I have been wrapping my family’s Christmas presents since a very young age. It’s the perfect activity to focus my crippling perfectionism with my overall anxiety riddled self to create a beautiful masterpiece that would make anyone think twice about discovering the mysteries beneath the colorful paper and bows. I have just always loved to do it and my mom was more than happy to not spend hours wrapping presents.

Flash forward to the company Christmas party in my late 20s. We are split into teams to compete for random prizes, I am up for the next game. I had no idea what I would be doing. I see a big cardboard box, a neck tie, wrapping paper, scissors, tape and a bow....I know what’s about to go down and I am here for it!

It’s a blind present wrapping challenge.

My competitors start talking about how they can wrap presents fast and I sit there silently staring down that cardboard box knowing fully that the crowd is in for a show.

Blindfolds (neckties) go on, we have a partner that isn’t blindfolded that is supposed to give verbal directions. Just before the timer starts, I lean over to my partner and say quietly “are you ready for this?” And she just say “what?!” Bam, timer starts, partner tries to give directions at first and quickly realizes I’m way ahead of her. Before anyone else can even get their paper cut, I’ve got my box wrapped, taped, and bowed. I even folded the ends in ‘fancy’ to have the triangles meet. And that, my friends, is how I earned the most satisfying $10 Starbucks gift card of my life and earned the title of wrap-master.

selkam Report

POST

Colour. It sounds weird but anytime the colour of something comes up and someone tries to correct me.

I’ve been a commercial printing press operator for 20 years. I can spot VERY subtle differences in colours that most people can’t.


Edit:
The upvote is orange.
The dress is blue and black.

magnagan Report

POST

I’m going to date myself here but I was in undergrad when the video game Halo was released. I never really played video games, but at the time I had a boyfriend (I am a girl) who was really into it. We played. A lot. Even went to some college based tournament games and did well.

Fast forward some years later and my husband and I are at a house party. Someone turns on the Xbox and was looking for a 4th for Halo. My husband volunteers me. The guys were visibly not thrilled but played along. I wiped the floor with them. Eventually they decided to team up 3 against me. Still destroyed them. The whole party ended up crowding around us to watch. It was a great night. :).

dontbadgerthewitness Report

POST

Kinda the reverse, for me. I’m a physical education teacher and I had a student that took a pretty bad tumble in class. Hit her head on the wall. Pretty clear concussion symptoms. So we get her stable, call mom & dad to come get her.

Dad shows up & I start going through the concussion symptoms and treatments with him. Letting him know that a doctors visit is probably in order. Blah blah blah I keep going on and on about concussions. He just politely nods and thanks me.

He takes daughter and leaves, and I see my principal standing behind me and he can barely contain his laughter. Turns out dad is an emergency room doctor. And he just sat there while his daughter’s gym teacher gave him medical advice.

persad_power Report

POST

Female mechanical engineer. My life is pretty much people challenging me on things I'm an expert on.

littleredhoodlum Report

POST

I have perfect pitch.

It's not a thing I can turn off, notes simply ARE a pitch clear as day, much like how red is clearly distinct from green.

Anywho, music class in junior high. Teacher explains that Mozart had perfect pitch and walks over to the piano, plays a note and says "and just by hearing it, he'd be able to tell you what now that was... now can any of YOU do that?"

At the time, I honestly had no idea this was rare. Raise hand, teacher with a smug look points and me and is gobsmacked when I answer correctly with note and octave. Figures it's pure luck so does it again and asks me to face the other way. I answer correctly again.

Tries it with chords, sequences and two hands worth of notes. Still right every time. Ends with me playing back a short sequence after listening to it blind.

That day, I learned that perfect pitch is actually kind of rare.

itskayguys Report

POST

Trivia. I know all sorts of weird random facts.

One day a co-worker said, “If you’re so smart, why don’t you come down to the Legion’s trivia night?”

I am no longer welcome at the Legion’s trivia night because of how badly I beat everyone.

originalchaosinabox Report

POST

By no means an expert (I'd probably rate in the 1500s), but I've played chess since I was a small child and was the best player in the middle school chess club. The guy who owned the pool hall me and my juvenile delinquent friends hung out in was talking about how dumb kids are these days and said he bet nobody in my group of hoodlums could play chess. I beat him soundly, then again in the rematch.

MarkHirsbrunner Report

POST

Not me but my friend used to ride a unicycle as a kid. He worked construction and they were working at a house that had an old unicycle

The other workers tried riding it and immediately fell off. My friend walked over to it and inspected the unicycle like it was the first time he ever saw one them said it didn’t look that difficult. They all laughed at him and he said he thought he could ride it. Eventually one of them bet him $100 he couldn’t ride it. He jumped on it and immediately rode down the street.

char92474 Report

POST

As someone with a history degree - basically everyone thinks they know it better than you. It's endless.


History repeats itself, and those who study it are doomed to helplessly watch it repeat itself.

