Slightly crap superpowers

Mild inclement weather repellency - it basically never rains to my inconvenience, if I go for a walk, the rain will hold off until I’m done. Never owned an umbrella and hoods are for muggles

I can bleed profusely almost at will. This is not just while pratting about with tools. For example,  I was walking through the New Forest when someone pointed out that I had blood dribbling done my forearm and dripping off my fingers. Another time I dived into a swimming pool, swam a length and when I got out I had blood oozing out of a cut on my leg etc

I can get the lid off a jam jar.

I've usually crashed OK, MTB fine, road bike less so. Many 'little lie downs' as me and the lads call it off road. Not really hurt myself. Broke my spine getting hit by a car 9 years ago (road). More recently, slow speed slip on ice despite ice tyres (road).. smashed my pelvis. But wasn't picked up on Xray.  Only until 6 weeks later when I walked into A&E after my GP told me to get lost. In there all day, Xray, nope not broken, showed email from a works physio (we think he's broken his hip), CT Scan. Hours later, shoot hit the fan. Smashed my pelvis and hip socket, and apparently I have an incredible pain threshold.

Roll back six weeks (no break found and I'd called the insurers)  

After the crash, two days later, I'd flown three hours on a plane (with assistance to get on it) had a week doing nothing, come back, with assistance, gone to work on sticks for four weeks.

Then I thought this wasn't healing.... went to GP, told to get lost. So went to A&E. Hours later.. 'done a good job on it' said the ortho team. Kept in overnight and another consultant turns up. 'We've heard about you, you are a bit of a legend'.... FFS. I won't go into the detail, too many opportunities to be dead since and the pain I should have been screaming.. nope.   I just said... I'm a cyclist, you should know.  

I've smashed myself up way more riding on the road than off road... 

I'm finding new ways to feel even more carp after ~2.5 years of spending an awful lot of time at home due to long covid fatigue. Currently have a suspected rotator cuff injury, insane itching from evening until midday(ish) only on my limbs and stomach, a pulled calf muscle that started after some really easy riding on the turbo.

Not the best prep just before a holiday I've been looking forward to for ~5 months!

I feel you Mr Goat, two years of long covid, three months back riding and now a broken arm.

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Doesn't answer the OP mind. I have none 

Posted by: slowoldman

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I can get the lid off a jam jar.

Are you sure it hadn't just been loosened for you ?

It took a lot of practice to perfect this, but I can now sit through an entire meeting just staring silently at the desk in front of me and saying nothing unless asked a direct question. Meetings would be over so quickly if more people did this.

I have an immensely powerful sneeze. Even if I try really hard to make it quiet it still breaks the sound barrier, makes small children cry and animals hide on fear. I've also had a cough since January that's showing no signs of going away. Finally, I am fantastic at breaking things, any things.

I wake up a minute before my alarm is due to go off, so that it scares the crap out of me.

Posted by: Phill

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I have an immensely powerful sneeze. Even if I try really hard to make it quiet it still breaks the sound barrier, makes small children cry and animals hide on fear. I've also had a cough since January that's showing no signs of going away. Finally, I am fantastic at breaking things, any things.

I have the Super Sneeze as well. I can't help it, can't control it, can't stop it. Just comes out of nowhere and makes everyone jump. I'm envious of the girl at work with her half a dozen "yip" sneezes, like a chihuahua trying snuff....

Morphine has no effect on me. While not exactly unheard of, its genetic. Doctors are always amazed by "oh we'll just give you more" not working and i getting a bit tetchy about it (through very gritted teeth).

Its very very crap although presumably would be extremely useful in some kind of murder scenario where they try and make it look like suicide.

Big sneeze here

 I’d say in staggeringly slow cycling, particularly on the road, given i actually ride my bike quite a lot

The uncanny ability to buy anything at full price that's just about to be reduced in a sale. It's happened frequently enough that I've cut and pasted the same email asking for a price match (for things I've bought online) at least 3 times now...

Despite never having done it before (not least because I can't eat the stuff) I can reliably get it to the nearest gram by eye.

does this power work with Edam and others cheeses with holes? 😉

I can return to my computer to witness the exact moment the screen lock kicks in.

I am developing an uncanny ability to throw tea-bags across the kitchen and straight into a waiting mug. It is, however, a bit of a Schoredinger's super-powerr: if I'm alone, I'll get it right maybe 95% of the time, but as soon as someone else is in the kitchen with me, my success quotient falls dramatically and the tea-bag is more likely to end up on the floor / in the toaster / hanging from a light-fitting. 

