It is on my RIGHT wrist.
That way I know just exactly how long it takes for me to spunk!
Yeah I know… just kidding. It’s a comfort thing for me. My right hand is my “clutter/slave” hand. I got my watch and my ring over there.
Nowadays? Scissors, mainly.
Amen to a lot of the above, especially –
- scissors (I got revenge. Bought a lefty pair for work, it’s great fun when the unclean try to use them)
- ball gloves naturally
- watches, and yes you do have to take them off to set the time
My gripes –
- My new Braun coffemaker. It has a water level indicator on the left hand side, so the only way I can tell how much I’ve put in is to pour the pitcher using my right hand.
- Men’s briefs. Gotta be a righty to free willy with any sort of speed.
- Circular saws.
I’ll second SteveinSpain’s sitting in the “leftie” seat at the dinner table. This is the biggest pain.
Also:
Manual gear shifters in cars.
Scissors.
Bowling balls in bowling alleys.
Video games that don’t have a “fire” button on either side of the joystick.
You must be the only man on the planet who actually uses that “hole” in the briefs. I mean, the rest of us just pull the waistband down, don’t we? Don’t we?
Oh, and some of you others, what is it about “those damned spiral notebooks”?
Ahem?! ::tapping foot impatiently::
And what has a calligrapher done to you lately?
If you are meaning the calligraphy nibs, do what I tell my students: turn the nibs upside down in the holder - this works well with the stiffer nibs like Brause, Mitchell and Tape, not the cheesy stuff like Speedball - and voila! instant left-hander nibs without the $10 surcharge.
Believe it or not, I sympathize with you there - I am still trying to learn Arabic and Hebrew, and end up smudging everything. I do this to understand what my left-handed students are going through.
Oh, and I do use my mouse with the left-hand, but have not switched the settings (LH middle finger does most of the work - on the mouse, dammit). Leaves my right hand for writing, answering the phone, etc. Works for me.
At least I don’t laugh at y’all.
Anymore.
But when you wear your watch on your left wrist it’s an easy thing to reach over, pull out the pin and set the time without taking the watch off. It’s all reachy when it’s on your right wrist.
I’m right-handed, but wear my watch on my right wrist, and I didn’t even realize one could set one’s watch without taking it off until I read this thread. 
notcynical:
No, we don’t. I use the hole when I have one, although most of my underwear is men’s bikini briefs that lack that panel. Why ruin the elastic in your waistband when it’s so unnecessary?
See, notcynical, we lefties endure a world of pain you less-sinister folks have no idea of. When writing in a spiralbound notebook, our hands must perforce rest upon the wire. This is uncomfortable in the extreme, especially for us hookers.
I now understand the watch problem now. I wear only digital watches, the setting of which is perfectly doable regardless of which wrist they’re on, or whatever one’s dominance.
My grandmother managed to piss both me and my mom off (we are both left-handed) when I was a baby because she noticed I was trying to use my left hand when I started feeding myself. She went out and bought a spoon whose head was purposely was bent at a 45-degree angle. She thought this would force me to use my right hand to eat, since holding it in my left hand meant the spoon was pointing away from me. Ha - I had a mind of my own even back then and would just bend my hand and arm around until I could get the spoon in my mouth.
My grandmother has been dead for years now and this still frosts me whenever I think of it. When I got married, my mother tried to give me some of my baby stuff she had saved, including that damn spoon - who knows why? I told her to throw it the fuck away. That’s one “family heirloom” that belonged in the trash the minute it was brought home. My mom was always afraid of her MIL, though, so she played along even though she didn’t like it either.
And then there’s my second-grade teacher, who gave me terrible grades in writing even though mine was a lot better than some of the others in my class. She would come by as we were doing a writing exercise and put the pencil in my right hand, assuring me I would do MUCH better if I’d only use my other hand! Uh-huh -
Another thing that bugs me a bit is when you have to sign something in public and strangers comment on the fact that you are left-handed: “So, you’re left-handed!” Wow, really? I never noticed before! Thanks for bringing it to my attention! I’ll take care of it right away!
Everything everybody else said, and also:
-
Guitars, for sure. It generally costs about $100 extra to get a lefty guitar. And since I learned on right-handed guitars when I was too broke to afford my own, I have to pay an extra $50 or so to get the thing set up backward, Dick Dale style.
-
My Timex i-control digital watch, which manages to combine the inconvenience of the right-mounted pull-crown with the “ease” of digital. It’s a lovely watch, but…
-
Any pen except the (surprise!) Bic Biro (now the Round Stic in America), which I found early on to be far superior to Scripto and Papermate in terms of (1) relatively non-smearing ink and (2) not drying up when used by a hooking lefty. I don’t know if anyone else had this problem with Papermates, but they just don’t seem to be designed to write at the angle at which I must hold them.
