Odd question of the day...

[rivka]

...from the checkout clerk in the J.C. Penney's men's department. She was a perfectly nice and attentive salesperson - for example, she went to considerable effort to refold a shirt I was buying so it would look nice in the box. But when I went to sign the credit slip she asked me,

"Oh, were you born left-handed, or did you have to switch?"

*bemused headshake*

I am so honestly puzzled. What on earth could she possibly think had happened to my right arm? What kind of catastrophic illness or injury happens after a person has learned to write, and leaves her with one arm half as long as the other and a small but well-formed hand? I mean, if I'd had an amputation it would be an obvious (if overly personal) question, but my right hand is clearly present and, well, hand-shaped.

Did I have to switch? Yeah, after the horrible accident in the lab with the shrinking ray. It's so kind of you to bring back the memory.

(No, it's not what I said. I didn't feel like going into my frosty how-dare-you mode either, so I just said something noncommittal. But honestly...)

Comments

Heh.

[peaberry.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks ago as I was leaving an auditorium, I went past a lady who looked at me and said "I like your hairdo. You're lucky." (I have more hair now than I do in this pic, and left the cat at home. *g*)

I just smiled and said thanks and shuffled on out; and spent the next little while wondering what the heck conclusions she had jumped to. Maybe she was psychic and hadn't jumped to *any* but in that case I would have hoped she'd be a little more reassuring and less weird.

Well, I hope you are happy now...

[saoba.livejournal.com]

... I have to go try to get Mikhail's heart re-started with a Heimlich manuever... he is standing behind me wheezing 'shrinking ray' over and over in varying tones of horrified hysterical amusement.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Oh, but see, I think I know what she was asking. She meant to ask something like: "If you had been born with a quote-unquote-normal right hand, would you have been right-handed? Or did you luck out and are you hardwired to be left-handed anyway, so you didn't have to learn different handedness?" Or something like that.

Now, *why* a stranger would want to know something like that, I have no idea. But it seems like that's the sort of thing she was after.

-J

p.s. Oh, and ... screw secrecy. Tired of this. therealjae is here to stay; go ahead and add me to your friends list if you want. ;-)

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Now see, that is actually a reasonable question. Nearly impossible to answer, but reasonable.[1] It's the concept of "switching" that makes me shake my head. I really do think that, from looking at me, it ought to be clear that I've never had anything to switch from.

Why would a stranger want to know that? God only knows. It's been my unhappy experience that a lot of people feel that they have a right to have their curiosity indulged by anyone with a variant body.

Oh, and welcome out of anonymity!


[1] My brother is left-handed, but my sisters are right-handed. I'm also left eye dominant, but I've had surgery to correct a wandering right eye, so that might have more to do with eye muscles than with neural pathways. I reversed some of my letters when I was learning how to write, but lots of kids do that. All in all, given the neural plasticity of infants, the fact that I've used my left hand for most things since birth probably means I would now be neurally indistinguishable from left-handers even if I had been destined for right-handedness in utero. But who can say? Let's hope I never have the kind of brain injury that would help us find out.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I really do think that, from looking at me, it ought to be clear that I've never had anything to switch from.

Your innate righthandedness, of course. :-)

-J

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Re: why a stranger would want to know whether you 'switched' or not.

I think what you ran into was "holy shit, your right arm is much shorter than your left, and I'm about to say something, so I'd better say something that's merely 'stupid because I'm dumbfounded and realizing this', rather than 'stupid, rude, and just plain mean'."

If you've read the hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, it's this tendency that Ford Prefect was commenting on when noting how humans kept saying obvious things like "you're very tall" and "so this is it, we're going to die".

It's not that humans keep talking to prevent their brains from working... it's that they keep talking because their brains *ARE* working... but not hard enough.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Maybe she thought that at one time your arms had been the same size? That's not completely unreasonable, though it seems like a strange thing to guess. Then you might have learned to write right-handed...

(Okay, so I'm pretty much at a loss too.)

Er.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Small confession? It actually took me a while to *notice* your differently-armed status. And I still pretty much forget, which might explain my persistent proffering of a right hand for shaking. (Which is always at a point where I don't get a chance to ask whether that bugs you until I'm gone. Um. Does that bug you?)

Oddly, in more mundane company, I keep forgetting which hand to shake with, often offering a leftie, since I always seem to be holding something in the other hand.

But more to the point, I suspect a lot of people aren't very observant, up to the edge of having to make conversation. And then they just grab whatever is right under their noses. In this case, perhaps, your left hand?

But. Well. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because why would you be *forced* to change *to* the left hand, if the clerk didn't notice that your right was less suited to the task before you? Oh, fa.

Well, then. How 'bout them Broncos?

Re: Er.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Small confession? It actually took me a while to *notice* your differently-armed status.

You are not alone in this. Some people have seen me regularly for months before noticing.

And I still pretty much forget, which might explain my persistent proffering of a right hand for shaking. (Which is always at a point where I don't get a chance to ask whether that bugs you until I'm gone. Um. Does that bug you?)

Nope. I prefer to shake hands with my right hand. Or hug, which eliminates the question entirely.