Hey all you lefties out there! August 13th is International Left Handers Day. I am also a lefty and am mostly fine with it. I generally do well in the right-handed world except for the following things that annoy me no end.
Spiral notebooks. When I was growing up, I spend an inordinate amount of time washing the ink off my left hand from ink smear while writing. I don’t understand why there can’t be left-handed notebooks, or make notebooks with a flip top like a steno notebook. After all, we make up about ten percent of the population. That’s a lot of left-handers!
Can openers. All I can do is sigh at this one. Right-handed can openers can be used by lefties but it’s awkward. I just prefer electric can openers so I don’t have to deal with it.
Scissors. If you have ever used right-handed scissors, you will find you can’t cut anything with them because the blades are backward. Switching the handle around to cut hurts your thumb because, of course, the hole is smaller.
Desks that are designed for right-handed people. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I try to work in a desk designed for right-handed people, my work space is the smaller part of the “L” design.
Growing up, my left-handed brother and I were always placed beside each other at the dinner table so we wouldn’t bump elbows while eating. He loved it more than I did because he hated peas and lima beans so he shoveled them onto my plate. I just felt like an outcast for being different. Luckily, I have since outgrown my inferiority complex and now embrace my leftiness.
It’s too bad we can’t have a store like Leftorium from the Simpsons. How great would that be? No searching through throngs of products to see which ones are for left-handers. Everything is for left-handers! But until a left-handed store exists, hat’s off to all of you lefties out there who have suffered in the right-handed world. And, yes, my hat is in my left hand.
;)
