(How wearing a costume in public turns
you into a superhero)
The
night before Thanksgiving this year I participated in a little social
experiment. That is, if by “participated” I really mean “was dropped into,” and
by “social experiment” I mean “getting trashed, molested, screamed at, and
generally having an insane time.” Instead of my standard behavior of traveling
to visit family, my boss (who believes slapping people in the face with his
balls is the national pastime) cancelled my plans with a karate chop so
decisive that even Chuck Norris would consider it epic. But I am no stranger to
watching as Happenstance chokes the ever-loving life out of my dreams and
desires. These things happen. So what could I do but carry on and persevere? And
by “persevere” I mean “dress up like a turkey and hang out in bars on the
holidays.”
Luckily,
this all turned out magnificently well. For two whole days I felt as good as
Superman getting to whoop the shit out of Aquaman. This got me thinking that
maybe I had become a superhero for a day or two. But how can a person be sure
of a statement this bold? You can’t just say
you’re a superhero with nothing to back it up. In fact, every year or so there’s
a news story of some punk-bitch who dresses up to be a masked vigilante and he
usually gets his face shot off. And I don’t want to be that guy. So I’ve
decided to address a few principles, some ground rules of basic hero-dom if you
will, that will hopefully substantiate my claim of becoming a caped crusader.
If you ever claim to be "The Night" this guy will come for your head.
1) A
superhero must have a tragic and/or mysterious origin story:
Uh,
yeah, I’ve got the tragic part covered here. I already mentioned how my holiday
plans got denied as quickly and harshly as I did on Prom Night. Except my boss
used less mace than Suzy Larsen… but not much less. Now as far as mysterious
goes, let’s review some events regarding my origin becoming the Turkey Dude. It
all began when I got an email from a guy (Aaron) I had only met a handful of
times. A few days later, a strange package arrived at my apartment door. Then,
on the day of my miraculous (ridiculous) transformation, I met Aaron (who works
for the government) at a compound with restricted access before being whisked
away in his sportscar to an undisclosed location. Now how’s that for some
secret spy shit? Then, after an unorthodox rite of passage involving The Tibetan Book of the Dead and several
beers, we had each become more turkey than man.
2) Got
to have some superpower(s):
More
or less, my superpowers consisted of: Make anybody dance, Convince anyone to
drink more, and Get anyone to shout “YEAH” on command just by pointing at them.
Now I know this isn’t laser eye rays, invisibility, the ability to commune with
animals, control electricity, or super strength. It might appear like I only
had the powers of any generic fraternity president. But it was cooler than
that. And unlike the frat dude, I only used my powers for good, not douchey
evil.
"Here at Sigma Beta Beta we all have the power to not use condoms once we've roofied you!"
The
ability to get anybody dancing was my favorite power of the night. When we went
to a half-filled bar and crushed the empty space in the middle of the building,
suddenly no one could resist the temptation to groove and the bar was filled to
the brim with festive partiers. At one point, I was dancing clumsily with a
beer in my hand and had been performing some variation of the awkward dance by
that kid from the Charlie Brown cartoons who bobs his head while kicking his
legs out. When I was truly rocking solid to “Too Much Bass Club Music #7863,”
there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find three Asian people
smiling at me. The guy in the middle was a sixty year old man – Jesus only knows
what he was doing at a nightclub at midnight. When he saw he had my attention,
he began replicating my dance with twice the vigor I had been using. Needless
to say, I started to dance as hard as I could, which is about the time some
wasted dude shouted, “Hey! This guy’s doing the turkey dance! This old guy’s
doing the turkey dance with a turkey!” This was immediately followed by
everyone in the room cheering and doing shots. I believe that’s pretty much the
story of how Ghost Rider got his start, unless I’m misremembering that one.
3) Superheroes
must have some source for their amazing powers:
Wild
Turkey 101 shots. Obvious, I know. But did you also know that a
man-turkey-hybrid supercreature also thrives on cheap Chinese food? To get the
ball rolling, Agent Aaron and I met up with the rest of our turkey brethren at
a bar that doesn’t have a name which is attached to a Chinese restaurant. This
was our Batcave from which we could keep tabs on our city, suit up, make battle
plans, and park our Batmoblie (which happened to be a Ford Focus. Don’t hate). The
drinks were beyond cheap and you can order restaurant food from the confines of
the bar and the wait staff will bring it back to your own dingy little corner. Even
though this was all beautifully convenient, we naturally still went out into
the restaurant because…
4) Superheroes
create media spectacles:
Everywhere
we went became photo-bomb central. I don’t have a Facebook account, but I ended
up on a hundred or so people’s Facebook pagey-wall things. We didn’t have to be
like sad, vain Peter Parker taking pictures of himself. It was already
something huge and unstoppable. This was taken to another level when we walked
into a dimly lit wine bar. The owner of the establishment came out to take
pictures of us sipping on our wine. That’s right, we were helping small shop
owners. For the record, the wine we selected was in fact one that pairs well
with turkey, and if you think that I sound like a wuss for saying that then
bear in mind that I had already taken several shots of whisky to the face along
with a couple of brews, with the night only being halfway over at this point. I
was going 100% professional. Plus, I loves me some Pinot Noir. Mixing alcohol
never felt so right as it did while marinating this turkey fellow.
