What is your useless superpower?

imgon said:

I can pick out the ceiling tile with ductwork/sprinkler pipe/name your obstruction  on top of the tile rendering it unmovable when needing to look up above said ceiling. Usually by the 2nd or 3rd try I can find one that is removable.  9 times out of 10.

It’s like you know me!  So much this!

Can't really think of one, except maybe expert level enablement.  My wife, on the other hand, has two very clear and undeniable superpowers:  1. finding stuff in places I've already looked and 2. an invisibility cloak that only works at Meijer, Home Depot, Lowes and Menards.  

I don't mean to brag, but when it rains on an angle, I'm VERY good at tilting my head towards the direction it is falling from.

Not completely useless, but I can look at an object(or random pile of objects), the space said objects should occupy, and I somehow instinctually know if they'll fit/how to make them fit. 

I'm an INTP. Half autistic, half sociopath. 

I can think of two.

1. Create a mess of clutter in any workspace I get near

2. Lose any item I'm holding or using within seconds of turning my attention to something else

I can find the only piece of blocking behind drywall in an entire hotel room, well I used to as a maintenance man who was forbidden from buying tools or equipment. 

I can find problems that make people who designed the whatever I'm working on go "how the berkeley?"

I will attract the town Otis in any bar I go into, and they will think I'm their new best friend. Never by my choice, I just attract crazy.

I can dislocate my shoulders whenever I want to. Pretty useful for when a bolt/nut/tool drops down in an engine bay and you just need that extra inch to reach it. 

You know those ultrasonic mosquito repellent gismos?  I can hear them sometimes. 

In reply to RevRico :

The same thing happens to my wife and myself.  The wacko will cross a crowded room to find us. How do they know?

Brian(formerly neon4891) said:

I'm an INTP. Half autistic, half sociopath. 

"Hi, fellow INTP!" I text as we stand in the same room avoiding eye contact.

My superpower is that I can make any tool or item magically enter another universe as soon as I set it down. It doesn't matter if it's 2 seconds or 2 hours, as soon as it leaves my hand, *poof*, it's gone.

I can spit farther than you can. 
 

Don't bother challenging me, it's not even gonna be close.

I can't claim to be 100% when it comes to targeted accuracy left to right, but I'm pretty good at tuning up or down for distance. I can get it to where it needs to be. 

I have a couple.

I can sit at a stoplight messing with the radio, or entering an address into navigation, and I always know a split second before the light turns green.  I always look up just in time to see it go from red to green.  I honestly can't remember a single time that someone "horned" me to go because I missed the green.

I'm remarkably good at getting friend-zoned.

I can usually look under the hood and tell you the displacement of pretty much any classic V8 based on the intake, carb, and header size.... unless you botched the parts choices.  When I hear it run I can usually get within 5 degrees of the cam duration.  A guy pulled into a gas station with a camaro drag car on a trailer.  I looked through the wheel openings and saw four evenly-spaced header primaries that were 2-1/4" tubing.  I just said "540?"  He looked like he was discovered naked as if I knew way more than I should about his secret recipe.  It was simple, really.  The amount of money in the car suggested that it was a well-tuned setup, and a 454, 468, or 502 wouldn't need that much primary.

I can hear a classic V8 and usually tell you what brand and family it is.  I was laying on my (now ex) wife's lap on a park bench and I was able to identify the majority of cars that drove by, including a Ford Aerostar, (3.0L Vulcan and bad power steering pump are a dead giveaway) an 80s Dodge Charger (which I technically got wrong because it was a Rampage), and a Fiero which I could only identify because I knew the 2.8L, but the engine sound was coming from behind the sound of the radio in the open window.  She was impressed.

Where I spend the summers I used to camp the whole summer on an island on a lake.  20 boats could go by and I wouldn't wake up.  I could hear dad's boat a mile away and I would be up and dressed to go fishing before he got there.  It wasn't a distinct motor (70 horse merc) it was the shape of the tri-hull and how it kind of focused the sound.

stanger_mussle said:

Brian(formerly neon4891) said:

I'm an INTP. Half autistic, half sociopath. 

"Hi, fellow INTP!" I text as we stand in the same room avoiding eye contact.

INTJ here.  And autistic.

Used to be able to identify the year of a book's publication (+/- 1 year) by the smell of the book.

Haven't tried it for years, so I don't know if I still can.

Being awkward and getting sunburned. 

Turning classic cars into scrap metal

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

Hmm, I'd like to think that but I have my doubts about that.

I dunno if I have any superpowers atall but is is an undeniable and indeputable fact that one of my crew guys has one, one that we all would pay good money to have. 

He almost never needs to stop for red lights. They .... they just... go green for him. It's amazing. Sure, sometime he hasta slow down for em but usually he sails on through like he's driving an ambulance with the magic green-light strobe.  It's like he waves his hand and says "these aren't the droids you're looking for" and the light sez "move along, move along"...

Ooo. I just recalled my superpower. Have had it since high-school. I can take a pen, one that has been reliable for anyone else or new from package, and it will either stop releasing ink, or it'll just up and die and leak ink. I am Death, destroyer of pens. Pencils and Sharpies? Perfectly safe..

I was doing relief work at a veterinary clinic that was playing popular music from the 40s and 50s. I was very good at recognizing the singers, despite never really listening to any of their recordings. 
 

I'm a veritable font of useless historical, scientific or (not contemporary) cultural trivia.

I am a master of phrasing responses in song lyrics, or launching into song based on a statement.

I have managed the best "That's what she said," and Apples to Apples hand that I have ever heard of.

"TWSS": At a technical conference during brewing school, we found a breathalyzer on the wall of the men's room. People got into a competition to who could blow the highest number (the trick was to lightly coat your mouth in schnapps). Next morning someone made the comment, "I don't even know how much I blew last night."

Apples to Apples...

The prompt card: "Touchy Feely"

My play: "Helen Keller"

Back when we were allowed to go to restaurants, at least 90% of the checks I picked up (I don't mean paid for, I mean physically picked up) would be upside down when I looked at them.  This happened even in fancy-dancy places where they give you the bill in a discrete vinyl folder.  I'll be interested, if that's the word I want, to see if this "ability" survives the lockdown.

On the subject of engine sounds, I read somewhere that the late, great Smokey Yunick could listen to one of his cars out on the track and know which specific cylinder to look at for problems when it came in.  Best Damn Superpower In Town.

I can cut the grass in a square or rectangular yard, making a 90 degree turn at each corner, and have the wind blow the clippings in my face the entire time. 

I can create one hell of an index for car parts catalogs. I bust out the thesaurus, different geographic names for things, I put it all in. Cross-reference it all, put in sub-headings everywhere. If you wanted to find a part in one of my catalogs,  by cracky you'd find it down to the Anchor-head Dodge bolts. Too bad print catalogs are a dead medium now.

I used to work in British car terms just for fun. Looking for a '59 Impala bonnet? Yup, I had it listed.

Uncle David (Forum Supporter) said:

I can cut the grass in a square or rectangular yard, making a 90 degree turn at each corner, and have the wind blow the clippings in my face the entire time. 

This, but soldering.

Also, I draw all the mosquitos to me.  Any outdoor party I go to, I am the sacrificial anode.