Taken from Reddit.com... I thought it might be fun to read your answers...
Help settle a very, very silly argument with my wife: what is the left side of a bed?
Take a look at this photo: In your opinion, what side of the bed are the shoes on? The left or right?
Her argument: The left. I'm going to do my best to summarise her position but if anyone agrees with her, please feel free to bolster her case. Her view is that the sides of a bed should be viewed from the foot of the bed. If you told her to move to the left side of the bed she would move to where the shoes are. She would say that a person who sleeps on that side "sleeps on the left". In her favour, I believe that many hotel workers refer to the shoe side as the left side of the bed. I would argue that is informed by their relationship to the bed as a wholly external rather than functional one.
My argument: The right. Like a car, a bed really only has one functional purpose (well, more than one but you follow my meaning) and therefore the perspective of the bed's occupant is paramount in determining what is the left and right. In America there would be no argument over whether a driver sits on the left or right side of a car. The perspective of the external viewer standing at the hood is irrelevant. Imagine a single bed for a moment. Under my wife's paradigm we could have the absurd situation where, when lying on my back, the left side of my body is on the right side of the bed. Furthermore, this would not even be up for debate if we were considering a sofa. She counters that, as beds are normally against a wall while sofas are more able to be "freestanding", this alters the consideration.
This might be the dumbest thing you've ever read but friends we've asked have come down about 50/50 on the matter. So, help us out, what is the left side of the bed?
edit #1: tally so far; shoes are on the: LEFT SIDE OF THE BED = 151; RIGHT SIDE OF THE BED = 190; OTHER (left or right depends on the viewer's location) = 76; Whatever your wife says = 25
edit #2: because I'm sorta getting my butt kicked here I'm pulling up this point from the comments - in the case of this photo would you say the woman is sitting on the left side or right side of the sofa? If the sofa was also a fold-out bed, would transitioning it into a bed flip what constitutes the right and left sides?
edit #3: "Right side of the bed" has pulled marginally ahead but "whatever your wife says" is coming up strong on the inside.
edit #4: With a sample size of nearly 450 people the results currently stand at -
34% say the shoes are on the LEFT side of the bed
43% say the shoes are on the RIGHT side of the bed
17% say the location of the shoes are dependent on the viewer's perspective
6% say I should just shut up and agree with my wife
A reasonable lead for rightsiders but certainly not enough to gloat about, unfortunately.
Also, for those concerned about the state of our marriage: we have these sort of dumb, good-spirited debates all the time. If we were to get divorced it would be over something far more serious like whether it is better to put clean clothes on a dirty body or dirty clothes on a clean body.