1. Scissors
This is the most common of all. Unless you're able to cut paper with your right hand (like me) or you actually go to the trouble of buying left-handed scissors, then you'd understand what it feels like to have a piece of paper all crumpled because you cut it with your left hand and the blades went all funny. My heart is filled with sorrow for every single lefty out there who is frustrated because they have so much difficulty cutting paper properly.
2. College tables
I'm not really sure if that's the right term, but you know those tables that are used in tuition centres and colleges, the kind that are attached to chairs and can be flipped? Those burdensome chair-tables are already difficult for right-handers because of its ridiculous smallness (what is this; a table for ants?), but it's doubly worse for lefties! Can you imagine writing notes at high speed while your elbow hovers awkwardly in mid-air? Not the most comfortable way to spend your college lecture hours.
3. Spiral notebooks
I dislike spiral notebooks with a passion. Most lefties do. Margins are much wider because it's practically impossible to reach the sides while the spirally metal is there blocking your left-handed writing position. The first word of every line doesn't even look like it's written by you! The handwriting is all bad in spiral notebooks and your hand itches by the time you're done since it keeps rubbing against the comb-binding. (This is a warning to anyone who decides to buy me a spiral notebook for my birthday.)
4. Writing
Right-handed people writing from left to right? Easy. Left-handed people writing from left to right? Not so easy, especially if you're a child learning how to write. You don't even get to glance at what you just wrote a second ago, because your left hand is in the way. Besides, (I don't know if anyone else goes through the same thing) I make tons of spelling errors just because my hand's covering what I just wrote. It's only ages later that I realize my mistakes. (Come to think of it, I think I'm the only one who does it. So... You can forget what I said two seconds ago.) If only there was a language or alphabet that could be read in English, but written from the right to the left, like some secret code for lefties.
5. Ink or graphite stains
Whether it's penciling your rough ideas in your notebook (which is most definitely not a spiral notebook) or rewriting your final essay in your favourite gel pen, you're likely to end up with stains on the side of your hand (and again, it's because of the whole left-to-right thing). Which leads me to the next point:
6. Smudges
Correction for the previous point: my leftiness has prevented me from owning any gel pens, let alone have a favourite one. This is because any essay of mine done in gel ink will result in a smudged mess, something the teachers detest. I think gel pens were invented by a smug right-handed fellow who thought it'd be fun to see lefties' assignments get messed up.
7. Chopsticks
Being Chinese, I use them at least once a day. It's not that I can't use them properly; in fact, I maneuver those sticks pretty well. See, it's a problem because lefties' chopsticks love embarrassing the user. It is especially humiliating when you're sitting at a not-so-large round table, cramped up with fifteen of your right-handed relatives during a family reunion dinner, and your chopsticks go get themselves tangled up with the chopsticks of your right-handed neighbour.
8. People exclaiming "Wow! You're left-handed!"
The point is self-explanatory. You know, 15% of the people you meet could be lefties, and if you said that to the 150 out of 1000 people that you met, you're gonna be pretty busy. And yes, thank you for reminding me that I'm left-handed; I almost forgot.
One study showed that left-handed people, on average, die nine years earlier than the right-handed. Come on, living with the eight problems I've just listed; it's no surprise. In fact, the problems go on. We've just... Evolved.
* * *
All jokes aside, I feel left-handed people are united in a way no one else is. It makes us feel good to see a fellow lefty struggle with the same problems. Besides, 15 percent of the entire population? Hey, we're pretty rare!
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