When Life Gives You Lemons, File a Class Action

I am happy to report that I have once again been included in the American Dream. Yes, I’m eligible to be part of another class action lawsuit!

Unbeknownst to me until I received the letters, I have had beef over the years with Toyota, Verizon, Master Card, Visa, Wells Fargo, and many, many others.

I never joined any of those class actions, but as far as I know, I at least did actual business with them all. This latest one is extra special.

“Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand” has been invited to join a class action against Visa and Mastercard for those SOB’s misleading and possibly unconstitutional interchange fees. We’ve got them on the hook for $5.5 billion!

“What the hell is ‘Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand?’” you might be asking yourself, just as I was when I received the letter last week. I puzzled over it for a minute or two until I remembered Juan the illegal hot dog vendor in Berkely, CA.

“Of course!” you’re saying to yourself. “Juan the hot dog guy!”

No?

Well, back in September of 2017, Juan set up an unlicensed hot dog cart outside a stadium, and was promptly ticketed by the police, who took his $60 as evidence. Cell Phone Guy was there to record the whole thing, berating the police for doing their jobs in the process, claiming we all have the right to distribute and/or ingest unlicensed and, most likely, unsanitary hot dogs.

Cell Phone Guy then started a GoFundMe “for” Juan, even stating in the description that he didn’t know Juan or even know how to find Juan again. The GoFundMe raised over $90,000.

In response to that ludicrously misplaced generosity, I immediately started a GoFundMe for my kids’ unlicensed and definitely unsanitary lemonade stand. I openly pleaded for the police to come to our neighborhood, confiscate their profits, and shut them down.

Sadly, we did not garner nearly as much support as Juan, and only raised $55, all of which was donated to the Roseville Police Activities League – a day I’m sure their fundraising team will never forget.

Well, as it turns out, RPAL may be in line for another sizeable donation stemming from our illicit lemonade activities, because those snakes over at the credit card companies apparently scammed our helpless GoFundMe. We only netted $55, but the Lord only knows how much people actually donated. There’s a chance we reached our original goal of a million dollars, but the excessive interchange fees left us with a fraction of that. Who knows?

That’s why we owe it to America and the kids at RPAL to join this class action and get back what is rightfully ours! After all, there’s $5.5 billion on the table.

If my class action lawsuit math is correct, a year or so from now Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand should receive a check for $1.12. If Cell Phone Guy joins the class “on behalf of” Juan, he may be able to get as much as $67.50.

I just pray that the lawyers will be able to make ends meet for the year while they wait for their checks for $55 million to arrive!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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In the Army Now?

I think my sixteen-year-old son may technically be in the military. Allow me to explain.

A while back, Son Number Two received a nice letter from Kathrine R. Helland, Ph.D., who, as you know, is the Director over at JAMRS.

What’s that? You don’t know what JAMRS is? OK, good, that makes me feel a lot better. I had to Google it, too.

The only other identifying mark on the letter besides the mysterious acronym was a “government seal.” I put that in quotes because it was made up of the standard Great Seal of the United States that you are familiar with – the shielded eagle with the “E pluribus unum” banner in its beak and an olive branch in one claw and spears in the other, signifying that we, as a country, know Latin and are not afraid to harvest fruit trees with weaponry.

Normally the seal is surrounded by the title of whatever department of government is being advertised. This seal looked a little fishy to me, though, because above the eagle it said “U.S. Government” and below the eagle it said “United States of America.”

If it’s not fake, it’s at least poor grammar and style since it essentially says United States twice, but that aside, I don’t think the “government” as a whole has a titled seal. That would simply be the one that only says The United States of America.

Anyway, after I got done grading the letter for official seal accuracy, I looked up the acronym and found out it stands for the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, which is a program run by the United States Department of Defense, which as the seal would accurately suggest, is a part of the U.S. Government.

