Posted on 02/05/2005 10:24:01 AM PST by Pikamax
After a crumby ending, donated dough rolls in for 2 cookie deliverers By Electa Draper Denver Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 06, 2005 -
Durango - The Cookie Defense Fund has swelled to thousands of dollars.
Hundreds of Denver Post readers e-mailed and called to express "shock" and "outrage" that two 18-year-old Durango girls were sued for something they did last summer: drop off a plate of cookies and a paper heart on a neighbor's porch.
Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Zellitti lost in Small Claims Court in La Plata County on Thursday. Their impulse to bake cookies and treat neighbors by knocking, dropping off and running away went awry. One of nine neighbors who received a plate of cookies said the pounding on her door about 10:30 p.m. July 31 frightened her into an anxiety attack. A Durango judge awarded about $900 to the 49-year-old woman to cover some medical bills incurred when she ended up at the emergency room the next day.
If the people who called and wrote make good on their pledges, that $900 will be recovered many times over. Several people offered to personally cover the whole amount themselves.
The attention has been overwhelming.
"We just put them on the plane. Lindsey, Taylor and Jill (Taylor's mother) are headed to New York to do 'Good Morning America,"' Martha Zellitti, Lindsey's mom, said Friday night.
"They just thought it might be their one shot to tell the country they're still not afraid to do good deeds," Martha Zellitti said. "They'll just try to be more considerate in the future about the time."
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The families are also mulling over an offer from Jay Leno to do "The Tonight Show." It's not looking good for Leno, though, because Lindsey's mom wants her to get back to college in Kansas, where she is a freshman studying animal nutrition. Taylor is still in high school.
"We're just not the movie- star types," Martha Zellitti said.
But the story, which appeared Friday in The Denver Post, was linked to the Drudge Report and eBay. The tale was recounted on MSNBC ("Sugar and spice is not always nice," journalist Dan Abrams said) and other media.
The Otis Spunkmeyer cookie- making company is offering to hold an event in Durango to set things right.
"Cookies are the ultimate comfort food," Otis Spunkmeyer spokeswoman Liz Rayo said. "We don't want anyone sued over cookies. Cookies are good. This is an emotional issue for us."
They're not the only ones.
In e-mail after e-mail to The Post, from Hawaii to New York, and from Canada to Puerto Rico, people invoked with dismay the adage "No good deed goes unpunished."
Many observed that the unfortunate misunderstanding gave new meaning to the term "Cookie Monster."
One reader called the plaintiff in the case "a macaroon." Another called her a "cookie batterer."
The plaintiff could not be reached for comment Friday.
Martha Zellitti said the girls' families are not upset with the neighbor, or with the judge, who received many calls from people questioning his decision. Zellitti said the neighbor volunteers at the local food bank and does good deeds herself.
"And the judge made the best decision he could with the information he had," Zellitti said. "We just weren't prepared."
The judge awarded only $1 for damages, even though he could have given the plaintiff lost wages and the cost of new motion- sensor lights for her porch and more. She had itemized about $3,000 in all.
But political conservatives who read the story were convinced the judge must be a liberal activist intent on being politically correct. On the other hand, liberals said the judge and neighbor must be conservatives, who tend to see "terrorists behind every bush and on every porch," even in a quiet rural neighborhood just south of Durango.
The girls' defenders ran the gamut from executives and reverends to felons.
One e-mailer offered to set the girls up in their own cookie business.
There were other factions. A small but intense group were incensed that anyone would consider 10:30 p.m. "too late." It's really early, they said.
One church group wrote that members were very concerned because one of its favorite programs is for youths to ring doorbells, drop off treats and run. Another church group in South Carolina said it had young men in its congregation who would like to correspond with the Durango bakers.
"Lindsey's boyfriend wouldn't like that," Martha Zellitti said.
Yea, they made a mistake on protocol, but dang! Free cookies? They can leave them on my doorstep anytime.
"This has turned into quite a fiasco," Young said. "It's something that never should have happened and it's just devastating. My phone hasn't stopped ringing. My life has been threatened and I'll probably have to move out of town."
CRY ME A RIVER
"I just hope they learned a lesson."
THAT YOUR A FAT STUPID COW
This is the second thread about this topic that I posted on and I was pinged to this one, I didn't seek it out. You may think you can tell me that you and others can summon me to a thread just to tell me to shut up, but it doesn't work that way.
Kids do stupid things all the time, and this was certainly the case her. They were stupid in trying to deliver late at night, but to them, it might have still been early.
Be that as it may, I have a hard time relating this to the woman's plight. It seems to me the woman might have gone overboard, but I guess the courts thought otherwise.
"This has turned into quite a fiasco," Young said. "It's something that never should have happened and it's just devastating. My phone hasn't stopped ringing. My life has been threatened and I'll probably have to move out of town."
Funny, no mention of panic attacks or hospital visits.
Guess, if you give Ms. Young a bag of cookies after 9 PM she has to go to the emergency room.
Threaten her life and she takes it in stride.
I don't care how you want to define it or name the hour. Too late is too late. Period. To rebut on semantics is stupid.
And some people like to do "knock and run" things for other people as a surprise. To condemn it like you did is something many of us disagree with. I for one.
I don't care if YOU like it. (That makes as much sense as arguing rape is OK because the rapist likes it.) What's important is whether your "target" likes it or wants it. So unless that person is a friend, a relative, or someone who has given you permission in advance, you have no way of knowing whether the recipient appreciates or welcomes your little hijinks. In case you're unable to think that logic out, what you're advocating is considered trespassing, even if the intention is good-natured. So either knock at the door--at a reasonable hour--and stick around to announce your intentions, or bugger off.
Your course of action is clear.
Run, don't walk to the nearest doctor, NOW!
Later, you can sue FREE Republic for mental distress.
And why are you upset that I had the temerity to reply to a post?
Exactly! Unfortunately, some people are only selfishly interested in how their actions make themselves feel, rather than how they make other people feel.
And this was also the first time I'd heard about the incident.
Good grief.
You must enjoy the attention.
i have the address and telephone numbers ofthe judge and the wwoman that started this all if anyone wants them freepmail me
Well then, they should have changed the date or otherwise re-arranged their schedule. Just because they had other things to do earlier in the evening, does not give them the right to violate good manners and knock on people's doors at an unacceptable hour.
They asked their parents if it was OK to run out cookies, and they said yes.
Did the parents know they were taking the cookies to strangers? Did the parents know their children's planned method of delivery? If so, then shame on the parents for not teaching their children better manners and judgment.
Um, you posted a bizarre post to me. The only one seeking attention appears to be you. I merely asked why you would take umbrage that I was posting.
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