I'm also very good at guessing what the time is without any reference to a watch, phone etc. Unless of course, it's crucial to know, in which case I'll be at least 30 minutes off, usually in the least positive direction. 

I'm a very good archer (instinctive) but cant use the skill anywhere useful in real life. Waiting for the apocalypse, I suppose.

Never loose my bearings in the woods or forests, can almost remember every tree. Go anywhere near a suburb type area... Insto Lost.

I can always select the correct hex key size the first time.

Conversely, I can never select the correct socket size the first time.

If I’m sitting near a campfire, any smoke will go straight towards me. 
regardless of wind direction, it still happens even if I move to the opposite side. 

Hold on folks, Marvel are on the phone with a film offer.... 

I can set up a front mech. Not much call for that these days.

I can set the heating thermostat temperature, to the temperature I want. 😉 

I have the ability to start watching a TV programme and fall asleep, only to wake up for the last 5 minutes, convinced I have watched it all, but a bit confused by the ending.

I can take my leg out of my trousers and remove my sock at the same time without bending down and using my hands. 

Posted by: richmars

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I have the ability to start watching a TV programme and fall asleep, only to wake up for the last 5 minutes, convinced I have watched it all, but a bit confused by the ending.

Are we married?

I too have the ability to know when the kitchen timer is about to go off.

My other power is voice recognition - I'm rubbish at faces and names of actors, but I can pick out people on adverts doing voiceovers very well.

I can diagnose faults on strangers bikes as they ride past. I normally don't say anything as I look like a complete wierdo so it is a very crap superpower. Double crap as it sometimes gets me the job of fixing said issue for a randowm stranger.

An example, last weekend I was waiting at the bottom of a trail when somebody got to the end and compained to me that his bike was making such a noise and he doesnt know why. Without getting off my bike I diagnosed a loose casette lockring causing the casette to rattle. After a funny look, he checked it and confirmed I was correct.

Packing the dishwasher to maximum efficiency. Every time Mrs HTO packs the dishwasher, there's a pile of stuff left on the worktop that she hasn't been able to fit in. I reload the dishwasher and it all goes in, without stuff being packed so high as to stop the sprinkler arms rotating.

Packing the car for holidays. Ideally a camping holiday. It all gets laid out on the driveway, and then it all gets efficiently packed in, like some magical 3-D Jigsaw Jenga Puzzle. All the little nooks and crannies in the car properly utilised. And then, when the car is fully packed, and Mrs HTO and the kids bring down several more bags and items, I can still find a space to pack it all.

When i am cycling or walking i am "word blind", I can instinctively tell you what direction we are travelling in and if its a route i have done before, can you tell if a corner has gravel, where potholes are, the shape of the church tower etc, but i can never actually tell you the actual name of the village.

So last week father in law asked where i'd ridden that morning, I could only describe it by landmarks and things i had seen, but despite living here 10 years now, could not name 3/4 of the villages i'd been through... 

When discussing our preferred super power of choice my wife & I independently both came up with the same choice, nothing odd about that I hear you say?

Except that said super power was being able to make people poo themselves 😄

I have a strange ability to find things that are lost. 

Hold on folks, Marvel are on the phone with a film offer.... 

I did enjoy the scene in Deadpool when he recruited a band of shit superheroes and they all got imaginatively minced within 5 minutes of starting their first mission. 🤣

Packing the dishwasher to maximum efficiency

I can look at any quantity of 'stuff' and guess exactly what size of van or truck needed to move it. I had to prefabricate a whole house, shop, filling station set to transport flatpacked to the Highlands once and guessed the size of artic truck trailer so closely that to get the doors shut one box of screws and bolts had to go on the passenger seat

Back in the 90s I used to transport art around the country to galleries and museums. Pre sat nav and mobile phones I had the knack of driving into any English provincial town and from the style of architecture and road layout on approach  take a guess at where the town's art gallery/ museum was likely to be and I'd usually be right. I think Sunderland was my Kryptonite, could never get that one right even after multiple visits

I did enjoy the scene in Deadpool when he recruited a band of shit superheroes and they all got imaginatively minced within 5 minutes of starting their first mission.

Back when Marvel was sharing an office with company that sold kites theres was a Ben Stiller film - Mystery Men - set in a world of Superheroes where he's one of a group with sort of second division powers. Like the ability to get really, really angry, or throw spoons and forks, but not knives with deadly accuracy. William H Macy plays 'The Shoveler' who's like, really good at shovelling.

