Telepathy? No!

I was watching some Babylon 5 last night, and it occurred to me that being a telepath would suck. Yeah, yeah, I know telepathy gives you an advantage, but the things people do are pretty darn annoying without knowing the motivations behind them. You might be thinking, "Well, you could simply choose not to read minds except in special circumstances." Could you really? Given the power to know what people are thinking about you or anyone else, can you honestly say you wouldn't use it more often than you think? I sure can't. The temptation would just be too great to ignore.

Now, if we're talking about superpowers, here are a few I'd choose over telepathy.

Hair command. Think about it: Your hair does whatever you want. It can be long one day and short the next, red on alternate Wednesdays, and completely immune to the deleterious effects of wind, rain, and hats. You could also make it move around on its own ala Medusa, except without the snakey goodness.

Traffic light power. You could make every traffic light in your path turn green, thus expediting your journeys. Of course, you'd have to remember to make them red for the cross-traffic, or else you'd be the shortest-lived superhero ever.

X-ray vision. You're thinking, "Wow! You could learn government secrets and help the police find lost children!" Screw that. I'd just hang out at Penn near the athletic fields when the men's soccer team comes out to practice. Oh yeah.

Inaudibility: No, this isn't making yourself un-hearable so you can become a master cat-burglar. This is making other people completely silent, forever ending your worries about small children at restaurants and cell-phone boobs in movie theatres.

Telebrowsing: With this modem of the mind, you could Google your heart out all without lifting a finger or touching a keyboard, or alerting your boss that you're wasting time blogging when you should be working. (Ahem) You could even give yourself a neat name like Modemo.

Telepathy? Bah! And I don't even want to know what you think about that.