Respect Authority

"Wait, this moves?"

Whenever I begin to regain faith in America’s legal system, it vomits up something like this.

A Queens woman (of course) is suing Johnny Utah’s restaurant in Rockefeller Center for “assault and battery” after she was tossed off the Western-themed establishment’s mechanical bull. …I couldn’t even make this stuff up.

Rachel Love’s lawsuit claims the restaurant allowed “an inebriated individual” to ride the bull, and that the bull’s operator sped up the ride when she was on it, effectively making it more violent in an effort to throw her off. Her lawsuit doesn’t detail her injuries (which must be devastating considering this happened in January), but it does seek unspecified damages.

Heads up Rachel: I’m fairly certain the entire premise of the mechanical bull ride is being thrown off, otherwise you’d be making a public spectacle of yourself simply to mount a slowly-gyrating ottoman, which sounds an awful lot like stripping. Whichever employee sped the ride up to eject you deserves a raise — for doing his fucking job. Objecting to being thrown off a mechanical bull is like suing a swimming pool because you got wet.

This is not operating heavy machinery, dear. It’s not like getting behind the wheel after your eighth apple martini which, by the way, would be your fault. This is simply holding on to something, until you can’t, then letting go, then falling onto padded ground. Sort of like playing tug of war in a moon bounce. Mechanical bull rides were designed for intoxicated people. In fact, in all of the mechanical bull rides I’ve seen in my life, and there have been many, I can’t think of a single one undertaken by someone who wasn’t intoxicated. And aside my brief flirtation with ESPN’s extensive coverage of professional bull-riding, I’ve never even seen someone consider riding a bull without knocking a few back first. After all, there’s a reason you only find mechanical bull rides in bars.

I think some part of me just really wanted to believe the lawsuit-crazy America you hear about in/from other countries was little more than a stereotype. I wanted to believe everyone simply relayed the story of the woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee because no one actually knew a different story. But as of late I’ve seen these suits everywhere: the man who sued Columbia for the “sexism” of having a women’s studies department, the grieving parents who sued the city for not closing the beaches before their daughter drowned. Are we really this ridiculous? Do we really have no pride, or sense of personal responsibility, or appreciation for how fucking retarded we look to the rest of the world?

All I know is, Rachel Love can neither hold her liquor, nor ride a bull. And she’s doing nothing to forestall the imminent devolution of the human race either.