One day a while back I was standing in line at the post office and there was a ratty looking man standing off to the side, just kind of watching everything. You know the type–dark hoodie, thin from years of use; dirty jeans; scruff; carried himself like he was an offhand remark from fight or flight.
While I was watching him I thought, “What if this dude’s here to rob them? What would I do?”
My mind ran off on an elaborate fantasy about how I’d stop him when, quite suddenly, my rational mind kicked in and said, You wouldn’t do shit except for what he told you to do. You’d die if you tried to play hero. Anyway, this dude is just here to mail something. Dickhead.
And in that, this story was born.
I think most men have hero fantasies. Chalk it up to a lifetime of seeing westerns, superhero movies, and other lone wolf action movies. Or maybe it’s a symptom of toxic masculinity. Probably a bit of both, feeding into one another like an ouroboros of assholes.
There are good examples of this phenomenon in celebrity news! Remember when Mark Wahlburg said that if he were on Flight 93 he would have stopped 9/11? That’s the kind of thinking that gets people killed.
I wanted to write about that. Take the piss out of it a bit. It’s one of my first attempts at writing actual comedy, and I think it’s pretty good.
Maybe I’ll try it again sometime (the comedy, not the violent fantasies against strangers).
