Chapter 3

“What a rush!” gasped Wolverine as he held fast to Spiderman. The duo was headed towards the Nordstrom shopping center on an airplane made of spider silk. “You know, I must have hitched a ride with you a thousand times, Spiderman, but I never get tired of swooping around the city like this…I love every part of it…I love the wind in my hair, the cars honking at us from the ground…shit, I even love the incredible feeling of freedom I get from gliding far above the toils of everyday life.”
“What?!?” shouted Spiderman as he turned his head back towards Wolverine, “I can’t hear you! The wind makes my mask flap around and it makes a lot of noise so it pretty much drowns out anything else.”
“Oh…well that’s cool,” sighed Wolverine.
“Sorry!”
The rest of their fantastic voyage to the center of Portland, Oregon was spent in relative silence, though it wasn’t really awkward because there’s just so much to see as you’re swinging through the streets with Spiderman. Everywhere you look there’s a car or a building or sometimes there’s even a kitty sitting in a window! And the kitty will look at you and paw at the window almost as if it’s waving hello!
When they finally arrived at Nordstrom, Spiderman landed on top of one of the nearby skybridges for which downtown Portland is so famous.
“Wow, what a view!” Spiderman and Wolverine exclaimed in unison. “Jinx! Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightninetengimmeablowjob!” The two heroes had a good laugh about their silly overlap of words, but when they remembered about the Arabs that had been seen lurking around Nordstrom, their minds turned back towards this more pressing matters and they got very serious.
“Alright,” said Spiderman, “It’s time to get down to business. Take this set of binoculars; I’ve got my own. We’ll use these wonders of modern optics to scope out the area for those sneaky Arabs.” The two set to work, scanning the streets below the skybridge for anyone who looked like they might be from the Middle East or had ancestors who were. Their task was not immediately fruitful, and several minutes passed by with no sign of any Arabs. Just then, Wolverine cried out,
“I see one, I see one! C’mon let’s go get – no…no wait, that’s just a Mexican. Darn it.”
“Fuck,” sighed Spiderman, “We’ve been out here for nearly 20 minutes, and we still haven’t seen a single terr…Muslim. Perhaps we should head into the belly of the beast…the inside of Nordstrom.” Meeting each others eyes in unspoken agreement, the two put away their binoculars and swung down to the street. As they stood outside the main entrance to Nordstrom, there was a sense of anticipation in the air. Neither of these brave men had ever been into the fancy fashion retailer before, and they weren’t quite sure what to expect. But after a few relaxing breaths, they were ready for anything and strode confidently through the front doors.
“Ugh, it smells like shit,” sputtered Wolverine after a few steps on the inside.
“That’s not shit,” laughed Spiderman, “Those are called ‘scents’ and that must mean we’re near the perfume section.”
“Well those crazy perfume bitches had better not spray any of that crap on me or I’ll cut their faces off and use them for toilet paper.” The two walked around the retail giant marveling at all the fancy clothing and relatively pretty women, though they were sure to keep their guard up. However, as they strode through the women’s clothing department, Wolverine’s attention was immediately drawn to a nearby display.
“$2000 for a pair of jeans?!? That’s outrageous!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Spiderman quickly shushed Wolverine and took a look at the ire-raising price tag for himself.
“Umm, Wolverine, these jeans are 200 dollars, not 2000.” Wolverine’s cheeks quickly turned a bright shade of red as his mistake became apparent.
“Well, oh. I mean, you know,” he mumbled sheepishly, “And this is really embarrassing, but, oh boy, I’m actually…I’m actually kinda dyslexic, ya know? I, uh, fuck, I used to get a lot of crap about it when I was younger and that’s why I usually try not to read stuff, ya know?”
“Oh, Wolverine…” said Spiderman in a slightly mournful tone, “I had no idea.”
”Well...it’s not something I that like to brag about, ya know? So don’t tell anybody about this or I’ll snip your Achilles tendons. Got it, bub?”
“Whoa ho ho! Chill out there, Wolvie!” laughed Spiderman as he slapped his pal on the back.
“Well anyway, that’s still a big rip-off…” said Wolverine as he stared intently at the fancy denims. “I just have to try them on.”
Wolverine grabbed a pair and walked over towards the changing rooms.
“Um, excuse me! Sirs, sirs!” shouted a nearby female Nordstrom employee, “I’m afraid you two can’t go in there, this area is for women only.”
“Listen, bitch,” barked Wolverine in a perturbed manner, “We’re already here and we’re not going to walk all the way over to the men’s section to try on a pair of women’s jeans. Got it, bub?”
“Oh dear…sir I’m afraid it’s simply store policy, I can’t-“ the helpful woman was quickly silenced by a shot of webbing to the face, courtesy of one Mr. Spiderman Jones. She fell to the ground, clawing at her face in a desperate struggle to rid her face of the sticky concoction.
“Oh damn!” chuckled Wolverine. “Is she gonna be able to breathe with that wad of spider webbing on her face?”
“Bah, she’ll be fine. C’mon, let’s see you try on those jeans.”