Unfortunately, the Google search of JAMRS didn’t explain how to pronounce the acronym correctly, so I was left not knowing if I should say “jammers,” “jam-res,” “jammer-ess,” or “ja-missus.”

The letter from Dr. Helland asked my son if he wouldn’t mind spending fifteen minutes of his busy schedule to fill out a survey for JAMRS regarding his future plans and his likelihood of joining a branch of the military. This information would “greatly help public officials make more informed decisions when providing and allocating resources.”

Included with the letter was a return envelope and a crisp, new two-dollar bill.

There was no explanation for the money, however the letter did mention that JAMRS had included a “token of their appreciation.” The letter went on to state that if Son Number Two filled out the survey and returned it in the included envelope, there would be a further “token of their appreciation” for his time and efforts.

Son Number Two enjoys having money almost as much as he enjoys spending it, so he filled out the survey and put it in the mail. Sure enough, Dr. Kathrine sent him back a thank you letter with a five-dollar bill this time. Again, there was no mention of the money specifically, only that JAMRS was presenting him with another “token of appreciation.”

Hmm…

Call it what you want to, Doc, but the United States Department of Defense just paid my sixteen-year-old son seven dollars for fifteen minutes of work. To put it another way, the DoD has hired my son to handle paperwork for twenty-eight dollars an hour.

He’s happy as a clam, but I have a follow-up question…

You never specifically mentioned money changing hands, however the “tokens” were specifically said to be included to show appreciation for his time and effort. You’re from the DoD, but your letterhead has a seal that you appear to have made up in your office specifically to look official but not actually say anything about being from the Department of Defense.

This entire thing reeks of plausible deniability, because you know damned well that you are paying minors to do tasks for you, since apparently not including money up front and the promise of more upon task completion wasn’t getting the job done. No responses back means no data for you to blabber at someone, which means no job for you.

I assume that if you lost your sweet government gig, you might have to resort to the dreaded private sector where potential employers might find out your Ph.D. is in Art History. That would be a shame.

So, here’s my follow-up question – Which would you prefer? Would you like me to pursue a legal case against your department for illegal conscription of a minor into military service, or would you prefer to enroll him into the DoD pension benefits program, since he’s retired from active paperwork duty now?

Your choice.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Something's Fishy Here

A grave injustice has been rectified. Our California courts have come to the rescue of reason and sanity and finally, once and for all, ruled that bees are fish.

It’s about damned time.

Bees, in a travesty of “law” and common sense, were up to this point considered insects. Can you imagine? Now they can finally take their rightful place in the animal kingdom alongside largemouth bass and great white sharks.

You see, in 2018, some conservation groups wanted four separate types of bumblebees to be protected by the California Endangered Species Act. I don’t know how bumblebee species get their names, but one of them was the Crotch bumblebee, which sounds like the end result of a very unfortunate situation. Another was the Suckley cuckoo bumblebee, which had to be a prank just to get people to say it out loud with a straight face, right?

Anyway, the endangered species act doesn’t cover insects – just birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, plants, and Keith Richards. Instead of simply asking for insects to be added to the endangered species act, these conservation groups, which shall remain nameless because they qualify as minors based on their apparent average IQ, argued that bees can and should be considered fish.

In 2020, the Sacramento County Superior Court struck down that argument on the basis that it made no sense whatsoever, and also ordered the groups to stop eating the paste.

Decades earlier, however, in 1979, crack cocaine was invented, which California’s 3^rd District Court of Appeals smokes religiously before making any ruling. On May 31^st of this year, while higher than the grocery bill, they ruled that bees are, in fact, fish.

Which brings me to the point of this particular column. I would like to bring an immediate motion to the California 3^rd District Court of Appeals regarding my classification as a human.

As the court is aware, humans obviously all evolved from apes. Many of the more advanced humans have wondered, if that were true, how come there are still apes? I am here to tell you, without a doubt, that some of us apes never fully evolved. My wife can testify under oath to this.

