Let’s face it: this world was meant for righties. Being left-handed can be exhausting, and sometimes downright excruciating. But what choice do people have? You can’t train yourself to be right-handed, no matter what the sisters at your old Catholic school believe. Though being left-handed is frustrating, and it makes every day tasks close to impossible, the only thing you can do is to power through it all, and be the best lefty you can be. If you’re a lefty, you’ve probably experienced at least one of these problems since you woke up this morning:
1. They smudge their writing
No matter the medium, left-handed people inevitably face some annoyance when attempting to jot something down. Forget about writing on a whiteboard; they leave a colorful trail in the wake up their beautiful handwriting, rendering it completely illegible. When opening to a new page in a binder, they have to crook their arm at almost a ninety degree angle to be able to start a journal entry; that can’t be comfortable. And even when they rip a sheet of paper out and lay it flat on the desk, they’ll still end up with more graphite on the side of their hand than on the paper. By the end of grade school, most left-handed people would probably prefer to use a computer to transcribe information for the rest of their lives.
2. They click backwards
But after they switch to computers, a whole new set of problems arises. While many mouses are supposedly made for both lefties and righties, many specialty mouses (like for gaming) are built specifically with right-handed people in mind. But that’s not even the real problem. When you’re left-handed, a left-click is a right-click and a right-click is a left-click. There’s no getting around that. It might not be a problem for younger people who have learned to accommodate, but I can’t imagine being left-handed and trying to teach my 60 year old father how to use a computer. It would drive us both out of our minds.
3. They cut backwards
No, you can’t just turn right-handed scissors around. Scissors are built so a natural (right-handed) grip will cause the blades to push slightly together, making for a crisp, straight-edged cut. However, a left-handed person using the same scissors, using the same grip in their left hand, will cause the blades to shift slightly apart. Of course, this will lead to many a torn paper, if it gets cut at all. Note to elementary teachers: invest in a few pairs of left-handed scissors; you’ll save on wasted construction paper in the long run.
4. They hate banks and the post office
Okay, I guess everyone has a certain disdain for these places. But left-handed people have just one more reason to dread the trip to their local bank: the pens on a chain. You probably never thought about it before, but the next time you go to deposit your check, notice where the chain is in relation to the desk. It’s most likely on the right. We’ve gone over the problems lefties face when writing, so just imagine having to deal with smudged ink on a paycheck while also having to either write with a taught string or scrunch their entire body up against the right side of the cubicle.
5. They hate eating in a booth
Even sitting down for dinner with friends is a hassle for a left-handed person. They’ll inevitably hit their friends with more elbows in the half hour it takes to eat than Dennis Rodman coming up for a rebound did throughout an entire basketball game. And, unlike the last few points made in this article, there’s no real way to solve this problem, except to socially isolate the lefties to their own table. But what have we been fighting for this whole time, then?
6. They can’t just pick up a guitar and play
Even Jimi Hendrix had this problem. If a left-handed person wants to jam with his friends, he better bring his own guitar. It might not seem like much of a difference to someone who doesn’t play, but asking a left-handed person to play a right-handed guitar would be like asking a saxophonist to play it upside down, with his left hand where his right hand should be and vice-versa. I guess the good side of this is left-handed people don’t have to worry about anyone else picking up their beloved left-handed guitar.
7. They can never find sports equipment
When I was younger, and before the Internet and Amazon were in full swing, it was absolutely impossible for me to find golf clubs, hockey sticks, or even baseball gloves without my dad driving me to every sporting goods store within a 50 mile radius. Most of the equipment I ended up getting were hand-me-downs from a friend of my dad’s who, as luck would have it (for me, at least), had faced the same problem throughout the years. But there were also times I spent hours looking through shelves at Dick’s Sporting Goods and Modell’s, only to walk away left-handed and empty-handed at the same time.
8. They hear “Oh, you’re a lefty?” every ten minutes
I’m a lefty, and I still do this to other left-handed people. To me, it’s camaraderie. I find solace when I see other left-handed golfers, knowing they’ve been through the same aggravation I have my entire life. But when a righty asks a lefty to state the obvious, it’s more of an acknowledgement that the left-handed person is some freak of nature that should be put on display next to the bearded lady and lizard man. To a right-handed person, their comment probably seems fairly innocuous, but that’s because they haven’t read this list and have no idea what hell left-handed people have lived through.
Featured photo credit: Flickr via farm1.staticflickr.com
