plaintiff: mario from o’fallon, missouri. mario is wearing a lavender dress shirt with a wrinkled wine-colored satin tie and his hair is cut with military precision. he immediately begins unloading documents from his accordion of truth™ which is either a great or a terrible sign.
defendant: krista from berkeley, missouri. krista is a tall drink of skim milk in an ice cold glass, with blonde flat-ironed hair and very serious-looking black clothes.
the complaint: mario says he and the defendant have been “friends with benefits” since meeting online seven years ago and he’s suing her for car rental fees.
what does he want: $2337
how it went down: mario begins by saying he and krista met on an online dating site seven years ago and ugh can you believe how long we’ve been alive? match dot com existed seven whole years ago??? why do i still have vivid memories of using a rotary phone if the internet has been around this long????? mario says that they met and quickly established a sexual relationship, greg says “how quickly?” (messy!) and mario says “that night,” and they’ve been “friends with benefits off-and-on for six or seven years.” is there anything on this planet that sounds more exhausting than THAT? seven years of meaningless back-and-forthing is sooooo loooooooooooooong.
mario says at some point during the six-to-seven years he realized that krista was “kind of a hustler.” he says that on several occasions she tried to sell him things like “a treadmill, a pair of boots, and illegal pain pills.” honestly...what’s the problem? does mario hate ambition and fine footwear??? greg concurs, saying, “other than the illegal activity, what’s wrong with a woman who has goals?” seriously, who wouldn’t love to have a scamming-ass booster in their life????
krista says that yeah, she and mario have known each other for seven years and they’ve been on a few dates but mostly just casually banged. she says they never got serious because mario is “a ladies man.” i mean, he’s handsome and his hair is crisp so i believe her! krista says he would do shit like take her to dinner and give the waitress his phone number right in front of her, and i am so very sorry, BUT: electric chair! there’s a way to keep it loose without veering into the downright disrespectful, mario! this is gross!! the judge launches into an explanation of how no one uses the phrase “booty call” anymore because as a country we’ve switched over to “drive by” and is that true? how come i didn’t know that?? why must the universe subject me to its constant mockery???
krista seems cool as hell. she’s got a cool vocal-fry voice and she’s just coolly shrugging this bullshit off (“i saw how he moved, he’s a busy guy, you can’t have a relationship with a dude like that”) while not seeming pressed at all and you know what? i would buy pills from her! mario says that in april krista texted him asking if he could help her rent a car. she had cash to pay for it, but the rental company required a credit card so she asked if he could use his card and she could pay him in cash. i’m not gonna go on a socialist rant (frankly, i’m not articulate enough) but i will say that anyone who has never been poor or down on their luck should pour some expensive champagne out to thank the money gods that they’ve never had to do shit like bring a copy of a paid phone bill, a lease agreement, a statement balance, and a pint of blood just to rent a 2017 buick lacrosse with a debit card. “oh, you’re gonna need to run my entire credit history before you’ll let me run to the grocery store in this beat up kia sorrento with no aux cord????” -me to the 19-year-old behind the desk at enterprise. anyway, being alive is a scam.
mario says that krista needed to rent a car because her daughter has a seizure disorder and she was going to drive to denver to meet with some alternative medicine doctors about treating her. he says he’d loaned krista money several times in the past and she’s always paid him back, so he felt safe doing this for her, plus she said the rental company wasn’t going to charge his card, they just needed it on file in case something happened. mario says he picked krista up and they rented the car in her name and parted ways. fast forward to 20 days later and he received a credit card bill in the amount of $2337.
here’s the breakdown of what happened, as well as i can reconstruct it without rewinding the tape: krista went to denver, lost the key to the rental car in a gas station bathroom when she stopped to pee, had the car towed, and got a replacement key made, which she charged to the card the rental company had on file (which was mario’s). then when she arrived back home something was wrong with her car, so she kept the rental for another seven days while it was fixed, and that got charged to mario, too. also she never reached out to tell mario that any of this was happening on his dime. oops!
ok so krista’s version of this story is long and harrowing and, again, a curse on every business that makes your life more difficult while pretending to help you! she says ten hours into her twelve hour drive to denver her rental car key was stolen at the gas station. she and the attendant looked for it for six hours, then she checked into the motel across the street from the gas station for three days while trying to sort out what to do about the car. listen, i’m not nancy drew but do y’all think someone at the motel stole the key to make a few bucks when she had no choice but to stay there??? it’s too coincidental! the rental place wouldn’t get a key to her and told krista they had to tow it to denver and, of course, it wasn’t covered by the insurance she’d paid in advance for. see??????? scam city!
the ruling: krista says that she believes she does owe mario for the 7 extra days she kept the car, at a rate of $49/day, but that the rental company should be responsible for the towing situation because it was out of her hands. the judge flies into an instant rage, asking if her solution is just to let mario deal with it because it’s on his credit card even though he didn’t technically rent the car????? greg’s not having that! he says that krista entered into the contract with the rental company and all mario did was guarantee that contract so judgment for him, and here’s hoping her car got fixed so she can “do a drive by” with another man!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “two or three times a week for seven years? that’s a lot of benefits! she deserves a pension, too!”
*bangs gavel*