Living in a left handed world
...r serious things: I am not denied housing, medical care, a job, a seat on the bus. But I experience anti-lefty bias in the form of school desks that are unusable, carrot peelers that are useless, power tools (such as skill saws) that are dangerous or even life-threatening, pens that smear and make my writing illegible, computer mice that cause hand cramps But as negative as some people can make it out to be, being left-handed is like being in a secret club. We have our own bizarre initialization rituals, such as learning how to write "the wrong way." We pay our dues every day, in terms of the extra effort that we must make to live in a right-handed world. When we encounter another lefty, we immediately have something in common. The club is shrouded in secrecy, because we rarely mention the topic to our right-handed friends. I made a short list of the aspects of everyday life that are geared towards right-handed people. Lefties will probably recognize most things on this list; righties might find some of these things surprising. We have to use special "lefty" scissors. We write from left to right, so that our hand smears the fresh ink across the page. Lefties have little choice where they get to sit at large dinners, lest they bump elbows with a righty. When writing in a 3-ring binder (or spiral notebook), the rings get in the way of our hands when we write on the front side of the paper. Many "commonly" used keys are on the right side of the keyboard. For example: backspace, enter, arrows, and numeric keypad. Lefties have to get their own "left-handed" boomerangs, golf clubs, hockey sticks, and baseball mitts. This means we usually can't borrow our friends' equipment. Car stick-shifts are on the right side of the driver. Less frequently used controls, such as headlight switches, are on the left side. From scissors to camcorders to screw drivers to hockey sticks to baseball gloves, lefties learn early on that they need to develop skills to live in a world designed for right handed people. Thankfully, there are companies that make left-handed scissors, left handed camcorders, and other left-handed tools. But often times left-handed persons find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to use something designed for right-handed persons. Medical researchers have searched long and hard for what causes people to be left handed or right handed. The researchers have concluded that left handed people are left handed for the same reason as brown eyed people have brown eyes. ...