Ask Lemmy

I can plug in a USB drive/cable on the first time, successfully, without flipflopping the connector (and then USB C had to come along and invalidate my only worthwhile achievement)

I used to absolutely hate cucumber, to the point that I could taste it if someone cut a tomato salad with the same knife they used for the cucumber without washing it in between, the whole tomato salad would be ruined for me.

I could smell instantly when someone started chopping cucumber in the other room.

That's it, my superpower is to detect traces of cucumber.

oh wait i got another one, my tinnitus it a pretty constant pitch, and i can measure my intervals offa it so i got perfect pitch. i can't tell you what note it is (except for b3, i hit that one perfectly every time because of this one ave maria) but it takes me a minute. the note is e11 or e12 i can't remember which anymore

I can make the sound of one hand clapping.

It was a thing that went around my middle school. You keep your hand at about a 90 degree angle to your arm, and then flap back and forth with your fingers loose so it hits your palm. Takes a little practice.

I can smell ants too, and it's been useful here in the land of fire ants...

I can eat spoiled food and not feel any ill effects except for stomach pains and diarrhea

I have two superpowers:

Mosquitoes don't find me delicious. When everyone else is getting hammered, they generally leave me alone. When I do get bit, the bites barely swell and they don't usually itch.

Rock star parking- Anywhere I go, I always check out immediately in front of the place I need to be. There's almost always an empty spot, and if there isn't there's someone just leaving that I pull into. I dunno how that helps me fight crime, but it sure would be useful if I were a bank heist getaway driver.

I have special ability to fall asleep quick if deciding to take a nap during office hours.

Unfortunately, it's not effective going to sleep in the evening

I can tell if an electric device is properly grounded or not just by touch. I don't mean getting shocked, when I run my fingers on a surface it feels differently from when it is properly grounded.

If I read something my brain stores keywords/phrases to it anywhere from 30min to years. Sounds super normal (I think, least for 30min), but this has served me really well in two areas.

1. Tests. As long as it's a knowledge test and not a skill test I can skim read right before (even if it's like 100 pages and I didn't learn any of it before) and pass (for multiple choice grade is usually in the 90s, write-in is more 80s). Only professional place I use this outside of school is the bullshit PowerPoint "training" at work that makes you take a test at the end... (I don't work an office job, idk might be more useful there)
2. Online message chats. Great for looking stuff up like birthdays or preferences or someone told me something specific a year ago and now wants to talk about it in-depth and I have to go refresh on the exact health conditions of their dog while they're grieving to me (I mean I could ask for a refresher, but when a friend is needing a comforting ear I'd rather just search it up quick while they type instead of making them back track their narrative which when you feel upset feels really alone someone can't be right there in the moment with you off the bat, just a small way to care for my friends). Mainly though I do text DND and it's amazing there lol. Had an unintentional tpk and offered a restart with memories (deus exmachina literally time rewind) which my group was into. I'm like shit we've been running this campaign for years, how am I going to remember the exact fight setups, initial NPC reactions, etc. I had a very specific search phrase for every event memory logged and made the whole thing a breeze to re-do literal years of content. And tbh I think I enjoyed it even more than my players cause I'd go back and reread their early murderhobo days and then get to freshly compare it to their evolved anarchist present (...I mean they were still murderhobos, but brought a tear to my eye to compare they'd learned some principles and loyalty lol).

Reminds me of the show "Extraordinary". Watch it, if you got the chance. It's really funny and also deals about pointless superpowers.

I can do the Skype notification sound with my mouth, but it's not a natural ability, a beatboxer classmate taught me during highschool. He could also mimic a cricket and that derailed more than one lesson, but he never taught me that one.

I'm a stair master. I sprint them 3-4-5 at a time, smooth and quiet as a ninja. Up or down, doesn't matter

I can turn ducks around... but only when they are in the water

I just learned from another thread that mine is... fantasizing smells and flavors, and being able to mentally combine them to know what two ingredients will taste like together before I combine them. Apparently not everyone can do this?

I can repressurize my ears without yawning, just by flexing a muscle. Even less useful, I can focus my eyes to different distances without using the finger trick, which comes in handy never.

I get SO many weird looks when I tell people I don't like bleu cheese because it tastes like ants

There's a woman who can smell Parkinson's Disease with almost 100% accuracy.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di

I can blur my vision on command, kinda useless but a bit of fun to play with.

I also have a lazy eye, so I can scare unsuspecting people, sometimes two at a time if they're positioned right.

• I have hyperthymia. It's a constant state of mild mania and when I get flare ups of it it's like I'm on speed

• Excellent colour vision, forget what it's called but I have being a girl to thank for this one!

• I have hyperphantasia too, and didn't realize this until someone posted a diagram on here. When I imagine an apple in my head, it looks the same as me seeing it in real life. I never knew this wasn't normal until pretty recently!

Mildly more heat resistant. I can pick up hot food out of a fryer basket with my bare hands or stay in the cold a bit longer without getting frostbite.

I don't actually know if this is unusual, but I can smell when people have a respiratory illness, like a cold. It smells vaguely like the rooting hormone that you can get from a garden center.

Hyposmia (poor sense of smell)

Being deficient in a sense might seem like a downside but I find that people's comments about smells in the world are far more negative than they are positive.

Probably odorous house ants (sometimes also called sugar ants). I'm fairly sensitive to their scent, myself and recall being in tears as a small child ~6 because one of them walked across my finger and no amount of washing would get the smell off. I'm not a fan.