Daily Dose of Common Sense

If you slipped on a grape while shopping in your local produce department, would you sue the store? Well, two separate women in Chicago have filed suit against two separate grocery stores for this very issue.

In one case the 64-year-old plaintiff is suing a Food 4 Less store in Cicero, IL, and its parent company Kroger for over $50,000 after she claims an errant grape caused her to incur over $21,000 in medical expenses.

The other grape-related incident allegedly occurred last May at a Moo & Oink in Hazel Crest. The plaintiff in that case says she “suffered injuries of a personal and pecuniary nature” and is suing for more than $30,000.

Once you stop laughing over the name “Moo & Oink,” think about the situation. Have you ever slipped on a grape? Yes, they are small and can hide in a number of places. But, first, most of us know to watch where we’re walking in a produce section. Second, it’s not like slipping on ice–or even a banana peel. It’s a small grape. I am skeptical that a run-in with a grape caused such serious bodily damage.

Will it get to the point where grapes are sold from behind plexiglass, like meats at the deli counter?

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It sure is fun to laugh at some of the dumb things criminals do, especially if it results in his or her capture. That’s why we love this bit from Cracked: 6 Baffling Mistakes Criminals Apparently Make All the Time. The article is full of ineptness and stupidity. Included are such gems as “Fight the urge to give away personal information” and “Cover your tracks:”

The second thing you should do is take the weather into consideration. If it’s been snowing in the area, a smart criminal will employ snowshoes or a flock of trained eagles that will carry him above the ground to avoid leaving painfully obvious footsteps in the snow. Unlike Rashaun Preston, a not smart criminal who, in 2007, robbed his employers and left a deep, visible trail leading from the scene of the crime straight to his apartment–like some lovably inept cartoon badguy.

Most of these mistakes are just common sense. But, if you had a lot of common sense, you wouldn’t become a criminal in the first place. We hope lawbreakers don’t read the Internet so they’re just that easier to catch.

Talk about a genius invention! The PeePoo bag allows someone to pee and/or poop in it and then bury the bag to use as fertilizer. Now, you might not need this in your suburban town with fancy city-run sewage. But, think about third-world countries who struggle with the human waste issue every day.

For slums in the developing world where human waste is an unregulated nightmare and flying toilets are common practice, the bag provides a means of waterless sewage disposal and organic fertilizer all in one easy, biodegradable step.

The bag has special lining that breaks down the waste and it even kills any bacteria or pathogens inside. Completely brilliant! If only every invention could be this useful. Sort of makes the Flowbee all that more embarrassing….

[Thanks to Denise R. for the link!]

I’ve always wondered why this doesn’t happen more often.

A Nebraska man test drove a truck, during which he went and had the truck’s keys duplicated. He then came back a few hours later and stole the truck from the dealership. He was caught almost right away when the truck was discovered near his house.

However, it seems like a smarter criminal might have a better chance at getting away with it. The dealers who let folks test drive without a dealership employee along for the ride must know that the only people who would try such a nefarious plot aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

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At a Wisconsin zoo on Friday, a woman wanted to feed the bears by hand. (I mean, who doesn’t? They’re all like Winnie the Pooh, right?) She ignored several barriers and warning signs in order to get up close and personal with the bears. Result? She lost several fingers after she was bitten. The woman’s boyfriend was also bitten as he tried to help her.

But this is not even the most disturbing part of the news report:

The woman’s boyfriend was bitten as he tried to pry the bear’s mouth off her hand, but he didn’t lose any fingers. Her 3-year-old granddaughter wasn’t injured.

Yes, that’s right. The woman, through her own stupidity, gets expectedly injured by a bear IN FRONT OF her granddaughter. Way to scar the little one for life, Grandma.

We’ve written about zoo stupidity before, but it really never ceases to amaze us how people purposely cross barriers and restricted areas to get to the wildlife. If you’re this reckless and dumb, you deserve whatever the animals dish out.

This week, a killer whale–which had already been involved in two deaths–killed a trainer at Sea World in Orlando in front of a crowd.

Now, I’m not going to go all PETA on your ass and start ranting about animals in captivity. My kids like to see the bears, elephants, and cows at the zoo as much as the next person. What doesn’t make sense is this is an animal who was involved in other deadly incidents. First a trainer was killed in 1991 and then a gatecrasher was found lying on top of the animal in 1999. In each case, it appeared the whale thought humans were toys.

