O M G.

I had started writing this LONG blog entry about all this stuff (it was going to be an end-of-the-week randomata) and I could have sworn I’d saved it.

Now, a couple of hours later, I open it up and gone.  Vanished.  Finito.  Poof.

I don’t know what to think, other than maybe I wasn’t supposed to blog today about the mother who died holding her wee for a Wii.

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Nah.  That couldn’t have been it.

So did you all hear about the mom  of three kiddos who died because she drank a peeload of water, didn’t go to the bathroom, and flushed out all her electrolytes from her system (thus ending in kaput) all because this one radio station in Sacramento, California, was giving away a Nintendo Wii to whomever could hold in their pee longest after drinking a whole lot of water?  You didn’t?  It’s been all over the news.  I have White Trash Mom to thank for the tip.

Now her family is suing the radio station.  Because it’s America and nothing says, "Sorry you’re, like, totally grieving" quite like a fat check, courtesy of the nearest person you can blame, right?

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So let me recap this for you because I’m still having a hard time deciding on this item:

1. 28-year old mother of three (no snark, though there is room for it, I reckon)
2. Needs a Wii so badly for her kids (obv. –otherwise why would she do it, right?)
3. Risks her life AND LOSES
4. Because of a game console?
5. Risked self knowingly –since the dumbassed DJs kept making allusion to the fact that holding your pee is quite dangerous and that people have died of water poisoning
5. And now her family wants to sue. 
6. But what are the grounds for this lawsuit, seriously?

In our day and age we seem to be faced with this little problem about accepting responsibility.  It’s illustrated in everyday frivolity, like the woman who sued McDonald’s because she burned her cooch (really badly— like third degree burn plus skin grafts badly– but that’s not the point) when she spilled hot coffee all over it.  She sued because mean ol’ McDonald’s didn’t write a neat little caution all over their coffee cups stating "Contents HOT."  (Apparently, however, there is more to the case than meets the eye.  But still, people, the moral should be, "DO NOT HANDLE HOT COFFEE IN UNSTABLE SURFACES, I.E. YOUR LAP")

(…blablablablah "there is no need for tort reform" ….blablablablah "what about personal responsibility, seriously?" blablablablah "tort is when someone wrongs you in lawyerspeak" ….blablah.  Blah.  Law is very complicated.)

So anyway.  Of course, getting your cooch badly scalded (or even seeing your beloved pooch die an unnecessary death in the microwave?) or having your mom die a horrible, unnecessary death (in spite of your happiness over finally owning a Wii) are not fun situations, and they bring a lot of pain and confusion.  Add to that situations where no one thought that things would turn out badly –such as discovering that asbestos damages lung tissue even though it’s such an awesome building material– and you’re faced with a very intense litigious and logical nightmare.

But can we agree that if someone agreed to drink a whole bunch of water out of her own and free will even while the people in the radio kept informing them (in a mocking way, but they WERE apparently informing the people) of the potential risks of their actions, then they really have no true grounds to complain if horrible things happen to them?

I mean, really… can we?  Or was she just an innocent– a victim of causes beyond her control?

*sigh*  I’ll stay tuned, so you don’t have to.