Right brain/left brain — each, reportedly, has certain delegated functions, the right brain being the creative side and the left, more analytical. But the bottom line is that I have an unusual relationship with my left hand.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I started calling other people Fred — especially if they were in surrounding vehicles, swerving and the like. “Yo, Fred! Your lane is over there!” “Watch it, Fred! You’re gonna be buying a Subaru!” Somehow, when my first grandson was born, he became Fred (not his real name). He actually answered to “Fred” for the first five or six years of his life. “Fred, get down outta that tree!” “Yo, Fred! Time for supper!”
[A bit of a leap here…but my mind does not operate in linear fashion; it spirals and loops, so I am fast-forwarding to a seemingly-not-related-but-absolutely-related part of the story.] For awhile we had my human son and his wife living with us while they were building a house. There were three dogs in the home at the time — Coco and Rocky (female and male boxers) and Bruce (half St. Bernard/half golden lab). Bruce looked a lot like Dreyfus, the dog on an old Richard Mulligan sitcom “Empty Nest” with occasional cameos on “The Golden Girls”. There are Bruce stories to come in the future. However, looping back to the Phredd story, Coco was a bit brazen and managed to mingle with both Rocky and Bruce, hence producing a litter of five puppies — two boxers and three box-nards. We didn’t want to get too attached by giving them names, so I decided we’d call them all Fred as a group. If we summoned “Fred”, they’d all come running. It worked. But….eventually they became Big Big Fred, Little Big Fred, Big Little Fred, Little Little Fred, and Winnifred –individuals, after all.
So…fast-forward once again. My friends who coached the high school Academic Challenge team would take their students to a sports bar that featured NTN Trivia (now Buzztime) to practice a weekly Showdown game as it allowed them to answer questions on a variety of topics as well as to become proficient with speedy responses. Since I would hang out with this rowdy group, I became addicted to trivia. My screen name was based on my own name (not Fred). But…ultimately, when that sports bar closed their doors, we all scattered to other venues for trivia. The closest host for me was in another town as that’s where I was working. Being addicted, it didn’t matter whether anyone went with me or not, and at times I would be the lone trivia player at that location. Part of the joy is competing, not just with the online competitors, but with other patrons of the establishment…..so on quieter nights with nobody else playing, I began to use a second playbox — screen name Phredd. Phredd is my left hand. Phredd actually has his own log-in, avatar, and Players Plus status. Go Phredd!! The weird thing (okay, one of the weird things) is that Phredd seems to know more than I do. I am convinced that he travels via astral projection while I am sleeping and accumulates experiences and knowledge to which I was never exposed. It’s rather amazing, actually. A couple of the guys where we play now have objected to Phredd’s playing and feeling it is somehow unfair. In actuality, it puts me at a disadvantage because neither Phredd nor I always get the same answers right as we often answer differently (although I really should learn to trust Phredd as he seems to get out more). There is a Category round in which competitors vote between two topics, but Phredd often chooses the other topic, so we don’t really even band together to outvote anyone. Phredd is indeed his own person. And besides, I can’t really leave Phredd at home. And it would be impolite of me to play in front of him since he is now addicted, too. It is kind of freaky, though, to be bested at trivia by my own left hand.