How about that little change pocket on a pair of jeans? Essentially a waste of material for a left-hander.
Except for spiral notebooks, I never really had a problem using most right-handed implements (scissors, manual can openers, etc). My problems all come from right-handers. Such as…
My second-grade teacher who was convinced I would never learn cursive or have legible handwriting. (Yes, I did and yes, I do.)
My best friend who can’t bear to watch me cut anything with a knife. She says I do it wrong. Whatever that means
The co-worker, many moons ago, who saw me ringing up a sale asked how can I do that with my left hand, after all wouldn’t it be easier with my right?
And to this day, my siblings insist I tie my shoes upside down (no, I don’t stand on my head). I make the loop in my left hand and wrap the tail around with my right and push it through. What’s wrong with that?
All in all, though, being left handed isn’t so bad. At least there’s one thing about me that’s unique!
Spiral notebooks aren’t a problem for me - I write on the “wrong” side of the page, so the spiral is on the right, out of my way. The lack of left-handed sports equipment and desks (BTW, I’ve never seen a left-handed desk, only right) is annoying, but the biggest thing that bugs me are people who insist I would perform some task so much better if only I used my right hand.
I agree with almost everything said here. I always had a problem with spiral notebooks too. At least I’m not a hooker so I don’t have to worry about getting ink all over me.
I use my left hand mainly to write and eat. I also golf lefty and bat lefty but I throw with my right hand and use scissors in my left hand. It just depends on what I’m doing as to which hand I use I guess.
As for vegetable peelers… I have the perfect one. Check out this site. Click on Prepare and then scroll about 3/4 of the way down the page. It’s a vertical vegetable peeler for right or left handed use and it’s the best… even if it is from tupperware.
I also get tired of people telling me that left handed people have a shorter life expectency than right handed people and/or that left handed women are more likely to be lesbians than right handed women. Gimmee a break. :rolleyes:
No, I just unzip and reach in. Yet, I must ask, why do you care? And what does any of this have to do with how close I stand to the urinal? But finally and most importantly, I was only kidding. Sheesh!
While we’re on the subject though, does the “right-handed” design of the front panel cause anyone any problems? If so, do as I do. Problem solved!!
I just unzip and reach in. And it’s not that I “feel a need”. It’s just that it never made sense to me to go through the trouble when a quicker method was readily available. But really, why do you care? And what does any of this have to do with how close I stand to the urinal? Finally and most importantly, I was only kidding. Sheesh!
While we’re on the subject though, does the “right-handed” design of the front panel cause anyone any problems? If so, do as I do. Problem solved!!
Me too. (except rifles–I shoot lefty)
Camcorders. You can’t use most of 'em if you’re left-eyed.
I’m writing an article for my school paper about those desks right now. Being a proud lefty I’ve suffered incredible hardships at the hands of those fiendish devices. I’m convinced they lower all my grades significantly. They’re the reason I won’t get into an Ivy league school 
There’s one full-width desk in each of my classes. I frequently rearrange the furniture of the entire room in order to get that desk to my spot. 
What the heck is a right-handed desk?
Aren’t all desks kind of ambidextrous flat things you rest stuff on?
This must be an American thing.
We speak of the classroom desks with the writing surface attached to the chair. I’t usually just a half-width affair.
Heck, we have right-footed desks in the science wing here. You can only sit in 'em a certain way (kind of angled to the left, making it easy for you to rest your right arm on the desk as you write). The way the support bars go you can’t put your legs any other way, which always pisses me off, because I take my notes in Physics with my left hand (i don’t know why. I just do. Every other class I’m a righty) and I want to sit the other way so it’s more comfy…
Of course, I don’t actually hate it, but being a lefty makes it harder.
I’m taking a class in American Sign Language right now. There are two lefties in the class. I decided at the very beginning that I would learn right-hand dominant to avoid those awful moments when you think, “Well, she did it that way, so I just flip it around, oh wait, no, it’s like I’m looking in a mirror, no, that’s not it…” I’m fairly ambidexterous and had already taught myself to fingerspell with both hands so initially it seemed like there wouldn’t be a problem. But I do get awfully confused with certain types of two-handed signs and have a hard time remembering which hand moves in which direction. And I think that I really could have benefited from my left hand’s higher agility.
On the other hand (ow), the other left-hander in my class is also having a hard time. She’s said she gets frustrated with the whole flipping things around problem. Sometimes I get confused watching her, and she’s said that the instructor seems to find her particularly hard to understand, too.
I think I’m going to have to go do some research on left-handed deaf people; this is starting to seem interesting, particularly with regards to those theories linking handedness with strength in different cognitive areas…
And there isn’t a single left-handed desk in the entire building for two of my classes! (The normal university ratio seems to be about 1:30.) My secret: I get there early and stake out two desks. Sit in the right one, pull the left one over and write on it. Or I twist the whole desk and sit diagonally. I absolutely loathe lecture halls with the desks built into the rows of seats and 1 column of lefty desks running up the side of the aisle.
I actually hadn’t realized I was this worked up about the issue. I think I’d better go close my eyes and take a few cleansing breaths.
As an ignorant righty I was about to ask, “why don’t you just write on the other side of the paper?” But I see that you do. Is there a reason (like a teacher making you, etc.) why lefties would feel it necessary to write on the recto side of the paper? (Personally, I’m stingy and use both sides. If the spiral is in the way, I hang it over the edge of the desk or a book so it’s flush with the paper’s surface. Works for me, but maybe the logistics are different when writing left-handed?)
Also, even though I’m right-handed, my German mother taught me to eat with the fork in my left hand, even when not using a knife. So, I’m wondering if the problem of table seating is less of an issue in European countries with a similar tradition.
rivulus
A picture of the righty desk.
You can use either hand and (if you have achieved reasonable fluency with ASL) you should not be difficult at all to understand.
I have a friend who is a left handed signer. He favors his left hand for many two-handed signs where one hand does the action and the other stays faily still (examples: honest, again, magazine, etc.) and I don’t have trouble understanding him. I’ve watched broadcasts & such where the interpreter in the picture-in-picture bubble is sometimes left handed and it doesn’t strike me as harder to understand, nor does it require me to expend extra effort to study the signs more carefully. I find it odd that the ASL teacher has difficulty reading a lefty’s signs. In fact, many times when I am one-handed (carrying a suitcase or bag of groceries), the two handed signs can be sort of “abbreviated” and successfully signed with only one hand.
As a right handed hooker, I can sympathize with all of you inky lefties. It sucks. 
I’ve all but given up on pencils.
Oh! Them things. We don’t get them here. Or at least, not when I was growing up. (I can’t speak for Australian kids, though - for all I know they write resting individual sheets of paper on their knees)
I hate that too, plus the people who tell me that writing with your left hand causes arthritis. :rolleyes:
Most likely because it’s the usual convention, and leftys are used to adapting to right-handed systems. When people look at my notebooks, they almost always comment “Why the hell do you write on the wrong side of the paper?”