SmallRedBird Report

POST

I wouldn’t say I’m an expert at push ups but I’ve worked in the fitness industry for 20 years and workout myself fairly regularly. Doing 20 push ups isn’t anything to me. I was at a party that was attended primarily by what I would call hipsters. A guy (who had been drinking a fair amount) challenged me to 20 push ups as fast as possible for $20. I won and got $20. Then another said he would do the same bet if we went right away (I guess thinking I was kinda tired). I beat him and got another $20. A few minutes later another guy did the same bet. It was an easy $60.

discostud1515 Report

POST

Someone once tried to insist that our state didn’t sell alcohol on sundays.

I’ve spent over a decade working in restaurants and am also an alcoholic, which she knew about but still insisted on arguing with me about it.

SPP_TheChoiceForMe Report

POST

Pool water treatment isn't very difficult even for the average joe. Trust me, you do not need to pay someone $100 a month to treat and clean your pool. I love to listen to the sales people at Leslie's (local chain of pool supply stores) "educate" me and their other customers. I got into a polite discussion about algae one time and I was told that I was wrong. I explained that I knew what I was talking about. He asked what I did and I responded "industrial water treatment." He's very nice to me when I go into the store now.

IslayHaveAnother Report

POST

I’m an academy award winning sound mixer and almost everyone on film sets think they know my job better than me.

Curleysound Report

POST

Well I am a veterinarian and I know how to prevent fleas.

(Them) “My dog is itching and it’s not fleas”

(Me) “ Ok but your dog is infested”

(Them) “...it’s not fleas”

..run comb and show them hundreds...

The doctor in Happy Gilmore ... I empathize

Edit:

Well this got busy.

Flea prevention starts with giving flea preventatives. Off brand stuff does not work. You bite the bullet and get name brand stuff.
Personally I like bravecto for cats (topical) lasts pretty much 2 months.

For dogs I know from experience that oral meds work better than topicals. I like nexguard, simperica trio or seresto collars. With nexguard and the seresto you need to add heartworm prevention because those don’t have it.

marti14141 Report

POST

A beginning writer asked some advice about a basic drafting method, so I offered my point of view. Some tough guy decided to butt in and say that what I said was proof I’m not a “real writer” and it was obvious I would never be published. At that time, the second or third book in my trilogy was about to be released. I asked the guy not to tell my editor that I wasn’t a real writer.

RyanDaltonWrites Report

POST

A friend of mine challenged me when I said the dusty bits on the floor below their air conditioner was because they needed to clean the filter. They insisted that it was ash coming from outside through the air conditioner because of fires that had been going on nearby. It was a split system AC, I work in HVAC. At least once I explained how their unit worked they conceded.

anon Report

POST

Guitar Hero. Work held a Christmas party at a venue and set up the game for fun and prizes. I was the second oldest (47f) person there. All the younger employees were going ham and having a great time. I wasn't going to play until the prize was $500 for last person standing. I walked away $500 richer and also a legend. ??.

TheGiggler64 Report

POST

My roommate who took a psych 101 class at a prestigious university told me, a masters level therapist, that the movie Split (with James Mcavoy) was an accurate depiction of “multi-personality disorder.”.

Conscious_Tea Report

POST

I'm no expert but people never assume I can play Pool. I grew up with my parents going to the pub, so as an early teen would play ALOT of Pool and got pretty good.

There's been a number of occasions where I've got us a round of drinks or stuck it to some knob who's hogging the table.

ifitwasonlytrue Report

POST

Went to a couples night once and the guy had wall to wall movies and framed posters in his basement, super into it. Mentioned I used to be a movie nerd but not so much anymore. He challenged us to a movie trivia board game, kinda in a condescending way and I tried to politely decline but my gf insisted we play. They went first, missed the question then we ran the table. Never heard from them again.

pn_dubya Report

POST

Lemme see:

Krull. The arcade video game. A guy tried to hit on me at a house party by challenging me to a game but he knew he had made a mistake when I said, “Sure, I haven’t played in a while.”

It was my boyfriends’s house, and his game.

We still had fun playing though.

mrsxpando Report

POST

I hesitate to say "expert" but compared to this person I was a savant. I did a few papers throughout school on GMOs for some presentations so while I am not an "expert" I know more than a random Joe, especially at the time.

Well I remember getting into an argument with a stereotypical college hipster about how "unnatural" GMOs were and how we should stop using them. Just your usual buzzwords "chemicals are bad" and the like.

Being able to systematically shut her down until it became "I don't *feel* like they are safe." Was pretty nice though. And for the record I don't generally revel in this sort of thing, but if you could hear the tone she used....I think you'd understand.

Monteze Report

POST

Hula hooping: They resorted to throwing stuff at my hoop, because I kept going like the Energizer Bunny.

Wondertwig9 Report

POST

My father in law challenged me about the capabilities of DVD. Specifically he claimed that you could only have widescreen video (not 4:3) on a DVD disc.

At the time I was employed as a DVD author. I authored the very first commercially available feature on Scenarist. I am literally acknowledged in the first edition of "DVD Demystified" as an expert. I had already by that time personally authored literally hundreds of DVD's with 4:3 video.

He knew all of the above at the time, yet still insisted I was wrong.

gcm6664 Report

POST