The Art of Invisibility

An image of my nostrils.  Picture from Wikipedia

Note to readers:  My cold is winding down.  You all know the old saw, "Colds last seven days if untended but only last a week with aggressive treatment."  You will get one or two more days of light-weight pieces and then I hope to put out something with a little more research.

They walk among us
There are some preternaturally strong people who quietly walk among us.

I am not talking about Body Builders.  Body Building is a performance art.  They do what they do for show.  Body Builders want to be noticed.

Question:  How many Body Builders does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Four.  One to do the deed.  Two to hold the mirror and one to exclaim, "Dude, you are HUUUGE!"

Nope.  I am talking about those who are quietly strong.  

How do I recognize them?
Primarily by their hands.  If you shake their hand and it feels like you latched ahold of a brick or a 2-by-6....it is a good bet that person is strong...very strong.

Some of them are big.  Wes, for instance, had to tip his head to the right to drive a car.  Wes can bench press a piano.  He can dead lift the back end of a Crown Vic and he can "squat" with a side of beef on his shoulders.  There are many like Wes.

Some are of a more normal size.  The man who sits behind me in church is my height and weight.  He has the hands and shoulders of a stone mason or of somebody who regularly flings 40 pounds bales of hay onto a wagon two at a time.

Most of the time you cannot pick the strong ones out of a crowd.  They hide.

They have tricks.
They hang out with other large people to minimize the contrast.  When other large people are not available they stand four paces behind the next largest person in the group.

Guess what one of the richest, most invisible men on the planet wears.

They wear the cloak of invisibility...clothing that is two sizes too large.  Baggy gray sweat pants.  A 4XL Detroit Lions with "90" on it.  Crocks.  The sensitive avert their eyes.  The others simply avoid eye contact and all they can remember is "Loser".

They are handy to have on your side in a pinch
Mostly, I have been very lucky and not needed these guys.  I don't have that many stories to tell but I would love to read your stories in the comments.

"I said I never had much use for one. I never said I didn't know how to use it." ~ Quigley

Part of what escapes most people is that "invisibility" is also a performance art.  Just because they usually prefer to avoid being noticed does not mean they are at a loss when they need to make a Significant Emotional Event happen  for someone else.  In fact, given their physical strength and their intensive study of what people notice and do not notice, they are especially gifted at making SEEs happen.

My one Best Example
A strong fellow was displeased at being stonewalled. 

He gripped the edges of the counter top that separated him from the person who was not giving him satisfaction.

He lifted it eight inches.  Actually, it was more like he snapped it up eight inches and gave it a little flip, the way you do to flip a wrinkle out a quilt on a bed.  The entire counter top levitated and then banged back down into place.  I think he was getting ready to sail the counter top into a far corner of the room, much like a frisbee.  He did not need to.  The stonewalling stopped.

These are guys (usually) who accidentally break furniture when they are being very, very careful.

They are good people to have as friends and bad people to have as enemies.