Left Handed People Unite!

[TheLoadedDog]

It's an odd thing.  You can't be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, but there is a form of discrimination that seems OK.  It's a right-handed world, and nobody gives a rats.

Where is the keypad on a ATM?   How about a pair of scissors? Not only do I have to jam my thumb and fingers into weirdly shaped holes, but I can't see the cut I'm making, because the thick right-hand blade covers my view.  Musical instruments?  Forget it. Writing?  I have to adopt a weird hooked claw shape with my hand.  An old dial phone?  I fire a rifle and I get burning hot casings down my shirt or in my face. The list goes on.

And it's hard to get angry, because it's a form of discrimination most folks don't think about.

But sometimes, I want to kill.

My computer has the mouse on the left.   At work, they have it on the right.  Sometimes, the cords were so tangled up that I couldn't move the mouse to the left.   When I could, I'd try to be polite, and move it back to the right when I'd finished.  But I"m human, and on occasion I'd forget.

One day I got chewed out over this.

"I had to move the bloody mouse back to the right after you'd used the computer!"

"Have a left handed cup of concrete. Jeez, that must have taken all of two seconds to move the mouse."

"But it's inconsiderate."

"Listen bozo.  You have to move the mouse across when the rare left-handed person has been using it, and only then when they've forgotten to do it for you.  Whereas I have to move the mouse EVERY SINGLE TIME, and I don't complain.  Harden up.  And get ******.  Thank you."

Here endeth the rant.


And yes, you can buy left-handed musical instruments and such, but they have a smaller range and cost a bomb.

 

[beautiful loser]

Knowing me, I'd just get a wireless mouse and keep it in my locker, station or whatnot.  Not worth putting up with those that constantly complain about meaningless ****.

 

[VanillaCreme]

I do a lot of things in a right-handed manner. Can openers, for example, I didn't even know they made ones for us lefties, but I've always done it the right-handed person way. They have entire stores dedicated to left-handed people, but a lot of that stuff is just ridiculous. I have no issue with my keyboard. I don't need it flipped. The only thing I obviously do is put my mouse on the left side of it. I also don't need a left-handed clock, which I saw on one of those left-handed stores.

 

[kamya]

Being left handed has never really bothered me. The only exception being fountain pens. I have to be really careful when using them. Oh and ring binders/ notebooks. It can be hard to maneuver your wrist around them.

I never really had a problem with using the mouse on the right side of the keyboard though.

 

[ringwood]

I can't say I've had too many issues being left-handed either. With a computer, I use the mouse right-handed in order to keep my dominant hand free for writing notes, etc. I keep a special selection of pens that don't smudge. But generally, I think it's fairly easy to manuever in a right-biased world, and if not, there's a mass of specialized equipment on the market.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Given that only 10% of the population is left handed, of course there are going to be less left handed items. Supply and demand kind of makes that logical. However, considering most items that would need to be left handed are made, I don't really see the big deal. Maybe those items aren't as easy to find outside America, I don't know, but they are made.

Oh and my youngest is left handed. My oldest is ambidextrous.

 

[TheLoadedDog]

I may have over-stated this, as with rare exceptions, I have very little trouble operating in a right-handed world. It's more the principle involved. I rarely think about it, but it can get my goat sometimes when I think on it. Even the language: "sinister" originally meant left, and still does in some languages. Now it means evil. "Dexter(ous)" went from right to skillful. Ambidextrous actually means "two right hands".

I've developed muscle memory in my right hand for certain tasks. There is no way I could dial an old-fashioned rotary phone with my left hand (come to think of it, I use a push button phone the same way). I use my right hand to operate ATMs. Strangely, there are some very few things I choose to do right-handed. I take a right-handed stance in sports like cricket or baseball. The bats are basically symmetrical, but I just prefer it. I've never boxed, but I'd be left-handed for that. I'm lucky to live in a country with right-hand drive, so I can change gear ith my left - if I ever hire a car in America, I'll be specifying an automatic - much as I hate them - because of no muscle memory.

The one area I have trouble is writing. I'm pushing the pen rather than letting it flow behind me, so my handwriting looks dreadful. My mum is ambidextrous to a degree. She's not naturally so; she's left-handed, but in her day if a teacher caught a child writing with their left hand, the kid would cop a rap across the knuckles with a ruler. So, her writing is beautiful (she still writes right-handed seventy years later). That was considered cruel by the time I went to school (and we had ball point pens that didn't smudge), but I honestly wish I'd been given that treatment, in hindsight.

There is only one thing I genuinely cannot do, and that is filling out a ledger or visitors' book in a club. The pages are printed on the right side only, and there will be a huge wad of older pages sticking up at least an inch in the air on the left side. I have to write my name right next to this wad. Can't do it.

I keep my mouse on the left. I know you can reverse the functions of the left and right buttons, but I use other people's computers so much that I'd get confused, so I don't do it. I just adopt that diagonal hand across the mouse that you'll see lefties do. No big deal, but I can't buy an ergonomic mouse, just a traditionally shaped one.

We did have a left-handed shop in Sydney. I think it went broke. There were some practical things like scissors, but most of the stuff they sold was novelty crap. Who the hell needs a left-handed clock? Most of the rest was just T-shirts and junk.

 

[ABrokenMan]

I'm a lefty.
I never thought of being discriminated against because of my "left-handedness". I think of it as a challenge and never made excuses.
At my job, the task I must perform involves the use of equipment that is manufactured and set-up to be operated for right-handed people. With a bit of practice over a few weeks, I could do the job just as well as the many right handers. By using my left hand.
I am also a self-taught guitarist. I learned how to play right handed. I didn't want to bother buying a custom lefty model or re-stringing the guitar to play it left handed.
Playing a keyboard instrument is also a challenge since the melody is played with the right hand. Dexterity takes a bit longer to develop.
In kindergarten, I was always frustrated when we had art projects that required cutting paper with scissors. Our class did not have those "green grip" designated left handed scissors. My teacher said to me, "Just use your right hand!"
50 years later, I'm now quite adept at using scissors with either hand.