Righty-tighty, lefty loosey. The rule makes no sense to me. My husband Harold put me in charge of turning the water valve on and off during a recent attempted spigot repair, and the poor man finally had to put down his pliers and do it himself.
I’m not what you’d call a home maintenance whiz kid. If anything, I’m home repair impaired. I’m also directionally challenged. Even if we stay in the same hotel for 10 days, I still exit the wrong way out of the elevator. Besides, when you think about it, the righty-tighty rule is flawed, because when your thumb is going left, some of your fingers are going right and vice versa.
Tightening or loosening, eventually your hand goes in all right/left directions. It’s a circle, folks.
Now, clockwise and counterclockwise I get. At the gym, the track traffic is directed clockwise on Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Sunday and counterclockwise Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, so before I start my walk I have to stop and process (a) what day it is and (b) which way the clock runs. It’s a mini-workout for my brain before my feet are even set in motion.
I’m sure you noticed that the counterclockwise group got shorted a day, but that didn’t surprise me. We “counter” types are used to such blatant discrimination. This is the way we do things. This is the way things are done. I’m not sure who “we” are, but apparently they wield a lot of power.
Sometimes, however, counter is the only way to go. Sometimes “we” are wrong, or sometimes “we” are just demonstrating an appalling lack of creativity. Not that I feel compelled to do a Wednesday counter against the clockwise masses on the track, although I have accidentally messed up on occasion (see elevator tendencies above), but in general, just because everyone is going one way does not make it right…or left. And here we go again…
Left and right make a big difference when it comes to shoes or gloves. My left contact is much stronger than my right one (perhaps adding to my elevator issues), and when I mistakenly put my left earphone in my right ear…well, actually nothing happens there, but they must be labeled for a reason.
We make a big deal about whether you’re on the left or right side politically, but to me, both sides have their points. The trick is to determine which things you want to tighten up and which you want to let loose.
Globally, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but both produce beautiful colors in the transition. North and south? I’m not going to touch that one except to say that if you go north or south far enough, you run into penguins or polar bears and both of those animals are great.
It’s a new year and I plan to go boldly in some new directions, righty-tighty in some and lefty-loosey in others, but first of all, I have to call someone to come fix my backyard water spigot. It’s the one on the left side of the house if you’re facing the street, on the right if you’re looking toward the back fence. It’s east of the birdfeeder and west of the rhododendron, south of the bathroom window and north of …well, it’s not north of much, but I think if the guy will just keep walking around the house, he’ll run across it. No matter if he comes on Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Sunday or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, he can walk clockwise or counterclockwise. I’m not going to say a word. It’s a whole new year.
