In addition to terrorism, black plague, South Oakland at night and clowns, the paranoid among… In addition to terrorism, black plague, South Oakland at night and clowns, the paranoid among you may now add freshly baked sugar cookies and construction-paper hearts to your list of mortal fears.

Two friends, Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Jo Zellitti of suburban Denver decided one summer night in a classic moment of teen-age rebellion to bake cookies for everyone on their block. After giving the cookies to about six neighbors, the girls saw a light on in the kitchen of Wanita Young and knocked on her door, expecting to present another grateful neighbor with a plate of cookies

Instead Young, terrified by the girls knocking on her door at 10:30 p.m., called the county police department about the girls. The police showed up and determined that no crime had occurred.

The following day, Young checked herself into the emergency room, saying that she was suffering from an anxiety attack. She then decided to do her part to teach the young cookie-baking duo a lesson: She sued them in a case that would hopefully make the girls “learn a lesson.”

Many neighbors came to testify that the unexpected cookies had been more delicious than excessively terrifying. Despite this, the judge expressed his anti-cookie agenda as well, ruling in favor of Young. The girls were responsible for paying the $900 emergency room bill.

Thus, this lawsuit would appear to join the ranks of the most outlandish and bizarre lawsuits successfully won. But the fact that this case even went to an actual court — not Judge Judy or Judge Joe Brown, but an actual honest-to-goodness court — without being laughed out of the entire legal system has me scared to death and hiding underneath my covers behind my triple-locked door.

There was no “Stay the hell off my property” sign or anything else to that effect adorning Young’s lawn. There was no mean-spirited bulldog tied to a tree to growl at the girls as they went to the front door. How can our society produce people this paranoid and then reward them?

Once, while playing catch at a friend’s house, my effort to throw a Hail-Mary pass sent the football into the neighbor’s fenced backyard. Of course, my entering into it by climbing over the wooden fence was technically trespassing, but it was a good game of catch, and I wanted my ball back.

Then, right as I had picked up the ball, some middle-aged woman walked out and said that if I didn’t leave her property, she would call the police.

I see all of this as a growing trend in the suburbs, to fear unknown persons coming within 200 yards of anyone’s house. It is a bad day for suburban dwellers when we have to worry about requests to borrow power tools from neighbors being met with nine lawyers and a lawsuit.

Another thing that isn’t right about this whole mess is that Young didn’t even talk to the girls. She must have seen them at her door, because she certainly heard them knocking, and, instead of opening it and telling those fiendish devil children to am-scray, she completely blind-sided them and went right to the police.

As adults, we have the ability generally to tell other people when we have a problem with them. The last time I tattled was in fourth grade on a boy named Scott, who had thrown me headfirst into a piece of playground equipment. I felt bad about ratting him out later and felt the urge to apologize. In retrospect, it’s a good thing I didn’t choose to do this by baking him some cookies.

Send Sam Morey e-mails at [email protected], but fair warning, he might sue you.