To The Rescue!

So I'm reading in my legal textbook (which we call "casebooks" because they're full of cases) about negligence. Basically, negligence is a breach of the duty of reasonable care. The basic argument is that, depending on the situation, one is expected to exercise the same degree of care and consideration as would any reasonable, prudent person in a similar situation.

What gets me is this: there's something called the no-duty-to-rescue rule.This means that if you're drowning in a lake and I'm standing not five feet away watching, as long as I didn't push you in or otherwise have anything to do with your current predicament, I have no obligation to help you whatsoever. None. I can literally stand there and recite improvisational haiku inspired by the drowning to which I am witness. I could ask you if you wanted help, and if you screamed, "Yes, by the name of all that's sacred! I can't swim! Help me!" I could smile and say, "I'll bet you do," turn around, and go grab a frappuccino. As long as I don't in any way interfere with or deter other potential rescuers (who might see me reciting poetry or taunting you and believe help has already arrived), I am in no way liable for your predicament; it is not negligent of me to abandon you to a watery grave.

Mwu huh huh ha ha ha!

I'm sitting on the toilet when I hear my phone ringing. Wouldn't it be nice if that was a beautiful girl calling me, I think to myself. After a paragraph or two of Nobodies, I finish up and check my phone. Lo and behold, it WAS a beautiful woman! Not only that but a dear friend as well. So I call her back and the poor thing was in tears. "Are you at home?" I am. "Can I come over?" Of course. "Okay." See you soon. >click< And it was on. Within minutes I had cleared my bed of dirty laundry, made it, cleared off couch-space, reorganized the laundry into a sturdy but non-intimidating pile, and put some water on for tea. I was and am touched that in a time of difficulty and sadness she called me for solace. I've been feeling lots of receptive vibes lately.

Even the new neighbor's dogs love me. It's ridiculous. They have this stumbly, adorable way of nudge-fighting each other for my attention sometimes. It's good for me to have dogs around. They're like an affection-vent. Although the Jack Russell pissed on my fireplace tonight. Dirty little girl.

So as I'm preparing some peppermint-rose tea for my dear friend, it suddenly occurs to me that I really ought not to have hung up. I believe my brain immediately realized the work involved in preparing my room for a serious consoling session, plus for some reason it seemed like the sooner I hung up, the sooner she would get here. For those of you who aren't regular readers, I'm something of an imbecile sometimes.

As I go to get my phone, it starts to ring. My tone is Fur Elise. It's her. She tells me she's okay, just having a lot of stress at the moment. She tells me she's going to stay at another friend's house that's closer, but she'll be around my area tomorrow and she'll call me. Of course I understand. As long as she's good I'm good, I tell her. No worries; I'll just drink her tea.

Earlier in this blog I believe I described this girl as wonderfully flaky, like a delicious croissant. But I misspoke. This is a much more sophisticated flakiness. I hereby redescribe this girl as flaky like the silver spoon-smashed golden crust of a perfect vanilla-bean creme brule. Which means she doesn't show up when she says she will but who cares because life is short and she kicks ass and because she's my friend it helps me feel like I kick ass as well.

In other news, I won $5 on a crossword scratcher tonight. Actually, I kinda won $8; the first ticket I got won me another free ticket, and the second won me the $5. All told, $3 in, $5 back.

So I won $2. Which is nice.

Oh, right. Rescue. So to Hades with this "no-duty-to-rescue" bullshit. My friend calls up in tears, asks to come over, the way I see it, it's negligence to say no unless I'm busy cramming babies into a meat-grinder or something and don't want to make her party to my baby-sausage scheme. What's with our legal system doing nothing to promote positive behavior? All we do is tell people what NOT to do. Maybe if you COULD get in trouble for watching someone drown without lifting a finger to help, we might live in a different society. A better society.

A society with less drowning.