Your humber MS-QOTD has an admission, Faithful Spoilerites: I have never flown. I exist at the nexus of a peculiar Venn diagram of “Usually Broke”, “Drives Everywhere” and “Fatter Even Than Kevin Smith Who Was Legendarily Too Fat To Fly.” My travels within the U.S., thus, have involved a lot of long drives while singing, leaving me wondering how I might deal with commercial airlines. In a fit of what probably isn’t irony at all, my eleven-year-old daughter has been flying regularly since she was a tiny baby, and I’m routinely in airports dropping her off or picking her up. Even so, since my sub-conscious is entirely cobbled together out of Steve Gerber comics and episodes of ‘Saturday Night Live’, I occasionally have vivid dreams of superhero-type flight, which are usually as terrifying as they are exhilarating, which leads us to today’s lighter-than-air query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) sometimes thinks too much about this question, and usually opts for super-speed instead, asking: If you could have the power of personal, unassisted human flight, would you be able to use it?
12 Comments
Oh yes. Especially at the end of a hard days work. Being able to just float & go where I needed to without using a muscle. Sounds very relaxing. The only thing is if I could get up to a certain speed I would probably need a helmet and some form of breathing apparatus.
On second thought just give me a Green Lantern ring, I could figure it out as I went.
If you get a Corps style ring that can duplicate itself (either as a full working duplicate or even just a low-powered version like the Mosaic kids had), send a copy my way, okay?
You got it. (^_^)
I imagine I could, at least with some Green lantern type of contraption at least. Just would have to be careful where to fly but I could make it work.
Not right off the bat. I’m afraid of heights over a few feet (like I’m okay on the second floor of a building, but the 4th floor or up is just too much. Had a massive panic attack at the St. Louis arch as a teenager.). But as I get used to the idea that I could now fly and won’t likely be falling to my death, I’ll eventually stop fearing the idea and will be able to use it more.
Until then, I’d probably just spend a lot of time hovering in a meditation pose in my Jedi robes or in dark alleys with my yellow or red contacts and vampire fangs in just to freak people out.
Well played.
The really sad thing is that I pretty much do the non-flight versions of these things often enough anyway. I actually have my yellow contacts in right now because I wanted to freak out my goddaughter’s new friend (don’t worry, she’s in her late teens, not like I’m scaring a toddler or anything like that).
Less humans is better. Provided that I’m the only one flying, I would get so far away from you all… my commutes would be always awesome, I would always smell fresh, I wouldn’t even have an apartment! I would just hang out in low orbit floating comfortably while I ponder the irony of having super powers and not wanting to save anyone.
Yes, because plane tickets are too expensive, and yes, I’d fly to Walt Disney World.
Oh hells yeah!
Goodbye winter I’m flying south
I would love to be able to fly, I dream of it so often sometimes I find myself surprised I can’t just lift off from the ground and go – which is why I’m thankful sleepwalking’s never been a problem for me.
I often imagined if I had a Green Lantern ring I would never actually FLY with it, though. I’d make green super-trampolines and webshooters and circus cannons and temporary mid-air trapezes… have some FUN with it. A constant thrill ride. Maybe fall into green safety nets from great heights, just for the thrill of it.
I’ve always wondered if Superman’s ever just dropped like a stone from a height, just for the fun of falling. It’s not like it’d hurt him, any.
If I had the power to fly, I think that I would only use it in the case of emergency for the most part. In this age of constant surveillance, and the perceived behavior of the governmental authorities I would be too scared to just be flying around unless It was a life or death situation. I would probably also wear one of those glider suits just in case the ability failed for some reason, or maybe even a parachute if I needed to go above a certain height for extended distances.