The Princess Bride is a classic movie. I love when Westley and Inigo are locked in a duel. Inigo confidently tells Westley that he is not left-handed, switches the sword to his right hand, and then expects to easily win. To which Westley replies, “There’s something I ought to tell you. I’m not left-handed either.” He goes on to defeat Inigo in the duel. After spending the day using only my left hand, I can confidently say that I, also, am not left-handed.

My task for the day has been to use only my left hand. I have had my right hand in my pocket all day so that I would remember not to use it. Just a note – I am typing this with only my left hand, so it might be a bit shorter than usual.

Most of the day was just a little bit inconvenient. Brushing my teeth left-handed was terribly awkward. Shaving left-handed was terrifying but uneventful. Getting dressed took much longer than usual. I couldn’t carry very much at all. I had to ask Ann to tie my shoes for me at one point. And my sermon notes from church looked like they were written by a preschooler (try writing with your wrong hand without using your good hand to hold the paper).

There was one thing that was totally impossible for me to do. Ann and I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 this afternoon and we waited in line for snacks. Ann ordered the popcorn kid’s meal and I got a medium drink. Just before it was time to pay, Ann left to go to the bathroom. I paid, which was not all that easy as I had to get a wallet out of my right pocket with my left hand, then get the debit card out, swipe it, key in my pin, then get it back into the wallet one-handed. Then I realized that was the easy part. I was standing there with my medium drink and Ann’s kid’s meal box and only one hand to carry all of it. No way I could think of to do it, so I just had to move both over, one at a time, a couple feet from where I ordered. I got a couple of weird looks as I did all of this awkwardly one-handed with my right hand stuffed into my pocket. It seemed like forever before Ann finally returned, but she finally did.

The takeaway for the day – everything was harder left-handed but very little was impossible. And I am sure that eventually, I could have figured out (or learned) how to do those as well. But everything took longer and required planning. I guess that’s probably something I should work on all the time. I’d probably get a lot more done if I was as intentional about how I did things right handed as I was today.