That's how the cookie crumbles

Some of you may not have heard about the case of the two teens who decided to stay home from a school dance (because they thought there might be sexual behavior and cussing there) to bake cookies for their neighbors. They flitted around their neighborhood under the cover of darkness leaving packages of goodies on the porches of their neighbors. As that old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, and these two young ladies found that out the hard way. After a neighbor complained about being afraid for her life, and having to go to the hospital (over cookies) the girls were sued, and subsequently ordered to pay over $900.00 in medical bills to the neighbor. The families of the girls had previously offered to settle and pay the medical bills, but the neighbor insisted on Court because well, she apparently had principles, or something. Anyway, shortly thereafter, the husband of the neighbor allegedly made harassing telephone calls to one of the girls families, which prompted a request for a restraining order. Now the "victim" of the cookie package says that her family has been receiving hate mail and no one has heard their side of the story, boo friggin hoo. I have their side of the story right here: She did this, not those girls. She took them to court, when she could have quietly settled the matter. Her husband called the family of one of the girls and made a veiled threat. I have no sympathy for this woman. I think she took those girls to court (publically) so that she would get her 5 minutes of fame. Well, infamy is still fame in some respect. But really, her side of the story is simple, she didn't like sugar cookies and chocolate chip. Woman's all about the oatmeal! After all, it lowers the cholesterol. She's pissed cause she can't go around knocking on random doors saying "Hi! I lowered my cholesterol" cause those pesky kids sent her chocolate chips. Now for the lawyer in me: The girls should never have been ordered to pay up. You take the public as you find them, persons who have "egg-shell" sensitivities are to be treated no differently. Liability in these types of cases should be doled out according to how the average/general public would react to the gift of cookies. Seeing as how the Youngs are the only ones who complained, my thoughts are that they are not "average" but rather have heightened sensitivities. The Court isn't to take these sensitivities into account, and therefore, the girls, while they should possibly have declared who they were when dropping their cookie bombs, didn't have to. The Young's whining about being harassed is falling on deaf ears because they brought it on themselves, by not agreeing to take the money when offered out of court. Seriously, they got the same amount in court as they would have out of court but catapoulted these girls into the national spotlight. So, the moral of this kerfuffle is that stupid people file stupid lawsuits, oh no, where was I, oh yes, the moral is that the courts are not here so disgruntled neighbors can file suits about cookies, it is a waste of everyone's time. But, good on the public for supporting the girls, they are going to get a cookie dedicated to them, and they haven't been deterred from being anonymously kind to others. Now, my biggest question is: Where are my cookies? I haven't benefited from the kindness of strangers with cookie gifts this year, I have to steal from those cute little girly-scouts to get my cookie fix (I don't really, I pay them, with funny money ;0)

Posted at the Beltway Traffic Jam