plaintiff: roger from east lansing, michigan. my lady’s parents live in east lansing, and you better believe i will be sending karen and jerry a screenshot asking if homeboy is a friend of theirs. first of all i don’t even know if they know my phone number, let alone that i write this stupid ass newsletter, so the exchange is gonna be like “hey karen, this is sam. sam irby. your daughter’s wife. don’t worry, she is alive. sorry to be texting you for the first time in six years on some straight up bullshit, but did you know i write recaps of judge mathis? wait, you don’t know who judge mathis is? well, he’s a retired judge from detroit who has a syndicated courtroom show that comes on basic cable every afternoon at 2. oh, you don’t watch tv, you say? you’re too busy listening to npr? that’s smart. okay, so, there’s this thing called a ‘television’ and on it there are ‘shows’ and, i’m sorry, what? well, no, i don’t technically have a job right now, but...”
defendant: haley from lansing, michigan. okay haley appears to be...24 years old? she’s young and icy blond and wearing a teal bodycon dress with fishnets and no her age absolutely does not matter, EXCEPT: roger appears to be either 50 or 90 (it’s hard to tell) and if i had to guess his job i would say “actuary” or “claim adjuster.” anyway, it’s clear he is significantly older and less beautiful than she is and since you can’t sue a person for that i imagine he’s gonna aim for...hmm, emotional distress instead??? i can’t wait to find out how these two know each other!
the complaint: roger is suing haley for a loan, property damage, and emotional distress. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
what does he want: $4300, oh boy!
how it went down: roger says he met haley in 2018 after an ugly, acrimonious divorce. he was out of the dating scene for a while, but then he met haley and she was “a breath of fresh air.” greg asks haley how old she is (25) and then roger how old he is (a reluctant-to-answer 49) and lmao yeah man that’s pretty fresh! roger says that they hung out for a while and became pretty serious and built up a lot of trust, but haley abused that trust when she “borrowed his personal laptop.” i don’t know why specifying that it was his personal laptop is so funny to me, but it is. it just sounds so old. lord knows i like my meat seasoned so there’s no judgment there, but you can’t, you know, talk old while trying to convince a studio audience that a young person was in love with you! imagine i’m at your house with my old ass man (read: benefactor) and at the end of dinner he’s like “sam go fetch the car” or some other senior citizen shit. humiliating!
anyway, roger says that they were “moving toward” dating and weren’t officially official, BUT haley told him she loved him. sometimes i wish this show had witnesses, because i really wish someone could testify whether haley said something like “wow, you installed my air conditioner while i was at work? you’re a lifesaver, love ya!” or if they were staring deep into each other’s eyes and haley swooned before saying, “roger, i love you so much” before passionately kissing him because i told the woman who put my bags in the trunk of the car at target that i loved her but i bet she doesn’t think we’re dating now??????? people say “i love you” to strange dogs walking by them on the street, roger! we need the context!
haley says that, of course, she was not it love, and that she might’ve tossed off a casual “love ya!” in ol’ rog’s direction but it certainly wasn’t indicative of any deeper feeling. haley says they would hang out, have fun, go out to dinner, get drinks, that kind of thing. greg asks what she liked about roger’s old ass and haley can’t come up with an answer, and greg says “well i’m just trying to get to the bottom of this money he tricked off witcha” and please god never remove this retired pimp from my television!!! greg says he’s seen stories like theirs a thousand times: man spends money because he thinks he’s on a date, the woman lets him know that “nah bro we’re just friends,” man gets mad and claims everything was a loan.
roger says his personal laptop (still funny!) was definitely a loan, because why would he give her his computer with all his important documents and pictures of his kids on it? i mean...to get laid??? why does anyone ever do anything??????????? so roger lends haley the laptop and she goes radio silent then he flips out about it and goes over to her place to get it, she calls the cops, the cops tell him it’s a civil matter and write him up for trespassing. haley says she ghosted on roger because he became obsessive: walking and driving past her house unannounced, dropping by her friends’ houses, stalker-y shit like that. roger claims that haley lives in a centralized area so it’s impossible not to drive by her house, and that is a sentence that just made me dumber!
okay there is a problem: neither of these people is really saying anything. greg is trying to pry a compelling storyline out of these two, but mostly they are just nervously giggling and not really answering him and he’s getting super mad. neither of them will say how they met or what they did together or why she needed a laptop or literally anything to make this sound like an interesting case? i have an overactive imagination so of course i’m constructing a story about kidnapping and espionage but this is probably a case of their meeting on whatever backpage has turned into or adult friend finder or something they don’t want to admit to on national tv so now they’re on here shuffling back and forth, making us all restless.
there’s a potentially interesting diversion in which roger says that haley attacked him on a bus and broke his glasses because she found out that he had entered her apartment when she wasn’t there trying to retrieve his laptop but then they both just...trail off? without finishing the story?? or explaining why/how he got into her place and whether or not he was prosecuted??? WHAT IN THE WORLD. this case, which could’ve been exciting, is a fucking dud. how can i sue them?????????
the ruling: despite their both having shown up to court today with accordions of truth™ neither roger nor haley seems to have put anything substantive in them?? the judge asks roger for proof that the laptop wasn’t a gift, and he has nothing other than his word which is the same thing haley had so that’s the end of fucking that. this is wild because you just know dude thought all he had to do was show up in his “i buy tickets to the symphony” necktie and enunciate all his syllables and the judge would buy his story simply by virtue of his being a middle-aged man and it’s absolutely hilarious that it didn’t work. roger’s disbelief is almost palpable! he never filed an insurance claim or a police report and just thought he was gonna walk into court and get four grand because he never got to bone this hot young woman and hasn’t got a shred of evidence??? not even a printed out text sheet™ of him saying “that wasn’t a gift????????” i’m crying!
roger doesn’t have a receipt for the glasses haley broke, either. plus you can’t file a lawsuit on behalf of your blue balls, so the emotional distress goes out the window, too. imagine wasting your time like this! judgment for no one except my mother-in-law, who finally knows this show exists.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “you weren’t an official couple but you were ‘moving in that direction?’ did she know that???”
*bangs gavel*