As the title of this blog states, Konnie and I are mirror
twins. And as we’ve already mentioned in our posts, mirror twins are mirror
opposites.
The foremost sign of mirror twins is one is a lefty and the
other a righty. Well, I’m the righty. And a while back, Konnie and I got on the
subject of can openers.
She doesn’t have a ton of counter space, and I thought it
weird that she had an electric one (and to be honest, I don’t have an electric
one because my husband never liked the possibility of not being able to open a
can in a power outage). She insisted that it’s hard to open a can using a can
opener designed for the predominately right-handed world.
At the time of the conversation, I had to take her word for
it, but well, the last couple of weeks, I’m beginning to see her point. You see
my right thumb has developed arthritis and it’s been bugging me, a lot. And she
was not kidding when she said its dang near impossible for a lefty to work a
can opener build for a righty.
I’m seriously
considering one of those newfangled battery powered can openers, which won’t
take up my limited counter space.
I’m also thinking about how I might write a story where a
character has to, at least temporarily, use the hand he isn’t used to using,
for whatever reason, though I still don’t have a reason, or a character for
that matter.
And as I’m writing this, I recall a scene from MASH, which
Alan Alda did with his father. They were both playing doctors, and their
bickering, a lot, they don’t like each other at all, then both of them are injured
(one his left arm and other his right arm), and well they need to operate on an
injured soldier to save his life, even though they are hurt. They end up having
to do the surgery together because neither of them had the use of both hands.
That was quite a scene for me to remember it decades later.
Have any of you ever written in scene or story plot where a
character has to deal with not being able to use a limb or maybe even one of their senses, at least temporarily?
Personally, I can think of a character I have with a broken
leg, but that’s about the worst I’ve done. I really should try this idea.
Anyone with me?
Happy writing everyone! J
Bonnie, this is a great idea. :) I can't think of any out of the box way to use it yet, but I'm going to think about it. I know it's done a lot with medical stories or people who have had medical tragedies. Maybe, you could write about a character having like a phantom limb type problem?
ReplyDeleteI'll consider it.
ReplyDeleteYour niece wrote one where the main character lost a major sense and had to learn how to function without it.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of reasons why someone would have to learn to use their other hand or do without a sense they've now lost. Look at our family history. Grandma was right handed. Look at the pictures. Exactly which arm did they have to amputate?
You have point.
ReplyDeleteHi, Bonnie, I also remember that episode of M*A*S*H, which was one of the funniest series EVER!!!
ReplyDeleteAs far as stories are concerned, I 'almost' got a COMPLETE short story as soon as I read your blog. It's based on a Boy Scout summer camp scenario, and one of the "newbies" [First Camp, and liable to be 'put to the test']. He is sent by his Patrol Leader in search of a "left-handed rope spanner". He amazes the WHOLE camp by returning later in the day BEARING said object ... :)
Good for you, Paul. I'd like to read it sometime.
ReplyDelete