Why run with the crowd when you can run around in circles?

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

I can't afford it

Let’s blame it all on the insurance company and the lawyers, shall we? If it weren’t for them, we could earn a decent wage, afford health care, right?

Wrong.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: As far as I’m concerned, the downfall of the free world began with that broad who stupidly spilled hot coffee on herself and then made a million off McDonald’s for being a dumb ass. Like no one could possibly have known that pouring hot coffee in your crotch would hurt. Suddenly, the common man looked around his environment, thought of that huge payout for lack of intelligence and coordination, and decided that spending a few years in court could be much more profitable than actually working at a real job. It would also solve that attention-getting need, by being in the center ring of the circus of law.

Now, human greed appears more rampant than ever, with everyone looking for any infraction as an excuse to sue for millions. Of course the insurance companies have fed off that greed. Of course law firms are looking for that big case that will set them up for life. They are all made up of human beings too, who all want the same thing.

An easy life without working for it.

Has anyone gotten that life from a lawsuit? Maybe a few, just like the few who have won lotteries. But the vast majority of us are paying the price for the greedy success of those few. We’re getting paid peanuts because our employers have to shell out so much money in insurance premiums to cover their asses against that lazy employee or ten, who would rather crush a limb in a press and sue for damages, than do the job.

And because Hep Huey sued the doctor over a hangnail, basic malpractice insurance now costs each doctor the equivalent of a house every year, and our insurance premiums are beyond what most can afford.

Now, whenever presented with a hangnail, the doctor must order every expensive test known to science, because if one thing is missed, the lawyers will be calling.

If your neighbor puts a fence around his property, will you sue for loss of view? If your neighbor doesn’t put a fence around his property, will you sue for having to look at his battered shed and broken tractors each time you look out your bathroom window?

Tip: Save the lawyer fees and stop staring at the neighbor, or he may have to counter sue you for stalking. Besides which, you knew when you bought your house that it was next door to a lawn mower repair shop. What the heck did you expect? You're as dumb as the moron who bought a house next to an airport and then sued because the planes were noisy.

Am I alone in thinking that if we strived to accept different perspectives and points of view, rather than suing everyone into agreeing with us, our lives just might flow more smoothly and freely? Is it worth considering that if we all relearned the art of forgiveness, instead of fighting bitterly for years over a trifle, life might just be kinder, gentler, and less expensive? When grandma in the battered Buick bumps your bumper, instead of opening your car door and falling out on the pavement screaming “I’m dying!,”get out, ask her if she’s all right, and get over that two inch scratch in the bumper. There’s a reason they’re called that, you know. Don’t waste the time of the ambulance, three police cars and two fire engines. Don’t spend years fighting with the insurance company about needing an entire new car because yours is no longer perfect. Suck it up. Accept that as long as humans have been around, and as long as they will continue to be around, accidents will happen. Mistakes will be made. It’s human nature.

The only way to solve the problem of human error is to get rid of the humans.
Which, if we keep reproducing so many of them, we’ll probably crush ourselves out of existence anyway. But that’s a subject for another post.*
*See, I told you everything I wrote was an acid rant.

I thought maybe if I tossed some negativity out there in an effort to get rid of it, I’d get my head clear and get back to entertaining myself with amusing anecdotes.
But maybe that’s hopeless this time of year. My brain cells turn brown and fall off with the leaves, not re-sprouting until spring, when the ticks come out again.

And yet, given a choice of going anywhere else in the world (a realistic choice, that is, otherwise if I won that million dollar lawsuit I’d be looking for a hut in the tropics somewhere), I would still chose staying here with the ticks and the dark and the cold and the snow and the rain and the ice and the naked gray trees and the coyotes looking to eat my lovely little dog.

There’s no accounting for human nature.