Southwestern College Collegian

Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: Sports

Just don't sit next to me at a restaurant. I'm pleasant smelling. I have decent table manners. I even like to wear clean clothes. It's nothing about my charm, wit, or gracefulness that makes me a bad mate at the dinner table. It's my stupid left-handedness is always putting me in awkward positions and just plain getting in the way. So please excuse my elbows as they duel with yours. I'm not meaning to knock the soup of the day right off your spoon and down your sleeve. That's just my nature. I'll have a napkin waiting for you. For reasons I'm still gathering, I'm one of the 10 percent or so walking the Earth who claim to being left handed. I've seen the clever puns written on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and even desk calendars and no we aren't the smart ones of the world. It's just something that we have to deal with. It's a deficiency, a handicap, and it just kind of leaves us with one of our hands tied behind back. I'll stop promoting such propaganda and apologizing for something I'm not ashamed of though. The biggest problem I have with lefty-itis comes in the sports area. It's the forum my comrades and I can't seem to catch a break in. It's hard not to curse your dominate hand when the other side has a leg up because of it. It's just not worth not being able to find a baseball glove. Walk into any store of your choice, be it strictly sporting goods or your neighborhood super store, and try to find a glove fit for a lefty. You'll have to look nice and deep. Stowed away deep in the racks you might get lucky enough and find one. I doubt you'll find one your size though. My last pursuit of a new glove yielded one beautiful pink mitt fit for a six-year-old hand. I counted more than 30 other gloves that day but only the one for the youngster was made for my kind. I thought about buying it for my six year old niece. She adores pink, but of course she throws with her right hand. That's obvious though. The same goes for golf clubs and the like. When you dig deeper you start to uncover the really irritating parts of my handedness. Righties don't look at a bowling ball with near enough marvel. Few take note that even bowling balls are made with the right side in mind. If you take a close look, the finger holes on a bowling ball are spaced apart to accommodate the middle and ring finger of the right handers. That's not me whining either. After a night at the alley my cuticles are ripped to the point they often bleed, with each drop of blood making me curse the unfairness of the world. And let's not forget this supposed "advantage" that we are supposed to have in sports. So when I throw that bowling ball it curves. Whoopity doo! Maybe I want that ball to roll straight for once. Still, no matter how centered I get and how smooth my follow through, the ball is going to inexplicably curve into the gutter. I don't know why I can't throw a baseball straight, just as I don't know why the toilet flushes the opposite way in Australia, but I don't like either of the facts and I don't know why the first one is an advantage to me. Yeah I surprised a few folks with my left handed jumper back in my basketball days, but I wouldn't call that a plus. The only sport lefties are one upped in is boxing. In that sport, you have to actually retrain yourself when you're going against a "south paw." That would be great news and all, but I doubt you'll ever see me, or any of my left handed buddies, in a boxing ring this century. It all boils down to the fact it's a myth. We lefties have to fight and claw our way through life, and we don't get much praise for doing it either. So excuse me if I knock elbows with you. It's the only inconvenience that you'll suffer from your hand. I haven't even got started on the difficulties of writing in cursive.

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