AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH MY HEART MY HEART i gotta go to the er now im goingto sue you for 1 thousand dollars but i wil lbe willingto settle out of court for the 2 kitties :-D
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."
WANT MORE?
Thank you for visiting DenverPost.com, The Denver Post's online 24-hour news source. Click here for more great DenverPost.com stories and features.
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.
I just hit abuse.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH MY HEART MY HEART i gotta go to the er now im goingto sue you for 1 thousand dollars but i wil lbe willingto settle out of court for the 2 kitties :-D
They started this cookie delivery at 9:00 yet didn't arrive at this woman's house until 10:30...
No posting of personal addresses or telephone numbers allowed in the open forum. Thanks.
It says the woman's husband is making repeated threats over the phone and is harassing them. Hopefully T & L's family doesn't have an anxiety attacks that will land them in the hospital. The lawsuit woman might end up back in court to pay their bills this time.
If I saw that package with the heart on it with girly writing, I would assume some little girls made it, but doubt I would eat anything homemade left by people I don't know.
It says she was asking for motion sensor security lights for her porch. huh? I thought home security was the responsibility of the homeowner.
" I just hope they learned a lesson."
I Thinking that maybe this witch has learned a lesson
These girls were very very lucky that they weren't shot by the home owner.
She tried to bill them for a motion sensor and her husband is making harassing calls. Who is in the wrong here.
Just as the homeowner is lucky she didn't shoot
I'd marry one of them.
You could also take them a few miles west to Utah and marry both of them. Assuming you could afford two wives who give away your food to people they don't even know.
Wow, how nice of you to insert the concept of 'rape' into this story.
Stupid escalation by a stubborn coot, who will argue to death over minor points. Not much different than this lady's attitude.
You were a nose ahead before that post.
The whole thing kinda reminds me of that Joe Diffy song, about the 'butterfly flapping its wings' theory, where one little things sets off a chain reaction of relatively small events that end up in a big ol' mess.
She walks into Smokey's one hip at a time
Like a broken field runner slippin' through the line
He likes the way she looks so he calls the little wife says
"Don't wait up for me I'll be workin' late tonight"
Wife hangs up the phone, bursts into tears
Calls her sister up and cries "Get over here"
Sister tells her boyfriend be back in awhile
Boyfriend wants a beer, the store is just a mile
He leaves the motor running he'll only be a minute
His car drives away with teenagers in it
The driver tells his buddies, got one life to live
They scream into the night "Let's get it over with"
'Cause and effect, chain of events
All of the chaos makes perfect sense
When you're spinning round, things come undone
Welcome to Earth 3rd rock from the Sun
The kid guns the gas, the car starts to swerve
Heads for a semi truck, jumps the curb
Truck hits a Big Boy in the Shoney's parking lot
And flies through the air takes out the bank clock
Clock strikes a light pole, transformer sparks
Lines go down, town goes dark
Waitress calls the cops, says she saw it all
Swears a giant alien has landed at the mall
Cops ring up the mayor says there's panic in the streets
"We hate to wake you up but we can't find the chief"
Mayor says "Use your head if he ain't in his car
He's hiding from his wife, down at Smokey's Bar"
'Cause and effect, chain of events
All of the chaos makes perfect sense
When you're spinning round, things come undone
Welcome to Earth 3rd rock from the Sun
'Cause and effect, chain of events
All of the chaos makes perfect sense
When you're spinning round, things come undone
Welcome to Earth 3rd rock from the Sun
It struck me as abusive.
Would also make a great Shakespearean play...
In every state in this nation, if you shoot someone for knocking on the door without identifying themselves, you will go to prison.
You're being absurd.
The neighbour is obviously a witch, and deserves much of the scorn she is recieving, but the girls could be dead right now too, legally killed in self defense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.