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Before I wade back in, are you somebody who just likes to pull for the 'underdog'? I should just rest, in that case... ;-)

I don't know...just seems to me that the girls could think of a lot of ways to make a "nice gesture" that wouldn't get the sheriff called.

And with all the other neighbors, it DIDN'T get the sheriff called.

Sure, they could have done LOTS of other things. They didn't - they did THIS. It's easy to armchair-quarterback these girls, and say that they shouldn't have done it. Their father approved the mission in advance, though, and I have to assume that if they lived in a community where this wouldn't have been acceptable, he would have known it.

You've made a number of good arguments about the fear experienced by people living in isolated surroundings, but my guess is that the error in judgment here is to have included this particular neighbor in this particular gesture. Given that it was well received by the other neighbors, I think it's demonstrable that the act was "well-suited" for the neighborhood at large.

As long as we're Monday-morning-quarterbacking, I'm getting the impression that the Youngs were more socially isolated and fearful than your average Joe. It's easy to say, after the fact, that the girls should have just left them out of their gesture. Sometimes, though, doing that ALSO plays into the fears of some people, who then think that they've been singled out for alienation, and 'here's the proof; they're the ONLY ones who didn't get cookies'.

Here are the biggest (circumstantial, admittedly) indications I have that the Youngs were only trying to take their pound of flesh. The girls were acting with the express approval of their father, but he wasn't named in the suit; seems you should go after the adult in a case like that. Young wouldn't accept the apologies from the family because "they rang false".

I have no doubt that Mrs. Young was every bit as terrified as she claims, but I know plenty of people who get way more scared about things than is realistic (ask my wife, I *are* one!) Then, after the dust had settled, I think she was so mad about being terrified at something less than sinister, that she sought to take it out on the people who sparked her terror. How's that for a completely invented analysis?

Meanwhile, ask my wife about the time the band boosters got caught flocking my yard with pink plastic flamingos, after someone paid for them to do it as a fund raiser...

But you know who I'd really like to hear from? The Youngs' 18 year old daughter. If I found out that she and these girls didn't get along, that could add a whole new dimension to the argument, in either direction.

I don't have an underdog fixation...one of the reasons I love FR is to be with a bunch of people who think mostly like I do...

Maybe I identify with Mrs. Young, though frankly she looks 10 years older than me, and I'm 10 years older than her. We do live way out, as I've said before...nobody bothers ANYBODY after dark around here, or visits without a call in advance. I'm just thinking, here's a woman alone in a rural area, hubby out of town, taking care of an elderly mother, with a girl teen in the house...it's 10:30 at night, no car in the drive, somebody banging on the back door and not identifying or showing themselves...

The girls said they only went to houses with the porch light on, I've got to assume they mean the front porch light, because you don't see the back porch light from the road...they hid their car, then hopped a fence and a ditch,
honestly, this sounds more like pranking to me than trying to be nice to somebody...

Nobody gets their kids through the teen years without some pranking, and we're no exception, but nothing ever scared me or made me mad--this episode would do it, though...it's why we have a big loud yard dog outside and a mastiff inside, plus of course like all sensible rural people where there are bears and cougars, we're armed.

As a nurse, I do know that there are people with non-fatal arrythmias that can be triggered by fright or alarm, and I'm JUST GUESSING that's why Mrs. Young went to the ER to be checked out the next day...

I was serious when I said that the folks around here think the girls were lucky to get off...I really wonder at all the posters who have contempt for Mrs. Young, who think the poor girls were misunderstood, who feel free to speculate that Mrs. Young was drinking, etc., who approve of people sending money to the parents of the girls, etc.

I do think that going to court is going too far. I wouldn't have, because it's a waste of time and money.