Living with Lefty

My hubby is left-handed, but I am right (handed). Hah. I just came up with that. Eleven years together and that little pun is just showing itself for the first time. I guess my left brain has been holding me back.

But, in all honesty, I like that he’s left-handed. I don’t know why, I just do. For some reason I find it kind of sexy. Again, I don’t know why, I just do. Well, maybe it has to do with that kid I had a crush on in the third grade. He was left-handed, too. I used to marvel at his handwriting. The lowercase letter “e” looked so interesting when he wrote it.

But we were talking about my hubby. His lowercase letter “e” looks like any other lowercase letter he may happen to write. Which means it is distinguished from his uppercase letters in the sense that it doesn’t necessarily look like a number. Reading his writing is like decoding ciphertext.

But things like that are what make living with a lefty an adventure. It opens my eyes to a whole new world. Well, not really a new world, but it opens my eyes to all the things in our world that are set up to favor righties. Like scissors. And those new phones that spring open at the touch of a button… only the button is set up so that the phones don’t really spring for lefties. Or sniper rifles with the slide on the right. Have you ever thought about that? Left-handed snipers get the shaft – they probably have to pay extra to get the rifles modified for lefties. That is, unless they’re right-eye dominant, which happens. Being left-handed is complicated.

In our early years we learned that hubby needed to sit on my left at dinner, so we wouldn’t knock elbows all night. It became second nature. We show up at a restaurant and our fellow diners watch as we seamlessly step around each other to set ourselves up in the proper order. No words exchanged, just a now well-established understanding: lefty on the left. It doesn’t throw too many wrenches in the works.

There are instances when it might throw an Allen wrench in. You know, just a little twist. For instance, I’m right-handed. I pour cereal out of the box with my right hand. I roll the bag down, away from me. He’s left-handed. He pours cereal out of the box with his left hand. He rolls the bag down, away from himself. So the next time I go for my Honey Nut Cheerios, the bag is either rolled toward me, or the hole in the bag is on the wrong side. Just a little twist in my day. Not a huge deal.

Besides, there are ways to make up for it. If we go to the movies and put lefty on the right, we each dip into the popcorn bucket without having to reach across the other person. Or if we really wanted to, we could hold hands all day and each always have our dominant hand free to open doors and drink drinks and … I don’t know… swing tennis racquets or throw footballs or throw punches. Romantic stuff like that.

I like living with lefty. (It means I’m always the right one.)