For me it is not so much that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, it is more of the left hand can’t do what the right hand does. The subject about the difficulties a left handed person has came about last weekend when my wife and I were out and about at a dinner party. There in front of me was a simple butter knife. You know that little spreader thing with a handle that has a notched zigzag that makes the spreader a little off from the handle. In case you have never noticed, the spreader or blade is sharper or should I say tapered on one side. If you are right handed it is a simple matter to spread the butter on your bread. However if you are left handed the part you use for spreading your butter is the thicker side of the butter knife. That would be the side that can not even slice through room temperature butter. Which means that getting the butter on the butter knife when you are left handed is a very difficult task at best. Even if you do manage to get some butter on your butter knife that notched part of the butter knife makes it very hard if not impossible to spread the butter on the bread. I know it sounds silly to complain about something so trivial as a butter knife but… it is a fact of life for any left handed person.
In truth, like almost every other time in my life when confronted with a pesky butter knife I simply use a dinner knife to spread my butter. Wouldn’t you know it; at this particular function the lady seated next to me writes a social column for a local magazine making her an expert on etiquette. She noticed me using my dinner knife and politely pointed out how I should be using my butter knife instead. I politely pointed out I was left handed and butter knives don’t work for us so handicapped. This of course got everybody in on our conversation about left handed verses right handed and the woes of us lefties. In truth, most of us lefties just compensate without thinking about what we are doing. Like me using the dinner knife instead of the butter knife. It was then that someone else at the table pointed out that a left handed person has a shorter life span than a right handed person does. Yet we still are not considered handicapped, simply “Disadvantaged” even when those disadvantages could kill us lefties quicker. Think about it, you are a right handed person driving your car when something jumps out in front of you. More than likely you righties jerk the steering wheel to the right putting your car into the ditch. However if you are a left handed person you would jerk the steering wheel to the left into oncoming traffic. With luck the person in the oncoming car is also left handed and you miss hitting one another, except that only 10% of us are left handed so the chances are slim to none.
On the up side I have read that we lefties are more artistic because for some reason we use both sides of our brain when performing a task. This could also answer how left handed people are quietly taking over. Was it not a left handed drunken sailor that kept his wine stash on the left side of his boat therefore making all the right handed people refer to the left side of any boat as the port side? Then there was the left handed, practical joking English traffic cop who made everybody drive on the left side of the road. What about Cupid, he was left handed and that is why we display our love with a ring on the third finger of our left hand.
My father saw I was “Disadvantaged” with me being left handed. He did his best to teach me how to throw, catch, and kick a ball right handed. He also taught me to golf right handed. Not just because he loved me, which he did, or because he thought I was a freak of nature. No, he knew I was growing up left handed and figured he had to do something to change that because my father if nothing else was cheap. You see left handed sports equipment cost two or three times what right handed equipment cost. Dad wanted me to play sports. So I had to become a right handed sports person. Mom on the other hand didn’t care one way or the other about her cooking or which hand I used. Truth is I never knew how disadvantaged I was until one day I walked into a Lefty Shop. Everything in the store was for left handed people. I suddenly realized there were other people left out like me. On that very day I learned for the very first time in my life that I could cut a piece of paper with a pair of scissors. You think a butter knife was hard for me, you should see me with a pair of scissors. The rule was if I couldn’t cut it with a razor knife it didn’t get cut. The Lefty Shop had left handed scissors. Can you imagine that? Somebody actually made not only scissors but also lots of other things just for me to use and not feel like I was a spastic or retarded. They even had a left handed butter knife.
However we left handed people are adaptable and there seems to be more and more of us out there now. Why even the President is left handed. So all you righties out there had better not get left out. However remember as underhanded as you try to get you can never change sides. Ask any politician who has tried it.
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