Daily discussion post: superpowers

[magnetic_pole]

Folks, what are your superpowers?

Before you protest that you don't have any, let me assure you that you do--you just haven't thought about them that way. My partner R, for example, can always spot an extra space between words in a page of text. On screen, on paper, doesn't matter. She's pretty amazing at catching typos, too. See? Superpowers.

I have the power of not-getting-lost. Drop me off in a completely new city, and I'll navigate with aplomb. An old housemate of mine has a favorite story about the time a long-distance bus dropped the two of us off at the side of the road in a remote part of Greece. The driver definitely knew where we were going, despite our embarrassing lack of language skills---I'd copied down the name of our destination and showed it to him, and he'd nodded and smiled and helped us put our luggage away. When he stopped the bus and gestured furiously for us to get off, I discovered a superpower I didn't even know I had: navigational skills for the win! We were going to a port city, so we just kept walking downhill until we finally met the water, and from there it was easy to see how to get into town.

I've also got the power to smell food that's bit off, but honestly, that's more a curse than a superpower, so best not to dwell on that one.

So, folks, what are *your* superpower? What can you do that your friends and family generally can't?

Comments

[aome]

This is actually some sort of weird physical mutation, so I don't know if it counts as a superpower or not but: I can wiggle the center of my upper lip without moving any other part of my mouth. I have never met anyone else who can do it. But it's great for entertaining babies and toddlers who are next to you in line, in the pew ahead of you in church, etc. I earned the name "little rabbit" from a friend in high school because of it, too.

As for as other talents, hmmm. I can do math in my head really quickly - calculating sale prices, the amount needed for tips, things like that. And I'm aces at proof-reading, as well. (Sometimes to the annoyance of others, when I spot mistakes in store signs, letters sent home by school, etc. My daughter just rolls her eye at me if I try to point it out.)

The person with the true superpower in our family is my teenage son, whom we have literally named, "The Super Finder" for years. He's not always great at finding his own stuff, but if you've misplaced something? He's fantastic at locating it.

[therealsnape]

Can I borrow your son?

And a trick like that, that calms babies and toddlers in situations where a screaming wee 'un in inconvenient - that's a really good thing.

[aome]

The next time he does something annoying, I'll ship him straight off to you. ;-)

[ninetydegrees]

"I can do math in my head really quickly"

Well, I'm jealous now ;) Also think I got lazy what with having a phone now. I wasn't even always allowed a calculator during math tests :)

[aome]

The irony is that I was in a somewhat advanced math track in school, but I got solid Bs in math for three years straight. I really struggled with some of the concepts but once it stuck, it stuck.