IF YOU are among the 10 per cent of the population in the Lefty Club, Happy Left-Handers Day!
Researchers still don’t understand why one in 10 people turn out to be lefties but studies have shown that most children are either predominantly right or left by the age of three. So don’t feel too bad, there’s nothing much you could have done about it.
Being a left-hander in a right-handed world can be downright tough. Here’s why:
1) No one trusts you in the kitchen: I blame my left-handedness on my woeful lack of culinary prowess. As a little girl I was relegated to the boring job of stirring. Even now, simple tasks such as chopping with sharp knives and peeling potatoes attract plenty of nervous sideways glances.
2) I would have made a lousy school teacher: Anyone remember having a left-handed teacher at school? Ever tried to write on a blackboard with your left hand without smudging your work?
3) Backyard cricket was ruined for me: I used to bowl to my cunning right-handed siblings for hours on end and when it was finally my turn to bat, the game was suddenly over because they “didn’t know how to bowl to a lefty”.
4) I’m directionally challenged: Navigation has never been my strong point, but my excuse is that my left is my right.
5) We always look clumsy and awkward in the workplace: Whether using a computer mouse on the wrong side of the keyboard, trying to hide our horrible lefty scrawl in a meeting or attempting to operate a pair of scissors, we’re rarely graceful around our colleagues.
6) Right-handed things in general: Cork screws, spiral-bound notebooks, can openers, inky pens, sports equipment, musical instruments – attempting to learn the violin was just cruel.
7) Dinner party etiquette: After years of setting the table incorrectly, I eventually conquered which side of the plate the knife and fork goes on. But I still double check before reaching for my glass to make sure I’m not about to take a gulp from someone else’s drink.
8) I’m a backwards magazine reader: Flipping through my favourite glossy back-to-front doesn’t always make that much sense, but it just feels right (or is it left?), so please just let me be.
9) I’m part of a club whether I like it or not: Some incredibly gifted people have been left-handed – Albert Einstein, Aristotle, Charlie Chaplin, Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Munroe and Michelangelo, to name a few. But then I’m also in the same group as Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Noel Gallagher, Eminem, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, which is not something I care to celebrate too loudly.
