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13 August is “Left Handers’ Day,” and since Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month, it means a whole week of bad luck – but only for those of the dextral persuasion.

I’ll admit it. I’m a Lefty. Always have been.

My first inkling that things were not fair and equal, at least handed-wise, was with the q-shaped school desks. Occasionally there was one p-shaped desk per classroom, but that was a rarity, so us lefties adapted without complaint.

Later on it was penmanship, where part of the grade dismissed content and replaced it with “neatness.”  To further embarrass us non-dextralites, they made us put little green plastic thingys on our pencils and pens as if we didn’t now how to grasp them properly. As late as 4th grade, Mrs. Mikulski grabbed and twisted my hand because I was “hooking” in order to write in cursive with the proper slant.

And all this happened in Public School.

True, there are many things that give us southpaws mild annoyance, but the majority of us are ambidextrous to varying degrees. I don’t know why mankind developed such a wide gap between right vs. left handedness (90% vs. 10% in the US) but I have my suspicions.

I believe it goes back to the ancients and the communal feed bowl mantra:  eat with your right and wipe with your left. I’ll bet they figured that one out pretty quickly, and those who didn’t comply with the rules were not well received. It’s likely that entire communities that didn’t respect that basic rule of hygiene ceased to exist from either persecution or self-administered bacterial infection.

It’s true. I am a Lefty who washes BOTH hands, so don’t be disturbed when I walk up, offer my right hand in cordial camaraderie and say,
“Welcome to The Overnight Open Thread.”