Thursday, July 9, 2015

The Side of a Coffee Tale I Never Knew Existed

Dictionary

AHA Moment
  1. It's a moment of clarity, a defining moment where you gain real wisdom - wisdom you can use to change your life. Whether big or small, funny or sad, they can be surprising and inspiring. Each one is unique, deeply personal, and we think, worth sharing.
Obviously not American
I just had an eye opening, aha moment.  It all started so innocently and has come to shed huge light on my apparent lack of knowledge.  There has been a lot of "Canada" going on recently in my life.  First, my favorite "sister-in-law living in Canada" came down to the states with her family last week where we spent the better part of a day together, debating Canadian vs States, taxes, and beaver tail.  My son had been visiting his girl friend in Cornwall, Ontario, where she is from and where they went to hockey school and then he is working a hockey program in Ottawa for the week...  Canada this, Canada that is all I have been hearing eh.  Then someone posted a picture of a coffee cup mocking the "hot coffee" law suit in our sue happy America from an apparent Canadian coffee shop.

I posted the cup picture to Facebook with a comment mocking the American way of suing anyone and everyone for anything and everything...  this cup mocks what has been referred to and joked about laughable law suit about a lady that sued McDonald's because their coffee was too hot and it burned her when "she" dumped it in her lap...  and won over 2 million dollars!

Enter my friend from South Carolina, Kerin (owner and founder of "I'm a mother of an Angel found at https://www.facebook.com/iamamothertoanangel).  She asked if I had Netflix, which I did, and suggested I watch a movie named "Hot Coffee".  I checked it out and almost instantly the aha moment struck.

It's a movie about frivolous lawsuits, greed, corporate America, politics and government.  Wow.  Shed a whole new light as my eyes were opened to some things I had previously assumed....  and the saying is right when you assume something, except this time I was the "u" and "me" in my assumptions.  I urge each and every one of you to watch the movie if you have Netflix or get it on DVD, or come to my house and watch it.  It's worth the hour twenty minutes or so.  I'll bet your perspective on several things will change and likely cause you to question and thing or two.  I hope it does.

Haven't given you enough inspiration?  Here is one of Stella's burn pictures, others are too graphic for here:

Much of the documentary is about tort reform, which, in some cases, I can understand, others, I can not.  Unfortunately, it seems that the only one that really gets hurt in many of these cases is the injured person... win or lose.  When there are cases of people really trying to abuse the system and "cash in", I have no problem finding against them.  It's all about accountability.  The McDonald's case punitive damages were not even about the woman being burned...  all she ever asked for was coverage above what her insurance paid (they offered her $800 against over $10,000 in medical expenses) and that they would check the coffee pot settings.  Apparently McDonald's was aware of over 700 burn complains and ignored them all.

The McDonald's suit is just a small part.  Pour a cup of coffee and watch "Hot Coffee".

Movie trailer















No comments: