plaintiff: marcus from campbellsburgh, indiana. marcus looks like your average high school chemistry teacher: balding on top with a bushy salt and pepper goatee, wire-rimmed glasses, a voluminous dress shirt that he has somehow managed to tuck in, and dark flat front dockers.
defendant: robin from salem, indiana. omg this is totally unrelated but one of my most beloved books is salem falls by jodi picoult (oh shut the fuck up) which i first read a million years ago (i.e. the early 2000s) while housesitting for people who didn’t have a TV????? this lady had a bunch of greyhounds but didn’t believe in watching television and of course i didn’t figure that out until i had already moved in for the week. anyway, she did believe in airport literature so i spent the entire time reading john grisham and jodi picoult books and what i’m trying to say is that was the greatest week of my life and every time i hear the word salem it reminds me of that. anyway robin is tiny and blonde and wearing a shiny black shirtdress. also, she looks drunk!
the complaint: marcus is suing robin for unpaid rent.
what does he want: $2000
how it went down: marcus says, in a gravelly and heavily-accented voice, that he met robin in 2013 at a bar and they quickly became drinking buddies. they would barhop and drink, go fishing and drink, and hang out and drink. they decided to move in together and marcus said they would party and drink all the time and that robin was a mean drunk, throwing plates and dishes when she would get drunk and pissed off. he said one night she got so wasted she passed out in the middle of a sentence. greg, of course, is delighted by this.
robin says she did try to keep up with marcus when they were drinking, and that’s why she’d fall out when they were drinking. the camera pans out from the side and it’s clear that robin is literally half marcus’s size????? i mean, he looks 8 feet tall and she appears to be 4’11” at the most, how in the world was she matching him beer for beer? no wonder she fell off her fucking chair! greg asks robin if she gets mean and she says no but admits that she does pass out while talking. as a person who has “fallen asleep” in several of chicago’s finest nighttime establishments, i cannot say shit!
marcus says robin moved in july 2013 and greg replies, “man i bet you all stayed drunk” and they agree. they did. and look, my lady and i love drinking as much as the next person who lives on this inescapable hell planet, but at some point somebody in the house has to be sober enough to do the dishes and pay for the cat food. if robin and marcus are passed out on gordon’s every night, who mops? who makes sure the gas bill gets paid? is anybody scheduling doctor’s appointments? who takes the car to get an oil change? okay so marcus says robin was supposed to pay him $250 a month, and she paid it from july until october when she lost her job, at which point she stopped. makes sense! robin contends that this wasn’t a rent agreement per se, that she was just giving marcus $250 a month to “pitch in.”
greg is like “that sounds like rent” but robin argues that she never signed a lease and that the $250 was for groceries and “household items.” my kingdom to be a fly on the wall during a single trip with robin to the grocery store. i grew up with an alcoholic so i already know her cart is full of skol vodka, 1-ply toilet paper, and a dozen cans of potted meat, but what i wouldn’t give for just a taste of that sweet childhood nostalgia.
the ruling: greg asks marcus who paid the bills and bought the food, and marcus says that he paid the bills and “she bought her food and i bought mine.” i can’t decide if that’s bad or if it’s the future we all should be striving toward??? i would love to label my peanut butter and gouda cheese and forbid anyone from eating it because i bought it for me! communal living is a scam!!! marcus says his rent was $500 a month and greg turns to robin like “ma’am, you know you were paying half” and robin shrugs, defeated, waving the single sheet of paper she brought with her into the courtroom like a white flag. judgment for the plaintiff, and godspeed to their livers!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “you pass out in the middle of a sentence?? i wanna see that! hey, you wanna go out and get some drinks??????”
*bangs gavel*