Just a left hand girl living in a right hand world.  Today, lefties are much more accepted on a world wide range, we are the 10 percent!  In medieval times, being a lefty was thought to mean that you were a witch and possessed by the devil.  The devil himself was thought to be a lefty.  But many non-devilish celebrities are lefties also, including President Barack Obama, Julius Caesar, Jimi Hendrix, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Pelé, Babe Ruth, Larry Bird, and Oprah.  Not to name drop, but the lefties seem superior now, don’t they?  But we have issues, a lot of them.  Here are the daily struggles of being a lefty in the modern day.

1. Scissors

The most basic, common pair of scissors are made for right handed people.  The grooves are made to fit a right hand, making it uncomfortable for a lefty.  To have an easy scissor experience, we must get a specially crafted pair of scissors, made for left hands or a dominant hand neutral pair.

2. Eating at the dinner table

A lefty can’t sit just anywhere they want, their permanent seat is that dreaded left-end corner.  We are shunned to this spot so everyone can eat without bumping elbows.

3. Sports

In many different sports, a player may step up to the plate and not be able to play because—oh right, the clubs and gloves are made for right hands, leaving the lefties unable to play or not playing their best, because they can’t use their dominant hand.

4. Guitar

Lefty problems also translate into the music world.  Most guitars are made for right handed people, of course.  If a lefty were to play a “normal” guitar, the strings would be upside down and the chords would be backwards—it would make no sense.  Therefore, they have to get a special left-handed guitar.

5. The Smudge

The Smudge, a term all lefties know well.  When writing, our hand drags through the freshly written ink or graphite, marking up the entire side of our hand.  These are just battle scars my friends.  This Smudge can also appear on the paper, where what we just wrote or drew, is now a distorted blotch and blurred letters.

6. Spiral notebooks/ binders

The enemies.  When a lefty turns to a fresh page, it is not a nice, fresh start—it is an ongoing war between our ability to write and that binding.  The binding is an obstacle, and we overcome, but not at a simple cost.  We must contort our hand in an attempt to write legibly and now it is even easier to be branded by The Smudge.

Despite all of the problems, being a lefty is cool, we’re special.  While not being part of the dominant handed population, we are generally better at multitasking, better at adapting and more creative.  So everything is “al-left”.