Which do you think is rising faster – inflation or the world’s efforts to reach Peak Stupid? Trick question – they are both rising faster than the cost of gasoline.

While we let economic brainiacs tackle the inflation imbroglio, let us focus on the topic that is more in our wheelhouse. I mean, of course, Peak Stupid.

Today’s contender comes from our gentle neighbors to the North, where a woman is suing a concert venue after she “got so drunk at a Marilyn Manson show that she blew up a house.”

That’s right. According to the CBC (that’s the Canadian version of the BBC, which is the British version of America’s ABC…or something), the 26-year-old (we’ll refrain from naming her to protect the ignorant) was driving home from the arena in London, Ontario when she crashed into a house, which promptly exploded.

In quick succession, the explosion destroyed four houses, injured seven people, falling embers caused fires at several nearby homes, and gas and water service had to be shut off. For the cherry on top, the neighborhood had to be evacuated. That’s right, the whole neighborhood.

Fortunately, damages were kept to a manageable $10 to $15 million. The person responsible for the whole kerfuffle pled guilty to four counts of impaired driving and was sentenced to a three-year prison sentence in 2021.

That should be the end of it. Person breaks law, person goes to jail. Easy peasy. At least, you’d think. However, we now live in a world where celebrities fly in Lear jets to exotic places to nag the rest of us about using carbon fuels. And so, the story continues.

As a result or her incarceration, the offender and her father have filed a lawsuit against the company that held the concert and served her the booze. Talk about low tide in the gene pool.

According to the convicted daughter and her overindulgent parent, the company shares liability for the explosion because it kicked the woman out of the venue without trying to prevent her from driving home. The suit also alleges that the venue served her while knowing she was intoxicated.

Seriously, it has almost reached the point where one grows weary bringing up example after example of people who do not want to take responsibility for their actions.

Spill a cup of hot coffee into your lap at a restaurant drive-thru, get paid $2 million in damages. Because, after all, the restaurant made the java, and the customer should have had no inkling that the offending beverage is served hot.

And here I go into the minefield, after gently reminding you that my opinions are my own – you do not have to agree with them. And I am speaking as a non-smoker. That being said, let us discuss lawsuits regarding smoking. The tobacco industry (which has given a lot of folks in this area a good livelihood over the years), still produces a legal substance.

Yet people continue to harangue those who choose to take up the habit, and people who get sick as a result of smoking successfully win lawsuits brought against tobacco companies. My viewpoint is, with the not-so-subtle warnings on the labels of every pack of cigarettes, the smoker has been duly warned, and should not receive any recompense from Big Tobacco or anyone else.

Actually, if aggrieved smokers wanted to sue someone, file a lawsuit against the school they attended, since the teachers apparently did not teach the smoker to READ THE WARNING LABEL.

If, by now, you’re as hot as a cup of fast-food coffee spilled into an octogenarian’s lap, I apologize. It’s just that I am a big fan of tort reform. In my eyes, restitution should be fair, not exorbitant, and should not be used as a sledgehammer to show some rich industry that they are too big for their britches.

Which brings me back to the father-daughter suing duo. Start running jails like a poker game. If you win, you go free. If you lose, punishment is double. And send Dad along for good measure. After all, that rotten apple obviously did not fall far from the tree.