August 13th is officially known as Left-Hander’s Day. It’s a day to celebrate – always having ink smeared down the side of your hand or an imprint of the spiral from your notebook, having to take the watch off of your wrist to wind it, and never, never, NEVER being able to properly cut paper unless your mom *really* loved you and went out and bought you a pair of left-handed scissors.
Ah, the joys of being left-handed. If you’re lucky you are able to hold your pen fairly straight, though it seems most of us wind up writing as if we’re contortionists – and it still doesn’t keep the ink from smearing! This inspires the cruel right-handed people of the world to create coffee mugs and buttons that beg employers to “Hire the left-handed…it’s fun to watch them write!”
Many many years ago, being left-handed was considered to be a sign of the devil. Children who showed signs of left-handedness were forced to use their right hands and were punished if they did not comply. Even the words used to describe being left handed can imply that it’s not the “desired” state of being. In French the word for lefties is “gauche” and in Latin it’s “sinister”!
Today many of us lefties are still forced to adapt to the right-handed world in which we live, even if they are no longer tying our left hands behind our backs and insisting that if we want to eat, we will use our right hand only. Why? Because many of the people teaching us to do things are right-handed, and simply don’t know how to teach us any other way. I write with my left hand, but there are many things that I can’t do with my left hand at all…
- When I eat, I use the fork with my left hand, but I absolutely cannot use a knife with my left. This sort of works out, though, because I can hold the knife in my right, the fork in my left, and never have to switch hands to eat. I’ve seen right-handed people cut with their right hand, put down the knife, pick up the fork in their right hand and then eat that one bite before repeating the entire process. My way is so much more efficient. 🙂
- I can’t for the life of me use scissors in my left hand, even with the aid of left-handed scissors. The last time I tried, I actually cut myself.
- I can only throw with my right hand with any sort of accuracy. The same with batting and golfing – right-handed only.
- The one exception to throwing only with my right hand is bowling. I can do that with either hand with pretty much the same degree of accuracy.
How about you? Are you right- or left-handed? What sorts of things do you find yourself doing with your non-dominant hand? (And get your minds out of the gutter, I don’t want to hear which hand you use for THAT!)
Happy Left-Hander’s Day!