What is your hidden talent?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I can find lesbians. I can’t tell you if any given woman is a lesbian, but if I develop a crush on someone, it’s better than even money that she’s at least bi. I get a whole lot of “Aww, sorry, but I like girls…” and “Damnit, Jackboots! Why couldn’t you have been a girl?”

That’s not only pointless; that’s counterproductive.

Up until I graduated high school I would occasionally get pulled over for looking too young to drive. By now I’m 21 and they let me drive and vote unmolested, but I get people trying to chase me out of the liquor aisles (not “Sorry, sir, I’ll need to see some ID”, but “He’s obviously too young, so he must be trying to steal something; get him out of there”), and once in a while I’ll get the evil eye for going into stores with “1 high school student at a time during X hours” policies. I guess this will start feeling like a talent and not a curse in ten years.

I can fake competency at most subjects given five or ten minutes to get my bearings. I can’t fake fluency, but a conversational competency is easy. Obscure music, semiconductor manufacturing, movies, various types of silk fabric… I know a truly staggering amount of random, superficial crap.

I defy the laws of probability, but only when meaningless amounts of money are involved. People hate playing Liar’s Dice with me, and I’ll play mostly average D&D, punctuated by long strings of critical hits like they’re going out of style.

I can tell you how long it takes to get anywhere on campus to within +/- 1 minute. One of my professors swears up and down that he will catch me coming in late one of these days, but it hasn’t happened yet.

42

Since Draelin beat me to it I’ll just join the line.

I can flare my nostrils at will, burp on command and do a killer impression of the coroner munchkin from The Wizard of Oz.

43

Hey, I can do the nose flaring thing too. And the tongue curl. I’m also a naturally likable person from what folks tell me. Which is odd, because I’m not really a social person.

44

I can touch my toes to my nose.

But I do… pleeease…

45

I can not only make my toungue into a taco but I can whistle that way. My whistle can sound normal or it can sound like a cheap, shrill, plastic whistle or, sometimes, I can even whistle two notes at once. Maybe not harmonious notes, but two notes all the same. I can also whistle on the intake as well as the exhale with barely a change in pitch. I’m getting closer and closer on that all the time.

I am also notorious for noting when there is a cool draft in a room or car or wherever. Even a light summer evening breeze outdoors qualifies. I won’t say anything about it but when I start to yawn, you will know that I’m feeling a draft. And no, I’m not cold; I actually prefer cooler air. No, I’m not tired or bored. Cool drafts just make me yawn. End of story.

If I’m riding in my Dad’s car for more than 20-30 minutes, odds are very good that I’ll get the the hiccups. If we’re on a trip I can get them two or three times a day. It must be that car’s particular harmonious vibrations or something because that doesn’t happen in any other one.

46

i can carry eleven martini glasses, or fourteen wine glasses, or seventeen champagne flutes, in one hand.

i can carry a four foot stack of rocks glasses.

i can triple-bin bus a club floor, something i’ve only ever seen two other people do.

and i can carry three cases of beer & nine liquor bottles at once. only ever seen one other person (one of the triple-binners) do that.

as for non-work related talents, my internal compass is quite accurate, and if i see a location on a map once, i can find my way to there from anywhere else i’ve seen on a map i’ve seen at least once.

and i am unbelievably incredible at forgetting names.

47

If I’m willing to spend the mental energy, I can calculate an accurate running total in my head, including tax. I used to to this a lot when I still lived with my mom and didn’t have a lot of my own money to spend, but now I usually don’t care.

48

ORAL TRICKS

I possess what one former girlfriend described as “the perfect pussy licking tongue.” Fully extended, I can touch my beard, the underside of my nose, fold it taco shaped, turn it backward to caress my own uvula, and 2/3rds upside down. It never tires. I feel no pain.

I can also loose a four foot spray of spit from the underside of my tongue. (I have a friend named Marco, who once trained as an Olympic swimmer, who used to nonchalantly hawk a loogie over the lower telephone lines.)

I can whistle “Hot Crossed Buns” while inhaling.
ARM TRICKS

I’m double jointed in the arms. I can scratch anywhere on my own back with either arm. When I was much, much skinnier I used to be able to clasp my hands in front of me, step through my own arms and bring my arms over my head back in front of me without releasing my fingers.

I can do that “arms extended, make circular motions” exercise for an insanely long time without tiring.

I’m double jointed in my left thumb.

I can repeatedly crack my knuckles in my right hand.

OTHER ABILITIES

I can, undetected, tune out boring people at will and still give the impression I’m utterly fascinated.

I can sleep like a baby – anywhere.

Much like my writing, I can slip from perfect standardized American speech to a knaawhutimsaan’, like, a perfectified ghettofabulous Atlanta slang, like, on a dime midsentence. It’s discombobulating. Ya hurr?

49

I can squeeze toothpaste out of the tube LONG after it has run out.

Its my only superhero power.

50

You beat me there. I once memorised it to 1000 places.
Give me a line or two from a random family guy episode, and I can most probably tell you which episode they’re from.

Ive never met anyone who could beat me, or even had a chance against me in the game Ola. (You roll 4 dice. You then insert operators between the numbers to make the result 24. Eg. 4*(5 + 2 -1) )

51

I have a built in fuzzbuster/radar detector. I think it comes from subconsciously recognizing cues such as cars up ahead slowing down, highway landscaping that make good smokey hiding places, or other environmental cues. I just get this…feeling, think “cop”, and will see one shortly thereafter.

My ex-husband didn’t believe me until a road trip to Florida. I was asleep in the passenger seat, and suddenly sat bolt upright and said, “smokey!”. About 20 seconds later, we topped a hill and there he was in the median.

It’s more reliable on highways, but works in town driving often enough.

Also, I have this weird time thing. I’ve read that most people, when asked to guess the time of day without checking, can guess within +/- 20 minutes. I absolutely cannot do this; I have no sense of time. However, and here’s the weird part, I don’t wear a watch, and yet I’m almost never late. When it’s time to go somewhere, I just feel like it’s time to go. I arrive to every class or appointment around four to six minutes beforehand, regardless of traffic.

I remember and recognize people’s voices far better than faces. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to connect their names. When there’s a TV commercial with a celebrity voice-over, I’ll say, “you know! It’s that guy! That actor! The one that was in that movie! Oh, come on, you KNOW!”

One more…little kids smile at me or try to get my attention every where I go. Parthenokinesis calls me the Pied Piper.

Oh, and Partheno just wandered in to remind me that I am the loudest human on the planet. He says I regularly talk with my Mom in another state without benefit of a telephone, but he exaggerates.

52

I also have the nystagmus talent.

I can taco my tongue.

I can touch my nose with my tongue.

I can fold my tongue in half from front to back, so that the tip is almost down the back of my throat…and it will stay there until I move it. I do not use my teeth or anything else to do this, the muscles in my tongue just allow me to do it. Apparently its gross because when I open my mouth, all of the veins under my tongue are visible. However, the same people that think its gross, are usually the first to request that I do it as a party trick.