A Freak Childhood Accident Turned Me Into a Superhero

GULP.

I’ve decided that it’s time — time to disclose a hidden trait and thus unveil my secret identity to the world: I have a superpower.

Like any good superhero worth their salt or bragging rights, my origin lies within a tragic backstory.

Get ready because this is a doozy. You will feel sorry — oh so very sorry — for me.

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As a wee young thing (a 3rd grader obsessed with American Girl dolls), I was struck by a devastating disease. I was banned from school, ridiculed by society, made a social pariah. I was pitied by all and feared by many.

For you see, dear readers, I had head lice.

My mother — yes, unlike most superheroes I had a living mother — searched high and low for cures for my disfigurement. She asked the local doctor, conferred with sympathetic townspeople, and scoured the ye ancient words of parenting magazines.

She dosed my curls in special shampoos, held me beneath the force of the mightiest hairdryer in all the land, and coated my scalp in an armor of petroleum jelly. But none of these noble attempts could match the power of the headstrong lice.

Finally, a wise sage (in the mortal form of an American Online chat room user) proposed a curious antidote: pour vinegar upon the afflicted child’s head.

So, into the shower my mother and I went — she armed with determination and a bottle of vinegar… and me armed with resignation, prepared to submit myself to another one of my darling mother’s mad schemes.

She wet my hair, as instructed by this story’s super-villain (alias: AOL user soccermom1961) then untwisted the bottle cap, releasing the potion we hoped would defeat the infection forevermore.

But instead of flowing straight into my awaiting scalp, the transparent $2.99 distilled liquid cascaded into the most unfortunate of places: my mouth. Teaspoon after teaspoon flooded through my lips, past my teeth, and down my throat.

That’s right, dear weary readers: as a kid, I swallowed a shit ton of vinegar.

I’ll pause the story while you scream.

AaAaAaAaaHHHHhHhhH!!!

I screamed then too.

I think. The only sensation which I, this story’s celebrated heroine, can recall is the vinegar’s revolting taste.

Actually, no. It wasn’t a taste. It was a pain. A burning, searing pain.

Think the results of the 2016 US presidential election transformed into a liquid then poured down my throat.

…Or vodka. OK yeah, think vodka — five shots force-consumed at once by an 8-year-old.

My mother sprung into sidekick-y action, offering up a myriad of vinegar-taste

suppressants. First, a gallon of water to swallow. Then, some apple juice. Orange juice. Milk. Next, a lollipop to suck on.

Another lollipop.

Another.

An industrial size bag of lollipops was sacrificed to the cause, each sucked clean to its stick by my desperate lips throughout the day.

But nothing — not water, nor OJ, nor the center or a tootsie roll pop — could avail me of the abhorrent taste.

Nay, the burning.

Oh dear gawwwd, the burning!

If I close my eyes and think of vinegar now, I can still feel it: a ghost, haunting my taste buds. It’s lingered there — possessed my tongue — for years. Decades.

You’ll surely take pity upon me when I tell you this: growing up, I had to flee school cafeterias many a time, whenever a schoolmate dared to unleash the horror of horrors from their lunch box: a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

For you see, dear readers (who are surely now shivering in secondhand pain), the shower incident of 1996 endued me with the following superpower: extreme vinegar detection and sensitivity.

In other words, I can smell vinegar from many yards—miles, maybe… light-years, possibly—away.

It is my gift. It is my curse. I am Vinegirl.

I still can’t share space with a single fried potato or baked pretzel if it possesses a mere drop of vinegar seasoning. My head will begin to pound, my stomach will drop, and my throat will constrict — my entire body fighting the liquid enemy at bay.

Cleaning products made with vinegar, and the spaces that make use of its demonic bidding, are off limits to me.

I may not ever be able to tolerate the scent of vinegar again. For as long as I live, I shall carry the weight of this grand affliction.Kryptonite ain’t got nothing on Superman like vinegar has on me.

But I am strong. I am powerful.

My nose and I can warn other unsuspecting souls of vinegar as it begins to invade our midst.

Call me, Marvel Studios. I’ve got a blockbuster to pitch.