Thursday, June 26, 2008

What is left?

Every left-handed writer, especially those who [try to] write humor, has written this column. The world is conspiring against us with awkward tools that we can use to kill ourselves, like right handed scissors or chainsaws. They are right, you know. It is probably the reason there are so few of us around. They do tell us (other left-handed people, that is) that there are more left-handed geniuses, per capita, than right-handed ones. I believe it, because we have to be smarter, on account of all the deadly instruments. Natural selection, really.

There are a lot of other things out there, too, that are designed for the less sinister of us. (Sinister is the Latin word for left [dexter is right]. Isn't that wild? The Romans thought we were evil! I assure you that we are not. Or is that just the sort of thing that an evil person would say to deceive the masses?) A lot of them are things you don't really think about. My friend has been complaining (a lot) that the whammy bar on his Xbox 360 Guitar Hero Les Paul is not suited for left-handed rocking out (I only have the Rock Band Stratocaster). Who would have thought that Guitar Hero would discriminate?

The thing that set me off on this (most recently) is my coffee mug. It is a Rose-Hulman mug that I got for free that proclaims our greatness via US News and World Report (we're #1!) vintage 2003. If I want to show that proclamation to the world, I have to hold it with my left-hand, meaning that I cannot write while I drink my crappy hot tea. Why else would I have a mug with a message that bragadocious, if not to show it off to the world? Actually, now that I think about it, if I have to use my left hand, does that make it left-handed? I'm so confused now.

Just like I was when trying to figure out on which hand to wear my watch around Christmas time. Pants are also right-handed. Left-hand drive cars are right-handed. Most desks are right-handed, so much so that the first time I found a left-handed desk in a classroom I got really excited and was determined to sit in it, regardless of where it was in the classroom. So I did, even though it was stacked on top of three other desks.

I am the only person I know who puts my mouse on the left side of the computer. You can always tell where I sat in the computer lab, and people will freak out if I don't put it back. I'm sorry to disrupt your apple cart, Mr. Right-hander, but welcome to our world, but it's all part of our sinister plan. I mean, there is no plan.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How is your left-hand drive car right handed? Personally, I like to shift with my non-dominate hand and steer with my left hand.

What really bugs me is musical instruments. Perhaps guitar hero discriminates because the guitar does. The piano does as well since most music has a more complicated structure to the treble, which ends up on the right. J.S. Bach is my hero as he seems to have written a lot of stuff that is pretty evenly balanced.

Engineer Sighted said...

If people can steer with their knees, then you don't need Lefty free to handle the reins.

It's more this particular guitar, the fake Les Paul locates the whammy bar in such a way that, in left-handed mode, it is unreachable. Real guitars are made to be left- or right-handed, and there is no left-handed guitar hero controller yet.

I cannot comment on Bach, although it did see Amadeus recently, and while I recognize that Bach and Mozart are not the same, there were fart jokes in it, so how about that.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I have only seen the French language version of Amadeus on television and thus did not catch the fart jokes.