My mother excelled at everything. She also excelled at criticizing anyone that was inferior to her including people in her own family. Dinner table conversations with Mom revolved around her critical need to work on her PhD and smirking about how Aunt Deb looked like a beached whale. These were the so-called “super powers” my Mom handed down to me: the ability to rudely scoff at inferior people, to judge people without any right, and to ridicule people based merely on the way they looked. The last blast of power she used on me was the undeserved ridicule thrown in my face about how I was raising my kids. I abandoned her “super powers”. They were hateful and destructive. I created my own super powers and among them is a shield of deflection for any person that acts like my mother.