Stella Awards

It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.

Here are the Stella's for the past year:

7TH PLACE :Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.

6TH PLACE: Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won$74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of theca when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps. Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE: Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more...

4TH PLACE :Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE: Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her$113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their ownactions? Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stellas to go...

2ND PLACE: Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

1ST PLACE : (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please)This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma ,who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home. Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...? YaThink??!!More than a few of our judge's elevators don't go to the top floor either!

Adam and Eve

Coded message to Bush!

After numerous rounds of "We don't even know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.

Bush opened the letter and it contained a single line of Coded message:
370H-SSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condoleezza Rice . Condi and her aides had not a clue either, so they sent it to the FBI.

No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to MI6 and Mossad.

Eventually they asked Australian Intelligence (ASIO) for help.

Within a minute, ASIO emailed the White House with this reply: "Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."

PUPPY - love-heart-shaped pattern in his coat

A PUPPY has been born in Japan with a large, clear, love-heart-shaped pattern in his coat. The Chihuahua was born in May as one of a litter to a breeder. Shop owner Emiko Sakurada said it was the first time a puppy with the marks had been born out of a thousand she had bred. She had no plans to sell the puppy, which has been named 'Heart-kun'. The long-coated male Chihuahua puppy was born in Odate, northern Japan

When You Thought I wasn't Looking.....

(Written by a former child)

When you thought I wasn't looking , I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I immediately wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn't looking , I saw you feed a stray cat, and I learned that it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me and I learned that the little things can be the special things in life.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I knew there is a God I could always talk to and I learned to trust in God.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make a meal and take it to a friend who was sick, and I learned that we all have to help take care of each other.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you give of your time and money to help people who had nothing and I learned that those who have something should give to those who don't.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you take care of our house and everyone in it and I learned we have to take care of what we are given.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw how you handled your responsibilities, even when you didn't feel good and I learned that I would have to be responsible when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it's all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking , I saw that you cared and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I learned most of life's lessons that I need to know to be a good and productive person when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looki ng, I looked at you and wanted to say, 'Thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't looking.'