It's a struggle trying to survive as a left-handed person in a world cruelly dominated by evil, right-handed tyrants. And I should know, because I'm a lefty myself. But today it all changes. For this day only, the tables - with their right-sided inkpots - have been turned. Yup, August 13 marks the 11th annual Left-Handers Day celebrations.
According to the International Left-Handers Club (ILC), which organises the event, workers are invited to turn their offices into 'lefty zones', where - albeit briefly - right-hand dominance will at last be suppressed.
As I work for the Guardian, my office is already a permanent lefty zone, which means I may have to declare my particular area a lefty lefty zone. That may cause some confusion, but then to be left-handed is to be confused. From using scissors and computer mice to writing in chequebooks or wielding a cricket bat, the misery of having a dominant left hand is ignored by the rest of society.
Indeed, alienation is something lefties learn from an early age. While other kids in the classroom effortlessly glide their pens across their exercise books, we smudge the ink with our embarrassed, cack-handed strokes. Exasperated classmates tut loudly when we clumsily bump elbows as we hunker down to write.
As we get older, things get worse. Lefties are more accident prone and therefore tend to remove themselves from the gene pool more quickly than right-handers. This was proved by a US psychology professor, Stanley Coren, in a study which found that, on average, left-handers were likely to live for nine years less than right-handers.
We are also more likely to amputate our fingers with power-tools, develop repetitive strain injury, break our bones, have allergies, and suffer from depression, schizophrenia, sleeping disorders and learning difficulties. In short, we're doomed.
Luckily, as a writer I've avoided becoming one of the 2,500 people who are killed every year using right-handed products and machinery, and let's face it, I'm unlikely to ever hack off a digit or a limb with a meat slicer. But I don't rule out impaling myself with a pen, particularly if the smudging gets too annoying.
I shouldn't grumble too much. After all, it is often said - by me at least - that left-handers are more creative and intelligent than others. Admittedly it's scant consolation for the agony of cutting jagged lines in paper when you want straight edges, but it does help to ease the pain. And if we bleat about our troubled lefty lives in the here and now, things were a lot worse for my "gauche" brothers and sisters of the past.
Centuries ago, the Catholic church denounced left-handed people as servants of the devil. For generations, left-handed Catholic children were forced against their will to become right-handed. Just a few short decades ago in Japan, the fact that your wife was left-handed could be cited as grounds for divorce.
According to a website which asks whether left-handedness is a curse, blessing or an anomaly of nature, Maori women weave ceremonial textiles with their right hand, because to use the left would be profane and curse the cloth. The penalty for using the left hand is death.
African tribes along the Niger river do not allow their women to prepare food with the left hand for fear of poisonous sorcery, and let's not forget that in Muslim nations, only the right hand can come into contact with those parts of the body above the waist. The left hand touches the parts down below, which is a polite way of saying the left hand is sh*ttier than the right - not a very nice thought for us lefties.
Even God hates us. 'Let thy left hand know not what thy right hand doest,' states the Bible (Matthew 6:3), which surely implies that the left is not fit to know what the right gets up to. Clearly - bear with me here - God believes the left hand gets up to some sinister work down here on earth. Considering most people are right-handed, it seems equally clear to me that the right hand commits its fair share of "crimes" too, particularly among men.
In the animal kingdom, cats and parrots tend to use their left paws and claws more than their right. Rats and monkeys tend to be right-pawed, but sadly there have been no studies to determine whether cats or monkeys lose more limbs in industrial accidents.
Left-handed parents are more likely to have left-handed children, and children with two left-handed parents are more likely to be left-handed than children with just one. But all that still leaves us in a pretty small minority, with around 87% of the human race being right-handed. Put another way, in a room of 100 people, only 13 will be left-handed. In the same room, nine will be left-handed and gay and three will be left-handed, gay and missing a limb. Spare a thought for them.
In fact, spare a thought for all of us lefties today, and if you're really interested - or just full of pity - visit the ILC's website at www.left-handersday.com and play some left-handed games. But be warned, all the prizes are tailored for lefties too. That much said, I rather like the idea of righties struggling to use simple household implements, so feel free to enter. Go on, and see how the other 13% live.
