Superhero comics have one thing that is not realistic

I mean aside from there are not actually super speedsters or flying tanks or people with the proportional strength of ants or spiders, there’s one thing that’s totally unrealistic. I’m 64 years old, and aside from the three times I was hit with trucks, I have never been in a situation where a super power would have been useful. I’ve never foiled a robbery, or any other kind of crime. I mean I’ve been a victim of crime, but it never happened directly to me. Crimes always happened while I was somewhere else, never directly in front of me. Closest I’ve been to a crime was when an armed robber came into my store and bought a pack of Pall Malls and left, with police spotting him on store surveillance tapes the next day.
Seriously, an armed robber who was later convicted of murdering a store clerk like me, changed his mind about murdering and left my store after he saw me.

But in comic books and cartoons and big-budget movies, the heroes are constantly catching low-level street crooks between titanic battles against other supers. Batman does it all the time. Superman, not so much but there are constant bank robberies to be thwarted, and even Squirrel Girl talked a few bank robbers into giving themselves up. The number of bank robberies I’ve seen not on TV or in a comic? Zilch. Number of other street-level crimes I’ve seen IRL? Zilch. Number of babies I’ve delivered that weren’t mine? Zilch. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it’s just that the odds of it happening repeatedly to one person are so minute as to be Powerball unlikely.

And that’s all I have to say today.

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I’m the luckiest guy passing a kidney stone in the whole world

Just a quick note about kidney stones. I was told that because of the condition I have that makes my bones and ligaments super strong against blunt force trauma I have a high chance of developing kidney stones. I mentioned when they checked my bone density as a part of broken hip protocol many moons ago I was accused of slipping in a chunk of concrete for the test because my bones are basically biologic portland cement and I have a metric buttload of calcium in my metabolism. Well one of the co-morbidities of this condition besides having bones that wear out the usual surgical tools and require the use of power tools, I also have a higher than normal risk of developing kidney stones.

Well about noon today I passed a stone. I know this because it made a noise from hitting the toilet, not because I felt anything. I am sorry to all those people out there passing kidney stones who aren’t me because I read that the closest thing to passing a stone is having a baby, and somehow I not only don’t have massive pains like everyone else, I don’t have ANY sensation of the stone moving through my body. I didn’t put a hand in the toilet to fish the stone out, but it looked almost polished in the bowl, like a river rock. Maybe I have another condition that produces very smooth kidney stones? Is there such a thing? I know the guy that told me about this condition mentioned kidney stones, maybe having very smooth stones is a collateral part of having this super power.

Another quick note, my joint problems are flaring up like a MF, maybe as a pennance for passing painless kidney stones? My right shoulder is almost frozen from the pain/inflammation. I’m increasing my daily anti-inflammatory meds that I take OTC, because they are cheap to free (my grocery/pharmacy has a customer app that sometimes has free stuff, and recently they put my Ibuprofen on the “get this free” list for the month, one one-hundred-count free bottle) but to minimal effect as of yet. I mean who get shoulder pain from moving their head? Besides me, I mean.

Oh, and the thought occurs that IRL me is the basis for my character in Shadowrun, and we have a data point for establishing my Body stat, the wreck where I died from getting hit with the truck going ~100 km/hr. I know I did this once before but I can’t find the stuff for figuring out how much Body a character needs to just barely get killed from this. There used to be a link for this, but Google can’t find it anymore. I think the last time I figured this I got the answer that I’m a dragon in human form because it was some ridiculously high number in the double digits that would make me bulletproof without armor. My damage track would require a second page to fill out before I passed out, or a ridiculous high soak before taking damage. But that is the game and I’m real (I think). Previous data points include two walk away wrecks at 30-35 MPH from how far I got tossed from the wrecks. I was as they say “scuffed up” and had some bruises and torn clothes, but basically unharmed. Our GM after consulting with his various game manuals while I compose this says that I would need a 7 Body and “huge DR” for the 30-35 MPH wrecks, and the only thing that makes the 2001 wreck survivable in game is “cursed with immortality” along with the previous DR and my in-game Body. IOW I need more than human stats and to be cursed to survive what I survived IRL in-game.

I’m going to survive and my BP meds are getting adjusted

Part of the laundry list Mrs. the Poet wanted me to talk about with the doctor was my foot on the injured leg changing colors from what it was like before to more shades of blue now, and I also wanted to share what I had learned from the guy studying Superpowers IRL, of which surviving getting hit by cars 3 times is a primary example. My super dense bones are the result of wonky calcium metabolism and I have grown calcite crystals during bone rebuilding after a break. Well part of my wonky metabolism is an overactive calcium channel which makes my blood pressure high. Now that we know that my meds include a generic Calcium Channel Blocker amlodipine, to go with the diuretic which doesn’t help much with my BP but I do need to prevent kidney stones.

Now all I got for the Smurf-colored foot was a suggestion I go to the local clinic for Parkland Health Systems to have them figure out what has changed since I got killed and came back. Before when I had problems with the foot it was shades of red, not blue, which was expected and I was told to watch for. Now I don’t know what happened, but I can pinpoint the day it happened. Remember the DVT scare a couple of years ago? Before that day my foot was shades of red, after that day shades of blue-red from lavender to dark purple to I Stepped On A Smurf. But I have to go to the local clinic for Parkland and see what they have to say.

Other news, I gave away most of the expensive bikes that people have given me over the years. I kept the ones I bought or built including Frances(is) or however I used to spell it. They were non-binary anyway and swapped the vowel depending on how they felt. Anyway, I gave away the Stratus, the Blue Fusion, and the Zenetic 700 to a guy that drove all the way from Springfield MO and brought 2 cans of Beaver Nuggets, the Dark chocolate covered ones this time instead of the milk chocolate ones my daughter gave me. Anyway, the combined retail value when new was almost $4k, but since I can’t even get my leg over the two crank forward bikes they only have sentimental value to me. I still have a garage full of bikes, just 3 fewer than I did yesterday.

And how was your week?