Common sense - a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate.(Thank you Wikipedia). Let's examine that.
“Where there is a will there is a lawsuit.” – Addison Mizner
Coffee is hot. If you aren't careful and you spill it on yourself you could get burned. Yet a jury awarded a woman 2.7 million dollars in a lawsuit when she spilled hot coffee on her lap, scalding herself. Luckily the award was reduced to a mere $640,000 and settled for an undisclosed sum. Lucky the lawyers were there to protect the innocent. Ahem.
Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that you're stupid and make bad decisions.
A pair of teens - one 19 years old, 5-foot-6 and 270 pounds and another 14 and is 4-foot-10 and 170 pounds sued McDonalds for damages related to their obesity. (Why didn't I evert think of that?). Yeah - Ronald McDonald held a gun to their heads and force fed them Big Macs and Happy Meals.
Lauren Rosenberg decided to sue Google for an excess of $100,000 in 2009 when Google Maps advised her to walk on the freeway to get to her destination, causing her to get hit by a car.
Kellogg sued Exxon Mobile, claiming that the Exxon tiger looked too similar to Kellogg's Frosted Flakes spokesperson Tony the Tiger. Kellogg for some reason felt threatened by the Exxon tiger, concerned that children would mistake the gas station cat for the beloved beast on their cereal box.
In the interest or preserving the well being of my readers I offer a few other other common sense tidbits....
If you pull a dog's tail you may get bit
If the sign says "Beware of Dog" and you hop the fence anyway you might get bit
If you Super-size your meals every day at McDonalds you might get fat
Drinking alcoholic beverages to excess may impair your judgment and negatively impact you
Ain't it the truth.
Yes folks - it seems common sense may not be quite so common these days.
But then there's this "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Like those Big Macs, there can be too much of a good thing.
That's this weeks shack take on our LBC topic - check out what the other LBC members (on the right side over there have to say. In parting I offer this little ditty I found on Youtube -
Doesn't matter what anyone comes up with this week, Chuck. No one can beat this laughter. Made my day. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteblessings ~ maxi
Shackman, this is the funniest LBC post that anyone of us has ever written. Congratulations. You have made your point. Loud and clear and the song is sheer icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteI feel compelled to point out that the woman who sued McDonald's had an excellent case, and had McDonald's not acted in bad faith from the start - she'd originally only asked for about $20,000 to cover medical expenses (her injuries were horrific, and if you search, you can find the photos, now, on the Internet - I suggest looking before laughing). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants and
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470792/Stella-Liebecks-hot-coffee-McDonalds-lawsuit-The-truth.html
I think Albert Einstein's definition may be spot on; certainly it is, in this case. I do agree with you, though, that anyone who routinely eats cheap fast food and sues because they got fat probably has issues. Unless they can prove the restaurant's lacing their fries with crack - as someone suggested to me, the other day, when I said their fries were hard to resist. ;)
I knew about the images before I wrote the post. We'll have to agree to disagree about her case - but I also think McDonalds had an actuarial that made a really bad decision initially. Up here in North Texas a good french fry is hard to find regardless. And good sourdough bread is impossible to find - although the lack thereof has not made me any less circumferentially challenged, dang it.
DeleteNot too long ago, while driving at night, my gps told me to take a bridge. It turned out to be a ferry. which wasn't there. I had luck, but a girlfriend told me several years ago someone sunk his Mercedes in the Rhine doing the same thing. Looks like I missed a chance, huh? Loved your take on this.Oh, and one more for the list: if you write from the heart, the heartless will also write. Ps. buy a sourdough starter yeast and bake yourself. Lots of fun bashing bread.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed you take, Shackman, thought I was taught to use 'common sense' when unsure how to go about doing tasks, it was never a tool in judging people.
ReplyDelete