Mystery #115 – Supercalifragilisticexmymomidoceous

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #115 – Supercalifragilisticexmymomidoceous

As far as Greek Mythology is concerned, there is no greater status for a mortal than to be the offspring of a god. All the cool, trendy Greek kids would have told you that only half-human was the way to be. In fact, any myth not exclusively concerning gods was pretty much reserved for these guys. They were human, but they were still way better than you. Hercules was really strong, and eventually ended up being 50% the god of asbestos. Achilles was raised by centaurs, freakin centaurs, because no man was hardcore enough to be his teacher. I mean we’re talking a populace at near this-is-Sparta levels of testosterone, and they had to bring out the centaurs. When you were still getting action figures and legos for your birthday, Perseus’s relatives gave him a sword and some magic armor, and then sent him to go kill a gorgon. The closest I’ve ever come to that was finally beating the goron race in Majora’s Mask. Sure, that’s almost the same, only I didn’t get a dismembered head out of the deal.

But like Spider Man’s dead uncle once said, it ain’t easy being king (or something like that). Hercules, having pissed off his stepmother by existing, had to… uh… lift a bunch of stuff. There were goats in there too. Achilles inherited his mother’s superhuman powers in the “being a stuck up jerk” department, and had to not die while simultaneously pissing off every soldier in Troy. We won’t even get started on Phaëton. Basically what I’m trying to say is that having a golden chromosome may have benefits, but you get a whole load of other crap to deal with at the same time.

This has been on my mind a lot, as it was recently brought to my attention that my mother is the goddess of awesome. I probably should have gotten wise when she blew through nursing school, which I assume she accomplished by arm wrestling every test into submission while the Rocky soundtrack blared in the background. After ripping MCC a new one - literally - she proceeded to land her dream job in a local ICU, presumably by jumping through a skylight before announcing to the terrified staff, “bow before me, mortals, your souls are mine”. Then she shot lasers out of her eyes. At a bear. No, strike that, at an undead army of bears, which she then defeated and made her slave minions. Also, she’s good at yahtzee.

I’m working on living up to that legacy, which unfortunately probably means less days spent watching cartoons and eating Captain Crunch. Dang.