Hard lemonade, hard price - Dad's oversight at Tigers game lands son in foster care

If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.

And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.

The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.

Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.

Brian Dickerson

Next time one of you huffs and puffs about the government doing something to "protect the children," you might want to keep this little tidbit in mind. Add this to the outrageous kidnapping of over 400 kids by Texas CPS and you have a couple of fine examples of people getting what they ask for.

This guy lost his kid and was exiled from his own home for two days because he doesn't watch TV. So what social norms do you violate? Better keep the kids close by.