These Are the Real-World Versions of Ned Flanders’ Leftorium
In the 1991 Simpsons episode “When Flanders Failed,” Ned Flanders opened his famous Leftorium, a mall store that catered to the left-handed citizens of Springfield. The business had a rocky opening, but Flanders kept the Leftorium open all the way until Season 29’s “Left Behind” in 2018, when he shuttered it for good due to online competition.
Which, honestly, is kinda where the real-world market for left-handed goods is right now. Because hilariously, there are a number of online stores that cater to the southpaws among us. They include…
The Left Handed Store
The Left Handed Store has left-handed items like kitchen utensils and school supplies, but they also have a ton of attire celebrating left-handedness as well as a ton of merchandise labeled “southpaw.” In fact, they have a whole history of the term on their site.
Hidari
Hidari is a Japanese company specializing in typical left-handed items (e.g., the aforementioned kitchen utensils and art products), but in a much more high-end way. Hey, lefties can be fancy too.
Lefty’s: The Left Hand Store
Lefty’s is the online store for Lefty’s San Francisco: The Left Hand Store, located on Pier 39 in San Francisco. It originally opened in 1978, then closed a decade later. In 2008, it reopened in the same location and has been going strong ever since. While the first two sites above can be called online versions of Flanders’ Leftorium, since Lefty’s predated the Leftorium by more than a decade, it’s probably fair to say Flanders was following in Lefty’s footsteps, not the other way around.
Anything Left Handed
Even more impressive than Lefty’s is Anything Left Handed in the U.K. They began selling left-handed items in 1967 as the world’s first ever left-handed store, and they’re still in business more than a half-century later.
It makes you wonder though: If this store can last nearly 60 years, what exactly was Flanders doing wrong? Maybe he just wasn’t neighborly enough, after all.