The (Mis)Adventures of a South Paw
Michael was still in the womb when a cosmic joke was played on him. Though at birth he appeared perfectly normal, he hid a life affecting disablity. Alas, he was left-handed.
His difference was hardly noticed until he started kindergarden. His teacher took a long time in realizing that he was refusing to write with his "right" hand. So slow was she in fact, that he ended up throwing the pen at her after she handed it to him in his "right" hand for the hundredth time. In horror she watched him curl his left hand around the pen as he pushed it across his paper. The well meaning teacher called for a comfrence with his parents. She suggested that maybe it would be kindest to have him istitutionalized, where, she said there would be people trained to care for such an individual.His parents instead resigned themselves to care for a child who was "different".
Michael was a very accident prone child. It all stemmed from the fact that the "right"-handed people had somehow managed to take over the world. And like a typical majority, they catered to the demands and needs of their own group, leaving the peaceful, but numerically weak left-handers with no choice but to try to adapt under such tyranny. Everything is made for the "right"-handed. Even simple things like doors are "right"-handed(you open most with the left hand, but things are carried in the stronger hand). Unfourtunately, learning to adapt is often difficult and painful. Thus, young michael spent much timegetting to know doctors in the ER. Scissors, can-openers, and "right"-handed guitars were his worst foes. Eventually he was able to beat the can-opener into submission and learned to cut upside down, but the guitar remained an adversary his entire life.
After grade school he began to dread others noticing his perculiarity. Some larger "right"-hander would stand over him pointing and yell "Look at the freak! Monkeys could write better!" And children would circle his desk and ask him why he didn't write like a normal person.
One day he go so feed up of the stupid questions he stood in his desk and shouted at the top of his lungs, "There's nothing wrong with being left-handed! You people are all fascist pigs trying to oppress the miniority!"
"Word man" (said by the sole African-American student) was the only thing said while his teacher dragged him to the principal's office.
He continued to scream while being lead out the door "You should keep in mind that I'm the only person in the room who's in their right mind. You people make me sick!"
The principal was an over-weight, balding and obviously "right"-handed man. "Young man, I can understand that you feel uncomfortable being a minority, but outbursts like yours will not be acceptable. Why, this is the type of situation that leads to gang formation and violence. I will not have gangs of different handedness in my school! You must learn to control yourself or you will be put in a detention center. Do you understand?"
Michael mumbled yes and was careful to do nothing to draw attention to himself over the next couple of yesrs. He simply pretended to be one of "them" because it was easier than explaining to his parents why he got expelled would be.
In his sophomore year a new challenge was set before him - learning to drive. His first experince driving was preceded by a shock that set in as soon as he sat in the driver's seat. To his surpise everything (except the blinker, which if we be honest about it, could be opperated by a monkey- with a lobotomy) was all on the "right" side of the car. With determination he soon learned that even one so disadvantaged as he could drive with relative ease.
After he graduated from college he got a job in a business that everyone told him wouldn't hire people like him. With hard work and dermination he quickly moved up in authority in his company and was soon made vice-president. As he sat in his corner office with the big window, telling himself that his hard work paid off, his boss entered."Congradulations, Michael. To tell you the truth, I never thought I'd see you with this position. Actually, when I first hired you, it was because it amused me to see you try to write. Who knew you could actually handle the job? Well, like I said, congradulations!"
Michael sighed and went back to looking out the window; dreaming of the revolution he would lead, destroying the facade that was "right"-hand supremacy, with a guitar strapped to his back
-srw
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