No Fear of Litigation

There is nothing like spending a little time in Mexico to make one appreciate how the fear of litigation (or the lack thereof) shapes a culture. I went to a fair in Sayulita the other night and nearly every attraction exhibited something that would not fly in the US.

The bumper cars left trails of sparks both from their electricity poles and from the metal undercarriages dragging across the floor. There were shaky, two-story trampolines (I still don’t understand how those worked). A massive, inflated slide for kids was surrounded on either side by shooting booths where they hand out real BB guns.

Far and away the best, most highly-addictive and most egregious attraction was the Throwing-Rocks-At-Bottles-For-Beer booths. For about a dollar, you pick 3 baseball-sized rocks from the table and huck them full speed at a wall 10ft away that has 100s of bottles turned upside down on spikes. A broken beer bottle nets you a beer, two bottles, two beers and if you shatter 3 bottles, you win a 6 pack. Between you and the wall, kids dodge rocks and shattering glass and to replace the broken bottles with whole ones.