Since I am an ape, I do not fall under the definition of “taxable individual or entity” in any of the Internal Revenue Service code. As such, I am not only exempt from future taxation of any kind, but since I’ve been an ape my whole life, I’m owed a very large amount in illegally confiscated back taxes.

I had no idea this was the case up until now, but in my defense, I’m just a poor, dumb ape. I’d really appreciate it if you fine folks over at the appeals court could fire up those crack pipes and rule in my favor here. I’d really like all that money back.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy some nightcrawlers, grab my rod and reel, and head over to the almond orchard to try to catch us some dinner.

In case I run into a game warden, does anybody know the limit on bees?

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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The Dumbest Rule I've Ever HOA'd of

Smack dab in the middle of our summer of endless road trips, bookended by two very long drives, we had a magical week of not getting in the car very much when we stayed at a rental house in Sunriver, Oregon. If you have never been to Sunriver, you should really go. And if you have been to Sunriver, chances are you’re still trapped there, because it is an insane maze of roundabouts and bike paths that looks like the planner’s three-year-old just scribbled all over the blueprints five minutes before the deadline.

It is a wonderful place to visit, nestled alongside the Deschutes River, with golf courses, waterfalls, hiking, biking, and some of the world’s finest microbreweries just down the road in Bend (if you can find your way out to get there).

All that being said, I don’t think I’d ever want to actually live in Sunriver. It has nothing to do with the area. Like I said, it’s fantastic, and I’m sure I would eventually figure out the road system. It’s just that I don’t think I would get along with the homeowner’s association very well.

If you have an HOA where you live, chances are Sunriver’s HOA makes yours look like a Libertarian convention. You are allowed to walk or ride a bike on the Sunriver paths, but never ever should you even think about riding a scooter or a pair of rollerblades. You can keep your overpowered e-bike in the garage and don’t even get me started if you think you’ll be riding a skateboard anywhere around here.

If you think you are going to have an RV or a boat, you’d better start planning your fully-enclosed structure in which to hold it now. And when you are done planning that structure, you can just shoot those plans over to the design committee, where we will completely change them to our liking. And don’t even thing about trying to build that structure yourself. All contractors must be registered with the HOA. None of those “outside” bozos.

Thinking of trimming your tree? Think again. You need a permit for that. Did one of your trees fall down? Don’t touch it until you talk to us and we see fit to grant you a permit to do so.

If you are planning to have firewood, you had damned well better stack it in a rectangular fashion. No linear stacking! This is not a third-world nation.

Paint color. Exterior light diffusing. How long the refrigerator repair guy can park at your house (four hours max). The list goes on and on.

Like I said, it’s a great spot to vacation, but if you’re going to try to fine me for cutting a branch off my own tree near my linearly-stacked firewood, we’re not going to be friends.

My absolute favorite of all the Sunriver HOA rules, however, came to light when we planned our patriotic three-hour Fourth of July tube float down the Deschutes. Our rental house was close to the river, and I scouted out (on my traditionally leg-powered bicycle) the perfect spot to get out of the river and walk about forty yards down the path back to our house.

When I went down to inspect the perfect little disembarking beach, it had a sign that said No River Float Take-Out Here. The sign went on to helpfully explain that no one on a tube is allowed to get out of the river anywhere in Sunriver, except at the marina (which is a private, members-only club and therefore off limits to you) and a public canoe take-out area four river miles further down.

You are more than welcome to enter the river here and swim, and then get out of the river here. You are welcome to enter the river here with a tube, and splash around right here, and then get out here. You are forbidden, however, from floating down river from anywhere else on a tube and getting out here.

Hmm… that’s pretty funny. I think we’ll just get out here.

Of all the crazy HOA rules – or just rules in general – that I’ve ever heard of, this one seems to be the least enforceable. This could actually be the world’s most unenforceable rule.

“You aren’t allowed to get out of the moving river.”

