To all the South Paws

I recently became a member of a group called “Anything left handed”. It’s a left hander’s club. Yes I am a lefty and I am proud of it.

Infant school was tough for me, I had a headmistress Ms Kats who would come into our class at least twice a day to check on me, she used to call me the “South Paw lady”, I had no idea what it meant at the time but I knew that I didn’t like it, not one bit. The woman would violently snatch the pen from my left hand and force it into my right hand. I would wait for her to leave and put the pen right back where it belongs.

Ms Kats was the only one bugging me; my parents didn’t have a problem with me and my left hand. Although that’s only because my two older brothers had also been born left handed and they had both been successfully “fixed” at a tender age, so my guess is they were just dead beat by the time they got to me, number three. Now my poor brothers suffer what is known as “left hander syndrome”, this is caused by forcing lefthanders to use their right hand. It leads to a mental state of confusion….true story.

Back to Ms Kats, by the time we got second term, she had accepted that the “South Paw lady” was a lost cause. Although she did start making jokes about how I write with my book parallel to my body as opposed to  upright.

 Education is much harder for my Chinese counterparts, apparently it’s extremely difficult to write Chinese with your left hand.

life was tougher long ago..

Growing up there was always the odd person, always a grownup, who would be displeased by my eating with my left hand or my cooking with my left hand or my cleaning with my left hand. But it was all lost on me.

Left-handed people have no reason to be ashamed, neither should their parents feel the need to “fix” them. You see, left handed people are generally high achievers. YES we are!!!. We are more intelligent and have higher IQ’s than the average right handed person. We use the right hemisphere which controls the left side….and the left side controls arts, music, creativity, perception, emotion and genius…. We are wired to widen our abilities hence we achieve more.

Just to further substantiate that fact, in a world where only 10% of the population is left handed; Five and a half of the past 14 United States Presidents were/are left handed. Truman, Hoover, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Reagan (Reagan was ambidextrous, hence the half).

Once, a long time ago a man Stanley Coreen wrote a bogus article purporting that left handers are more prone to accidents and hence die younger than right handers. Like all other sorts of bad news, this article spread like veldt fire and every right hander decided to believe it, I think because secretly they hate being in the majority 90% and would rather have part of the 10% minority which uses its left hand. So anyway because the majority seemed to like the article, it became known as a fact. But here is my argument; wouldn’t life assurance companies and pension funds have started charging different rates to avoid making losses from us lefties...??

our very own scissors with the blades in the right direction

I do agree that most items were designed with the right handed person in mind. Total inconvenience if I might add but I get around just fine. I use my fork to the left and my knife to the right. Having the mouse and the numeric keyboard to the right side was once a bit of a problem but that has never been known to  kill. The scissors was always a problem, I will admit, but it hasn’t killed me yet, and before it does I intend to order myself a left hand scissors, yip someone out there is thinking of making our lives so much more comfy.

I’ve tried playing golf, I was quite good for a beginner but my coach (no one fancy, just my brother) advised me that my performance would probably be better if I had a left hand set. So now I am saving up for one.

We’ve been accused of being clumsy but my apologies, that doesn’t hold true where I am concerned. I am as neat as a new pin.

Ever wondered why wedding bands are worn on the 3^rd finger on the left hand? It’s because there is a nerve from the heart that ends there. Why am I bringing this up you ask? Just to dispel all those falsehoods about the left side being unlucky side.

We have a day, did you know? The 13^th of August

Joan of Arc, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Charlie Chapman, Bill Gates, Steven Forbes and (drum roll please) Bart Simpson were/are all left handed.

I am unique and I am special…