-
Has nobody mentioned one-armed bandits? They’ve got the wrong goddamn arm!
Something stupid I wrote about this: http://misfitmagazine.tripod.com/archives/righty.html
Of all the things mentioned so far (and there have been many I agree with) the ones that have bothered me the most in my life are those damned, Spawn-of-Satan, spiral notebooks, and the limited number of left-handed desks in school classrooms. There are about two of them in each of my classes, and they’re always pushed off to the side or in a corner or something. I usually have to pick one up and move it to where I want to sit.
I actually like it when some people make a big deal over how I write (I’m a “hooker”). It’s the only sort of attention I usually get.
I’m a lefty but not a hook writer. You generally can’t read what I write, but atleast I’m not a hooker.
I hate vegatable peelers. I usually have to hold the flippin’ veggie on my chest and drag the peeler towards me.
Why, just last week, I peeled my nipple.
From now on, you must all call me JimmyNipple
Calling righties the unclean…that’s funny.
I’ve never understood why you hold your hands at that uncomfortable-looking angle. To keep ink off your hands? I write Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy, right-handed, and it has never occurred to me to “hook” it. I hold my hand up off the page so everything stays neat. Chinese calligraphy also goes right to left, and right-handed Chinese calligraphers stay neat too. Recall that scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Jen was wearing her best clothes as she calligraphed right to left. She held her hand hovering above the paper, no hooking. Of course, she had to catch hold of that wide Chinese sleeve with her free hand so as not to drag it in the ink!
[Corrected coding for italics–Veb]
[Edited by TVeblen on 04-07-2001 at 03:29 AM]
The only thing on this earth that I do left-handed is play (floor) hockey (I bat and golf righty). Haven’t done it in a while, but I do remember digging through the sticks, searching (often in vain) for one with the proper curve on the blade. I have felt a small fraction of you guys’ pain.
By some quirk of my development, I’m a right-handed hooker when I write. I don’t catch ink from what I just wrote, but rather from the line(s) immediately above it. Gotta be careful which pens I use. Yes, I do get strange looks from people, wondering how the hell I learned to write this way. However, I also get heaps of praise for the neatness and precision of my handwriting. :: bows gallantly ::
I never use the opening in my briefs. 
I agree with most of the stuff posted.
The one thing that bugged me most was the butter knife.
Yep, the parents would drag out the good silverware for Thanksgiving dinner, I’d go to butter a roll and the damn knife would be upside down. I hated that.
On the other hand, I learned to play guitar right handed. I figured it would be easier to make my left hand do the difficult stuff.
I’m left-eyed as well (but right-handed), and I don’t think I’ve ever had that problem. I just advance the film before I bring it up to my eye. I have an automatic camera now, though, and it’s really nice :).
My first camera was a Kodak Disc camera, though, and that posed a problem to the left-eyed shooter. Looking at the thing from the back, it had the viewfinder on the extreme left side. A right-eyed shooter holds the thing to the side of his/her face. A left-eyed shooter gets to smash his/her nose into the back of the camera. Not to worry, though–can’t even buy film for it anymore. Ha ha!
When Mrs. PlanMan points out that more of the kids in her elementary school Special Ed. (learning disabilities, etc.) are Lefty than is the general population.
Of course, she usually does this in response to my recalling (when someone notes my Lefty-ness) that in the higher math classes in college, there were more of us than there should have been. And I have a retort provided by her first Principal at Open House, introducing the faculty: “Mrs. Smith our Art Teacher, and Mrs. PlanMan, our Emotionally Disturbed Teacher.” (now the kids are E.Handicapped, not Disturbed)
True story - attending a state-wide conference of planners who work with computer models (exciting group, that) going out to dinner in a large group. Just about everyone making a bee-line for the 2 Lefty corners of the long table. (“U” or “L” arrangements are better, more Left Corners.)
Jomo Mojo: It isn’t deliberate; it’s just the only way some of us lefties are rigged to write…
I wonder if there’s some weird correlation between lefties and science-math oriented people. The past 3 chemistry and 2 math profs I’ve had were left handed. Unfortunately, I’m a righty But at least I can use spiral notebooks! 
I used to have that same problem, but then I bought a Henckel vegetable peeler. Truly a wonderous thing, works both ways. It does take some practice though, otherwise you wind up taking huge swaths of veggie flesh along with the peel.
Oh, and uh… notcynical, I can accept the fact that you feel a need to pull the waistband down when there is a perfectly acceptable escape hatch nearby specifically designed to provide prompt penile passage. But please tell me you’re not one of those guys that when standing before a urinal, feel a need to undo your belt, unsnap your pants, unzip your fly, and then pull the waistband down. Even worse, please tell me that you have the decency to stand somewhat close to the urinal. I hate it when guys have this subconscious exhibitionist thing working.