Keeping Up With The Couches

The Couch family won’t be suffering from affluenza much longer:

The families of six people who were killed or injured in a drunken driving crash have sued a teenager who avoided jail time by blaming his parents’ wealth for his actions.

[…] The families of his victims have targeted that wealth in five civil lawsuits, including three filed by the survivors of the four people killed in the crash.

Eric Boyles sued for more than $1 million in damages after his wife and daughter were killed.

Marla Mitchell, who was talking to her daughter, Breanna, on the phone when she was killed, is suing for unspecified damages.

Shauna Jennings, the wife of youth pastor Brian Jennings, is also seeking unspecified damages for herself and their three children.

Couch’s friends, Sergio Molina and Lucas McConnell, have also filed lawsuits. Molina suffered a severe brain injury and was paralyzed, and his family has sued for $20 million in damages. McConnell’s family is seeking unspecified damages.

Meet Fred and Tonya Couch, a couple of white trash cretins who somehow got lucky and made good. Reckless driving apparently runs in the family. Tonya deliberately ran someone off the road. Fred has multiple moving violations as well. He’s also been busted for passing bad checks and beating up on Tonya. He’s gotten away with it all after paying “restitution.”

YoungEthan is just keeping his family traditions alive. After the accident, Ethan told one of his friends, “I’m Ethan Couch. I’ll get you out of this.” It’s not clear if he said this to the friend he paralyzed or the one who got off lucky with a few broken bones and some internal bleeding. While  the corpses were still being hauled away Master Ethan became bored and impatient with all the questions the cops were asking him. He reportedly said, “I’m outta here” and started to walk away, a move which, I reckon, would get the rest of us slammed to the pavement and cuffed within seconds, maybe even tazed or thwacked with a billy club (a cop kicked me in the leg once for less, much less). Actually, if we were as fucked up as he was, we already would have been cuffed and locked in the squad car.

I don’t know if affluenza is a real condition (although it bears a close resemblance to something a saner world simply called anti-social personality disorder, or psychopathy), but bankruptcy is. Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple, but they’ll come out okay. How much do you wanna bet this crew will wind up starring in a reality TV show?

Contest time: What should the show be called? Being Ethan Couch? Life’s a Couch? It’s All Good? Submit your suggestions. The winner gets my copy of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness, which the local used book store won’t buy from me because they already have too many. The runner up gets a forty-ouncer of Natural Ice and a lotto ticket. “Free Master Ethan” shirts would have been best, but he is, of course, already free.