plaintiff: maria from miami, florida. maria looks like the embodiment of this trend i read about yesterday called “dark academia.” first of all, i was reading the styles piece about that strawberry dress everyone is losing their shit over and then there was a link to this article about dark academia where people dress like they’re in dead poets’ society and write brooding love letters to their exes (or something like that?) and look all mysterious and cool. of course i clicked it because i’m always secretly hoping that whatever the new trend is will be something i already own, but i guess “sweatshirts and drawstring pajamas plus a coat, indoors” is never gonna be a thing! anyway, maria has dark, mysterious hair that falls into her eyes and is wearing a black blazer over a turtleneck and chocolate brown pants and she looks like she belongs in an old-timey library. i’m jealous of her style.
defendant: manuel from sunny beach isles, florida. manuel has that cool, hungry look that is impossible for people in the midwest to pull off: gaunt yet sexy, oily yet sexy, carefree yet fashionable. he’s wearing a midnight blue dress shirt with skinny designer slacks and the kind of chunky watch that’s supposed to telegraph wealth. also he has a fashion beard and a hairstyle (as opposed to a haircut, which are two totally distinct things) and an accordion of truth™ that probably has the september issue of vogue magazine in it.
the complaint: maria is suing her ex-boyfriend for an unpaid loan and stolen property.
what does she want: $1330
how it went down: maria begins “this man is my ex, we dated for two years, and i had to break off this toxic relationship because he was a chronic cheater.” how’s that for an opening statement!!! greg asks how many times maria caught manuel cheating and she says it’s too many to count, that she caught him sending sexy texts and photos of his penis to dozens of women and men. she says, “either he is homosexual, he likes both, or he changes the names in his phone.” manuel is looking at her like EXCUSE ME but maria says she saw texts that were like “hey carlos, what’s up, sexy?” idk man this dude is hot and carlos is probably hot too and i would absolutely watch their sex tape so maria what’s the problem???????
greg asks maria if she ever confronted manuel about his nudes and she says yes, every single time, but manuel always laughed it off and said “that’s just my friend.” honestly?? same. i have an enormous, sickening boil under my left boob that hurts so bad i almost black out when i accidentally graze it, and i have sent my friend jessie approximately 8436 pictures of that boil shot from various mammarian angles, with flash and without, sometimes with my breast posed next to a bowl of fruit like a professional still life. i mean, instead of “hey sexy” i usually write “HOW QUICKLY DO YOU THINK THIS OOZING POISON LUMP IS KILLING ME” but it’s basically the same shit. sometimes you gotta show your friends your privates!
manuel says that his relationship with maria was toxic because she was always checking his phone and his social media and seriously can you imagine anything more boring than doing that? like if you suspect it he’s probably doing it, why not just dump him and give your scrolling finger a break??? manuel says if he’d go hang out with his friends maria would call them to confirm that he was where he said he was gonna be, and that all maria wanted to do was control him. manuel says the texts were “all in her head,” and that maria was possessive and obsessive. he said he’s the one who tried to break up with her, but she just wouldn’t accept it.
manuel says that the final straw in their on-again off-again relationship was when he was going to his cousin’s wedding and told maria that he didn’t think it would be appropriate for her to go with him since they were in the process of breaking up, and to retaliate against him two hours before the wedding was to begin maria texted his cousin and lied to her, saying that manuel was sleeping with her husband-to-be. that’s some cold ass shit, maria. manuel says his cousin was devastated and it ruined the entire day. greg is shocked and horrified that maria would ruin this woman’s wedding day out of spite for her man and says, “ma’am, i don’t believe it. did you do that???” and maria calmly says “no” and we all breathe a huge collective sigh of relief but then she continues “i didn’t text her, i called.” lmao ohmygodddddd??? greg is like “wow, that’s really evil” and yo i concur!
maria says she’s suing manuel because she gave him a loan of $950 and she also left a camera in his house that he is refusing to return to her. maria says after they broke up (again) officially they were still dating on-and-off and greg, who is furious and outraged about that wedding shit still, asks why she didn’t just get her camera during this period when they were still seeing each other regularly but weren’t living together? maria says she did ask manuel for it, but he wouldn’t give to her. then greg says “well why did you continue to give him your time?” and maria says “because this relationship is toxic!” AND HOW.
manuel says that the money and the camera were an anniversary gift and that maria never expected him to pay her back. greg is dubious because he says $950 is an extremely specific gift amount (is that a real metric that would hold up in actual court????) but manuel has printed out text sheets™ (hallelujah!) that he claims support his defense.
the ruling: greg reads all of manuel’s text sheets and in the many messages maria has sent him she said multiple times that the camera was an anniversary gift. girl! why are we in court today! maria says that, okay, the fancy camera was technically a gift but she gave it to manuel so they could take pictures of things together but she just told us that they had already broken up when she gave it to him and listen sister i, too, have purchased a gift for someone who didn’t love me to try to convince them that they should and when they didn’t i just charged that shit to the game and sat in a corner trying to locate my dignity! you can’t sue the person whose affections you tried to buy!! you throw a funeral for them in your heart and get hypnosis so you never again think of their face and/or name!!! (maybe that last part is just me?) anyway judgment for no one, except that dude i bought a playstation for in 1998.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: maria intimated that manuel had asked for a threesome in a disrespectful way and doyle slides over to greg and says “what is the right way?” and greg busts out laughing and says, “before marriage i coulda told you!!!”
*bangs gavel*