Casual Conversation

I can do a spot-on impression of the standard deep, booming monster-truck rally advertising voice.

"This FRIDAY! (Friday... Friday...) Only at the Gigantodome! Beer Swiller Productions presents MONSTER TRUCK MAYHEM! You'll pay for the entire seat but you'll only need the EDGGGGGGGGE!"

Well... of course you can't hear it, but if you could, seriously, it's dead-on.

I can sit down and calmly read an entire manual from front to back.

I took inspiration from the primitive technology youtube channel and managed to make a ceramic pot by extracting clay from mud. The pot looks a bit shit, but it holds water!

Tempted to try and make a bigger one sometime.

I can read text in any orientation, even if mirrored, as easily as if it was right side up / not mirrored. Not sure why, and almost completely useless, but was surprised to discover that supposedly not everyone can do this?

I'm completely ambidextrous. It comes into "handy" when one hand gets tired doing a task, like writing for a long time, but no one has ever noticed and I don't think anyone would be impressed.

I know the frog mating calls for all species of frogs in my area and volunteer for the local DNR to survey frog populations in my county. It's a good indicator of water quality.

I took a random amphibian research class as an elective, loved it, and still do it 20+ years later.

My thumbs are double jointed, so I can move the middle parts 90° backwards.

I can spin around and around indefinitely without getting dizzy.

Lockpicking. It sounds useful in theory, but being locked out of something you need (e.g. your house or some container you're authorized at work) pretty much never happens, and even if you are in this kind of scenario, there's no shot you're carrying tools on you 24/7. Still a pretty fun hobby though.

I can read and write the standard galactic alphabet from commander keen

I can run any piece of machinery with an hour of goof around time. Doesn't matter what it is. Let me poke around it for an hour or so and I'll have all the controls and most quirks figured out.

Sadly it's useless because employers won't give me a chance to prove it.

I can use right-handed scissors with my left hand, and I can knit in both directions without switching hands. I guess being ambidextrous isn’t totally useless (if I ever break my right hand, I’ll still be able to do most things), but it’s not really useful most of the time.

I can talk just like Hoggle in the Labyrinth, and I learned the trick on how to roll the balls around on my hand the way David Bowie does in the movie.

I can make a water droplet sound with my mouth. At first I had to flick my cheek to do it effectively, but nowadays I can do it sneakily without. Great head turner in waiting rooms 😅

I'm strangely good at catching things intuitively (??).

Like, if my kid throws something at me, I can catch it without looking at it. Almost every time, it's fun

I can beat the original Pikmin game in 7 in-game days, which is very close to the limit to how fast the game can be beaten which is 6 days!

I can hide my tongue behind my soft palate.

I've said to my kids, "Where's my tongue?", then opened my mouth and it's not there.

I can also make a mushy pile of skin on my knee by gathering skin inside the circle of my thumb and index finger (like an ok sign). It feels gross when you push it.

I'm a fun dad.

1. I can make exquisitely intricate paper snowflakes, and have them turn out exactly how I visualized them.
2. I can perfectly control the browning level and inside melted-ness level when I roast marshmallows. My favorite way to do them is: warm but unmelted center surrounded by ~¼" thick melted layer, evenly medium toasted outside, with just one top corner briefly ignited and immediately extinguished for just a hint of char flavor and a bien cuit aesthetic.

The only contests I ever won were an eating contest (6 large Pizzas) and one where I had to correctly identify 6 different brands of Cola in a blind test.
My other biggest strength is extreme long distance endurance. I'm not fast, but I can be "not slow" for 40 hours.

I can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 15 seconds. (I had an obsessive phase as a teenager). I don’t think I’ve ever used that skill in my adult life, but they are fun figet toys for when I’m stressed.

I can bend my fingers between the last phalanx bones

I can make two sounds that I haven't been able to locate in the IPA chart. They're a voiced and voiceless pair. I can only describe then as the sounds of a goose or duck.