Okay, so my totally useless power is that really evil/persnickety animals love me. Here are a few examples:
Chameleons are extremely difficult to keep alive. They need specific environment conditions and they often don’t want to be taken out of their cage to the point of gripping on to the cage edges in a desperate plea to remain inside. Acid Lamp spent time working in a pet shop at one point in time, and when I’d visit, I’d take out a chameleon and let him hang out on my shoulder. I’d walk around the store, chat with the other people there, and then when I’d try to put him back in the cage, he’d cling to me, climb my hair, and do anything to stay out. Once we got him back in the cage, he’d get angry and start turning darker. After one or two visits to the store, they started to try to get out of the cage to hang out when they saw me.
Emerald tree boas are nasty-mean and don’t like being handled. Somehow an old roommate acquired one that was relatively hand-tame; it still bit him every now and then. Tried selling it on a fairly popular reptile trading/sales website, but no one would buy it. Somehow, I get convinced that it’d be totally okay if the snake sat on my feet; it ends up cuddling right up to me and hanging out. Roomie gets the camera, takes a photo of the snake on my feet, and posts that as the photo on the next attempt at sale. It sells instantly, which has to say something a bit odd about the reptile owning community.
Guinea pigs may not be mean and nasty, but even the really skittish ones warm up to me within minutes.
My super power is Confident Walking. Whenever I am with a group of friends or family and we are walking somewhere, I am always the leader. My bold stride gives the impression that I know where I’m going, which is unfortunate because I also possess the power of Opposite Way. No, I dont go the wrong way, but the direct opposite of where we should be heading. My friends know this and have developed a limited immunity, but even they still fall prey to it sometimes. I’ve learned to embrace this gift and the misadventures it creates.
Now, if we want to get onto my mystical (loony) side, I have another strange ability (psychosis). I can look at a person’s chest where the heart is and see (imagine) an image in my mind. It can be anything really, but there is almost always an interpretation along with it. For example, a friend of mine who has suffered a great tragedy and has closed her emotional self off almost completely has a broken heart covered in ice. Sometimes I see animals or totally abstract things. In proper settings of open-minded people, I have revealed these images and gotten mixed results. Most were positive though. Mystical gift or an active imagination tied with subtle psychological clues, or both? Either way, I dont think about it too much, and unless I decide to become a professional fortune teller, it’s quite useless. Hey… wait a minute.
I also manage to have piggers (when placed on the floor) follow me like I’m the herd leader. Happens with other people’s guinea pigs too. Auto, I also have Confident Walking Syndrome. I have no clue where I’m going, but I look so sure of myself that people follow me.
I have several amazing powers that well aren’t really that much
I too have the pretty girl’s best friend ability.
I have the power of looking like a generic employee. This means that in a Big store customers who can’t find a real employee will come and ask me where ladies fashions is. I have no idea what this power is good for.
I can without fail pick the slowest line at any store or bank. It will be the one I am standing in.
I can do the opposite of this. I can get the temperature of my hands down to 67 F. I did it in biofeedback therapy for my Raynaud’s phenomenom back in college. Doesn’t do anything but cause me pain upon rewarming. I can also make myself go pale (sheet white)–useful for getting out of nursing clinicals or gym class. Can’t do it anymore, now that I’m no longer anemic…
I can look at just about anything and predict if it will fit into a designated space. The only thing I can’t do this with is cars and parallel parking spaces–but boxes, furniture, gift wrap, couched through doorways–I can nail 'em 90% of the time. Sorry, but it is useful!
Holy shit, you’re right! I do this all the time when I go to my parents’ place. I can one of two ways, each one about the same amount of time taken. If I go there one way, I will almost always come back the other way.
Despite being a complete swish, attending numerous protests, spent my entire childhood being the school sub-nerd (not even the nerds liked me), and having little concept of socially appropriate behaviour, I have never in my life been beaten up, assaulted, or even badly bruised in anger.
Having typed that, of course, it’s only a matter of time.
I can find a four leaf clover in two seconds without even really looking that hard. I’ll have people challenge me in the same area of grass and I’ll find about 5 before they ever even find one. The other day I was literally speed walking to work and I quickly saw one when I looked down and snagged it. I don’t have good vision either. Nor am I Irish.
Synching the radio in my head to the radio on the airwaves. When I get an earworm all I have to do is turn on the radio(usually a satellite radio shuffle station with a HUGE playlist) and it gets played pretty soon. It’s actually kind of freaky, but it helps to get rid of the earworm.
My best friend in high school could do that! It was freaky! She’d just swoop! while we were walking (fast!) somewhere and bam: four leaf clover. And she’d find several a day!
Mine? Spellcheck has made me obsolete, for one thing (I am guaranteeing I will spell something incorrectly in this thread, I do realize that).
Also, if I talk to someone for a fairly short time, I can usually have a crystal clear sense of them, all the way from when they were a kid; what they like, what scares them, what their core issues are, what they are afraid is really true about them, who they could be, who they are afraid they will become. I could do it before I was a psychologist - it’s what made me want to be one. I actively block it most of the time; it seems intrusive, like staring in someone’s underwear drawer. Not too useless now, given my profession, though!
There was a radio interview the other day with some guy who’d been for a record-breaking distance swim in the Arctic. He claimed that it was essential to be able to raise your body temperature a couple of degrees before the swim, and that he could do that with mind control. So maybe it isn’t completely useless … if you want to go swimming in the Arctic, that is. :eek:
II have the strange power of immediately being the friend of any kids age 0-10. I can be in a crowded area, and not know a single person, yet some kids always manage to find me and want to play.
I get stranger kids always waving and smiling at me no matter where I am. Drives my wife crazy sometimes that at restaurants kids will always stare at us and try to get my attention. They want to make faces, play hide-and-seek, whatever. Its kinda strange. Works with getting babies to sleep too. Even when people tell me that they wont sleep for anyone, I can have them for 10mins, and they are off to dreamland.
Its a fun power, but dont think it will be making me Overlord anytime soon!
I control the weather for a short stretch of Rd. 19 leading into Waimea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Usually, it is somewhere between misty, alarmingly foggy, and miserably rainy in this area.
I have driven across this road perhaps 75 times in the last 5 years. It was mildly foggy, once. Each other time, I had sunlight.
Oh, and I have lobstermobster’s 4-leaf clover skill too. I usually find 5- and 6-leaf clovers at the same time. My record is a 12-leaf clover.
My fiancé and I have a combined power (a la the Wonder Twins) of “Summon Creepy Waitstaff.” Inevitably, whenever we go out to eat we get the creepiest waiter/waitress in the place. The type of creepy differs - overly enthusiastic, touchy-feely, stoned out of their minds, and hopelessly confused are the most common ones. If we go out without each other (alone or with friends) neither of us have any problems. If we both go out with a large group, we only Summon Creepy Waitstaff if we’re present when the party is seated - as long as we’re late, everything is fine.
Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s irritating, but it is most certainly useless.
I can usually tell if a television is on even if the sound is all the way down and there’s no picture by listening for a high pitched sound. I will try to use this power for good before I lose hearing in that frequency range.
I have an odd power. I am capable, without any action whatsoever on my part, of making women I have just met announce to everyone nearby that they have a boyfriend/husband.