From Grocery Carts to Golf and Beyond

My lucky tee shot

My friend, Cheri, once told me:

"There are two kinds of people in the world - those who put their shopping carts back (in the designated corral), and those who don't."

It is impossible, since she bestowed her wisdom upon me, not to think about her every time I finish loading packages into the back of my car while I scan the parking lot for those who return their buggies and those who do not.  I also realize that there are no parking lot tzars taking down names and license plate numbers of individuals who look both ways, not to cross the street, but rather, to confirm that others do not observe their shirking of the strongly encouraged duty of proper basket placement at the conclusion of their shopping expeditions.

Prior to her gifting me with this morsel of mindfulness, I never considered dividing people's characters by their basket choices - randomly abandoned or responsibly returned. 

The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Cheri was spot on!  

What do we do when people are watching, as opposed to when they aren't?

If I apply her premise of duo morality to other situations, I realize that I have utilized this line of reasoning with my children via my parting words to them as adolescence descended upon them and busy social lives began to draw them further away from my watchful eye.

When they were teenagers, before my kids left the house, I would often say:

"I'm on your shoulder!"

I was reminding them that I would be "on their shoulder", not just for that evening, but for as long as they required my guidance - that, wherever they went, whatever they did, their actions and decisions should be the same, regardless of whether I was with them or not. 

It is an interesting conundrum to consider.

Take golf, for instance.  I deem myself a "functional" player - handicap likely as high as I am tall in inches. Every once in a while, I play respectfully inconsistently.

My usual golf partner was out of town, so I decided to "walk 9" by myself.  Though we do not keep track of each others' strokes, it is fairly easy to tell if either of us were to shave a "point" (as I have been known to call them) off of our scores.  In short - there is another person present to whom we are accountable for the numeral we write down in that tiny box on our card. 

Number 7 is a par 3 and I lucked into hitting a beautiful tee shot, right onto the green - perhaps 6 1/2 feet from the flag.  My first putt (tentative, at best) advanced me to within about 2 feet of my target.  

"I can do this!", I confirmed aloud. 

Lining myself up to "make the putt", which would yield me an often-elusive par, I tapped the ball in the direction of the hole, excitedly watching its almost certain path towards the bullseye.  And then......

It stopped.

2 inches from the hole.

The first thing I did was look around to see if anyone had observed this 3rd shot, then told myself:

"I can write down a 3 in the tiny box because it should have been a par, save for those 2 inches that existed between my ball and the hole..."

Staring down at the little yellow sphere that had missed its mark, my putter made contact, dropping the ball into its rightful place - where it should have gone a moment before, instead of coming to rest just shy of the hole.

Still surveying the area for witnesses to my "near par", I removed the score card and stubby pencil from my push cart.  Poised to record my strokes, the temptation was great to award myself the 3 I felt I deserved.  After all, no one would know but me.  And the ball really should have trickled in following that second putt.

I wanted that par so badly, but knew that I hadn't earned it.  Whatever I recorded would be between the card and me.  No one would be the wiser should I casually jot down a 3. 

In my zealous quest to mentally eliminate that fourth stroke, I nearly became a "shopping cart non-returner". The reality was that if I gave myself the par (since nobody was there to certify my shots), it would be on paper only, and not reflective of my true score or my character.

I embraced the 4 (in golf terms: "bogie") that I merited, made peace with having missed the putt, then finished the last 2 holes knowing that I had done the right thing - even when no one was watching.

A person's basic nature emerges in a variety of ways, whether we are talking about grocery carts, people "on our shoulders", or golf scores that are between ourselves and the card on which we write them.  At the end of the day, we never know who might bear witness to our actions, inactions, good deeds, or shortcomings.  

Since the day that Cheri, so nonchalantly shared her concept of grocery cart corrals, I contemplate them in a new light.  Do they actually indicate two types of people?  If so, I have a strong sense of the category in which I want to land.  I know who I am at my core, and must be able to face myself in the mirror each day, otherwise, the silence of the person staring back at me would be deafening.

© Cre8ive Writes, LLC  2023