By Ricky Swindle

Muffler Shop Musings

Howdy, friends !

I take it that everyone is complying with Gov. Tater’s mask rule. I am trying my best, but those dang things are plumb aggravating. And hot, too.

I shared a funny on my Facebook page that received a lot of responses the other day. It simply stated “mandatory masks after four months of the virus is like wearing a condom to the baby shower.”

The post collected a trove of laughs, as was intended, but also drew retorts from our local group of mask police condemning the taking of wearing the masks too lightly.

My replies were mostly to the effect that they should lighten up a bit themselves.

This musing is titled “The Shopping Cart Rule” and it’s been floating around the internet recently:

“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing.

To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do.

To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart.

Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.

No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart.

You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.

The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.”

How about that? I personally think it is overstating to call someone an animal simply on the basis that they did not return a shopping cart, although the term jackass does come to mind.

I figure the author must have driven through a parking lot and every empty space he found to park his vehicle was already occupied by a misplaced shopping cart, and he proceeded to word his wrath with a rant.

Unless you are disabled in some way or another you have to admit it does not require a tremendous amount of labor to return that cart to its proper place.

Take care of yourself folks and put that shopping cart back where it goes. Do it for your neighbor.  Do it even though you were not the one that put it there. Do it just to know you did it because you are a good person.