That is so stupid it’s humorous. I’m having real trouble trying to imagine anything as asinine as someone standing on the shore of a lake, river, or the ocean, and trying to tell someone else that they aren’t allowed to get out of the water.

We went ahead with our delightful float and got out of the river where we wanted to, because we’re logical American humans. I was actually hoping some HOA-loving homeowner, or better yet, a member of the board, would be there when we got out of the river next to their nice sign. I was really looking forward to someone trying to explain to me how attempted murder was one of their sacred bylaws. But alas, our river extrication was uneventful.

One of my goals in life is to never be involved in a lawsuit, but if someone tried to sue me because my family got out of a river, it would totally be worth it. I would have the time of my life tearfully explaining how my emotional support river otter (that I met that fateful day) can’t even curb the nightmares from the PTSD of my wife and children almost drowning at the hands of an evil HOA.

The only problem would be that I’d end up owning one or more Sunriver houses in the court settlement and then I’d have to follow all their other crazy rules.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Google+ You = Just You - Repost

A while back, I predicted a class action lawsuit would be coming against my former seventeenth-favorite social network, Google+. Sadly, I was right. Someone please tell my wife.

I got the email yesterday informing me of the impending legal action against Google With Cross. I was wrong about one thing, though. The suing class wasn’t as large as I thought it would be. I predicted the predatory lawyers would be able to round up as many as seven hipsters as plaintiffs. I overestimated the massive popularity and user base of Google Addition. They could only find four. This legal action brought to you by Matthew, Zak, Charles, and Eileen. Good luck with your lawsuit, you crazy kids.

Here’s the historical record of my prediction, so we can prove it to my wife. Enjoy!

I received some disturbing news last week. Google emailed me to inform me that my Google+ account would be shut down soon. You can imagine my surprise.

My first thought was, I have a Google+ account?

My second thought was, What the hell is Google+?

I’m totally kidding. I know Google+ was the social media network that Google came up with in an afternoon as a means to compete with Facebook. Sadly, it never really took off, and by “never really,” I mean that only fifty-six people in the entire world ever knew about it, and most of them worked at Google. Maybe they should have advertised it on Facebook?

My guess as to why it never gained any traction is that it had a symbol in the name. It was like The Social Network Formerly Known as Prince. When you don’t actually spell out your company name, you leave it far too open for interpretation.

Is it “Google Plus,” “Google Add,” “Google And,” “Google Positive,” “Google Lazy Person’s Ampersand,” or “Google Insert International Direct Dial Code Here?” No one ever knew for sure.

Here’s part of the nice note I received from Google Celtic Cross:

In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers' expectations.

Apparently, one of the “challenges involved in maintaining a successful product” is not accidentally leaving a giant security gap for an entire week. That apparently does not “meet consumers' expectations.”

Originally, they had plans to drag out the shutdown of Google Line Doodle until August of 2019, but then they found out that they did an update that had a huge bug in it, leaving everyone’s accounts wide open for an entire week, so they have decided to pull the plug by April.

It’s unclear whether any sensitive data was leaked, but the good news for Google is that virtually everyone with a Google I Have Two Sticks account was a Google employee, and can’t sue them. Any class action lawsuits arising from the breach should only have about seven members, consisting of ultra-hipsters. Google can probably settle out of court with them for a few twelvers of PBR and some free Lyft coupons.

The nice note then had a ton of completely useless information about how I could retrieve all my photos from them. Apparently, they were still fooling themselves into thinking anyone actually used Google Swiss Flag, right up until the end.

The note concluded with this:

From all of us on the Google+ team, thank you for making Google+ such a special place. We are grateful for the talented group of artists, community builders, and thought leaders who made Google+ their home. It would not have been the same without your passion and dedication.

Yes, you seven dedicated thought leaders meant the world to us!

Also, if any of you talented, passionate community builders out there are hiring, we would love to synergistically leverage our failed Google Skewed X platform skills in your workspace, as early as next Tuesday.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Can We Opt In for Once?

