plaintiff: veronica from fort wayne, indiana. i’m here to tell you right now: i would die for her. veronica is a deep brown-skinned zaftig goddess in a platinum/silver pussycat wig and black cold-shoulder sweater ensemble complete with a glittering bow at her neck. i’m not kidding, if she ordered me to lie down in traffic i would. trust me when i tell you there is nothing on earth sexier than a big black lady telling you what to do. or, better than that, what the fuck to not do. next time you need to get bossed around and horny???? call me!
defendant: deranisha from fort wayne, indiana. another feast of beauty, deranisha glides into the courtroom in a tight black bodycon dress with her little afro bleached blonde and her lips red and is what i’m figuring out that i need to move to fort fucking wayne???
the complaint: veronica is suing her cousin for car damages and defamation!
what does she want: $2300!!!! countersuit, which never fails to stress me out: deranisha would like $1204 for car damage and repairs + a license plate
how it went down: veronica says that deranisha had a rough childhood and a really hard time growing up and that when she was young veronica did the best she could to shield deranisha and her siblings from all of the bad influences around them, including their mother. veronica also says that she knows deranisha is a good person and is trying her best to live a good life and take care of her three children despite having a chronic illness. hmmm i would let veronica run me over with a lawnmower but i am uneasy and suspicious about heaping all this phony-sounding praise on a person you dragged into court to sue. you couldn’t work something out with your sick young cousin???
the judge asks deranisha for some background and as the camera pans over to her doyle is handing her a glass of water, the first time i can recall seeing that, and deranisha takes a slow, unsteady sip. wow deranisha must have gone to the samantha irby school of making your enemies feel bad because that’s some shit i would definitely do. “i’m sorry, judge,” i’ll wheeze, holding the shaking podium for support, “it’s just that being sued on afternoon television is so dreadfully hard on my disease.” anyway, deranisha says she has a cold and also that if veronica really loved her she would’ve never brought her to court. she must be the baby of the family like i am, this melodrama is incredible!
then deranisha tells a sad story about how she grew up in the foster system and if veronica really cared about her she would’ve helped. greg is like “where was your mom?” and deranisha says her mother was incarcerated throughout much of her childhood but she still has beef with veronica because, although she helped her, she did not help her enough. it’s worth noting that her tone has changed a little bit here (more aggro, less flower wilting on the vine) and greg changes his tone accordingly (less sympathatic dad, more “what the fuck did you just say????”). deranisha’s mom is sitting next to her in the courtroom, shouting about how veronica didn’t help her kid, and you know greg is not going to go for that. as much as he loves plus-sized women????? you’re not going to disrespect one in his court! he points out (by that i mean shouts at the top of his lungs) that it’s deranisha’s mom’s imperative, legally and morally and spiritually, to take care of her needs. not her cousin’s!
mom keeps talking back and greg ain’t having that shit, so out of the courtroom she is escorted by the bailiff. veronica says she lent deranisha her car because she’d gotten a new job and had no way to get there. veronica says the only stipulations deranisha had to adhere to were 1 keep up on all the maintenance and repairs and 2 not allow anyone else to drive the vehicle. now veronica seems super fucking reasonable and while she is calmly explaining their arrangement deranisha has her arms folded tightly across her chest and is staring daggers into the side of veronica’s face. ooh wee! veronica says that she was still paying a note of $442 on the car and was going to continue paying it and that deranisha offered to give her $200 a month toward the payments, and veronica says she also was paying to insure the car.
okay i completely understand the urge to hold a childhood grudge against someone who you think could’ve saved you from a bad situation. as a person whose childhood was an endless series of ~bad situations~ i have had to work through those old grudges, and not to invalidate whatever feelings deranisha is having BUT: it’s hard to make “this person has been actively hostile to me my entire life” stick as that same person is handing a judge the paperwork you signed for the deeply-discounted car and insurance she gave you??????? why isn’t therapy free and readily accessible!
veronica says that everything was cool for a couple months after she gave deranisha the car, and then one day she got a call that the windshield had been busted out. deranisha was in the hospital at the time, so veronica went to her mother’s house where she was looking after deranisha’s children to see what happened. her mom told veronica that some neighborhood kids had thrown a rock at the windshield (veronica hands the judge some printed out cell phone photos™ and the windshield is indeed busted out), and when veronica asked to see a police report she said she wasn’t sure if there was one. veronica found out the deranisha’s mother, who doesn’t have a license, had been driving the car and so veronica took the keys and took the car on the spot since deranisha was technically in breach of their agreement.
deranisha says her mom only drove the car because she was in the hospital and her kids needed food and her mom needed to get the car home. and that’s no bullshit man, that hospital parking is expensive! once when i was having a really horrible crohns flare i drove myself to the emergency room at evanston hospital and was essentially vomiting down my front while shitting my pants and i accidentally crashed my car into the valet stand outside the ER (fancy, right???) and as i was getting out with diarrhea running down my legs i handed dude the keys and cried “please park in the cheap lot” so i fucking get it.
it’s clear that veronica was just waiting for an excuse to teach deranisha a cruel lesson about responsibility or whatever, and a thing i have learned that i wish more people would is that just because you are related to a person you literally never have to see them or talk to them if you don’t want to. i have, like, 7 living blood relatives and i only talk to a few of them and it’s fine. one of my sisters is extremely stressful to me and you know what? we don’t talk to each other! it’s been 4+ years and it’s fine. i don’t even know her phone number! we need to normalize walking away from our mother’s other children!!! (or cousins, or fathers, or aunts, or brothers, or grandparents, or or or...)
the ruling: deranisha’s countersuit is because she had to get a new alternator, a new battery, and some other car shit i don’t understand. but in the agreement veronica gave the judge she explicitly wrote that whatever work the car needed was deranisha’s responsibility. deranisha also wants the money back she paid toward the car note since she only had the car for two months, but...since she used the car for those two months she’s not gonna get that back. this is kind of harsh, right? i mean, i am extremely into the mean mommy of it all but veronica leaving deranisha in a lurch to teach her an arbitrary lesson about “financial responsibility” (her words, not mine) when the woman was having emergency gallbladder surgery is lowkey cruel and i know in my bones this case is actually about some feelings that got hurt in 1997 but since you can’t litigate old emotional slights here we are fighting over a buick lesabre with a busted alternator and a hole in the windshield. this is making me sad!
veronica has some printed out facebook DMs™ between deranisha and her daughter in which she says deranisha defamed her, but it’s just standard-issue shit talking and greg isn’t gonna give her money for that. can you imagine if that was the law??? i’d be rich! deranisha’s case is dismissed and so is veronica’s defamation, but she is awarded $485 for car repairs and permission to slap me very hard in the face, just once.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “i’m not gon’ let you come in here and make her look bad like she’s the devil when all she did was help you! take her out of here!! and, if she keeps talking, lock her ass up again!!!”
*bangs gavel*