Don’t Watch Out, and the Gobble-uns Will Get You
This morning found me, not wrestling with big existential questions, but racing to the bank to deposit checks and shuffle funds—thanks to a mobile deposit app stubbornly refusing to cooperate. As I sped down the road, practical worries took front seat: How much is this trip costing in gas? Is it really worth it, not to mention my time? Even before I got to the bank, my thoughts wandered: every errand has its unseen price, especially in today’s world of insurance hikes, registration stickers, and the ever-rising price of fuel.
A glimpse of a yard cluttered with cars sent me drifting back to a time when that was more common—vehicles scattered about, half-used or tinkered with on weekends. Back then, costs seemed simpler, or at least more hidden. Now, the ledger is everywhere: people pay in more ways than one. Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff” put it well—the true costs we don’t pay up front always show up somewhere else. In Germany, you pay for every ketchup packet at McDonald's. Here, too, accountability has a way of finding you.
That got me thinking about consequences and about the first time the world really handed me a bill: my strawberry-picking career—the briefest in farm-labor history. As I shared in The People of the Sign, I was probably as excited as any nine-year-old could be. But when it came to actually getting fruit in the crates, the tally didn’t add up. I ate and threw more strawberries than I picked—far more, truth be told.
About a week in they were on to me. I was fired, and became an unemployment statistic. That whopping $12.78 that I earned (after plenty of unaccounted sampling) stood testament: you’re not measured by good intentions, by how much fun you had, or even by effort alone. In the end, you’re measured by the fruit you bear—by what ends up in your box. That’s as true in strawberry fields as it is in the rest of life.
Adam was told to “dress and keep the garden,” to bear fruit and steward creation—a commission with real consequences. Every missed opportunity, every shortcut or act of self-indulgence, comes back around, one way or another. When Jesus says, “He that is faithful in little will be faithful in much,” He’s rooting us in the hard daily truth that small choices tally up.
Which brings me, unavoidably, to Little Orphant Annie—James Whitcomb Riley’s poem that my grandma used to read aloud, crackling with consequence and warning:
…the Gobble-uns’ll get you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
We sat around that kitchen fire, learning, line by line, that if you didn’t do what’s right—say your prayers, mind your parents, look after “them ‘at loves you”—there were consequences lurking, maybe not goblins, but the slow, gathering effects of choices made or missed.
Today, we shield and coddle, giving our kids soft stories and easy outs. But consequence is the gardener of character. The old tales served a purpose: mind your manners, or you’ll come up short when the fruit is counted.
Self-reckoning isn’t some dour Puritan holdover—it’s how you keep the garden dressed and in order, how you ensure the baskets are filled with fruit and not just empty stems and sweet memories. Bahá’u’lláh’s admonition is timeless: “Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning.” You get good at accountability by doing it often, not by waiting for the final tally.
Society, too, is learning—sometimes painfully—that dodged costs and deferred consequences don’t disappear. They pile up in pollution, in deficit spending, in generational debts that biggest kids pay down the line. Someone always ends up minding the store, whether they volunteered or not.
It’s the same lesson I learned mismatching intention and output in the strawberry fields: you’re not judged by how much you sample or how grand your plans—you’re judged by the fruit in your box at the end of the day.
Jesus leaves no wiggle room: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Avoiding self-examination or trying to shift the reckoning forward doesn’t help. Whether it’s a crate of strawberries, a line on a bank statement, or the quiet record-keeping of a soul, the fruit is what counts.
Let’s be honest: today, we’re less likely to “watch out” than to zone out, letting habits, systems, or someone else pick up the slack. But character—personal and collective—grows only when we see every little choice as an opportunity to fill up our own crates, every day.
So next time you find yourself running an errand, counting the unseen costs, or weighing the fruit at the end of your day, remember: self-accountability is how the garden grows, how the family flourishes, how we keep the gobble-uns at bay. Don’t just “watch out”—take account, mind the little things, and make sure your boxes are filled with real, sweet fruit.
