when calamity is afoot.