My cooking skills for the ability to do plumbing.
I type 120 wpm. I will gladly trade that for the same level of expertise as applied to investment banking.
Since I’m personal friends with Athena, I know she’d give me the ability to run like the wind in exchange for my proficiency at playing trombone.
I doubt she can make me thin, so I will be that super awesome fat girl who can run really fast and be excellent at baseball and soccer.
Are you saying you’re not in charge of asskicking, wisdom, or practical crafts?
I know a lot about technical and commercial writing, having done it for years. I’d give up all of that, in order to be able to play jazz piano to something close to Oscar Peterson standard.
Good thread! Can we only have one exchange?
Might the exchange be expanded to natural gifts rather than mastered skills? For instance, I am able to wake up fresh and energetic after a hard night of drinking with nary a whisper of a hangover. This hasn’t come with built-up tolerance - it’s just how I am. I’d trade that for the ability to jump really high. Or impeccable balance. I think it’d be really cool to have either.
I’d trade my ability to seduce men for the ability to win any argument through reason and articulateness.
Same here, except swap cooking for HTML. Man, life would be so much easier if I wasn’t such an introvert, or at least if I could fake extrovertedness.
I want to trade my ability to easily do complicated math, for the ability to be outgoing and sociable. Shockingly, being able to calculate triple integrals in your head does not guarantee that men will envy you and women will flock to you.
I would trade my ability to play comprehensive Chopin and Liszt repertoires on the pianoforte for the ability to belch I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, double time, in a single gulp.
You totally need to post more!
I’d take the ability to accurately draw the images in my head, swapping out the ability to touch my elbows together.
What? She never said the abilities had to be equally good!
I’ll trade my ability to arrange everything alphabetically, chronologically, numerically, chromatically, etc.
for
The ability to make whatever changes I want, to my body, for the rest of my life.
Since there appears to be no equivalence necessary, wouldn’t it make sense to pick the talent you have that is the least useful or is actually detrimental, and pick one that you don’t have that would be most useful? A lot of you seem to be picking abilities that are at least somewhat useful.
Let’s see, I have mastered eating when I’m already full. I’ll trade that for, um, omnipotence. I can always later use my omnipotence to get rid of any abilities I decide I don’t want.
(Yeah, I know that Athena can’t grant that, but I don’'t see her owing a favor to a mortal, anyways.)
We could do a halfsies trade. I’ll give you some of my natural sociability and willingness to talk to people for some of your math skill, since I’m pretty innumerate and can’t make the damn cash drawer at work come out right most nights.
Barring import/export trades, I’ll trade a skill I don’t know I have for a new skill with the knowledge I have it and to what degree. I could be a world champion parcheesi player, but that doesn’t help me if I don’t know it.
I would trade my ability to cross my eyes for a near-manic drive to create.
I would trade my ability to design needlepoint for a chance to dance a waltz really well in a full ball gown.
No she did not, and I suspect that if you swapped out equally good abilities, she’d grant your desire but call you a moron.
I would give up the ability to make balloon animals for the ability to whistle.