Since you “win” I’m guessing that means you always end up on top, straddling them and pinning their arms down, face-to-face. And that you are at least moderately attractive. Which leads me to bet real money that your “superpower” would allow you to overpower any straight male from 14 to 94, of any build. I’m fairly well built and yet this happened to me a lot as a teenager whenever I wrestled with female friends. I’m available for a test fight, BTW. [ grin ]

On topic, for many years I had the ability to find something hidden that I hadn’t seen in a long time, which I would suddenly need within a few days. Usually the object was in an odd location where I wouldn’t have found it when I suddenly needed it. For example, find the Windows XP disc under the couch, and the computer dies 3 days later requiring reinstallation of everything. Hasn’t happened in a while now but used to happen several times a month.

However, for many, many years now my wife and I say exactly what’s on the other’s mind even when nothing has been said for a long time and we aren’t even looking at each other (so no nonverbal cues, either). Sitting on the couch watching TV for an hour in silence I might say “hey, do you know where the blue shovel is?” and often her response will be “I was just taking a breath to ask you the same thing!” She’ll do the same to me.

Very mild superpowers from Spicks and Specks an Australian music quiz show.

i can also move my eyes from left to right really really fast so they look like theyr vibrating. it creeps people out!

also, i can move my lower eyelids inwards, so i look like a posessed zombie child. that creeps people out too!

i love these ‘powers’ XD

Your bodily “stink” smells much worse to people who share components of your immune system, an evolutionary trick to get folk to pick partners who don’t share any, and thus be more likely to have some of your kids survive the next plague. Your children should be less likely than average to die of the same immune-related cause as each other.
The stink in your clothes is mostly unrelated bacterial compounds (which don’t reproduce at all well on our skin, but thrive in various clothing materials), and smells much the same to everyone. Multiple sweating/drying/reheating sessions (such as before and after lunch, or on multiple days) amplifies the number of bacteria considerably.

People who smell worse than the clothes they’re in share a lot of the chromosomes that are active in your immune system. Either that or they have an infection, and should see a doctor.

Still, much of taste and smell is attitude. It’s quite possible to consciously ignore smells, and it’s normal for people to unconsciously do so in various “safe” smelly situations (like defecating or changing nappies). It’s similarly possible to elevate your awareness of these things, which you may have taken to doing by habit.

Hmm. Though I basically understand the value of the scientific method in testing theories of causation. Seriously people, do some experiments, be a little less credulous.

Some strawberries (1 out of 4 on average) taste like soap to me. Celery has a very strong taste to me, while my fiancee says its as tasteless as iceberg lettuce. I can also usually hear if electronics are on but idle, though I think that power is slowly leaving me as I get older. My body also generates lots of heat, so I can wear light clothes out when other people are bundled up.

My future mother-in-law has an impressive superpower. She’s not very big (5’0″) but can drink an entire bottle of tequila without getting drunk. Other alcohol effects her normally, but for some reason she’s completely immune to tequila. She learned this while doing shots with friends and relatives in a drinking contest–she drank them all under the table and felt absolutely fine at the end.

> And, although the Tuvans may claim that this is
> not possible for women,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I can sing two notes simultaneously (overtone singing)

What makes you think that??
I know only a few Mongolians, not Tuvans, but usually they don’t discourage women to practise overtones…
…although I don’t know if it would be better to start as a /very/ young girl, like the 11year-old (!!) I saw in a documentary, demonstrating a mind blowing “kargyraa” (“undertone”-singing [see wikipedia for details]). If you never had an impression of some supernatural ability, this is a very convincing one…

Ansgar

My power is awkward as I can correctly identify the first letter of a name, place, or subject when someone in conversation says “who was that?” or “what is the name of that restaurant?”. “Oh, it starts with a ‘J’” I say. I cannot, however, recall the actual name or place in full (I have no idea that is is ‘John’ or ‘Jack-in-the-box’). I know just the correct letter by which the answer would be filed alphabetically. It is useful in conjunction with my wife who will always know the name once I have identified the first letter of that name. This is a strange one and I have yet to find anyone else with this type of brain damage….

