All the Lucky People

You know, I'm not the kind of person to go after someone who has wronged me. I try to let things go, rather than seek revenge. I'm especially not the kind of person to sue somebody else. I've only ever seriously considered it once in my life, when I was injured during a theater performance. The contract was for the entire summer, and after I was hurt someone told me that the boss had said he wasn't going to pay me if I wasn't going to be working. Considering that I was hurt DURING a performance because the stage was sub-par, this seemed unfair. We needed the money from my salary, and it hadn't been my fault that I'd gotten hurt, it was the boss's fault for having a crappy stage. Anyway, it all turned out to be a misunderstanding - he still intended to pay me for the shows, just not for my hourly-wage day job in the kitchen. If I wasn't going to be working any of those hours, I wasn't going to be paid for them. This was like "duh" in my mind. I didn't expect to be paid for that, anyway. So it all blew over.

Anyway, that was the only time I thought about trying to sue somebody. But there seem to be several people I'm encountering this summer who are very lucky that I'm not the suing type.

Almost two weeks ago, on August 4th (my mom's birthday), we were rear-ended by a drunk driver. It was my car, and I was driving. We were stopped at a red light. He misjudged the distance he needed to stop, I suppose, and slammed into us pretty hard - hard enough to completely shatter my back windshield. It was gone. THEN, he hit us AGAIN, on purpose! He pushed us out into the intersection (fortunately, no more cars were coming from the other direction) in order to pull up behind us, turn right down the street, and make his escape. Some nice girls chased him until the police caught up.

Now, I get that he was drunk. His judgment was impaired. The biggest issue was that he decided to drive drunk in the first place. From that point on, every decision was a poor one. The worst decision (after deciding he was sober enough to drive) was when he hit us the second time, on purpose. That's assault. In fact, since he was in a car, it was assault with a deadly weapon. There were several witnesses to the fact that he hit us intentionally the second time. It would be so easy to sue the pants off the guy.

But we're not going to do that. My mom and I are (more or less) unharmed, the car was repaired in record time (to the tune of $6,500), and insurance is paying for everything. The guy who hit us, on the other hand, was arrested for DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, driving without current registration and insurance, and could easily be prosecuted for assault, as well. There's a good chance he'll spend some time in prison (aside from the time he spent there immediately following the accident). He may lose his job as a result, and in this economy, that can be devastating. His family will struggle. And as I said, I realize that his judgment was impaired. Hopefully this whole thing encourages him to be more careful in the future, and not drink and drive. If I hadn't been stopped in front of him at the intersection, he most likely would have shot straight through the red light. There's a good chance that he would have hit someone coming the other direction, and he or someone else may have been killed. If he's smart, he'll learn from this whole thing and count his blessings that things turned out as well as they did.

If he's not smart, he'll just keep up the drinking and driving until he kills himself or someone else. If he's incredibly stupid, he may even try to sue ME. It happens, crazy people exist. And, in that case, I'll be more than happy to counter-sue. It would be an easy win, especially with the multitude of witnesses. But I sincerely hope that he's intelligent enough to learn his lesson without all that.

The other people who are lucky that I was raised not to be the suing type are the people from the Riot Zone in Rigby, Idaho. Last night, Mom, Joseph, Evie and I went there to do some bumper-boating and go-carting. We went in the go-carts first. While we were waiting to start the race, the guy in charge went over the rules with us. "No bumping into each other" he said. "Stay completely clear of one another. And be especially careful of the cars with passengers, because those kids are small and could get hurt easily. Don't even come close to them." We listened to his advice, and ran a safe race. Then, we went over to the bumper boats for a little while. After that, we decided to do one more go-cart race.

We got there just behind a group of about 6 or 7 teenage girls. It looked like there was a mom with them, too. There was a different guy in charge, but he gave more or less the same rules before we took off, emphasizing again that no bumping was allowed. "If you bump into people, you'll be warned, and if you do it again, you'll be removed from the park."

I was the only one with a passenger this time, so Evie and I were at the back of the pack, right behind Joseph. He's a little slow because he can't totally see over the wheel, but he was going fast enough for it to be fun. The teenage girls, however, were driving pedal to the metal. I figured they would have to slow down behind Joseph like I did. That wasn't good enough for them, however.

Instead of slowing down, they started slamming into me from behind. Repeatedly. I had to slam on my brakes to let them by, to avoid getting smashed into a wall. Then, they went after Joseph. They DID slam him into a wall. I pulled into the pit early, and complained to the attendant. "They were smashing into us repeatedly," I told him. "I have a three-year-old with me. I didn't feel like we were safe."

After everyone else finished the race, we saw that Joseph was crying. His back had been injured from the girls smashing him into the wall. Mom pointed out to the attendant, as I had, that the girls were responsible. "I saw a little of it," he responded, then proceeded to tell the girls to line up at the gate so they could go again.

WHAT???

He didn't give them a warning, or even a glance. He certainly didn't try to forbid them from riding again, or kick them out of the park. He just ignored my mother and me, and let the girls go back to their insane, selfish enjoyment.

Mom and I were furious. As we passed the girls at the gate, Mom said, "Well, I hope you girls are proud of yourselves." I added, "Slamming into a car with a three-year-old? Good job, guys."

They had the decency to look ashamed. Slightly. Then they ran, giggling and screaming, back out to the cars to go again.

We went to the ticket booth to talk to the manager. We were told, "Oh, the manager is over running the go-cart area."

What the WHAT???

So the guy who ignored our complaints and Joseph's tears was the manager???

What is the point of having rules if you don't have the stones to enforce them? And isn't that, most especially, the manager's job???

Joseph was hurt, my three-year-old was endangered, and the manager himself showed a blatant disregard for the rules.

They are so lucky we're not the suing type.

We are, however, going to get in contact with the owner. Hopefully he/she has a little more love for the rules that they, themselves, set. I don't want the manager to get fired. I can understand where a situation like that can be intimidating, especially when dealing with a large group of girls who paid a large amount of money to ride. I do, however, want him to be encouraged to do his freaking job.

As it is, we certainly won't be giving them any more of our patronage. And we have no qualms about telling people what happened. If their business suffers a little bit because of it, that's fine with me. Maybe once they start enforcing their own rules, like they're supposed to, it will be a fun, safe place to go again.

ARGH! It's all so annoying!!!

Anyway, these kinds of things tend to come in threes. I wonder what's going to happen next? Hopefully nothing big enough for the possibility of suing to even be an issue. With any luck, it'll be something really mild, like stubbing my toe on a poorly-placed piece of building equipment while we're volunteers on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Those guys (and what they do for people) are so fantastic, that would be very easy to forget about and forgive. ;) And if it meant I got to be a volunteer, it's a trade I would take any day!

Here's to a brighter future! Fingers crossed!