- Ice cream scoops
- Gravy ladles
- Those semi-right-hander-only classroom desks
Anything else?
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Handheld mechanical can openers.
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Trousers or shorts with only one back pocket (hint: it’s never on the side I need).
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Spiralbound notebooks.
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Righthanders.
(right handed) Rifle stcks with the cheek-rest thingy
Few things about being a lefty in a right-handed world bother me very much. I can use ice-cream scoops and scissors, I adapted to right-handed desks to the point where I probably couldn’t use a ‘lefty’ desk, and I encounter ladles &c. with a righty orientation so rarely that it just doesn’t matter.
Only two things have rankled at all, and I’ve managed to fix one of 'em:
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If you’re a lefty, you can’t get an inexpensive softball glove. (The kind they sell in K-Mart, I’m told that there’s one lefty glove in every box of 24. One out of every 10 people is a lefty.)
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Computer keyboards, with the number pad and the pad with the arrows, insert/delete etc. keys on the right, are designed for rightys.
But you can get a lefty keyboard for about 100 - and my boss had one ordered for me here at work. And, OK, I can *get* lefty softball gloves, and the difference really isn’t worth getting annoyed over.
Being a lefty is really no problem for me.
Or bolt-action rifles…
Or almost any self-extracting action…
Almost all of them are designed to operate to the right. Lefties get whacked with hot brass and have to switch the grip on their rifle to operate right-hand bolts. Yeah, I know you can get custom jobs that function to the left, but they cost.
Vegetable peelers.
Measuring cups with standard measures on the wrong side (at least that’s helped me to adapt to metric much faster.)
Rotary-dial telephones.
My mouse vs. my IT manager.
The spiral notebook thing really bothers me, so much so that back in school I switched to loose leaf notebooks with perforated pages.
I also can’t stand people who ask me, “How can you write like that?” I’m a hooking left hander and proud of it. I also hold a fork and razor lefty. However, I do most other things righty, being very ambidextrous. I can play drums either way, although I’m better right handed.
Calligraphers*.
And writing anything, then dragging your hand through the still wet ink.
[sub]*…yeah, I know they make left-handed/oblique calligraphy pens…designed for those lefties who hold their pens like a mirror image of righties, not in the “traditional hook fashion.” Bah.[/sub]
Yes, those damned spiral notebooks.
ughh the ink, when I was little my pinky was always blue from my ink.
~scissors
~right handed people who think its funny your different
~my mouse
~just about everything is for right handers (baseball gloves, golf clubs etc) and the left ones are ALWAYS so freaking expensive.
One thing I do like though, is that the fork is on the LEFT side ahaha, not that it really makes a difference.
ughh the ink, when I was little my pinky was always blue from my ink.
~scissors
~right handed people who think its funny your different
~my mouse
~just about everything is for right handers (baseball gloves, golf clubs etc) and the left ones are ALWAYS so freaking expensive.
One thing I do like though, is that the fork is on the LEFT side ahaha, not that it really makes a difference.
darn it! I really didnt mean to do that. Ah well SORRY
People who look at my right-handed parents, then look at me and ask “Why are you writing with your left hand?”
This one cost me a JOB. A REALLY nice job. That I WANTED. Small, locally owned ice cream place. EVERY kid at high school (yes, the one that caught on fire) wants to work there. NICE job. I have a cousin whose girlfriend works there, and they were going to put in a good word for me. I go to put in my application, and right on it they ask: “Right or left handed?” I put left, and my cousin calls a few days later asking if I can scoop ice cream right handed. I said, yeah, I think so. They never called me back. HE made it sound like I had the job. I apparently use the wrong hand.
Try finding a good set of left handed golf clubs. It’s next to impossible, even at a golf shop. They have one set for you and 35 for right handers.
I feel cheated. I wanna be right handed too…
Scoopers in grocery stores. They do not stretch enough for me. Now that I’m more dextrous this isn’t such a problem, but getting a pound of peanuts at ten years old when you have to use a righty scoop and your right hand don’t do much but look nice ian’t fun.
I’ll echo the bit about lefty gloves . . . I’ve managed to find three decent ones in my life (though I haven’t looked THAT hard).
For whatever reason, I learned to use a mouse with my right hand, so that doesn’t bother me as much.
Ladles … yeah, they’re annoying, but these days they come out with one that has openings on either side, so to speak, so that makes it easier.
Turnstyles at the Metro station.
Having to sit on the outside chair at the dinner table so I don’t armfight with the righty next to me.
Having it be faster to accept a borrowed pen with the right hand and pass it over to the left than have the person figure out that I’m a lefty.
Having to take my watch off to set the time.
Getting my middle, index and pinky fingers covered with lead when I use a pencil.
People telling me I have good penmanship “for a lefty”.
I ran into a new problem the other day, I used my checkcard to purchase some merchandise and the store had a computer touch pad to sign. The wire was too short for me (as a left-hander) to hold the utensil easily and my signature looked like I wrote it with my foot.
Manual SLR cameras. I am left handed, right footed (football/soccer) and left-eyed. I smear the chalk when writing on the chalkboard. I can deal with the right-handed world just fine. I want Nikon to make a left-eyed camera body so I don’t stab myself in the eye cocking the shutter.
I have tried to practice right-eyed shooting but it doesn’t work. I am going to have to spend big bucks for an automatic camera body or at least a motor drive to deal with this problem: until then its eyestabbing time.
Arm wrestling.
You never know if you’re stronger than the other guy. Unless you beat him with both arms (or he beats you with both.)
Also, never knowing my full potential. I’ve started many things right-handed: golf, billiards, guitar. Billiards, especially. I think I could have been the greatest pool player if I had just held that cue in my left hand, that fateful day 15 years ago. I think I have natural ability in the game. It’s just holding the cue in my right hand while sighting with my left (more dominant) eye, doesn’t work well. I have very good cue ball control, but I just can’t aim!
SteveinSpain:
I don’t understand this. You do realize you may wear your watch on your RIGHT wrist, don’t you? My life improved dramatically when I swapped my watch to my right wrist.