All too often, I can be rather good at offending people (usually linguistically, but occasionally malodorously) and making my supervisors get irritable. I also can see the worst in any situation, no matter how fortuitous (“this superpower will force me to be altruistic beyond my natural level…”).

1. People come into my room complaining about it being hot or cold, when I think it’s the perfect temp.

2. You know that classic example of depth perception where a person with one eye closed can’t grab the table salt on the first try since they can’t tell distance as well with one? I can see just as well with one eye closed as I can with both open.

And I too would like the ability to slip my posts past the BA’s spam filter. This is the only site on the net that tags me as spam every single time I post. You’d think that having a dynamic IP address that changes every 6 to 12 months would be enough to defeat this, but nope. Is my entire ISP on the BA’s blacklist or something? Cause that’s just not fair (nor does it work, so it is just a stupid thing to do).

I have the ability to make non-functioning computers work, merely by walking into the room in which they reside. (Example: Co-worker’s computer won’t boot, and they’ve been trying for 10 minutes [power-cycle, ctrl-alt-del, etc.]. They call me over, and as I walk through the door, it starts booting.)

(My father-in-law has the ability to make functioning computers stop working, and start beeping, merely by walking near them.)

I have the ability to re-type a command that failed to run when someone else typed it in (and it’s still on the screen), and have it work properly.

Christian X. Burnham- I too can say the alphabet backwards, just as fast as forwards. I consider this to be a learned superpower, rather like Batman’s fighting ability.

In addition to these, I can (despite growing up in the suburbs and currently living in a city) do an alarmingly good turkey call that has actually succeeded in getting turkeys to follow me around. It only seems to work on female turkeys, though, so I rather wonder what exactly I’m saying.

Similarly, I can do an excellent Wookie impression. No word yet on whether it would fool an actual Wookie.

Also: despite being thin, bony, and angular, I’ve been told I’m still remarkably comfortable to cuddle with. This is easily the most useful power I have, though maybe not for crime-fighting.

I also no longer sleep on a waterbed. Even with a mattress pad the plastic under my side would turn into a hardened leak prone surface requiring replacement of the mattress at least once a year.

And I only use cheap headphones now since after a few months any part of the headphone cable that contacts my body, even through my shirt, has turn as hard and stiff as a wooden dowel.

Useful superpower? Well, if people trapped in a plastic bubble have a couple of weeks to wait I can rub my hands on it and make it easier for them to break out. Otherwise it is just a pain.

Oh, and I can find both ends of a cable almost instantly, regardless of how much of a rats nest they are in.

Another advantage is that I think I taste things more strongly than most people do. That’s difficult to test, of course, but some tastes just explode on my tongue while others claim it’s not that strong. I think this is why I’m such an enthusiastic eater, and why I like strong taste sensations like very sour fruit.

Wouldn’t this be the other way around? If you have a heightened sense of taste, wouldn’t that mean that you can detect tastes that an ordinary person can’t, and therefore would be as satisfied by a blander dish as someone else with a spicy one?

And furthermore, wouldn’t strong tastes overpower your palate more than for a normal person? Wouldn’t this make you less likely to seek out really sour fruit?

Confused minds want to know.

It’s not unusual to be out at a party or about town for hours and have someone say “I wonder what time it is?”, and I immediately know it’s about 2:20 in the morning.

Does this work at times other than 2:20? I ask because for a while, I had the power of knowing when it was 12:31 p.m.

More interesting, though is that I am the Rain Goddess of Camping! Having a drought? All it takes is for me to pitch a tent, and the deluge begins.

I also have the ability to wiggle each of my toes individually (pedophalangiflexionism?). And, although the Tuvans may claim that this is not possible for women, I can sing two notes simultaneously (overtone singing). Acquired superpowers, those, though.

Oh, and I have an amazing ability to unjam photocopiers.

http://supertastertest.com/

to test your supertasterosity.

My personal superpower is a very strong middle finger flick. It was very good way back in high school for flicking the ear of a class mate in front of me. It’s greatest use is for kicking super long field goals in paper football. That’s where you make the little triangular “football” out of paper and tape.