Spicy Cheese

"You are my soulmate. We are forged together by battle and tears and love. Also my brother's coming along."

"Isn't it weird that your brother in law is always hanging around?"

Buffy fans can have a little gaslighting

A) The US does not have universal healthcare. Even with insurance, and especially before ACA, healthcare can be expensive, especially for unexpected injuries. If someone is injured by another person or a corporation, they're often saddled with medical bills in addition to the pain and lost income. Someone has to pay, and so a personal injury lawsuit is often the answer.

B) Corporations are very good at public image. When a person is injured by a corporation, said corporation invests a lot of resources to paint the injured party as irrational and greedy, because even though they have plenty of funds to settle, the last thing they want is to admit culpability in a public case. By painting USAmericans as obsessed with suing people over trivial matters, you are playing into corporate propaganda.

I'll warn you that if you click this link you will hear horrible medical facts about what happened to this woman, so I'll sum it up less horribly here - Liebeck was not driving, the car was stopped and she was a passenger, and she spilled coffee on herself while trying to add milk to it. This is extremely human.

The inhuman bit was that McDonalds kept the coffee so hot that it gave her second and third degree burns across 16% of her body in three seconds.

She was 79.

She went into shock.

She required skin grafts to heal from this.

She was not the first person burned, other people had received second and third degree burns, she was just the worst (16% of her body). McDonalds KNEW that their coffee was dangerously hot. They didn't care, because it kept the coffee fresher for longer, so they didn't have to throw out as much.

They offered her $800.

She had to sue for medical bills, and to stop them from doing this to someone else. Can you imagine if a small kid knocked the cup off a table????? I have no doubt that her lawsuit saved lives. I am not being hyperbolic. I genuinely think she's saved at least one human life, if not more.

But in the end, she settled the case because she just wanted it to be done and the bills to be paid. She was still recovering from her burns, she just wanted to rest! And part of that settlement was an NDA. That was binding on her and her family. And not on McDonalds.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77353866

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

I thought I could never care for anyone again, until I met you.