MOUNTAINBIKING LEFTY

Damaging one’s dominant side has a few drawbacks. My shoulder is fully separated, Type III, and yet to be repaired. I’m in a sling, trying to be careful on the injury, occasionally throbbing, and awaiting the surgery.

I’ve only nicked myself once while left-handedly shaving and have instructed Gwen to keep a bucket handy for when I eventually slice open the jugular. I’ll need to preserve all that bodily gold, since I don’t know my blood type (who knows if I’d actually match anyone). We can put it into Ziploc’s and then ice it down for the drive to the ER.

And then there’s the left-handed brushing of teeth. Remember when you were rushing, not paying attention, and nearly drove the end of that toothbrush through your palate? Or maybe you just scraped off part of the gum line along some of your upper incisors? I’ve done that a few times. It haunts me. Left handedly, I’ve been brushing oh-so-verrrry carefully; especially when the lovely Vicodin has control.

There is also that other personal task. Well, you know. You think you have to be careful while left-handedly brushing your teeth? Uh-huh. I figure practice makes perfect on all these little human endeavors.

Using the mouse on the reverse side is challenging too. My left hand constantly clicks the wrong side. I SELECT instead of dropping down. It’s maddening. Yesterday I must have selected 20 different things for copying in a cross-application transfer of data. Placing the cursor in the target, I then punched the wrong button and thus lost all that was intended for the paste. Over and over it went, like I was being controlled by the wayward hand of Dr. Strangelove.

Fortunately, driving hasn’t been too difficult. A left-hand steer-er, the only challenges involve the right-side ignition and the gear-shift engagement. Today, as I was leaning quite close to the steering wheel, while trying to get leverage on the key with my enfeebled right side, a group of high school kids on the sidewalk eyed me with suspicion. They probably wondered if there was some new form of steering-wheel-hugging fetish going round. I smiled meekly back at them. Nevertheless, once the car is started, the driving part is easier. I’ve not run over anyone yet: pedestrians see the old guy bearing down, wearing the sling, and they run.

Oh, here’s one: another “moment” (if my delicate male ego hasn’t suffered enough). Tuesday night I awoke on the living room couch at 4 AM, having succumbed to a little wine, the Advil, the Vicodin, and the prolonged wait for a daughter to finish some late night computer project in the far end of the house. By then everyone was long asleep and the lights were out, so I stumbled onto my feet and groggily plodded to the bedroom in the blackness as quietly as I could. All was good until I stepped into the master bedroom and onto our dear sleeping-dog, Rose. She was invisible in the dark.

As the full weight of my supporting right foot came to bear, Rose’s survival instinct kicked in. She jumped, extricating herself to my rear. Thus, my dog-surfboard slipped away to the back, and I was momentarily transformed from a hang-10 surfer dude (who wasn’t hanging there for long), to a pearling hack, plunging forward into the imaginary surf: that surf would be the floor. Gwen awoke from what she thought was some horrible dream about a screeching banshee. But it wasn’t that. It was just me, lying in a heap, face down in the carpet, remembering faintly how to breathe, grasping at the separated shoulder that had just slammed into another hard surface.