Handed-ness

When I was little, at most family events, I sat next to my cousin Richard. Part of the reason was because he was the nearest to me in age. And part of the reason was because he was left-handed. No one else was willing to bunk forks with him at holiday dinners.

For as many years as I have been married, I have been annoyed by my husband’s technique for threading his keys on his key ring. I bemoaned the fact that I had to pry the ring open with my right hand and slide with the key facing upwards with my left.

Yet I said nothing. I understood that this little annoyance was not a deal breaker to my marriage. I chalked it up to the fact that all spouses have their idiosyncrasies.

And for as much as I consider myself a critical thinker, until the other day it did not dawn on me that my husband’s insistence on threading his keys incorrectly had nothing to do with incorrectness. It had to do with handedness.

As a leftie, he threads his keys as a mirror reflection to my rightie-ness.

It is much like the coriolis effect in nature---trade winds and currents form counter clockwise patterns in the northern hemisphere, and form clockwise patterns in the southern hemisphere.

So my husband correctly threads his keys based on his brain orientation; and I do the same based on mine. Which, while it explains behavior, does not make it any less annoying.

Because it is a right-handed world. And the only thing designed for lefties is the toll booth.