What Should We Do with Our Shopping Carts and Our Hearing Aids?

I was shopping the other day and had to use a shopping cart to carry all the items to my car. I usually do not use a cart because I am not a shopper. If I must go to the store, I know what I want and I pay for that one item. Within ten minutes I am on my way home. This was unusual.

When I loaded my purchased items into my car, I ran the shopping cart over to the little shopping cart corral that they have in parking lots now, and it triggered a memory.

There was a time that I worked on the other side of shopping carts. I was working the stock room at a retail service and our first job in the morning was to go out to the parking lot and bring all the carts  up to the store. This was 40 years ago or so, and there were no fancy electronic push devices to push the line of carts like they have today, and no shopping cart corrals. The carts were scattered all over the football size lot, and the challenge was to gather all of them all in one trip. A line of 50 carts pushed up the hill in one trip was a badge of honor (insert caveman grunt here). Then, throughout the day we would bring them in every hour so there was less of chance of a runaway cart denting a car. The retail company frowned on that and the corrals were not even invented yet. So, an hourly round’m up was the way to go.

So, I pushed my cart into the corral and felt good about myself as I climbed into my car, and pondered about being proud of doing the right thing. This triggered another thought. (Sometimes I drive myself crazy.)

Like being on both sides of shopping carts, I have been on both sides of hearing loss. I have assisted people to find help and obtain hearing devices so that they can reconnect, and I have received help with hearing loss. I am ashamed to say, I am a little better at the helping. Like those days that I did not feel like walking my cart over to the corral, (even though I knew better) today I sometimes do not feel like putting in my hearing aids. (even though I know better)

When I skip that step, people must speak louder and repeat themselves, and I feel less connected. I am working on improving that habit. But, like handling my shopping cart because I know I would not want my car dented, I need to handle my hearing health because I know what it is like to repeat myself to someone who has a hearing loss. I need to do the right thing. Wish me luck.