Super Powers

My super power is cold extremities.

In mid-fall, when I feel the initial tinglings and my appendages grow icy, I hold up frosty hands to the children, announcing archly, "My powers are returning."

My favorite feat of strength is to press two freezing, opened palms against their unsuspecting bare backs. When they yelp, I smile my victor's smile.

In deep winter, when I touch hands with others, I always get, "Your hands are like ice!"

Mortals do not see this as a super power, but as a circulation problem - which is all just part of my super hero's disguise.

I even have an arch nemesis: The man who won't allow me to toast my nitrogen-cold feet against his mercury-like warmth, though we share blankets. (His super power is the radar that detects the frigidly encroaching temperature of my frozen metatarsals on his side of the bed, rousing him from the deepest sleep to ward off any breach of his tropical, nighttime fortress of solitude. To him, apparently, my feet are the equivalent of kryptonite.)

And as far as using my powers for good..........meh. It's not exactly a "Cold hands, warm heart" situation with me. Though I always smile sweetly when I quote that. (It is also part of my disguise.)