I am particularly proud of my short-range eyesight.
I can see things very well, very close, that no-one else seems to be able to see.
The other day I was printing out a document we use at work. Due to duff formatting the A4 document printed out an inch high. I could read it perfectly.
My brother has an aerial photo of a football stadium (Anfield - Liverpool FC’s ground) The stadium is mostly empty except for a small group of people sat in one of the stands. About 6 of us (many younger than me) tried to count the people, all givng up saying “they’re too small” I had a go and counted them perfectly.
What ability of your own body (senses or motor skills) are you proud of?..
I have an amazing sense of smell, and you can give me any random person walking down the street and 9 times out of 10, I’ll be able to name the celebrities that could have mated and produced that person as offspring. I’m deadly accurate. Granted, this last is not a motor skill, not a sense–rather, a matter of perception. So it counts, damn it.
I have excellent hearing. This was a great advantage when teaching school; I heard every whisper from the back row of the classroom. It’s also wonderful when I can get away from the normal racket of life and appreciate the subtle, soft sounds of nature.
It’s a disadvantage in a lot of real life. I have had to learn to consciously screen out the overly loud speaker phones in the office, for example. I have to wear ear plugs to get to sleep because the t.v. at what others consider a normal volume is too loud for me in another part of the house. I’m constantly telling certain members of my family to stop shouting, which they swear they are not doing.
I have (in general) bad hearing, but I’m one of those people who’s blessed (hmm not blessed, maybe damned) with the ability to hear flyback transformers. I can walk into a house and tell if a TV is on. I can walk into work and tell that we’ve left the camera monitor on.
I’m pretty sure this counts as a motor skill, but I’m very, very good with a firearm. I’m talkng spookily, scarily good. I recently came back from a vacation to Canada where I had some fun at an indoor handgun range (something we don’t get to do here in the UK).
With a 9mm Beretta 92FS, I put at least twenty consecutive shots into the bullseye, and even the range instructors were mightly impressed.
Bearing in mind that I’ve never had any training or instruction of any kind other than how to actually load and fire the thing, it just seems to be a natural ability, so I have to admit that i’m pretty damn pleased with myself! Just think, with proper training, I might even get to Olympic standard!
I have a great sense of smell. Unfortunatly, that means I usually get to smell lots of bad ones! There are two people at work who are very stinky indeed.
I can knock flys out of the air with amazing regularity. These are the fast ones, too. This is mostly eye/hand coordination and judging where the little bastard is heading next.
Deadly accurate with a (real, steel-tip) dart. Was 5-time (consecutive) local champ and still hold the local record for “High On” with 160.
I can walk very quietly and am constantly accused of “sneaking” up on people. I have walked up behind every member of my family and been able to stand (or sit) there a good 2-3 minutes before I am noticed * (see following superpower).
I apparently have the superpower of invisibility, but I haven’t figured out how to turn it on and off.
Truly acute sense of smell. I once caught the barest whiff of…something…on the way to bed for the night. Couldn’t let it go, and kept walking back and forth across the room to reacquire the scent (sort of like a bloodhound). Long story short, someone else in the building had fallen asleep on the couch after starting some chicken frying on the stove. It had caught fire. I was able to track it down and awaken her before true disaster struck.
Also, this amazing thing with peripheral vision and hand-eye coordination. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve caught something in mid-air that was headed to destruction, without actually seeing it fall; ditto the number of accidents avoided on the road.
I can track a falcon on a cloudy day…if he happens to be walking. And moulting.
I’m very good at throwing small objects. I’m not pinpoint accurate with anything, but I can throw lots of things very quickly and put them all within a few inches of one another, even when the target is moving. I can put nine darts in the inner ring of a standard dartboard in a matter of seconds (best time, 2.2 seconds)…but I can’t hit a bullseye consistently, no matter how much time I take. In my LARP, we represent thrown weapons with small beanbags–I use uninflated balloons full of birdseed–and people get very worried when they see me holding one. I once pegged a guy in the chest with one from over 60 feet away, while we were running in opposite directions. I tell people it’s my hobbit blood.
I also wield knives very naturally, as if they were extensions of my hands. People have told me that its disturbing to watch me with knives in hand–it changes everything about the way I move, somehow.
Finally, like Lyllyan, I tend to move very quietly. I’ve taken to wearing squeaky shoes so that I don’t scare people so often.
No, really, I can. More than once, I’ve gotten that special feeling in an unfamiliar neighborhood, said to my travelling companion, “There’s a bookstore around here; I can smell it,” only to turn a corner or travel another block and see a bookstore, to the companion’s amazement.
I can’t think of a mysterious talent I’d rather have.
Forgot to mention this thing with tactile sense. For instance, I can think of a number of cards I want to take from a deck and usually hit it exactly. Number of crackers from a package, etc. Don’t know what use this is to me or anyone else, but I hope someday to be in a crowd and have someone call out: “Is there someone who can get exactly 17 beans out of this jar on the first try? It’s a matter of life or death!”
I just remembered one - Similar to Chefguy’s
I can judge how many coins I have in my hand by their weight or ‘volume’ I can pick up a pile of 5ps and either drop or add coins until I have 10, without counting them.
