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In the spirit of the season They're a Class Act(ion)By Rick Horowitz
Day dawns, as days do. She yawns -- so what else is new? The holiday bustle always leaves her exhausted. Not quite as exhausted as the whalish male still curled around her elbow, still snoring up a hurricane, but worn down in that special, just-past-Christmas way she knows so well. But there's no time for that, not today. She untangles herself from the Human Noise Machine and springs to the floor. "Time to get up, dear -- plenty to do." It's a late-December morning in the Litigious household, 135 Slip-and-Fall Drive. Mitch and Midge Litigious are suing Santa Claus. "Stomach hurts." The words come in a low grumble from somewhere beneath the quilts. Midge gently pulls the covers back, then plants a businesslike kiss on her husband's furrowed forehead. "I'm sure it does, dear. I'm sure it hurts something awful." Mitch considers for a moment, then amends his complaint. "Stomach hurts something awful," he says. "Excellent!" She can't remember precisely when the idea first occurred to her. That it was Midge's idea, not Mitch's idea, she has no doubt. But which day exactly, which hour the seeds began to sprout -- that's still a little fuzzy. Not that the fuzziness is her fault, not with the all the holiday hoops they've made her jump through lately. It's a wonder she can still remember her name. "Litigious et al.," she writes carefully on a smooth new legal pad. "Litigious et al. v. Claus." She likes the way it looks. Then, in rapid-fire order, some of the particulars. The marshmallow snowmen. The chocolate-covered pretzels. The gummy elves in a rainbow of colors. The chocolate-covered Christmas-tree lollipops, so neat (and so appetizing!) in their soldier-like rows. The sugary fruit wedges. The chocolate-covered angels. The five-pound tin of raisins. The ten-pound tin of assorted nuts. The chocolate-covered reindeer. The chocolate-covered coffee beans. The... The... "What were those thingamajigs in the barrel, dear?" "Onions. Chocolate-covered." "And not a warning label anywhere. Somebody's going to pay for this!" A growing clatter on the stairs now, and into the bedroom stagger the twins. They look exactly like their father, only smaller. (Not much smaller.) Midge quizzes them again about their own Christmas-stocking feasts, about any snack-and-junk-food categories their groaning role model might somehow have overlooked. "Are we really suing Santa Claus?" says Payne. "Sweet!" says Suffrin. "Let's nail him!" It's exactly what Midge Litigious has in mind. And doing justice, of course. She figures there must be hundreds, even thousands of people in the same predicament, lured into throbbing excess by a dangerous old man hiding his evil intent behind a jolly white beard and two twinkling eyes. That's more than enough for a class action, Midge calculates. "How were we supposed to know we were putting ourselves in such danger?" she mutters to herself. "It's Santa's fault!" Not to mention the advertisers who kept pushing the "holiday spirit," and the candy makers who produced the stuff, and the supermarkets that sold it -- sue them, too! Not to mention (she's on such a roll now, she doesn't even notice Mitch peering over her shoulder) the dentists who never picked up the phone to warn them about all the cavities they could get, and the doctors who never breathed a word about caloric overkill. Not to mention the banks and the credit-card companies that kept letting them buy things they didn't need, and -- "You making a list?" "I'm checking it twice." Posted 12/26/02.
Rick wishes you and your loved ones (and even your liked ones) a happy
and healthy 2003!
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Rick Horowitz
