I’m going to reveal a little secret about myself that few people know. I have better than perfect vision. At last test, I think it was 20/15 or something like that.

Now, before you go saying to yourself, “Isn’t it exciting that we have a friend who has a super power!” let me tell you that my power is a curse. Yes, I’m great at navigating road-signs and avoiding drug interactions, and yes, I found those prized mini-seashells every summer at the beach, but I can see every aphid on my patio plants. I can see the poop that the fleas on our cats have dropped into their fur. Hence my horror over small, organized insects.

And I can see dirt. Oh man. I can see every fluffy, orange hair Linus so casually sheds onto the carpet, every shard of cat food Mia explodes into the atmosphere when she crunches her car-crusher teeth into each morsel, every miniscule crumb of Saltine under Steve’s desk chair. That is why, as I prepare to leave for a week, I have to clean. Because not only do I dread returning to a house full of filth invisible to the normal or Stevel human eye, but I fear that if my powers grow, I might look west from Pittsburgh and be able to see No. 6, and I will die and have to be revived.

I should note to avoid misrepresenting him that Steve is not messy or dirty. He lives a very simple, normal life when I am gone. It involves code and Saltines and sleep and code. It’s only that he cannot see what I, with my cursed super-power vision, can. If duty calls me to join the forces of super-heroes, I think I will call myself “Ionic Breeze.” What do you think?