Negligent Embarrassment as a Defense

I am not a lawyer and the use of terms like negligent and defense are as legal (and likely completely incorrect) as I get.  But I don’t know what else you would call it.

Let’s say I’m walking and texting and I walk myself right into a mall fountain.  I get my underwear wet, ruin my phone, and hurt my ego but get out right away and leave the mall, looking around hoping no one saw me.

Now let’s say while no one present may have seen my quick dip it was caught on mall cameras and suddenly the whole world can now watch it over  and over and over again on YouTube.    

That would be embarrassing, right?

(It matters not what is posted online is a phone camera capture of a recorded closed circuit video or the image is so blurry and distant that little more than a shadowy figure of myself plunging and running is what the world has seen over and over and over again.  I know it is me national morning news programs are laughing at.  I know it is my inattentive stroll that has set the internet ablaze.  And unless I go public, I will be the only one who knows it is me.  Unless I go public…)

Yeah, this is not a hypothetical scenario.  It actually happened.  Some woman with ironic yet trendy glasses and a fashionable Katie Holmes bob cut  steel-piered it right into a fountain while texting on, one can only assume, the latest in smartphone technology – oh, if only  she were holding a  grande Starbucks latte of the month as well.

She was personally embarrassed for sure but she would have remained, despite the grainy video going viral, publicly anonymous.  Until she went public. 

Now the self-inflicted consequences of walking while texting has become actionable in a court of law.  Her claim of course is this is someone else’s fault.  The public ridicule she has endured – brought on by her outing herself to begin with – is not due to her clumsiness but of the unprofessional actions of mall security personnel uploading the video to the internet. 

Quite frankly, I am shocked that mall security personnel would act in any manner other than entirely professional.  Paul Blart:  Mall Cop was a grossly satirical misrepresentation of that noble profession.  Anyone on a minimum hourly salary armed with little more than a whistle and collar clip walkie talkie is above ethical reproach.  Lady fountainhopper knows this, as we all do, and the actions of these individuals has besmirched the reputation of security personnel everywhere.  It is because a few rogue individuals wantonly disregarded their sworn duties and the public trust that this woman is embarrassed.  And because it appears their employers purposely turned a blind eye to if not fully encouraged their misdeeds, this woman’s embarrassment is due to negligence.

I can’t imagine what the implications of this farce might be.  Had she been around a decade ago, would any of us have had the chance to laugh ourselves hoarse watching America’s Funniest Home Videos?  Victims of unexpected groin shots would have filed a class action suit against ABC.   Then again, those clips of ball tap hilarity were submitted by the participants and were worth potential reward money.  Maybe that is the root of this woman’s beef.  She didn’t have control of the video’s release.  She doesn’t have ownership of her very public stumble in a very public facility cluttered with cameras that reasonably imply very little expectation of privacy.  Based on reports that she has a long list of criminal issues and probably a legal tab just as long, chances are she would tour the country diving into mall fountains 3 or 4 times a day if she could get paid for it.

We can only hope a cantankerous judge dismisses this in dramatic fashion as frivolous.  We can assume it will be settled out of court with a secret sum deposited into this woman’s defense fund.  We can expect to see way too many laws to prevent such embarrassments in the future. 

Look for thousands of local ordinances requiring malls to install railings around fountains.  Watch for state legislatures taking the two-prong approach to the matter; penalties for security personnel posting patron images on the internet no matter how funny AND construction codes prohibiting large open spaces of water in gathering areas of public facilities unless there is a historical, cultural or artist purpose to it.  Finally, count on the creation of a federal grant program to finance early warning fountain avoidance systems involving infrared sensors and wireless signals sent directly to smartphone reminding users to “look up” while walking.

Sign of the Times

It’s a metaphysical gut punch, really.  To wake up and be told you are not who you thought you were. To find out after all this time that which you believed to be you is not you but someone else.   Who am I?

I was a Pisces.  I was a fish; a happy, go-with-the-flow kind of fish. I was a dreamer, an idealist, a creative elitist.  I was in the world but not of it and that suited me just fine.  Today I learned it was all a lie.  Today I learned I was an Aquarius and of that I know nothing.

Aquarius, the water carrier, bears that precious and abundant element which gave me sustenance and a playground for 40 years. That element is now my responsibility. It is now something contained, something carried, something hoarded.  Am I a hoarder?  I have never hoarded anything except maybe for beer bottle caps and bicentennial quarters.  Do I want the responsibility of carrying the water? I don’t know if I want that level of responsibility.  That is too much for a Pisces to take on. But I am not a Pisces.  Apparently I was born to handle it after all.  Can I put the water down ever?  Can I drink it?  Is it all work and no play for the Aquarius?  My mother is an Aquarius (well, was) and I have never seen her play, ever.   It’s all so confusing and a Pisces does not like confusion.  It’s too turbulent and cloudy.  You can’t go with that kind of flow.

All those attributes I proudly pinned on my personality are now nothing more than false testimonials. I now know why all those essays and posters never won awards. They were done by an Aquarius and I guess they really did suck. 

I am a blank page.  A Pisces would know what to do with a blank page.  Does an Aquarius?   If I were an optimist I would see this as a new birth, a chance to start anew. But I am not an optimist.  I am a Pisces, or was.   I wonder how an Aquarius sees this revelation.   Does he embrace it or is he as skeptical as a Pisces, as skeptical as me.

I don’t buy this scientific finding that has shattered my psychic  worldview.  Somehow over thousands of years the moon’s position relative to the zodiac has shifted enough to upend the entire calendar of signs.  That theory is as hokey as global warming; as convoluted as Darwinism; as undetermined as the 2000 elections. 

What about all those living under the delusion of another sign?  I don’t see Leos surrendering their superiority to crabs.  I don’t imagine too many Rams will embrace fins over horns.   And Sagittarius suddenly accepting an entirely new sign not yet affixed with overbearing qualities and lacking the status, stature and standing they have come to know?  Please.  So why should I become a fish out of water?  If it weren’t all just pagan ritual it would be sacrilegious.

This is astrological anarchy.  This is an unalignment of the planets.  If we accept this we will accept anything – a fifth dimension, temporal rifts, quantum leaps with a device called Iggy, embryonic stem cell research.  I know I am one fish swimming against the tide, but maybe, just maybe if I swim hard enough I can turn it.   Maybe I can learn to contain that water; catch a wave upon the sand (and in turn solve problems like Maria).  Or I can just ride it.  I bet Aquarius is damn good surfer.