Caution: Hot Coffee Is Hot!

You can't make this stuff up!!

It is Saturday morning, clear, crisp, spring morning and so I decided that a cup of hot apple cider would be perfect. I walked into the Java Coffee and Cafe across the way and picked myself up a cup. After returning home I came upstairs, set the cup down, fired up my computer and sat down. As I did so the way in which I placed the cup allowed for the perfect viewing of CAUTION: HOT COFFEE IS HOT!

This goes back to the McDonald's woman that spilled her coffee in the drive-thru years ago and not only sued McDonald's for the fact that their coffee was hot, how dare they, but somehow actually won!! Thus forcing McDonald's, at the urging of their lawyers I am sure, to put the caution on their cups.

I cannot say for certain that this is in fact the first time such an absurd warning was placed on a coffee cup, but I can tell you this is the most public occurrence that I can remember.

Now, we have all done this at some point or another, go through a drive-thru, get some stuff to munch on while heading down the road, start driving before getting "organized" for the trip and the meal, and next thing you know you are wearing your Big Mac, or Whopper, or you have Coke all over the front seat of your car. I was going to call this woman an idiot for being dumb enough to spill her coffee on herself in the first place, but accidents do happen. However, they are accidents, and they are usually caused by a lack of concentration, or at the very least some distractions related to driving, eating, drinking and perhaps being a mom all at the same time.

The part that to me is far too prevalent these days, or maybe two parts, are one, suing anyone and everyone because we can, or as some people would say because it is our right. Horse shit!! Or as Colonel Potter would say on MASH, horse hockey!! I realize we live in a free country and we have the right to express ourselves in any way we see fit, and we have the right to face our accuser and all sorts of other happy horse shit, but to my second point, we do not have the right to blame everyone else on the planet for our problems. That is what this woman did in suing McDonalds for selling her hot coffee in the drive-thru, and that is what so many on this planet do day in and day out. No one wants to take responsibility for their own mess, mistakes, problems.

Accountability and responsibility. This is what is missing today, in the world of leave no student behind, and all of that. I am a sensitive person, and most would say that I am too sensitive, but I think that we have gone way too far in this country to the point where no one wants to take any responsibility and everyone is looking for somewhere to blame for their situations except themselves.

Coffee is hot, get over it. If you don't like your coffee hot then order iced coffee, or maybe drink water since caffeine seems to be causing you a problem anyway. Live and let live and stop blaming the world for not living up to your own potential, and for being too stupid to realize that coffee is hot without some telling you it is.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.