13 June 2026
Back when George Reeves was Superman, I was absolutely convinced that the secret to flight was the cape. Not strength, not alien biology — just the cape. I believed in that hypothesis so completely that one day I fastened a towel around my neck with a safety pin, climbed to the top of the stairs in our two‑level apartment, and leapt.
It did not work.
What I did prove was that the human body is surprisingly durable — not Superman‑durable, mind you — but durable enough to survive a fall like that with only a sprained arm and a bruised ego.
I wouldn’t call it a failed experiment, because technically I gathered evidence disproving the “cape = flight” theory. But with only one sample, how sure could I really be? Not very. Still, the pain from that first trial was persuasive enough to shut down any plans for further research.
If Superman really flew because of his cape, then his cape must have been something special — and I was never going to get my hands on that particular model. So, C’est la vie.
I had a history of sprained arms as a kid, each with its own questionable origin story. One of the earliest came courtesy of an old washing machine — the kind with a roller wringer mounted on top. Modern washers use rapid rotation and centrifugal force to fling water out of fabric, but this machine relied on squeezing everything between two hard rubber rollers.
That idea fascinated me.
So I decided to feed a sock through the rollers.
I should have let go of the sock.
Instead, my arm followed it straight into the wringer — not good. Not good at all.
I can still remember the aftermath: the throbbing, the scolding, and the unmistakable smell of a potato poultice pressed against my arm. Childhood medicine had its own aroma, and that one stays with you.
“Play is the highest form of research.” — Albert Einstein
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