Right to be left

In elementary school, my mom drove me all over the place looking for special scissors. I was starting to learn how to write my letters, and I was doing it left-handed. Thus, they assumed I needed left-handed scissors. I guess we finally found some. I brought them in to school, and then brought them right back home telling mom and dad that they did not work! My dad, a pure lefty, tried them out. They most certainly did too work! Well, turns out I cut right-handed. And we soon discovered that my dominant foot in soccer is the right. And in basketball, I shoot with my right hand. And although I eat with my left hand, I slalom water-ski right-footed. I crochet right-handed, and I throw a baseball with my right hand.

But I am left-handed. And so today I celebrate my right to be left-handed, along with 7-10% of the world’s population. August 13 is International Left-handers Day! Apparently I can designate my personal space as “LEFTY ZONE” according to the day’s official web site (www.lefthandersday.com). And if you enter my LEFTY ZONE, you must do everything left-handed.

Us lefties (I’m among Prince William, Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo da Vinci, Jimi Hendrix, Nicole Kidman, and Bill Clinton, just to name a few) tend to excel more in fencing; we can see better underwater; when doodling or drawing, our figures tend to face right instead of left; and we’re generally more good-looking.