Mild-mannered spider by day…
Today brings another Ollie-Holi-Day in Moonwater Meadow. Ollie loves holidays and does a really good job making up these special days. Since he’s very popular they catch on quick.
Today is Dress Like your Favorite Superhero Day.
It’s as simple as it sounds: everyone is in costume like some small version of Comicon. They take photos together and trade each other’s comic art work. Of course, they strike heroic poses all day which can be tedious when one is waiting on line at the pizza place and the counter person is actually standing on the counter with hands on hips while a giant fan blows their cape into the soda machine.
You’d think being a spider that Ollie’s favorite superhero is Spiderman but no. Ollie’s favorite is Daredevil, The Man Without Fear. It would help to understand the difference between Spiderman and Daredevil. Spiderman is a boy bitten by a radioactive spider and inherits the speed and strength of a spider. Well, Ollie has the strength and speed of a spider already as part of the stock package.
Daredevil, on the other hand is a man who, as a boy was blinded by exposure to radioactive waste. The upswing to that particular problem was a heightened awareness of all his other senses beyond normal ability.
In other words, Daredevil is a boy with a handicap who uses his other senses to compensate. Ollie was born with only five legs. Not that he’s sensitive to that nor does anyone treat him differently because of it. He is, however, aware other spiders have six or eight legs.
As far as heightened abilities:
- Ollie can balance really well on an odd number of appendages or even one leg while driving, flying or eating several different things at once,
- He can smell food cooking from great distances and even discern individual ingredients,
- Has heightened tasting abilities and can actually count calories by taste but ignores that data because counting calories is no fun,
- Is particularly skilled at giving the impression he knows several styles of martial arts when he in fact knows none, except perhaps for a controlled flailing that may resemble certain styles of Kung Fu,
- leap from rooftop to rooftop or tree to tree (although he is a spider and they can do those things),
- Ollie looks really good hurling Daredevil’s baton but has the accuracy of an Imperial stormtrooper which is why the sound of broken glass often accompanies DareBug’s appearances.
While Spiderman can spin webs with a homemade web shooter and typical spiders use special glands and spinnerets, Ollie’s webs are usually the result of aberrant flatulence.
Yes, Ollie’s webs are the result of spider farts.
The purpose of Dress Like Your Favorite Superhero Day is to embrace your alter hero ego, be creative and share a love of community, friendship and good-natured fun just so long as no one has to clean up after the pizza party. That’s my job. Apparently my superhero is Meadow Clean Up Man. Someone has to do it.
