84% of us have something special in our arsenal of abilities. Actually, that’s a totally made up figure, but I bet it’s true.

But first, I shall treat you to a hilarious little video. This could easily be me …or any one of us.

Next up; here’s a nice little math problem for you; if you have a total of ten medical appointments from June- August (not including dentists), how many times per month do you throw a hissy fit aimed at whatever force or entity turned you into a science experiment. “Okay!” I yell at the sky. “You’ve made your point. Now please turn me back into myself again.”

I am an amazing parallel parker, but only on the right side. And I no longer have a car and, parking skill aside, I am a terrible driver. The world is a safer place with me off the road.

Crickets.

A few months ago I took a mindfulness workshop and we were asked to write down daily our appreciations. Today’s appreciation: things I do well that no one knows or cares about and/or are totally worthless. Why not celebrate those, in addition to the abilities that provide a service to yourself or others? I’m speaking of the talents that provide nothing to anyone. They just “are.”

I have decided to label myself a savant of some sort because I possess what I choose to believe is an unusual facility at remembering names and not terribly important things about friends of friends whom I’ve never met. I don’t mean that if you introduce me to your kid’s basketball coach at a party, that information will be stored in my memory bank for all eternity. I’m as likely as the next septuagenarian to allow that info to slip away.

Here’s one of my special and mostly useless talents. I can almost always tell you the correct time of day, within minutes. And I’m talking about the middle of the night. I might wake from a sound sleep and tell myself “it’s 4:11,” followed by a glance at the clock, which reads 4:14. Pretty cool, huh?” This one reads a big fat zero on the utility scale, i.e. of no use to anyone, even me.

I’m talking about odd remembrances of stuff about people whom I don’t even know. For example my freshman roommate’s best friend’s name. AND said best friend’s boyfriend’s name. Why in the world did my obviously strange brain judge such minutiae worthy of preservation? if only I could excavate all that useless detritus and offload it, making space for truly useful knowledge such as the location of my glasses/phone/tickets or the name of that nice woman with the dachshund on the 6th floor who has introduced herself to me a dozen times. But wait for it – I could name about 200 girls who attended my summer camp with me. Also their home towns. And – bonus round- if there were more than one way to spell their names, I could tell you whether theirs was Kathy with a “K” or a “C.” I adored my summers at Camp Mataponi, but there was nothing intentional in those memories becoming implanted. They just “are.” Whether I like it or not.

I do worry that this particular skill renders me, in the eyes of others, a lonely sad sack who has nothing better to do than fill her brain with arcane data about other people’s friends, relatives and fifth grade teachers.

I guess we really don’t have a choice in what to remember. Maybe this odd ability is a gift, like that purely decorative vessel on your coffee table. It offers zero utility, but it’s part of the landscape of your life.

I have one friend who boasts the same ability. (She impressed me by recalling that Miss Coleman was our first elementary school principal, and her first name was Gertrude, I believe.). We should have a nice long conversation about this, maybe even quiz each other. If I remember.