This column shall serve as adequate public notice that you (yes, you), as a citizen of the world, are hereby required to send me five hundred dollars (500 USD) immediately. If I do not receive five hundred dollars from you, postmarked by March 7^th, 2016, your primary bank account will be debited, and/or your wages will be garnished to collect this mandatory fee.

You may opt out of this fee by sending, via FedEx overnight priority, a notarized, handwritten letter on 7-1/2” x 13mm, 32# bond, seafoam green paper, sealed in a #10 string and button manila envelope with a red wax seal securing the string. The seal shall consist of fifty percent beeswax and fifty percent carnauba wax, be on the chromatic scale between cardinal and chestnut red, be no smaller than a nickel but no larger than a drachma at its widest dimension, and be embossed with a round stamp containing my initials in Comic Sans font.

Your opt-out letter must be in both English and Spanish, must make grammatical sense, and must not contain any vowels. It must be received by close of business tomorrow.

Please include the five hundred dollar fee with your opt-out letter, which will be refunded to you if you have met the opt-out criteria. You must also include a self-addressed stamped envelope with the same envelope and sealing requirements as above to be eligible for a refund.

Thank you,

Smidge

While you’re making out your checks, let me tell you a little story. We received an email from our school district here in California telling us that unless we mailed opt-out letters to a judge in Sacramento, all of our children’s personal information would be sent to the court, due to a lawsuit not involving our district in any way. It seems a group cleverly named ‘The Concerned Parents Association’ sued the California Department of Education, claiming they weren’t doing something or other correctly.

The United States District Court, which is apparently staffed entirely with stupid, stupid, stupid idiots, decided that because someone somewhere was concerned, every single student in the state of California should have to hand over their personal, confidential education file - complete with their name, social security number, address, date of birth, etc., etc., etc. - to another group of stupid, stupid, stupid idiots.

So here is the “opt-out” form that I had to fill out three times by hand and mail in an envelope with a stamp, because doing this sort of thing online in this day and age makes no sense:

FILED UNDER SEAL

OBJECTION TO DISCLOSURE OF STUDENT

INFORMATION AND RECORDS

I, the undersigned, being a parent/guardian, or an adult student who is eighteen (18) years of age or older, object to the disclosure by the California Department of Education of protected personal information contained in records of my/my child’s student records in the lawsuit entitled, Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association, et al. v. California Department of Education, USDC-Eastern District of California, Case No. 2:11-cv-03471-KJM-AC:

First of all, how did you idiots write the word “protected” with a straight face? If it was actually protected, we wouldn’t be doing this. That’s like a bank telling me, “Your money is totally protected here. Unless, you know, like, someone comes in and asks for it. Then we just totally give it to them.”

Second of all, this letter I’m sending you isn’t really an ‘opt-out’ at all, is it? It says that I object to you disclosing my children’s information. Nowhere in this letter does it say you can’t do it if you want to. Last time I watched Making of a Murderer, objections could be overruled by judges. Especially idiot judges.

After the information I had to fill in, you included a comments section with the hilarious parenthetical “optional,” as if commenting on this inane failure of sanity and reason was actually optional for me.

Here’s my comments: To the ‘Concerned Parents Association’ - If you were actually concerned parents, you wouldn’t be asking for other people’s kids’ private information.

To the courts - How about an opt-in form next time? “Yes, I would love to release all my sons’ personal data so that you folks can figure out why Hayden failed geometry after his parents so helpfully ignored an entire school year’s worth of  progress reports and emails from his teacher until the last week of school.” Laws are written by people. Stop doing what you think is legal and start doing what you know is right. This is wrong and you know it. Don’t hide behind a lawsuit.

And I’m talking to you, too, California school districts. The email I received from my district urged me to send in my not-really-an-opt-out “opt-out” letters because “the release of this information is completely out of our control...” I would argue that. You and the courts are all on the same team, and it’s supposed to be my team. If you all stood up to the court and did what you know is right, instead of what they’re telling you is “legal,” they wouldn’t be able to get away with it.

