There's never enough air to power a super hero

A woman walking out in the country sees a rattlesnake close to both her barn and her house. A quick glance tells her no sticks or tools to use as an instrument of reptile death are near enough to fetch without giving the creature ample opportunity to escape.

She reaches out to a wooden post buried shallowly in soft, wet ground and discovers that the post is loose. She wiggles the post around to loosen it further, then yanks it from the earth and bludgeons the snake to death with it, thus saving the health and lives of her loved ones, both two-legged and four-.

Amazing, I know. That's how I felt when I did it.

Strength beyond my size and gender, that is my super power.

Though that power wanes a little more each year I live past my prime, some days — like the day I pulled a post from the ground and emerged victorious in a battle against a poisonous foe — I feel like Pam the Barbarian Warrior Princess Mega Woman.

During those moments, I feel like I could lift a small car off a large man and set it safely to one side before turning to saunter away.

"Wait! Stop!" the man would say. "At least let me thank you!"

"No thanks is needed," I would say. "I didn't do anything that anyone else would do if they weren't standing around staring in gape-mouthed wonder at my total awesomeness." Then I would stroll nonchalantly away.

Obviously, I would be a humble super hero.

Every super hero knows, though, that with great power comes great weakness, a kind of kryptonite of one's own, if you will, and I am no different. I am allergic, so to speak, to a lack of air.

And while it may seem obvious to argue that everyone needs air to live, even mere mortals, I have to admit that my air intake processes are poorly designed and, apparently, poorly maintained. This makes me ill-equipped for endeavors that require running.

Sure I can stand there and lift, bend, push, pull, pummel or pry on things to my heart's content, but if I had to run a 440-yard race to get there, I wouldn't have the oxygen to roll a scooter off a little old lady's foot. I'd just flop on the ground gasping for air like a beached trout.

"I'm'a (gasp) save yo (gasp) ur foot (gasp) ina (gasp) minute (gasp), (gasp) ma'am."

By the time I got that out, some grocery bagger would've walked by, arms loaded with groceries, and inched the scooter off her foot with one bump of a hip. The little old lady would then slip her helmet on, adjust her goggles, kick start her pimped ride and scooter away yelling "Wimp!" over her shoulder as a parting shot at me, Pam the Airless Wonder.

Despite my years of experience with my own frailty, I still forget sometimes in the clutch of an emergency. I am, after all, a charter member of the work harder, not smarter club.

When a lightning strike started a grass fire on my place Monday, while my husband, two guests and I watched from the open door of the shop, I grabbed a shovel and started sprinting the 200-yard distance to where the flames were being blown over the peak of the hill toward my house and barn.

I heard my husband yell something about the pickup, so I detoured from the direct route to throw the gate open on the road, and kept powering toward the flames. At about 100 yards, it occurred to me that running to the site of disaster might not have been the best idea.

At 125 yards, internal alarms buzzed a low-oxygen warning. At 150 yards the alarms were clanging a high-alert warning. I made it 10 more yards before systems shut down major leg functions and required that I stand with hands on knees gasping for air — John and our house guests drove by to the base of the hill where they bailed out of the pickup and ran 40 feet up the hill to start putting out flames.

Forcing my body to function, I staggered up the hill far enough to mop up the stray sparks and embers trying to escape the firefighting efforts.

Within a couple minutes, the fire was out and we all trooped back to the pickup to ride back to the shop. Another good deed accomplished with me, Stupor Woman, relying the kindness of sidekicks to save me from myself.

I used to say that I didn't like to wear dresses because I felt ill-prepared for emergencies in those clothes. Apparently, being middle-aged and out of shape does the same thing.

(Maybe it was the 10-square-foot fire sucking all the oxygen out of the air at http://viewnorth40.wordpress.com.)