A good old fashion rant.

Right-handers of the world, there are more of you. We left-handers understand this and deal accordingly. We frequently conform to your world (e.g. scissors, computer mice, handshakes, et al). Again, we understand this and deal accordingly. But, there is one injustice I will not stand for, and that is the plight of desk selection for every left-handed person in a lecture hall or classroom.

I frequently enter my classrooms and quickly scan the landscape of backwards-hat-laden, headphone-plugged-in drones and tight tee-shirt-wearing, thong-revealing clones to find the only left-handed desks in the whole room already occupied.

My thought process often begins by giving these folks the benefit of the doubt, considering that maybe, just maybe, they use these left-handed desks for their properly created and intended purposes. I mean, I am not out to criticize my fellow left-handed brethren and sistren. Plus, I consider myself rather levelheaded and polite.

So I let it go, and take my right-handed desk elsewhere, pushing past swiveled legs with my swollen backpack, apologizing for making them shift and lift their desk out of my way.

A few minutes into lecture, I frequently find myself disappointed with my own good graces toward said left-handed-desk-hoarding students. The majority of them end up being right-handed, many using these seats to sit near their equally right-handed chums.

As I sit there, taking notes in a scrawled and crooked position (somewhat resembling a Cirque du Soleil contortionist), my back twists and tightens. And with each uncomfortable maneuver to alleviate the muscle spasm brewing in my lower lumbar region, I am reminded that I could be sitting in a desk better suited for me.

This is an unfair analogy; BUT, if it helps you remember, consider left-handed desks to be the “handicapped parking” of the classroom seating They aren’t for you. Please don’t use them. And, I’ll probably try to institute some ticketing and fine process on you if I catch you sitting there illegally.

They aren’t for your convenience, for you to sit near friends, or because you don’t want to be the person to push past all those people who awkwardly take all the seats near the aisle (another huge annoyance I might address later).

We lefties only get a handful of these seats (12 at most in the biggest chemistry lecture hall on campus, in my experience), and it means the world to us if you would so graciously MOVE.