Mr. Kiminy is left-handed, and is very bad about being able to tell left from right.
I am ambidextrous, with a leaning toward being right-handed, and I have to consciously think about it when I am giving directions. I had an injury to my right eye when I was about nine, and it gave me much greater peripheral vision on that side. At first, the pain then the patch were my tools to tell left from right when I was much younger than I am now. Now I use the extra peripheral vision out of habit to know which side I am referring to.
When I give directions to Mr. Kiminy, or when he gives them to me, we try to use east, west, north, etc. whenever possible, because both of us are very good with maps. Otherwise, we point when we say Left or Right, to make sure we both agree on which direction we are talking about.
Bolding mine.
My SO usually drives when we are together, but I know the area better, so I end up giving directions. I now try to wrap on the the car window (on my right) when we need to turn right, just so he is sure that my saying “right” really means it.
Since it’s come up other places here, I’m rather decent with cardinal directions. If I’ve driven through or near an area, I can take a pretty good guess as to how to get to someplace (except then the darn lakes get in the way), just don’t ask me to tell you if it’s a left or a right turn. I know the answer, I just can’t communicate it.
No problems with left and right; I think it clicked quickly when I was young when my dad taught me that right is the wrist you wear your watch on, and left is the hand you write with. (he’s also a leftie).
However, I have a very hard reversing directions given to me to get somewhere. I often have no trouble reaching the destination from a set of directions, but odds are about a one in three that I’ll get lost on the way back. When it comes to mapquest or something like that, I’ll print out two sets of directions if I’m really anxious about getting lost, so I have a set for how to come back too.
