What's Your Greatest Unpracticed, Enviable Talent?

I have a natural talent for packing. I’ve always been able to just put the things where they need to go in the most efficient way possible. I’m also scary good at eyeballing things…like hanging a group of pictures so they are all an equal distance apart, or judging where the center of something is, or what amount is a half cup.

I’m good at backing up vehicles. Uncannily good at it.

At age 19, I worked in a trucking company freight yard. On one occasion, I was asked to move a big truck (18-wheeler). They were surprised at how well I slipped it into a tight spot, and eventually my full-time job was to meet drivers at the gate and shoehorn their rigs into the tight spaces at the dock. I eventually took care of all the positioning and even assembled the double-trailer setups for the drivers. The supervisors preferred one “back up” expert, rather than having each driver position their rigs. These were tight quarters, but in the years I worked there as a hostler, I never made a single scratch on one of the trucks.

Many years later, I drive this tandem rig for my personal fun (on weekends). I can back the entire 70ft setup into a site, if necessary. I don’t know anyone else who can do this.

Reading gay subtext.

I’m pretty good with the smells, too, but I’ve read that most women have better senses of smell than men, so it impresses them. :stuck_out_tongue: Well, at least I’ve impressed a lot of people with my ability to detect specific odors. Also, in college I tended to size up potential dates by how they smelled. I mean, I’m not shallow, but if a guy smelled off to me, I wasn’t all that interested. On the other hand, people I really like have scents that appeal to me.

It’s both a blessing and a curse to me. On one hand, I can get wholly and completely turned on by a woman’s scent alone. On the other, flowers smell… gross to me.

I’m very good with animals. Even dogs/cats that people say are skittish or mean.

Me too, but that’s because I’m duck footed. I can also touch my tongue to my nose (and was prepared to do so on national TV because I couldn’t think of enough “interesting things” about myself for Jeopardy, only they picked something else to talk about) but I’m not sure that’s enviable.

My mother remembers phone numbers like a boss. I didn’t inherit that from her. Seriously, Dad will yell from the bedroom “What’s Jim Bob’s number?” and even if he hasn’t called Jim Bob in a year she’ll know it. And then he’ll come back with “What’s Jim Bob’s wife’s name?” and she’ll know that too.

Not a talent, really, but it is the most enviable thing about me, so dammit, I am posting it: My legs are completely and totally hairless. I haven’t had to shave in 30 years, and bet I shaved less than 50 times my whole life. Just never had hairy legs.

I’m easily in the 99th percentile when it comes to skipping stones on water. Probably not world record material, but I’m about as good as this guy. Never really purposefully practiced, just always enjoyed doing it since I was a little kid. I’d say skipping stones is about 20% rock selection, 15% power and 65% having the “knack” for it.

These.

I am naturally hyper flexible… No warm up needed… Nothing. I can touch my foot to my head at will. I can do quite a tight back bend at will too (resting on my forearms rather than hands). Not uncommon though.

I am very good with design. Choosing colours that suit, etc.

I have really good color memory. If I’m trying to match a particular color in the house or in an article of clothing I don’t have with me, I’m usually spot on when I get my purchase home.

I also have the ability to emit an ear-splitting, crowd-silencing two-fingered whistle. It comes in very handy.

Two.

  1. Finding locations at which I’ve previously visited. I can’t tell you how I do it but without directions I can get there by feel. It’s GOT to be some sort of memory thing from landmarks but I couldn’t tell you how.

  2. The gift of gab. From earliest age I’ve been able to engage people in conversation, get them talking, and do some persuasion. It was useful as a media guy, as a politician, and it keeps being so.

I’m really good with untying knots. Shoelaces, necklace chains, earbud cords, you name it. If it’s knotted, I can untie it.

I also can make unearthly good cheesecakes.

I’ll say darts. Everything else I’m good at I worked at getting there. Darts, I just picked em up and was good. Won lots of money and many (local) championships.

I apparently have an innate knack for sneakiness.

People’s eyes seem to skip right over me–no mean feat, given that I’m not a small man. Not so long ago, I had occasion to stalk a team of six people who were expecting an attack…in broad daylight, on an open road through a park, while wearing a ninja costume. I walked right into the middle of them, and they didn’t realize I was there until I spoke–at which point they nearly jumped out of their skins. I did the same to another group half an hour later. The other two teams that day, to their credit, spotted me before I actually got past their perimeter, though I was within arm’s reach of their tail guards at one or two points before they noticed me. (Lest you give all the credit to the ninja outfit–I’ve done the same thing in a sunlit meadow while dressed in a shiny gold costume.) There’s no particular technique or skill to it, nothing that I do that I can single out as “stealthy”, so it’s not something I could practice if I wanted to.

I’m also uncannily good at troubleshooting, but I do that professionally, so it’s a talent I’ve practiced a lot.

I can spot psychopaths, which has saved a lot of trouble on more than one occasion.

From a suitcase to the SUV to a moving van, I’m an awesome packer. There is no wasted volume anywhere. My wife tells me I should play Tetris, but I never have.

I read faster than Evelyn Wood. Never studied, never tried, I just devoured books ever since I could read. My mom was the same. Depending on the start time - dinner, bedtime - I can read a typical paperback in one or two evenings.
I can fix virtually anything mechanical. Yeah, I watched my dad, granddad, and BILs fix things as I grew up, and practice makes perfect, but give me a tractor, a stopwatch, or anything between, and I can repair it. It comes in handy.

I can spot animals and birds in the wild like a hawk. See that Rufous-sided Towhee? 85 yards that way, 4th branch on the pine tree? Bingo! Passing a tree line I’ll pick out owls, deer, fox - whatever’s sitting there, my eye just goes to them. I’m working on how to monetize this.

That sounds super, super hard.

I can whistle songs through my fingers. If I know the song, then I can whistle it, accounting for notes that are out of my range by transposing, or shifting as needed.

I have perfect pitch and can tell you the note that devices like refrigerators, inkjet printers, and subway trains hum when they are activated. My fridge plays an A-flat. I can do the same for any musical instrument, high or low pitch, and can produce any note on cue if just given the name. When people learn this, they often spend several minutes making random noises at me and asking what note it is.

On the flip side, I absolutely suck at relative pitch. Transposing online is total Greek to me, and trying to give me cues like “Oh, it’s just a fourth above that” is meaningless. I need specific note names or key signatures.