Tuesday night, after a quiet afternoon and evening, while the TV was running, more for background noise than anything, I had a need to cut something and grabbed scissors from the drawer in the end table between my wife’s and my reading chairs. Except only my wife’s chair is there at present. I was sitting in it. My chair hasn’t yet been returned to its normal spot after it was moved for two months while water damage remediation was going on in our house. I don’t know if the chair would know how to act if it was moved back now.

The chair doesn’t actually enter into the story. I just thought of it. Anyhow, I took the scissors out of the drawer and prepared to do some snipping. But I remembered the problem with scissors. Ninety-five percent of you won’t know what the problem is. Not that they are sharp and moderately dangerous, but that they are made for a right-handed person.

Two features of the scissors make them righthanded. One is the holes the fingers go in. Most scissors have holes that fit fingers on the right hand but not on the left. A right-handed person doesn’t know this, but a lefthander does from years of having the fingers of the left hand in those uncomfortable scissor holes. Cut long enough and the fingers hurt.

Some scissors have “neutral” holes that are the same left-handed or right-handed, but they are rarer. But even with neutral holes, you still have the problem that the sharp edges are made for a right-handed person. The left-hander, after putting his fingers in the backwards holes, learns that you have to squeeze the two part of the scissors in a way that is unnatural in order for them to cut.

Yet you learn to do it. All through grade school you cut things with the handicap of backwards scissors. At some point you learn that they make left-handed scissors. Maybe you find a pair somewhere and try them. While the holes may feel more natural, you find you can’t cut with them even though the sharp edges are, in theory, just right for you. So you keep using the right-handed scissors uncomfortably and somehow get the job done.

But what happens if you ever have to cut something using your right hand? What would make you do this? Maybe if you’re wearing a jacket with buttoned sleeves and see a thread hanging on the left sleeve. You grab the scissors on your desk, snag the errant thread, and cut. Except you can’t cut with your right hand. Though the scissors are made for that hand, you’re too used to squeezing them the other way. You can’t cut even a simple little thread without taking the jacket off and cutting with your left hand.

I suppose that is all incidental to the main story. On Tuesday, the day I reached for the scissors, I intended to use them right-handed. Why? Not for a hanging thread, but to cut three bands off my left wrist. Why did I have them there? Because Tuesday morning, I had a heart catheterization as an outpatient. You see, I have a genetically abnormal aortic valve. I’ve lived with it just fine for 72 years. But now my cardiologist believes it’s time to replace it. So last month I had a trans-esophageal-echocardiogram, and Tuesday the heart cath. The purpose of the tests was to see if everything needed is present to do the valve swap-out in the least invasive way, through the groin.

The way things are these days, I had the results almost immediately through the patient portal. While they are not in English (but rather in medicalese), they are supplemented by what the cardiologist told Lynda. He feels that it’s not very clear that they can go through the groin and I will need open heart surgery. But I must undergo more appointments and see other doctors before we make that decision. And however it’s done, it likely won’t happen until July.

But back to the scissors. I could not get the bands cut with my right hand. I tried and tried, but those scissors sharp sides just wouldn’t cut the bands. I twisted them first one way then the other. No dice, no cut. Should I call my wife and have her do it? I decided to keep trying it. On about the tenth try, I was able to stretch the band to the right place and squeeze the scissors just right, and the first band snapped.

The other two bands cut a little easier. For maybe the first time in my life I successfully used scissors in my right hand. A small life triumph.

Now, as to the heart surgery, I don’t expect it to be easier than cutting three flimsy bands right-handed. But if it must be open-heart, then so be it. I just hope the heart surgeon has the right scissors for whatever handed he/she is.

Now, I have a thread hanging from my left sleeve that needs to be separated from its source.