Why Is It ...

… that my favorite childhood memory is my back not hurting?

… that I want to make ice cubes from hotdog water and serve it to my guests to get them to leave?

… that when I say I'll be there in 10 minutes, you should just know that I will not be there in 10 minutes?

… that people freak out when I say that I don’t Snapchat or TikTok or Instagram, but no one cares that I can write in cursive, do math without a calculator and tell time on a clock with hands?

… that I keep telling myself not to talk to weirdoes before realizing that if that happened I would have no friends left?

… that seeing people walk out of my life makes me sad … but only because I wish they would run?

… that my Life Coach just told me that I didn’t make the team?

… that I’m not as mean as I could be and am annoyed that people aren’t more grateful for that?

… that there are no adult neighborhoods to Trick-or-treat, like where they hand out Tacos and Margaritas?

… that I only drink water, coffee or alcohol and am constantly vacillating between being over hydrated, very jittery or drunk?

… that sometimes I think I’m the problem, I instantly think, Never mind that doesn’t sound right?

10 Black Women Kicked Off Of Train For Laughing Too Loudly

There is nothing worse … nothing … than being on a train with a bunch of colored women laughing. I’m guessing.

See, while riding the train with these eleven Black women, well, ten Black women and one white woman … what the hell was she doing there … who were having a good time, a white woman was infuriated by all the laughter and walked right up to the women and told them their laughter was bothering her and that this was “not a bar.”

At the next stop, the Eleven Angry Women were escorted off the train and met by police, though no charges were filed.

Oh, wait, I got ahead of myself. I hate when that happens.

See, these eleven women were part of a book club, and were riding the train … in California … in the Napa Valley.

It was a wine train that takes people through wine country and serves wine while doing so.

According to a Facebook post by Lisa Renee Johnson, one of the women in the group, the trouble started when the woman in that photo approached them and said she was annoyed by their laughter. A maître d’ then came by and told the women they were making too much noise and when he was asked who was complaining he replied, “People’s faces are uncomfortable.”

Huh. What?

The Napa Valley Wine Train posted a message to their Facebook page accusing the women of “verbal and physical abuse toward other guests and staff” but they quickly deleted that post, though  not before Johnson captured a screenshot.

The group received a full refund but Johnson also wants an apology.

“It was humiliating. I’m really offended to be quite honest. I felt like it was a racist attack on us. I feel like we were being singled out.”

Let me see if I have this right; a group of women, out for a day of traveling through wine country, on a wine train, while drinking wine, were laughing and having fun, but because some people’s faces were “uncomfortable” they were removed from the train to face the police.

Uh huh. Welcome to America where it’s apparently not all right to be caught #LaughingWhileBlack.

Think Progress

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Money Can't Buy Happiness, But It Will Buy Probation In Manslaughter Cases In Texas

[Clockwise from top left]:
Brian Jennings, Breanna Mitchell,
Hollie and Shelby Boyles

I remember being in high school and the nearly weekly weekend parties at someone’s house whose parents were out of town, out for dinner, or just upstairs ignoring us. There was almost always alcohol, there was always a drunk girl or guy throwing up; there was always drama.

My parents had a theory, though. They knew about the booze, and knew that, more likely than not, I might imbibe, so they asked that if I drank, that I call them for a ride home and not get into the car with a drunk friend and risk my life, or anyone else’s life, trying to get home. I never did that because I knew that calling my parents and telling them I was too drunk to drive would only get me into serious trouble once I sobered up. So, I made choices: I wouldn’t drink, and therefore get home all by myself, or I’d stay the night at the party and not drive until I had sobered up.

Apparently those choices never crossed the mind of Ethan Couch, or his parents, because he was too busy being spoiled and ignored by them to learn anything.

Ethan Couch: Poor Little Rich Boy

See, Ethan Couch is a 16-year-old Texas boy who went out one night and got drunk — his blood alcohol level was .24, three times the legal limit for an adult — and then drove home and caused an accident that killed four people. But this week, for the crime he committed, Ethan Couch was sentenced to ten years’ probation — with no time ­in jail — because Ethan Couch was himself a victim of a heretofore unknown illness called “affluenza.”

And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.

The defense claimed that Ethan Couch was not responsible for stealing beer from a local Wal-Mart, getting drunk, getting into a car, and slaughtering four innocent people because he is a victim, the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for him, and he was obviously too stupid to realize that driving drunk was dangerous. The defense made special note that, in an earlier incident, Ethan Couch was not punished for being passed out drunk in a car with a naked fourteen-year-old girl, so he just didn’t know better; he just thought having rich parents meant you could do whatever you wanted to, and get away with it.

That night that Ethan Couch drank himself into a stupor and got into a car because his parents were too busy getting rich to parent him, Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby received a phone call from a friend, Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down. At the scene, Brian Jennings, a youth pastor, was driving past and also stopped to help.

They were all killed when Ethan Couch’s truck plowed into them, then struck a parked car, which then slid into another vehicle driving in the opposite direction. Two of Ethan’s friends, riding in the bed of his pickup, were tossed out and severely injured; one suffered internal injuries and broken bones, while the other will never be able to walk or talk again because of a brain injury.

But Ethan Couch is not responsible because his parents didn’t parent him. Defense attorneys think the parents should share in the blame because they never set limits on him, and called a psychologist to the stand to testify that Ethan Couch was a product of "affluenza." He reportedly testified that Ethan Couch’s family felt that wealth bought privilege, and that Ethan Couch's life could be turned around with one to two years of treatment and no contact with his parents.

Judge Jean Boyd

So, for the vehicular manslaughter of four innocent people, for the injury to two of his friends, for driving drunk, for being underage and driving drunk, Judge Jean Boyd sentenced Ethan Couch to ten year’s probation and removed him from his parents’ home. Couch will be sent to a private counseling center that costs $450,000, which will be paid for by his father.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing for Ethan Couch that mommy and daddy have money, though all that money and privilege can’t bring Holly and Shelby Boyles, Brian Jennings, Breanna Mitchell, and Ethan Couch’s  two friends back to their families.

I have always heard that people with money were treated differently, but I didn’t want to believe it. Now, though, it’s quite clear: money, even if it’s your parents’ money, can buy you out of jail for killing four people with your car.

Oh, but don’t fret, because Judge Jean Boyd, wants y’all to know that if Ethan Couch steps out of line even once, he’ll do real jail time for murdering people with his vehicle.

That makes me feel so much better ….

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