Rating my southpaw woes
I'm left-handed. That's a burden that Sir Paul McCartney and I share.
I recently got thinking about the ways it's inconvenienced me and how I'd rank each one.
- Boxing: 4/10.
It's awkward enough standing in a dingy, sweat-fuelled boxing club full of strangers, eyeing the only other woman in the room you'll inevitably get paired with. Then the instructor asks if there are any southpaws. I slowly raise my hand to be dealt a grunt and a request to step aside. Every time a new move is introduced, I'm sternly reminded to do it the other way. I know. I promise this isn't hard to follow.
- Stringed instruments: 3/10.
For the first few weeks of owning a ukulele, everything I played sounded extremely bad because I'd strung it the other way round. I've since adapted to playing the right way but I'd almost certainly be faster if I strummed with my left hand. Left-handed instruments exist but they're more expensive and harder to find. They also kind of sound lame.
- Religious connotations: 6/10.
My upbringing taught me that the right side was the good side. Eat meals and shake hands with the right hand. Enter holy places with the right foot. Sleep on the right side. At the dinner table, I'd get reprimanded for reaching for my cutlery with the wrong hand. "What do I do with my left hand?", I asked my teacher. You wipe, she replied.
- ???
It's really not that bad, actually.