By now, most of you have heard the sad tale of the Florida woman being trampled at a Walmart in the early Thanksgiving rush for a $30 DVD/VCR combo player.
It is, of course, tragic that people will have such disregard for human life over a piece of cheap electronics. After all, the DVD player is most likely made of substandard, lousy parts and will probably only last a couple years anyway. (Actually, they should be buying Xboxes, since apparently they are so sturdy they can withstand 9mm bullets)
However, the story takes an even more bizarre turn, as a Florida newstation decides to do some due diligence: it turns out that this Florida woman has a knack for being injured in places of business and receiving cash settlements – why, a total of sixteen times in the past twenty-five years. Nine of these claims involved Walmart, not including the $30 DVD debacle. It gets better: these claims were filed under five different legal lastnames.
As an added coup de grace to this sad tale, Walmart officially apologized by putting a hold on one of these DVD players for her. This is pending, of course, whether their investigation rules out any flimflam. As the people of the world say, once again: only in America.