Editor’s Note: This is part of our ongoing series on Laughter is Often the Best Medicine, which is a series that encourages people who are blind or visually impaired to laugh at blunders and celebrate victories. Hopefully, these personal experiences will give you potential solutions for coping with your vision loss.
The Great Golf Cart Caper
I live in a unique community that has golf cart paths all throughout the city. Most families own a golf cart as a fun way to travel and to get around town easily. Recently, a friend invited me to go to a concert at the Amphitheater. “Let’s take my golf cart,” I suggested.
Off to the Concert
The evening of the concert we packed a small cooler of refreshments and soon were headed down the path—my friend doing the driving, of course. We were quickly engrossed in deep conversation because we hadn’t seen each other in quite awhile. En route we stopped at a sandwich shop to have a quick bite to eat. Then back on the golf cart once again, we headed to the concert.
Discovery
As we were riding along, I noticed a blanket and a jacket on the cart that didn’t seem familiar.
“What’s this?” I asked Suzanne.
“Oh, your husband must have put them on the golf cart for us,” she remarked.
When we arrived at the outdoor concert, Suzanne noticed there were some stadium chairs on the back of the golf cart. “Oh, look! Your husband thought of everything!”
Suddenly…very confused…I exclaimed, “Suzanne-we don’t have chairs like that! where did they come from?”
Well, then she was off the cart saying “Oh, my gosh! Our cooler isn’t here! It must have fallen off along the way!”
Getting the Cart Before the Horse?
She lifted another bag from the cart and opened it up. It contained wine coolers on ice…not the refreshment we packed…and then it hit me…we had inadvertently taken someone else’s golf cart!!
I began to laugh hysterically and sputtered out my realization! “Suze, we took the wrong golf cart! We have to go back!”
Then she too realized what was unfolding and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh-we are golf cart thieves! We are going to get arrested!”
Caught Cart-Handed
Within moments of our discovery, a golf cart full of people who looked vaguely familiar from the sandwich shop, pulled up behind us and said, “Ah ha! We found you!” Indeed, they were driving MY golf cart which was very similar to theirs—the same make but a slightly darker blue color. Someone at the sandwich shop told them they saw “a blind lady and a blond lady get on their cart, and they were talking about going to the concert.” So they all piled on my golf cart and came looking for us. They too were attending the concert. We all had such a great laugh together!
All’s Well That Ends Well
What a unique set of circumstances it took to make such an adventure possible. We made jokes about “the blond lady leading the blind lady” and how this could only happen in our unique city!
By the way, golf cart keys work interchangeably in carts of the same model! Who knew!