I've never said this before, or even thought it, but I suddenly wish I were right-handed. I'm freelancing at an office with a Galaga machine that lets employees blow off wild and creative steam with unlimited no-coin-required games. I've always been awful at Galaga and I'm trying to improve my game to make girls like me, but my left-handedness is emerging as a potentially insurmountable obstacle.

The way Galaga machines are set up displays and obvious favortism toward right-handed people. By placing the fire button – without a doubt the game's most essential action – on the right side, it leaves people like me on the sidelines. I CANNOT TAP THAT FAST WITH MY WEAK HAND. GALAGA, WHY DO YOU REQUIRE SO MUCH OF ME?

And I can't do that weird hand cross-over that was popular in arcades 23 years ago, because I can't think of a single girl I'll ever like enough to willfully look like that much of an asshole in public.

Meanwhile, I've been watching my partner – one of my top five favorite art directors in my freelance history – flick the fire button so quickly her hand looks like a hummingbird. She was producing alien kamikaze pilots of breeds I've never before seen. It was weird to find a warm feeling of admiration swell inside me when spaceships from Galaxian started raining down on her.