Woman who can’t tell ‘right’ from ‘left’ finds handy way to remember

Tat’s useful.

An Australian woman who struggles to distinguish “right” from “left” got the directions tattooed on her hands to ensure that she never confuses them again. A photo of her handy tattoos racked up over almost 4,000 likes in less than 24 hours.

“It started as a joke but it’s actually super useful and I don’t look dumb making an L with my fingers to figure it out,” D’Kodia Laine told the Daily Mail of turning her hands into instruction manuals.

Since she was little, the 23-year-old Canberra native had reportedly been teased over her inability to differentiate “left” and “right.” However, things came to a head during a scavenger hunt with friends last year, when Laine instructed the driver to take “a few wrong turns.”

A quick-thinking friend gave her a hand a la the movie “Memento” by writing “R” and “L” on her respective mitts, prompting the communications student to joke that she should get the directions inked on. After mulling it over, she indeed decided to make the solution permanent.

Laine got her instructional body art done by Sydney’s Lauren Winzer, who posted photos of the tattoos on Instagram on Feb. 3. She wrote: “Not only are tattoos cute, but they can also be super functional !!! good luck with all ur future directions happy to help guide you @dkodia.”

Laine’s friends had amusing reactions to seeing her new ink for the first time.

“‘I just got a lot of laughing back and [messages like], ‘oh you were being serious!’” she said. Laine added that her boyfriend is “grateful that now he won’t get secondhand embarrassment” from her directional dyslexia.

Social media lauded her “permanent markers.”

“I love this! I definitely need to do this myself” commented one.

Others tagged their direction-challenged friends in the comments.

“Could come in handy,” quipped one wit.

“Based on the comments on the photo on Lauren’s page it seems to be a tattoo a lot of people are saying they need so I don’t feel too dumb now,” Ms. Laine said. 

And in the realm of irreversible ink jobs, hers is a lot more understandable (not to mention, safe) than this gentleman’s Avatar-evoking full body tat or this grotesque eyeball tattoo that left a woman unable to see.