ninme

This is my new battle cry.

Via PoliPundit:

Colorado Teens Fined for Giving Cookies to Neighbor

DURANGO, Colo. (Reuters) - A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbor said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts.   The pair were ordered to pay $871.70 plus $39 in court costs after neighbor Wanita Renea Young, 49, filed a lawsuit complaining that the unsolicited cookies, left at her house after the girls knocked on her door, had triggered an anxiety attack that sent her to the hospital the next day.

Taylor Ostergaard, then 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitte, 18, paid the judgment on Thursday after a small claims court ruling by La Plata County Court Judge Doug Walker, a court clerk said on Friday.

The girls baked cookies as a surprise for several of their rural Colorado neighbors on July 31 and dropped off small batches on their porches, accompanied by red or pink paper hearts and the message: “Have a great night.”

The Denver Post newspaper reported on Friday that the girls had decided to stay home and bake the cookies rather than go to a dance where there might be cursing and drinking.

Oh, girls. Being nice never got anyone anywhere. Cursing and drinking, though, absolutely did.

It reported that six neighbors wrote letters entered as evidence in the case thanking the girls for the cookies.

Really? Why. Those girls should have been out drinking and cursing that night, throwing empty beer bottles against there windows at 2am. Kids today don’t know their place.

But Young said she was frightened because the two had knocked on her door at about 10:30 p.m. and run off after leaving the cookies.

Oh, the horror! My own heart is having palpitations. I’d better sue her and Yahoo! news for this article, cuz it’s freakin’ me out. Lemme call the emergency room first. I’m not insured. This should cost a pretty penny.

She went to a hospital emergency room the next day, fearing that she had suffered a heart attack, court records said.

And why shouldn’t she? The neighborhood kids around here scare the crap out of me. Especially the goody-two-shoes ones. You can always tell, can’t you? With their hair all neat and their skirts down to their knees. The save ones are always drunk and stoned, and if you can’t tell that, they hurl epithets and insults at you, just to help you tell the difference. Always thinking of others, the bad ones are.

The judge awarded Young her medical costs, but did not award punitive damages. He said he did not think the girls had acted maliciously but that 10:30 was fairly late at night for them to be out.

Well it certainly was. And now, after being hauled through Small Claims before they’re even legally adults, having come to grips with everything horrible and wrong with the world before they’ve even been to college, after having every last illusion about the basic core decency and goodness of other people before they can ruin their lives by trusting in others, this brave and selfless woman has done the right thing, sued them for as much as she could, and now everyone’s learned their lessons.

Thank god for the courts.