Left Is Right, And Right Is Wrong

As the snow starts to fall and the winter brings us some cold and dark dawns in this awful Coronapocalypse, I invite you, dear reader, on a short ramble through my thoughts. Please hold on tight to the handrails provided, as I take you on a winding journey, beginning with a new marriage, past some left-handed kangaroos, and ending with the amazing impact of a 16th century dead horse.

To begin, I was once having a really great time in New York. And then a distant cousin came up to me and asked:

"So? How's it feel now - to be MARRIED?"

I had to admit, that it felt really great. The ceremony had gone very well that afternoon, and my wife's American family were getting along splendidly with my British relatives. The food was great, and with the exception of one physical threat from my bride’s Great Aunt Bertha (see previous article), the day was pretty much the normal mixture of photos, dancing and well-wishers.

And then the cousin asked a very interesting question:

"Do you feel...DIFFERENT?"

This question took me by surprise. It suggested that I should have an answer that stretched beyond the word: “No”. I took a moment to stare at the cousin, searching for an answer that would satisfy the importance shown in his expression. Did marriage suddenly create a profound sense of shifting? Did I now feel very different about the world? Did I look at the universe from a new angle?

"No," I said, with a growing sense of worry that my answer should have been different.

So I searched for my new bride, to find out whether I’d missed something essential. Along the way, I passed various people who all said:

"Hi Dan. Do you feel DIFFERENT..?"

I smiled at them politely, and replied with a vague sound that would hopefully be understood to mean whatever answer it was that they were after.

And then finally, I found my wife, hidden behind a pack of Aunties.

"Do you mind if I steal her away for a moment?" I asked.

And leaving the Aunties to squeal with delight at the overwhelming cuteness of everything, I was finally given a moment to ask my new wife, whether being my new wife meant that she now felt totally different.

She thought for a moment, before looking at me sweetly and saying:

"No. Not really."

I do like a story with a happy ending.

Since that day, I have tried hard to be a good husband, and in return as our family grew, my bride has taken care of us all. While I might serve pizza for dinner every night, she steers us all in a healthier direction by offering balanced meals, with small and appealing bowls of neatly cut carrots and peppers. As our family's primary health motivator, my wife also makes sure that we exercise properly, and at any given moment she will spontaneously ask the room: "Who's up for a walk?"

Actually, this last part is not completely selfless, since exercise allows her to work on a rival relationship she has with a Fitbit.

For those still living in the last century, a Fitbit is a device that hugs my wife's' wrist all day, counting every action she takes. Then suddenly on a staircase or stepping out of the car, the machine will let out a congratulatory buzz, and my wife will announce:

"Ohh! I just walked ten thousand steps today!"

To which I, as supporting husband, applaud her, remaining strangely jealous of a piece of machinery that knows more details about her than I do.

My wife lost her Fitbit for a week, and although we still went for healthy walks, the excitement was limited by not knowing how many calories this amounted to. The loss of this machine was very bad news, which made me more heroic when I found it last night as I was folding the laundry. Apparently, it survived a journey through a hot wash and a tumble in the dryer.

I am curious to know whether the device now thinks my wife just swam to the Bahamas.

As she reunited it lovingly back on her wrist, it made me realize that, ever since a phone became my favorite possession, it's been years since I've worn a watch. In my teens, I used to love all the "science-fictiony" functions of digital watches, and I was especially fond of my "Omni Innovator" with its large LCD screen and Space Shuttle themed game.

I am right-handed, and while most people wear their wristwatch on their non-dominant hand, for some reason I always kept mine on my right. It just seemed more comfortable (even though it meant pressing the Space Shuttle game buttons with my left). This thought led me on a journey, where I wondered whether other animals can also be left and right "pawed".

The quick answer is: yes.

Initially it was thought that left or right handedness was unique to our species. Only humans conduct fine motor tasks, like writing or playing LCD Space Shuttle games, but a study compared 119 different animal species, and found that 51% clearly preferred one limb over the other. Great apes show similar handedness patterns to humans, but in cats and dogs the study revealed that "left-pawedness" is about three to four times as likely to occur. Dogs tend to wag their tails to the right when they see something they want, and to the left when confronted with something they would rather avoid. This suggests that, just like in people, the right and left halves of their brains control separate emotions.

Even turtles show “flipperedness” in a preference to use their hindlimb to cover eggs in the sand, and crabs display "clawedness" to crack open shells. Octopuses have a choice of eight limbs, but they display a clear preference for one specific arm.

Observations of wild marsupials revealed that red kangaroos are almost exclusively lefties. Polar bears are rumored to be left-handed, but this is disputed.

Horses tend to prefer circling in one direction rather than the other, which is useful to determine which racehorses will run better on left or right curving tracks.

Horses - or rather, one particular horse - also determined why the British standardized driving on the left.

It was already known that the Romans drove on the left. This allowed (mostly right-handed) horsemen to hold the reins with their left hand, keeping the right hand free to wave to a passing friend, or ready to draw a sword for an encounter with an enemy.

This seemed to work well for a few hundred years, but by the 16th century, London became seriously congested. The lack of traffic rules caused a disorganized free for all that eventually came to a head in 1722, when a horse drawing a wagon dropped dead in the middle of London Bridge.

At that time, London Bridge was built up like a regular street, and packed on both sides with homes and stores. The incursion of these buildings made the road only 12 feet wide in places, causing an unruly bottleneck of horses, coaches and wagons carrying the 75,000 people who crossed into London every day. When the horse suddenly dropped in the middle of the street, nobody could move in either direction, so the Lord Mayor decreed that all traffic going into the City stay on the upstream side of the Thames River, and those leaving the City keep to the downstream side.

You are now leaving my train of thought. Be sure to visit the gift store on your way out, and for the sake of others, please keep to the left as you exit.