Going for a Ride

Have you ever heard the term “jump ship?”

Generally, if you jump ship, you leave a job or activity suddenly before it is finished, especially to go and do something for someone else. I think that this term has a lot to do with commitment. A person that is committed to what they are doing, will stay with the task till the bitter end. Someone that is committed will see and understand the difficulty they will face in their commitment and prepare for it.


Back in the days when I worked at Lakeside Shopping Center, there was a tunnel under the mall. The tunnel was used as a loading dock for all the deliveries to the stores. The tunnel was built poorly, so water from the parking lot would drain down into the tunnel. This water would almost never dry, and therefore contributed a nice thin layer of scum that was very slippery. (It also contributed a very strange odor, but that’s a different story)

We would often use this slippery surface for our enjoyment. Lakeside shopping center had a golf cart, for plowing sidewalks, doing trash rounds, and just getting around the massive 40 Acre piece of land. If you could get the golf cart up to top speed on the down ramp into the tunnel, by the time you hit the water / scum, with some careful braking and steering wheel maneuvers, the golf cart would do a perfect 360. While this could be potentially dangerous, I had done it enough times, that I was quite proficient.


One day, one of my friends came over to Lakeside, so I could help him work on his car. I was still on the job doing trash, and offered him a ride down into the tunnel… I saw the water… The temptation was too great. I was at top speed at the end of the ramp, and I told him to hang on! “We’re going to do a spin.” Before I knew what was happening, he jokingly said “no way” and promptly jumped off the speeding golf cart.


The next few seconds happened so quickly that I’m not quite sure what all happened. I am sure of one thing: a person can’t instantly start running 20 MPH. I stomped on the brake and looked back. A cloud of dust enveloped a still rolling human figure. When I arrived on the scene, blood was dripping from his scraped hands, as he said… “Well…. that was kinda stupid, wasn’t it?”


My friend wasn’t committed to our golf cart trip.