Chillin' in the wine bar.
5) Catchphrase:
“Gobble!
Gobble!”
6) Weakness
or Flaw:
One
of the most important aspects of a superhero’s character is some sort of
inherent weakness or flaw. No one’s perfect, including the comic book/movie
beings we have grown up idolizing. Kryptonite rocked Superman’s house.
Continued mutations in Peter Parker’s DNA eventually transformed him into an
uncontrollable and monstrous spider-creature leading him to nearly kill and eat
enemies and loved ones alike. Wolverine could be tossed around like some
ragdoll by Magneto because of his adamantine bones. And Batman had that
annoying voice telling him NOT to kill for some reason. What made me and my
fellow turkeys interesting is that our weakness happened to be our catchphrase.
It turns out that when you get a group of turkey people together and get them
liquored up, if anyone shouts “Gobble” then the turkeys can’t help but all yell
“Gobble Gobble” in response. This happened. All. The. Time.
Hustlin' Tom Turkey says, "Gobble Gobble, y'all."
In
fact, at one point, when we were leaving the wine bar, there was a twelve year
old girl across the street who kept chanting “Here we go turkeys!” We would
always respond with a group Gobble. This happened no fewer than nine times. And
the whole time we were trying to decide what to do next, but whenever we heard
her yell, we would Gobble in unison. I’d also like to note that this twelve
year old was out shouting on the street corner at 11pm, mind you. Where were
your parents, I ask?
And
I couldn’t claim to be a superhero if I didn’t
7) Have
a doomed love interest:
Let’s
face it, comic book heroes have about the same record in the romance department
as Hollywood A-listers. That is, they’re beautiful and powerful so they hook up
with each other faster than The Flash runs a forty-yard dash, but their
relationships blow up like supernovas.
Friends attempt to console Bruce Banner after a recent breakup.
For
my part, my giant turkey heart fell for the cunning wiles of Drunk Belligerent
Woman. I met her early in the night before she had revealed her secret identity
to me, and we had the typical and meaningless bar small talk that drunk people
have any old day of the week. My friends – my SUPERFRIENDS – and I left to go
to a few other bars, but ended up returning to this particular establishment.
Then, in the midst of the dance floor under the assault of heavy bass, there
occurred an exchange that later had to be explained to me by one of my turkey
brothers who witnessed the ordeal. What follows is an exact transcript of the
event in question:
Drunk
Belligerent Woman: Can I grab your giblets?!?
Me:
What?!?
DBW:
My friends!
Me:
What?
DBW:
They’re over there. (points) They say I should!
Me:
What?
DBW:
My friends! We want your giblets!
Me:
What?
DBW:
So it’s okay?
Me:
What?
At
which point this lady grabbed and vigorously scrubbed my crotch like she was trying
to get the rust off the Titanic. I mean, she really went for it. As this was
going down, her little posse of drunk wing-girls hooted and hollered and raised
their Cosmos high in celebration. I believe Drunk Belligerent Woman had super
strength and the ability to wield flames because she simultaneously crushed my
testicles and then nearly set them on fire with friction. She apparently also
had super hearing since she heard me consent when all I thought I was saying
was “what” over and over. She had it all, let me tell you. But then she
disappeared into the crowd without a trace. For the rest of the night, no
matter how hard I searched, I never heard her drunk cackling laugh again.
Throughout
all of this, we managed to do what all superheroes are supposed to do: we
helped people. Even though by the end of the night we had the mental prowess of
The Hulk, we still managed to keep it together and be good little turkeys. Sometimes
we were helping people boogey down. Other times we fished drunk girls out of
the gutter who had fallen due to their incredibly tall and slutty stilettos.
And of course there were the hoards of people in town for the holidays who
desperately wanted to forget how much they hated being with their stupid
relatives. We helped these people too with our booze powers.
"Wonder Triplet powers activate! Form of: a Hangover!"
The
next day, I woke up on Aaron’s couch with a half full beer still upright in my
hand. I bet The Silver Surfer wishes he had the ability to do that! Aaron and I
had to go back to being human again, so we needed another ceremony to undo the
power of the first one. Turkey outfits off, we performed a ritual sacrifice by
deep frying a turkey in the backyard and drinking Champagne together. Okay, so
that’s not very “super” or anything, but it was delicious. Now if only I could
figure out what superpowers I would need to combat my boss’s Asshole Abilities.
Seriously, I’d rather work for Darkside…
