plaintiff: desha from painesville, ohio. ooh, desha looks elegant as hell: navy blazer, fancy gray t-shirt, black pants, braids pulled back into a severe and intimidating ponytail, big hoops, smart person wire-rimmed glasses, and a deep eggplant lipstick that is a bold choice for mid-afternoon on a weekday.
defendant: andre from cleveland, ohio. well well well, what a dreamboat! andre is the kind of person other people probably describe as “fashionable,” the kind of guy who looks like he is super-intentional about the clothes he picks out and the way his hair is styled, the kind of person i am completely in awe of. if i’m wearing nice pants then i am also definitely wearing an accompanying sweatshirt, if my face looks put together then my clothes absolutely are not. i cannot fathom having the energy to complete the herculean task of getting my entire self looking nice, and when i see those who can??? i wish i had confetti to throw at them. anyway andre is wearing a fitted striped shirt under a blazer, paired with a skinny tie and oversized shiny black fashion glasses, and his hair and beard are *chef’s kiss* crisp as hell.
the complaint: desha is suing her former hairdresser (okay, that explains why he looks so good) for a refund on a car.
what does she want: $1000
how it went down: desha gets right down to fucking business and said she’s known andre for four years because he used to do her hair and in march she asked him about purchasing a car and he said he could “help [her] out with that situation.” hairdresser slash used car salesman?????? i love a multi-hyphenate! oh wait, apparently andre’s cousin owns a used car lot and andre was just facilitating this deal. andre told desha that he could get her a chevy equinox (“see the usa, in your chevrolet!”) for $2500, and she said that was cool and gave andre a thousand dollars down and told him she would give him the rest of the money when he showed up with the car.
desha says that in addition to doing hair and selling his cousin’s cars that andre had a bunch of side hustles, including “selling purses and gucci bags.” greg’s eyebrows shoot into outer space as he says, “they weren’t hot, were they?” and andre says no and in that case i’m gonna go ahead and bet they also weren’t real. desha says that she and andre were friends and that she confided in him and told her things that were going on in her life, and is this a good time to say that i miss talking shit to my own barber dre??? if we ever get out of lockdown the first thing i’m gonna do is make an appointment to get lined up and also ask him why he never offered me a designer fucking purse. or a car!!!!!!!!!
desha says that an entire month passed after she gave andre the down payment on the truck and he neither responded to her frequent texts nor showed up with a vehicle. it’s andre’s turn, and holy shit the charisma!!!!! nothing, and i mean nothing, is more appealing to me than a charismatic person. i love to watch dazzling people grin and talk slick and be flirtatious and charming! andre is loud and spicy and hilarious and if it weren’t so bad for his reputation and business i would want him to get sued every other week. andre’s version of the story goes something like this: he bought the truck, desha told andre she needed a new ride, he offered to sell it to her, he texted her pictures of it and she said okay cool, he told her it was $2500 and she agreed to that price, and while he was driving it over to her house she “called with the sad harp and violins” and said she could only give him $1000.
andre was basically like “that’s great, you’ll get the car when you give me the rest of the money,” and desha said she was getting paid in two weeks and could give it to him then. two weeks came, another symphony. two weeks after that? she still didn’t have the money, so he still didn’t give her the car. i understand that this was probably frustrating for him, but why not just give her back the thousand dollars and call off the fucking deal????? andre says that desha lives in the “country hood” and that “all that's missing is the color purple and a confederate flag” and i am so sorry but even though i live country hood-adjacent bitch i screamlaughed at that.
greg is tickled by andre, too. andre says that when you’re a hairstylist people treat you like their personal teddy bear and tell you all their business (his exact words: “when you get in that scalp, the whole truth comes out”) and he knew all of desha’s struggles (he keeps doing the sad violin hand motion and omg can someone give him a netflix special?????????) but who cares they made a deal! now desha is sick of listening to him talk shit about her and i can tell greg loves this shit because they start arguing across the courtroom with each other and instead of jumping in he’s just watching like the cat that ate the canary.
finally he interrupts the andre and desha variety hour to ask the question we all want answered: WHY NOT JUST GIVE HER THE MONEY BACK. andre says that every time he tried to squash the deal desha would cry and tell him that she just needed another week to get the rest of the money together. because desha said she really needed a car for her children andre offered this solution: he would buy another car from his cousin that was cheaper and apply the thousand dollars to that. he found a minivan for $1500 and showed it to desha and she said she wanted it, so he bought it and is now waiting for $500 so he can give the new minivan to her? this is a question i need to ask a psychologist or some shit, BUT: why is it so hard for people to walk away from situations like this? as soon as it became more complicated than a single “here is the money, ok here is the car” transaction somebody should’ve decided to walk away. i’m over here stressed and confused and i don’t even know these otherwise lovely people!!!
the ruling: andre is talking a lot and putting on a fucking show and all this monologuing makes me think he is sealing his losing fate. greg is just sitting there in bemused silence and that is never good, and welp desha pulls a ream of printed out text sheets™ from her stuffed accordion of truth™, and she hands it to greg who reads a text from andre that says, “i’ll be back in town at 8:30 and i’ll come give you your bread back” and case closed, thank you for the incredible show, verdict for the plaintiff!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: no! not at all! he couldn’t get a word in edgewise!!!!!!!!!!
*bangs gavel*