RHYS BOWEN: I was at my health club the other day. When I came out of the shower there was another woman in the locker room, getting dressed. I took my clothes out of my locker, dressed, brushed hair and was about to go when she said, “How can you be ready so quickly? You just got here.”
I replied, “When you’ve had four children you learn to be quick at showering and dressing. I perfected the one minute shower. Turn on. Soap all over. Rince off. Out and dry before anyone could draw on the walls with marker pens, feed their sister dog food, find the scissors or any of the other awful things clever young children can do.
So then I thought: this is a skill most people don’t have.
Then I tried to list other skills that I possess that most people don’t. I don't mean I can play the piano in Carnegie Hall or win the Olympic skiing type of skills. Nope. Don't have those.
Here is my list of five:
1: Shower in one minute.
2: Can say the longest place name in the world in Welsh (I speak some Welsh)
3: Play the Celtic harp (not brilliantly but enough to satisfy myself)
4: I can put boiled eggs in cold water, set on the stove, go away and do something else and then think “those eggs must be ready” and they are always perfect: soft yolk and firm white. When I’ve tried timing them it’s never as good.
5: Write 2 and half books in a year. (okay, I know Jenn can trump me on this. But one of my is over 400 pages).
So Reds: what are your five things?
LUCY BURDETTE: I can think of three to four, and maybe there are more…
1. Spread my toes and then intertwine them like fingers.
2. Eat a bushel of peaches with minimal help in 10 days
3. Make a fried okra dish that would win over any northerner.
4. Buy more books when I’ve already got thigh high stacks–oh wait, that’s most of us!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: (Lucy? How did you learn you could do that toe thing?)
As for me. Hmmm. Let’s see.
1. I can sing a song using only the first letters of the words. OSCYS? Btdel… (There is not much call for this.)
2. I always know what time it is. Always. No matter if clocks or not, I can tell, This is probably from TV.
3. As a corollary, if you say: talk for one minute. Or ten. Or twenty. Or seven. I can do that.
4. If there is a cord to trip over, I will trip over it.
5. I can put things in alphabetical order really quickly. There is not much call for this, either.
JENN McKINLAY:
I am feeling very deficient presently. I don’t think I can do anything unusual but here goes…
1. I can always accurately guess the plot of every movie/show I watch. Always. My people do not allow me to speak anymore during viewings.
2. Like Hank, I always know what time it is. Probably from working on a reference desk for years where we changed out every hour on the hour.
3. I’m an extraordinary packer. I can live out of a carry on for a month. I can pack an entire house (okay, slight exaggeration) into the bed of a large pick up truck. It’s like Tetras for me. I’m very very good at it.
4. I can always devise a work around. If something is broken or wonky, I can always figure out a way to MacGyver it until it can be properly repaired. Seriously. This is probably a skill left over from being a poor college student.
HALLIE EPHRON:
I definitely cannot come up with five. And most of my feats are easily replicated.
1. I can recite from memory the children’s book MADELEINE (“In an old house in Paris, all covered with vines…”) and MR. BROWN CAN MOO (“Mr. Brown is a wonder… Mr. Brown makes THUNDER!”)
2. I’m another one who can guess the endings (and twists) of most mysteries on TV, and I have a hard time shutting up about it.
3. I can get 95% of the meat out of a cooked lobster with my bare hands.
4. I make a great version of Julia Childs’s bouillabaisse and also her onion soup.
RHYS: What a talented bunch we are. Which talent should we use to audition for America's Got Talent. I vote not me taking a one minute shower. Not a pretty sight!
Who has the most unusual talent (a prize for the best!)
