LEFTIES AREN’T RIGHT, JUST AWESOME

The other day I saw a package of gel pens on sale in Staples. In big bold letters the package proclaimed, “Quick drying! Great for Lefties.”

When I saw this, I was stunned for two reasons. First, there is no such thing as a quick drying gel pen, unless you define “quick” as 20 minutes. As a lefty, I’ve tried every brand of gel pen under the sun, and I’ve got a rainbow of permanent marks along the side of my left hand to prove that it’s simply not true. They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t build a pen to keep us lefties from becoming ink-stained wretches.

The second reason I was stunned was the fact that in my entire life I’ve never seen a consumer product that acknowledged left-handed people exist. Oh sure, there are those specialty catalogs where you can order left-handed scissors, left-handed can openers, and left-handed toilet paper (it took me a while to figure out this item was a scam), but these special products are usually twice the price and half the quality. Typical retail outlets, however, only offer items geared to serve the needs of the right-handed majority.

Discrimination, I say! Where are the lobbyists representing fully 10-percent of the population? Where are the political action committees? Where are the heartstring-tugging news reports about the countless school children who not only have had their self-esteem crushed by those evil right-hand-only desks, but also developed severe health problems after absorbing unsafe levels of ink through the skin of their left hands? Where, I ask, are the protest marches, with thousands of people carrying signs that say, “Rights for Lefts!”?

Why has there been no left-handed backlash against an obviously discriminatory society? The answer is simple: we lefties don’t have time for all that because we are too busy being awesome.

OK, I know that last statement doesn’t quite demonstrate a very well-known and common trait of left-handed people: humility. But sometimes you just have to blow your own horn. (Speaking of horns, trumpets and trombones are two more items designed for right-handers!)

Check out this list of awesome lefties, each one the all-time greatest in his or her field:

• The greatest baseball player, Babe Ruth.
   
• The greatest scientist, Albert Einstein.
   
• The greatest artist, Michelangelo.
   
• The greatest military conqueror, Alexander the Great.
   
• The greatest military conqueror under 5-feet tall: Napoleon Bonaparte.
   
• The greatest motion picture talent, Charlie Chaplin.
   
• The greatest humor writer, Dave Barry.
   
• The greatest rags-to-riches success story in history, Oprah Winfrey.
   
• The second greatest rags-to-riches success story in history, Barack Obama.
   
• The greatest psycho, Albert DeSalvo (the Boston Strangler).
   
• The greatest film psycho, Anthony Perkins.
   
• The greatest sex symbol, Ben Franklin. No, wait. I mean Marilyn Monroe. (Ben was also a lefty, but I don’t think he posed for any cheesecake shots in Poor Richard’s Almanac.)
   
• The greatest electric guitarist, Jimi Hendrix.
   
• The greatest all-around creative genius (and a pretty fair electric guitarist himself), Leonardo DaVinci.

And just look at this list of all-time great, left-handed comedy talent: W.C. Fields, Jerry Seinfeld, Don Rickles, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Burnett, Harpo Marx, Tim Allen, Whoopie Goldberg, Danny Kaye, and Richard Pryor.

There’s no doubt about it, we lefties are awesome. Now all we have to do is assemble some left-handed scientific geniuses to invent a quick drying gel pen.