You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I possess two amazing superpowers. First, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had bionic hearing. Even before Lindsey Wagner (pictured left) acquired hers. You know, the Bionic Woman, now world-famous spokeswoman for Sleep Number Beds. (I bet she never saw that coming.) My husband, Dave likes to call my special ability "dog hearing." Woof.

I don’t know of any other superhuman entity who can hear as well as I can. Someone should wire me up to a machine and study me. I would find it extremely gratifying to be listed as a freak in a medical journal. It may be the only way I ever get published.

Listen up. Here’s how my ears work.

I can tell if a television is on in the next room, even if it’s muted.

I can hear the ever-so-slight noise a VCR makes when it records a program, so much so that I made Dave go with me to Circuit City to buy not one, not two, but three different VCRs until I found one that taped quietly enough. The man is a saint.

Once while working alongside a technician in the computer repair shop where I work, I repeatedly asked "What’s that noise? I hear a noise." The technician kept looking around trying to find its source and he had a lot of trouble since he couldn’t hear it himself. After flipping random switches and turning assorted knobs, he found the machine that was causing the noise and turned it off. I breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at me, cocked his head slightly and then splashed holy water on me because he thought I was the anti-Christ.

I hear my DVR machine recording. A DVR is able to freeze-frame and play back live broadcasts because it’s always taping the current channel. I hear it doing its job, but nobody else can.

I once had a very unusual problem in my car where when I made hard turns, I could hear fluid sloshing around in the dashboard innards. I’ve had four people in my car at various times when this noise made itself known. Nobody but me could hear it. They asked if I was on medication.

I now know better than to ask people "Do you hear that noise?" because the answer will always be "What noise?" I haven’t figured out how I can put my special powers to good use. I know the Bionic Woman would always pull her hair back and point her souped up ear toward bad guys who were up to no good. Then she’d save the day because she overheard secret information and then used it against them. Yeah, I wanna do that. But I don’t know how to work that into my non-espionage life.

My other superpower is one that I have not perfected yet, though it has served me well when it’s worked. I can mentally cancel meetings I don’t want to attend. I do not always want to skip meetings, so I only pull this skill out when I really need it. My record stands at 8 out of 12 meetings successfully killed. And, yes, I’m keeping track.

Before you ask me if I can help you get out of meetings, don’t bother. The talent is non-transferable. I’ve tried, but it only works when I’m the one who doesn’t want to go. It’s a shame, because imagine the money I could make if I could stop one of the world’s biggest time-wasters on behalf of others. I’d be a millionaire.

Sure, there are other superhero women out there with special abilities, but can they hear inaudible sounds without bionic help and cancel meetings at will? I’m certain there is a place where these skills would come in handy.

If you can figure out how I can put these two talents together to save the world or something, drop me a line. I’ll get back to you if I’m not in a meeting. I’d like to hear about it.


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