Can't win for losing.

Meet Futility Lad. He was the vacuous sidekick to Captain Useless, who was a B-list superhero a few decades ago. Interestingly, the pair's popularity waned in a gradual way, and the less-than-dynamic duo disbanded in the late 1970s.

I think Futility Lad's not gone at all. I think he's living in my house. A hand-drawn ghost, an incorporeal wisp, an exhausting shadow-shrug.

Futility Lad takes shape in crafty ways. He's hijacked the light bulbs that I know are around here somewhere. He's the one who makes me say, at least every day, where did I put my coffee? He's stashed my garage door opener somewhere, and I just had it last night. I can almost hear him chuckling maniacally to himself as I look for my keys.

Futility Lad must know how to shape-shift, and he apparently has the added secondary super-heroic quality of inhabiting more than one place at a time. Because I chatted with my lovely friend Shawn today, and without me bringing it up, she mentioned she's been plagued by losing things and forgetting important events, just like me.

I need a superhero to take charge, saunter into my home with confidence and kick Futility Lad's ass.

I think Futility Lad's nemesis is a multi-tasking, capable, take-charge, intuitive superhero. And for the sake of personal relatability, I'll make her a woman.

I imagine that she'd come in my house and first work a few superpowers on me. Maybe we'd do some yoga, which would incorporate several deep breathing techniques. Then she'd probably walk me through where I saw my errant items last, and we'd recreate - most likely through very sophisticated creative visualization - my crazed moments just before I lost the item or forgot the event.

Maybe then she'd do a bit of recon on Futility Lad.

After he's been soundly schooled and summarily banished, she'd probably feel it necessary to further realign my personal karmic chi, patiently answering my recent questions about what the Universe is trying to tell me about why I keep losing things that should be conspicuous.

I have yet to come up with a name for this reconnaissance-driven superhero. Maybe Perceptivion, Goddess of Clarity?

Judging from the input of my friends, I think I'll need to take a number.

Perceptivion, like any superhero that supplies extra doses of clarity while ridding the world of futility, probably requires an appointment.

I think she's a busy lady.