If I had a Superpower

If I had a superpower, it would be the power to scratch my own back.

Back scratching is popular amongst animals. Tigers have a special back-scratching tree. Elephants love it. Cleaner fish scratch parasites off the back of big fish. My budgie Billy had the capacity to turn his head around and preen the feathers on his back. My young niece came to visit with her friends. She wanted to impress them and took hold of Billy and twisted his head around. There was a slight crunch. I told my niece his head only went halfway around. We buried Billy under the mango tree.

Back scratchers are wonderful but are too cumbersome and ill-advised for travelling or camping as they protrude from a lady’s handbag and poke out of a man’s back pocket. While camping, a fine substitute back scratcher is a tent peg. My uncle used a carving knife. It only took a few plasters to patch him up.

I remember being in church as a lad. My back was so itchy I rubbed it against the back of the pew. The old lady sitting next to me said, ‘If you want to go to the toilet, it’s through that door.’

At a barbeque recently all the ladies were sitting in a circle on the lawn when my Doberman wandered into the centre and lay on the grass to scratch his back, in the process grunting and displaying his bodily charms. I noticed some of the ladies didn’t finish their hot dogs.

The reason we can’t scratch our backs is that our arms are not long enough. This is because when our ancestors lived in caves eating roast pork, people with long arms would surreptitiously pinch the prized crackling off their neighbours’ plates. When discovered, the loser retaliated and eliminated them, so only short-armed people survived.

I can never understand why back scratchers have never become a fashion statement. We had wigs, snuff, fans, and cigarettes. So why not back scratchers, small collapsible ones, ebony for men, gorgeous pastel shades for ladies? In the writing group, while a writer is reading an exercise, each of us could whip out our back scratchers and administer a comforting rub. The passion and pitch of the accompanying groans and shutting of the eyes could, in itself, become a fashion statement betraying sophistication and reflecting inner peace. The art of back-scratching could take on a certain hauteur, developing its own rules and effects, people practising the moan for appeal and intensity of relief.

A television newsreader would lack gravity if, at least once in the bulletin, she didn’t whip out her backscratcher and emit a series of groans to embellish the headlines.

Back scratching is economic. You can only back-scratch once a day for maximum relief. You must save up your back-scratch for the most propitious moment, such as proposing marriage. Whip it out, look her in the eye, and beguile her with a couple of strokes up and down. She will be bewitched, unable to refuse such an ardent lover.

If I could scratch my own back, there would be no limits to my superpower.