Hello and welcome to our weekly advice column by Captain Happily Married, Edison City’s heroic defender against evil, injustice, and inter-personal conflicts! Today’s topic: childcare!
Dear Captain,
So, “Billy”, my kid, just got powers, and honestly, I don’t know what to do. His aren’t the fun kind, you know? If we were just talking flight or super-strength, maybe regeneration, that’d be fine, but he got the weird power. The doctor told me it’s triggered by anger, and normally these things would show up when they’re teenagers, but this thing manifested at four years old. So now, whenever my cute little toddler gets angry, he suddenly transmogrifies into some sort of rampaging invulnerable monster beast. Also he breathes fire, which is murder on the carpet.
Unfortunately, lucky me, I don’t have powers. Like, at all. My guy Arthur does, but all he can do is turn invisible, and how’s that gonna help? What do I do, Cap? I wasn’t expecting this for another nine years at least.
-Mommy of Dragons
Dear Mommy,
Oh my! That sounds like a serious problem indeed! What you need is some sort of power-inhibitor ray, or perhaps a stasis shield; I don’t have one myself as I rely purely on my super-strength and general heroism, but I can put you in touch with-
Ah, I’ve just been handed a message from Super Soccer Mom, my partner in matrimony! I expect she’ll have some helpful advice for your predicament!
Oh. One moment.
Hey, this is Super Soccer Mom. Sorry about that. Justin sometimes forgets to turn his captain voice down.
Anyway, I get your problem. One of mine, her name’s Sauna, she was an early one too, and she was in the pyrokinetic line. Now, you could get some tech or formula but that’s not going to solve your problem. You know what we did?
Daniel Tiger.
I kid you not.
I had her take a breath and count one, two, three, four, and then take another breath, and then we tried again. It took practice, I’m not going to say we didn’t torch a bedspread or too in the process, but eventually it worked. I’d recommend you’d start with that before you go with the fancy tech. Believe me. The basics work.
Good luck,
Super Soccer Mom
P.S. I used my electronically enhanced soccer ball Seymour to project a video; that helped as well; you might need to use your phone. Anyway, just for reference:
Good luck, again.
If you’d like to submit questions to be answered by Captain Happily Married or Super Soccer Mom, comment below! To read a story I wrote featuring further adventures of the Captain and Co., go here. For more adventures of the superheroes and regulars in Edison City, subscribe below!