This evening, I was standing at the neighborhood ice Cream Truck, buying four ice cream sandwiches for me and mine, when an unkempt little girl suddenly appeared by my side. She stood right beside me, dreaming out loud about which ice cream treat she’d buy - if only she had one dollar. The end of her impressive monologue was punctuated with a deep sigh.

My first response was to buy a fifth ice cream sandwich for her, but I hesitated. What if she was diabetic? What if she had lactose intolerance? What if she had some allergy that brought on anaphylactic shock if she ate strawberry/vanilla/chocolate flavored ice cream?

Standing there, beside the ice cream truck, I glimpsed into the future and saw an angry woman berating me for feeding her little girl something that made her deathly ill, and suing me for every dollar I had, and inflicting financial ruin on me and my husband, all because I engaged in a random act of kindness. Thanks to our sue-happy, litigious society and the fear it has bred in all of our hearts and souls, I didn’t buy the little girl an ice cream sandwich.

Think my response was too much? Reading this will change your mind.