“Give us the information.”

“No.”

“But you have to. We said so.”

“Bite me.”

“What now?”

“Why don’t you put away some criminals?”

“OK. We haven’t been focusing on that. Good call.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I know you have a check to mail to me, and I have to get back to hand-writing my comments on these forms. I need to go look up how to spell ‘asinine’ and Google whether I can be held in contempt of court for calling a judge a dumbass on paper.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

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Classless Action

Burlington Coat Factory has wronged me. Apparently. At least, a law firm just sent me a letter telling me they did.

It seems that at some point during the period of time from February 14, 2010 through January 28, 2015 I used a credit card to purchase something at a California Burlington Coat Factory, and when I did, those no-good bastards requested my telephone number, which obviously violated California Civil Code 1747.08.

So, much to my relief, a bench trial was held in the Orange County Superior Court from January 12^th through January 28^th of this year, of which I was an unknowing member of a class action lawsuit brought against those lousy, four-flushing, phone number-collecting coat monkeys.

Justice was swiftly served on April 14^th, and I and the other hapless victims of this heinous coat monger’s phone number collection spree have been made whole again. The options, however, for our restitution from this (anywhere from one to five year) period of living hell are unfortunately fraught with more peril.

We have been given two choices to compensate us for the mental anguish this unbearable situation has caused:

1) Receiving a cash award voucher for ten dollars, redeemable at any Burlington Coat Factory retail store for cold, hard cash.

2) A merchandise voucher for twenty-five dollars, good at any Burlington Coat Factory location in the United States.

What the hell kind of settlement is that? Either way, you are forcing me back into the lion’s den. Who knows what the BCF will try to take from me next. The last time I allegedly went in there they made off with my entire ten-digit telephone number for goodness sake. What’s going to happen next time?

They might get a hold of my four-digit house number. They might even get my five-digit zip code, or worse yet, they might use sorcery and get my nine-digit zip code, with the extra four digits that I don’t even know.

And what if I have something shipped from them? They might gain complete access to my twenty-two-digit tracking number. The horror.

If I feel like I can muster enough nerve to brave the terrifying BCF long enough to collect my just reward, I’ll need to sign and return my “Election of Class Award” form, stating under penalty of perjury that I actually made the transaction, and the phone number I gave those jackals belongs to me.

Hmm... It’s within the realm of possibility that I went to Burlington Coat Factory at some point in the last five years, although I don’t remember it. But seriously, sometimes I don’t remember what I had for breakfast by the time I eat lunch.

The phone number on the other hand... I have never seen this phone number in my entire life. And I don’t go around making up fake phone numbers. My wife did that the first time we met, and I certainly didn’t appreciate it.

And the class action notice was sent to an address that I haven’t lived at in seven years, so why did they have that as my address from five or fewer years ago?

Something stinks...

Unfortunately, this is not the first class action lawsuit I’ve been Shanghaied into. There was the time I owned a Toyota at some point during a ten-year period, and as a result was sent a check for $16.27 to compensate me for the carmaker’s wrongdoing of some kind.

Or the time I got a check in the mail for $0.51 from a soda company lawsuit, because I may or may not have bought soda at one point in my life, and the soda company was blamed for that in some way.

There have been others, and I never cashed any of the checks, and I’m not about to make the nice folks over at Burlington Coat Factory “pay” for something I don’t care about and they probably didn’t do anyway. They sell clothes. I’m just fine with that and don’t feel they need to be punished in any way for doing so.

What I want to know is can I start a class action lawsuit against class action lawyers, for illegally collecting, storing, and using my personal data - or it seems in this case, simply making it up - to force good businesses to pay for the opportunity to send me pennies while the lawyers themselves reap billions and billions of dollars from them, fundamentally driving up the price of every good and service in the United States of America?

Probably not.

It’s nice to have a dream, though.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

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Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!