Superman

No, I don’t have a cape, can’t fly … can’t even leap tall buildings. Yet somehow I regularly have people ask me if I’m Superman.

Actually, I do have a list of things I do that most people wouldn’t even try that I refer to as my “Superman routine”. None of it all that hard – well, mostly – if you know what you’re doing. And I’m not a weight-lifter by any means, but I am stronger than you’d think from looking at me. Especially considering my age, but no one can tell that by looking at me either.

The latest example is typical. We have some plastic tables at work for clearance merchandise. Technically tables anyway – not something you’d eat off of or play cards on. The legs are just pieces of 3″ PVC tubing. But as the tables can have a lot of weight on them, sometimes the legs can get stuck pretty tight.

Back on Tuesday, Colleen brought half a dozen of these tables into the storage area – three were semicircles about 6 feet on the long side, the others were straight rectangles maybe 2.5 feet wide and 8 feet long. Being familiar with these tables generally, I figured she’d need a hand with the legs … so I put away my stuff I was working on and went over to help her. She said they were stuck pretty good, so I said something like “Well, let’s see” and then pulled one out. That’s when she accused me of being Superman – so I showed her how to do it.

Actually, it’s all pretty straightforward. Stand with your feet about a foot apart with the leg between them. Bend slightly at the knees and grip the leg with both hands. If it’s stuck real tight then rock it back and forth a little to break it loose, then pull straight up (by straightening your knees). She tried – worked like a charm. I think she ended up taking as many out as I did – and there weren’t any she tried to get out and had to ask me to help – but when we were done she still thought I must be really strong. (Come on girl – you just did half of them yourself, so what does that make you? Of course I didn’t say that …)

Okay, my co-worker Rochelle might not be able to do it – she is a real petite girl and just not as strong as Colleen or I. But it’s not so much strength as knowledge. Your legs are a lot stronger than your arms or back – using your knees to pull or lift works a lot better. Of course it helps immensely here that these tables are something you can actually stand on as well (you’re not going to break them).

Now I just need to convince people that I don’t have “x-ray vision”. Of course I don’t, but I’ll see the edge or corner of something behind or under something else and it does make people wonder …