David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published March 16, 2004

Maybe I'll sue the Thin Mint-toting lasses

My pal Mike Moser is in the mood to sue someone. He said so in his column last week.

Great minds think alike. Well, OK, "great minds" may be giving us both more credit than we're due, but you get the idea. You see, I'm in the mood to sue someone, too.

My trouble is the clock is ticking. The U.S. House of Representatives has already voted to ban lawsuits against fast-food restaurants and other purveyors of tasty junk food for making people fat. Even though the Senate is not expected to take up the issue this year, I can feel my window of opportunity closing. I'd better get my lawyer in the on-deck circle, my briefs properly filed and my cookies lined up.

I'm going after one of the most insidious institutions ever to expand America's collective waistline. Its members don't actually produce the treats that fatten us, but rather they serve as calculating intermediaries who discreetly take their percentage from every sale. Every year they tempt, charm and lure us into their web, knowing full well that we addicts are powerless to resist their bait.

Of course, I'm speaking of the Girl Scouts.

Do you want to know something really funny? On the side of a box of Thin Mints, it indicates that the "serving size" is -- are you ready for this? -- FOUR cookies! Are they joking? For me, four cookies is how many cookies I put in my mouth with each dip into the green box. I'll eat EIGHT cookies while I'm pouring a frosty glass of milk with which I quite likely will devour the entire box.

Four cookies in a serving? They're mad! No responsible retailer should be allowed to offer cookies so incredibly tasty and have the gall to suggest that I should eat a mere four per serving. Serving sizes for cookies as heavenly as Thin Mints should be measured in boxes, not individual cookies. To add further insult, a box of Thin Mints informs us that there are "about nine" servings per container. This is a national outrage.

Clearly this is the work of cold-hearted cookies dealers who are interested in promoting only one thing: honesty, fairness, friendliness, helpfulness, consideration for others, courage, strength, personal responsibility, respect for one's self and world betterment. Well, yes, you're right. That's more than one thing, and even I must admit that those are worthwhile goals that every young girl should work toward.

Perhaps I should holster my legal firearms for the moment.

Speaking of holstering firearms, it turns out that obesity is responsible for more deaths than guns -- a lot more deaths than guns. The news hit last week that obesity is on track to become this nation's leading cause of preventable deaths as early as next year. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the House's approval of the "cheeseburger bill" came shortly after the news on obesity.

"We as Americans need to realize that suing your way to better health is not the answer," House Speaker Dennis Hastert is quoted as saying in a recent issue of USA Today. He's right. The Girl Scouts shouldn't be blamed any more than McDonald's, Cracker Barrel, Ben & Jerry's or anyone else. Thin Mints, Big Macs, chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy and Karamel Sutra ice cream are treats to be enjoyed in limited moderation. We all know that to be true, and yet plaintiffs and their lawyers still pursue litigation.

Incidentally, the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths that obesity (which killed 400,000 people in 2000) is about to overtake is tobacco use (which killed 435,000 people). The smokers are a dying breed, it seems. If smoking didn't kill me, I'd smoke all day long. Eat Thin Mints and smoke all the live long day -- quite a life, eh?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's other top killers, though not nearly as big as obesity and smoking, are alcohol consumption (85,000), car crashes (43,000), guns (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000) and illicit drugs (17,000).

Money-grubbing plaintiffs and lawyers already have taken their stabs at food makers, tobacco companies, distillers, carmakers and gunsmiths, but as far as I know "sexual behaviors" and "illicit drugs" mostly have escaped unsued. I can't imagine how anyone could sue "sex" and "drugs," but I'm sure some lawyer somewhere is working on an angle.

By the by, "rock and roll" didn't make the CDC's list.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.