Left, Right, Left

I've been in a special club since I was a little girl. I'm a Lefty.

Righties (it just doesn't sound as cool) don't understand us. I actually think it's a prejudice kind of thing. I'm a member of a few minority groups, but this is the one I'd go to bat for, (left-handed, of course.) Only 12% of the population identifies with these complaints:

1. Ink stains on your little finger because you always drag it over your writing.
2. A stiff wrist from holding your hand above the coil on the notebook.
3. Ladles that have the spout on the wrong side, can openers that turn from the wrong side, and lids that twist the wrong way.
   
4. People always angle a receipt in the wrong direction when you have to sign it.
5. Not being able to see the line when you're cutting.
6. Numbers on the keyboard are on the wrong side.
7. Desks with attached seats are on the wrong side.
8. People regularly comment on how awkward you look doing everyday tasks: peeling carrots, slicing bread, chopping vegetables, tying bows...it's not a confidence builder!
   
9. You usually have to learn skills like knitting, throwing, painting, etc. from a right-handed person. It makes everything harder.
   
10. We are always told we do things backwards, everything from feeding a baby to cutting meat. (Why isn't their way backwards? It is to us!)
    
11. It's more natural to flip through a book or read a magazine from back to front.
12. Sitting next to people at a table is always uncomfortable, (like, say, having two left hands.)
    
13. Right hands are associated with truth (raise your right hand, shake hands with the right hand, join your right hands, "the right hand of God,") while left hands are associated with wrong (left-handed compliment, left-wing, leftist.) Think about right on, and left out.

I assume if you're still reading this you're probably left-handed, or you love someone who is. I've noticed that right-handed people don't even care that they're not in the club. They assume they're, well, you know...right.

We are masters of adaptation. David Wolman wrote, "Lefties have to spend nanoseconds here and there, every day, stepping back and reconfiguring how to operate in the world. It isn't a conscious process, but it happens, and it's a lifetime of calculus that right-handers don't have to contend with. Lefties can never accept the world as it is presented to them."

Something very significant about members of my club is we recognize each other. I wonder if Righties have noticed that Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza are both lefties. What about Bobby Goren? If my waiter has a great backhand (scrawl, not serve) I comment. We like to bond with a fellow Southpaw. In fact, I married one. See? I'm not completely out in left field!