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

[naath]

I can often look at a thing, and a space, and see if/how it fits. (I can't, usually, do the actual moving of it). I'm not "visualising" it, I'm aphantasic, it's just... obvious somehow (often).

[green_knight]

My main superpower is 3D Tetris. I can fit things into the available space, and then restack them to fit more things into the same space, and keep doing that.

Right now, that IS a superpower when your freezer is mostly full and you're self-isolating and you have to leave the house so you shop, and since you're only shopping once a month you buy a LOT, and suddenly you have a lot of extra food to process.

It's all gone into the freezer, though we had to eat some icecream to make it happen.

[green_knight]

<virtual high five> (see my comment below).

Right now, I have no problems calling it a superpower because it is super useful!

[purpleink]

Same, same!

[purpleink]

magnetic_pole, what a fun question!!

My superpower is packing a suitcase. My partner travels frequently for work (well, he did up until now...) and he is hopeless at packing neatly into a suitcase. Our usual routine is that he gathers everything he needs for a trip (which always includes extra clothing for running, running shoes, his portable nebulizer, and various other things beyond just clothing for business meetings), and the suitcase he wishes to use and I pack it. He prefers a carry-on if possible and he has sometimes boggled at what I can fit into it. :) Like others who've replied here with similar superpowers, it's easy for me; I love puzzles and this has always seemed to me to be a 3-D puzzle.

Meanwhile, his superpower is the same as yours: he has intuitive navigational skills that have always blown me away. This is useful, because mine are completely hopeless. (His first initial is J, and I often quip that I don't need GPS if he is with me because I have JPS!)

[wpadmirer]

I'm good at navigation. Once in France, I found the Tour de France race route using a regular map and a drawn map from Sports Illustrated. I looked at both and told Pat I was sure it would go through this one town. (There were no towns listed on the Sports Illustrated map.) We found it. It was a mountain route and we saw EVERYONE. It was the coolest thing ever.

I also cook by smell. I can tell if something needs more of a particular spice by smell without tasting.

[therealsnape]

That is a really useful superpower, (sez she enviously, while rubbing sore back from measuring up an inconveniently-located space)

[therealsnape]

I'd love to let you loose on my bookshelves. The notion of more things into the same space is strangely appealing.

[therealsnape]

Now that's a very useful skill, indeed. I'm a mediocre packer, who travelled quite a lot, and I envy you. I'm now slowly learning to pack capsule wardrobes.

[therealsnape]

Isn't the whole spectacle of a passing Tour de France a glorious sight? Such fun to see that, and good for you and your superpowers to make it happen.

[jenett]

I have said for years my secret superpower is getting information out of Google (searches, mostly). I'm a librarian, so this is a tremendously useful superpower.

(I will do nearly the exact same search as someone else, and get the info in 20 seconds that takes them 20+ minutes, sometimes hours. Most recent notable success was a friend who half remembered a Methodist hymn she'd learned as a kid, gave me a broad sense of the way the tune went, and I sent her a link to sheet music under 30 seconds later.)

It also works with other search tools, but not quite as brilliantly.

[petrea_mitchell]

I am the champion of navigators! Give me a map full of barely labeled spaghetti, or one in a language I don't technically speak, and I will find you a route!

This comes from handling navigation duties on family trips as far back as when I was eight. Later on, I looked back on that and appreciated how my parents had given me room to learn a useful skill.

Much later, I finally realized the real reason was that my parents are both terrible with maps. I'm grateful that we live in a world where satellite navigation is a thing.

[rebeccarobota]

My personal reference librarian win was the time a gentleman came into the library and asked for a book called "Chicago in Black and White."

I immediately asked him if possibly he was looking for "Devil in the White City." Ding ding, I was a winner.

[jenett]

That one's fabulous. (Both as an answer, and as a book.)

[rebeccarobota]

I work in a public-facing job (or at least I used to before COVID-19) and am very good at customer service and handling difficult customers. If someone is really angry or abusive I get flustered like anyone else, but I am very good at diffusing most people before they get to that point, and I have often enjoyed the challenge of creating a positive outcome out of a negative customer interaction (although after more than a decade in customer service roles, I'll admit I don't get the same joy out of it that I used to!)

I also know a lot of fiddly grammar and style rules, like how to use a comma correctly or the difference between "which" and "that." I am not actually a prescriptivist when it comes to grammar, but it's still handy knowledge.

[gender_euphoric]

Making perfect toast.

[twistedchick]

No matter where I am, or how recently I got there, I'm the person someone will ask about how to get to where they want to go. And 99% of the time so far it is somewhere I have been, and I can tell them how to get there. It has happened in DC, in New York, in Alaska, in Kansas and in Arizona. And it is weird but it works.

[purpleink]

Oooh, glad to hear it--it's next on my Kindle to-read list! :)

[therealsnape]

I love the story of how your understanding grew over the years - it must have been a fun moment to realise that your parents, actually, were pants at reading maps.

[glass_icarus]

Trivial superpowers that come to mind are reading and typing very fast? xD Outside of school the degree of usefulness varies, but still.

A less-trivial superpower I have is establishing and maintaining boundaries with other people (in the pursuit of a mostly drama-free life, haha). Verbally, through physical space, body language, and whatever else I'm unaware of, I've been successful with most roommates, friends, profs, coworkers, people I've dated, casual acquaintances, and strangers. I think my mom and I are fairly similar in this, though she's better at it; my dad and sister are notably worse at it because they're often bad at saying no to things.

[therealsnape]

That's amazing - the speed of finding things. Wow. I wish I were that fast.

[therealsnape]

I used to work on a helpdesk, so I know how difficult and negative customers can be - sometimes with reason, sometimes not - and I think it's amazing that you can turn that into a positive. Great skill.

[therealsnape]

Can I come and eat it? With honey, perhaps? I'll bring the honey.

[therealsnape]

I don't know what I admire most, that incredible useful skill or how well-traveled you are. Alaska must be beautiful!

[therealsnape]

Establishing boundaries is a skill that should be on the national curriculum. Such a useful thing to be able to do.