We’ve Only Got Ourselves To Blame

A Houston high school’s baseball coaches are being sued by a couple of irate parents because they believe their son spent too much time warming the bench instead of on the mound hurling no-hitters.

Cost him a chance at an athletic scholarship, they insist, not to mention the humiliation they’ve suffered around town. Yeah. Mean folks probably point them out in the grocery store and elbow each other saying nasty things like: “Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! Your kid throws like an old lady!”

But there’s more. According to the mortified folks’ lawyer, the coaches’ decision violates the U.S. Constitution. That must be the part that reads: “Let Sammy pitch whenever he wants to or we’re gonna’ sue your backside, man.”

Time was, Sammy’s old man would’ve waited outside the locker room and taken a swing at the first coach to walk through the door. There would be some yelling: “You got dirt for brains!” followed by “So’s your old lady!” A bloody nose and a couple of scraped knuckles later, the contestants would have it all worked out on their own without feeling obliged to call in the legal services of the professional pettifoggers.

I’m telling you, it’s not easy living up to one’s responsibilities in today’s litigious society. Please don’t hold this against me, but I want to confess - I’ve never sued anybody. Not even a class-action suit when the bolts on my license plates rusted shut.

It’s no defense, I know, but I plead ignorance of the law (and its abuses). Looking back on my life, I realize I could have done more.

For starters, I’ve never liked being short so I’m going to sue my long-deceased grandmother and mother, both of whom were even shorter than I. Then, I’ll go after the pediatrician who lacked the foresight to prescribe growth hormones. And I’m thinking seriously of nailing the manufacturers of those footy-pajamas my mother kept me in.

I’m going to sue my kindergarten teacher for making me play in the girls’ room with dolls and dishes instead of the boys’ room with building blocks and dump trucks. If it weren’t for them I could have been an architect or maybe even owned my own construction business.

I’m going to sue my second grade teacher for scaring me with those columns of numbers she spent so many dreary, after-school afternoons trying to teach me to add. It’s her fault I can’t balance my checkbook and that every few months I have to face the embarrassment of hauling a shopping bag full of canceled checks and bank statements in to the nice ladies at the bank. Sure, they always smile and pretend not to be laughing at me, but I know what goes on behind my back.

I’m going to sue Arthur Tuminski for sexual harassment. He kissed me in the third grade and the teacher made fun of us. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll sue her, too.

I think I’ll have to sue my best friends - Jeanne (for being blonde and beautiful) and Gail (for being smart and having lots of money) for interfering with my inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.

Next, I’m going to file a class-action suit on behalf of thinking people everywhere who are seriously fed up with the no-mind jerks who sue at the drop of a hat (or pants) or whatever. What a nation of whiny wimps we’re turning into.

Boyfriend hurt your feelings? Sue. Neighbors call you names? Sue those mommas. And to anyone who believes those coaches in Texas really are violating a kid’s constitutional rights by not letting him pitch in a high school baseball game, you stand accused of having Twinkies for brains!

And don’t go blaming it all on the government, either. It’s “our” government and the laws will never be any better than we make them, so if we’re asleep at the switch (or dozing on the couch in front of yet another inane talk show) then we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.

Like James Madison said: ” … if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary.”

I’m with him.

xxxx