Posted by: slowoldman

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I can get the lid off a jam jar.

With or without the aid of a tea towel gripping the lid?

Never loose my bearings in the woods or forests.

Good job, they'll only wear out quicker if you do.

I'm really good at sloving Anagrams.

Another super sneezer here 🤣 

I don't know how people manage the quiet "kerchfff" into a tissue. Mine are ahh...ahh... KAPOW and I have to check my nose is still attached.

My wife can wake up in the middle of the night and know what time it is. She's often accurate to about 20 minutes.

I can judge distance well. Get in any rental car or van and I can slot it through gaps, parallel park, etc no problem 😎 

I have a strange ability to find things that are lost. 

Are these really lost though? Or had someone just had a ‘man look’? 😉

I am developing an uncanny ability to throw tea-bags across the kitchen and straight into a waiting mug. It is, however, a bit of a Schoredinger's super-powerr: if I'm alone, I'll get it right maybe 95% of the time, but as soon as someone else is in the kitchen with me, my success quotient falls dramatically...

That's perfectly standard performance anxiety.

I have an amazing ability to just think about cakes and it automatically adds an extra inch to my waist line!

I was very fortunate as a youngster to be able to eat and drink without really putting on weight. That superpower has been swapped with the power to continually increase my belly size irrespective of the exercise that I do!

In a pub with multiple beers on tap I can select the one which is going to come to the end of the barrel within the course of pulling my pint.

Not every time thankfully but significantly more frequently than random chance would indicate.

When i am cycling or walking i am "word blind", I can instinctively tell you what direction we are travelling in and if its a route i have done before, can you tell if a corner has gravel, where potholes are, the shape of the church tower etc, but i can never actually tell you the actual name of the village.

Same, with the added "superpower" of knowing where i am when we pop out of a random dirt path in the middle of nowhere on to a larger track or road.

"Ooooooooh, this is the path between that village with the really good fish and chip shop that's open on sundays and the village with the pub that used to be painted yellow. It goes past that farm with the really cute collie."

Everyone just looked at me.

An added, extra super bit is that it's only applicable to two large areas in the UK, neither of which i live in anymore.

Haven't even been back to those areas at all in the last few years. And not with a bike for at least 15...

Never managed it anywhere else, i need to use roadsigns or GPS these days.

So all in all pretty pointless.

Posted by: Steve

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I'm envious of the girl at work with her half a dozen "yip" sneezes, like a chihuahua trying snuff....

A mate of mine dated a lass from... Vietnam I think?  Somewhere in that direction.  Apparently she yipped like a chihuahua when she, ahem, arrived.  (Source: overheard by a flatmate.)

Posted by: stumpy01

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I can set the heating thermostat temperature, to the temperature I want.

Bastard.

🤣🤣

Posted by: MacCruiskeen

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Mystery Men

This crossed my mind when I started the thread. One of them can turn invisible, but only if no-one is looking.

It's a great little film.

Posted by: Tom83

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I wake up a minute before my alarm is due to go off, so that it scares the crap out of me.

I can do that. No matter what time my alarm is set for, I'll wake up a few minutes before.

I've not yet dared try the scenario where I just assume I'll wake up regardless and don't set an alarm. I'm convinced it's only the act of setting the alarm that triggers the superpower.

Posted by: slowoldman

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That's perfectly standard performance anxiety.

See also: pancake tossing.  I can flip pancakes like a pro chef right up until someone walks in the kitchen and then boom, calzone.

Posted by: ayjaydoubleyou

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In a pub with multiple beers on tap I can select the one which is going to come to the end of the barrel within the course of pulling my pint.

I have a knack for picking the feistiest thing on the bar (and no, not the barmaid).  It doesn't matter what I choose, the first pull (still not the barmaid) will result in a glass of froth with an inch of beer at the bottom.

Posted by: Cougar

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Posted by: Steve

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I'm envious of the girl at work with her half a dozen "yip" sneezes, like a chihuahua trying snuff....

A mate of mine dated a lass from... Vietnam I think?  Somewhere in that direction.  Apparently she yipped like a chihuahua when she, ahem, arrived.  (Source: overheard by a flatmate.)

If she sneezes/yips in the office tomorrow, I'm gonna have questions.....

"Doctor, every time I sneeze I have an orgasm."

"Are you taking anything for it?"

"Yes, pepper."