How “dangerous” does an animal need to be before we decide it’s not worth the human life to keep it in captivity? I’m sure the orca show at Sea World is a big draw. And, the trainers are experienced and careful. But, when animals are prone to attack, is it really a good idea to keep them around? Here’s how a witness described the event:

Another audience member, Victoria Biniak, told WKMG-TV the whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.”

Yikes.

It never fails: A subway car is packed to the gills and some knucklehead still has a giant backpack on. If you commute by anything other than a car, or if you’re frequently around tourist attractions, you have likely had the same unhappy experience at some point.

A lot of backpack wearers never take the pack off. Ever. So, even in a crowd, the big ‘ol backpack is whacking people in the face, back, or chest. The owner usually seems oblivious and continues to barrel on through the crowd.

What is it with you backpackers? Have some consideration for the rest of us!

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If you’re an avid user of social media–specifically FourSquare and Twitter–PleaseRobMe.com is a site you might want to know about. Done with a sense of humanitarianism (as in not for criminals), this site collects all the location data sent to Twitter and FourSquare and publishes it in a running stream.

For example, on PleaseRobMe.com, you’ll see posts like this:

@USERNAME left home and checked in 4 minutes ago:
I’m at The Computer Corner (99-185 Moanalua Road Suite 101, Aiea). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at acclamation bar and grill (James street north and mulberry). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at Costco Kawasaki (3-1-4 Ikegami Shincho, Kawasaki Ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa). http://4sq.com/….

The creators look to raise awareness about internet privacy and how the information we put out there could be used in the wrong hands. When you visit the site, you will see that most of the entries on PleaseRobMe.com are from FourSquare, a social media site that is practically a continual GPS of where you are. Which makes it kind of obvious where you aren’t.

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.

We did learn this week that 30% of Americans are not online either at work or at home. So, there is a small percentage of people not iFollowing your movements. But, do you want the other 70% to know your precise location?

[Via The Consumerist]

Here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• The city of Boston dismissed thousands of tickets and tow fines for people who were issued violations while preparing for a storm that never came. The city had declared a snow emergency in expectation of the big storm cutting up the eastern seaboard. Stay classy, Boston.
• A 5-year old girl in Indiana called 911 when her dad experienced chest pains. She remained calm and stayed on the line for nearly ten minutes. She is now credited with saving her dad’s life.

And, some did not.

• Southwest Airlines kicked Kevin Smith off a flight for being too fat. Smith claims he fits between the two arm rests, which is the test of whether a person is too large for their seat. Huge PR nightmare for Southwest Airlines because Smith is a celebrity. I ask why the airlines even let him board in the first place, instead of kicking him off once on the plane?
• New toy: Fisher Price’s Bigfoot the Monster. It’s cute in a Muppet-gone-bad kind of way, but do we really want to encourage children to believe in this nonsense?

There’s a problem in the Florida Everglades that has nothing to do with climate change or the depletion of habitat. The problem is from pet owners who buy snakes they don’t know anything about, and then dump the snakes out in the swamp when they get too difficult to handle. The animals are then free to disrupt the ecosystem.

Wildlife biologists say the troublesome invaders — dumped in the Everglades by pet owners who no longer want them — have become a pest and pose a significant threat to endangered species like the wood stork and Key Largo woodrat.

Two types of non-native pythons are taking over the Everglades: the Burmese python and the African rock python. These snakes proliferate quickly, laying 50 to 100 eggs at a time, and experts say there may be as many as 150,000 of them in the area. The pythons have no predators in their new environment, so they can pretty much run roughshod over the local wildlife.

Not to mention a Florida resident who owned a Burmese python, only to have it escape and strangle his girlfriend’s two-year old daughter one night in 2009. A tragedy that could have been avoided with a little common sense.

Obviously, you shouldn’t buy pets you don’t understand or know anything about. Unless you have a full-time experienced keeper on hand, it’s irresponsible to keep exotic pets. But, even WORSE is to dump the animal out in the wilderness once it’s no longer any fun. Especially when you don’t know what the repercussions might be to the environment. At least give the animal to a local zoo.