who's on judge mathis today? #257
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
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plaintiff: keri from kansas city, missouri. it’s been a minute since we’ve had a contestant show up to court in a circa-1988 working girl skirt suit!!!! keri’s is a muted periwinkle shade with a matching shell, her blonde hair parted dramatically on one side and shimmering under the yellowy fluorescent lighting, a pale office-appropriate shade of pink on her lips. i would buy [scammy life insurance/off-brand medical equipment for the imaginary hospital i own/a modestly-priced piece of choice residential real estate] from this woman!!!!!!!!!!!!!
defendant: dorothy from fort dodge, iowa. i might be profiling but dorothy is wearing the standard issue lesbian dress-up outfit: dark, impeccably creased slacks; a mannish-looking button up that at first glance looks like she might’ve picked it up at the brooks brothers black friday sale, but a closer look reveals subtle darting at the bust to make room for boobs (in a sports bra); plain brown hair, no makeup, scrubbed clean. no nonsense expression. she probably smells like ivory soap and wood chips!!
the complaint: keri says dorothy loved to party but calmed down once she had a child, and now she’s suing because dorothy’s (party animal) son damaged her computer.
what does she want: $700, almost not enough to bother coming to court over!
how it went down: keri says she met dorothy when she was roommates with keri’s friend dawn, who is conveniently seated behind her in the witness chair. uh ohhh, dorothy better watch out. people are so fucking grimy, can’t wait for dawn to stand up like SHE LEAVES SHIT IN THE TOILET AND USED ALL MY KETCHUP or whatever secret domestic behaviors keri brought her here to reveal. if i walked into a courtroom and saw a single one of my old roommates seated across the aisle i’m sorry but i would just fucking leave. you can’t win a fight against someone who’s intimately familiar with the disgusting crust of your life and can theatrically weaponize your shameful behaviors against you in front of a judge (and america)!! no one hates you more than the people who used to live with your ass!!!!!!!
keri says she and dorothy are more acquaintances than friends and that she doesn’t know her very well, they’re facebook friends but not much more. keri says the one thing she does know is that dorothy had a “partying lifestyle” that included going to lots of music festivals and fun drugs, but she cut all that shit out when she had a kid. keri says that dorothy decided to get her life together (from what, being a fan of the string cheese incident????? come on) and follow in keri’s footsteps and enroll in nursing school. keri says she was super proud of dorothy and even gave her all her old nursing books and offered to help her with homework if she needed it.
dorothy says that before she met keri officially she found out who she was because she’d been hitting on her boyfriend (WHAT) who is a DJ down at their local strip club. keri doth protest too much, her eyes big as saucers as she claims she doesn’t even know corey [bleep], and it’s pretty fucking hilarious. she’s probably not even lying, it’s just so funny when people have a strong (read: offended) reaction to low stakes accusations like this. dorothy already said she didn’t know keri at the time, who cares if she spent an entire evening trying to shout one liners over brain-rattling strip club bass while ladies clapped their butt cheeks in the background!!!
one night keri, witness dawn, and dorothy are at keri’s place getting ready to go party. the ladies are getting ready, drinking and trying on outfits, and their kids were all upstairs playing. she says that dorothy’s daughter came running downstairs in a panic saying that something was wrong with keri’s laptop. keri assumed that the screen had frozen or something minor, and when she went upstairs to check it out she says that the laptop was covered in “a significant amount of water.” keri says that dorothy’s two-year-old son was holding a half empty glass of water and looking guilty. greg says “and where were you? on another floor?” (oh shit) followed immediately by “and where did the child get a glass of water?” (double oh shit) to which keri responds “from her daughter.”
“her” is “witness dawn,” and the realization of who might actually be to blame here spreads like poison across dawn’s face, and if that was me i’d toss my checkbook at keri and gather my shit up like “babe, i’ll meet you in the car.” keri says she wasn’t even mad at the time, she just called her boyfriend (a “computer genius” according to keri) to tell her what to do, and he instructed her on how to take it apart. at that same time witness dawn and dorothy made their way upstairs, and once they got there keri asked dorothy jr if he was the one who poured water on the computer. apparently he shook his head yes, and i would like to remind you that two-year-olds would eat dog food if you told them to. not keri trying to introduce toddler testimony into court on this day????????
keri says dorothy snatched up her son and started spanking him, and before she can continue greg interrupts to give them both a parenting lesson about perpetuating cycles of violence. keri says that after the spanking dorothy was walking around muttering about how she was gonna have to replace her computer, she even offered keri her own computer as a replacement. greg is like “did you take it?” and keri says she wouldn’t because dorothy was a struggling nursing student. keri says that the situation didn’t get heated until dorothy reneged on her offer to pay, her excuse being that since there weren’t any adults in the room they couldn’t be a hundred percent sure whose kid was actually to blame. and then, in a shocking move i have yet to see deployed in judge mathis’s highly esteemed court, keri reveals a surprise witness: one of the kids who was in the room with the water and the laptop is gonna take the stand!!!!!!!!!!! (i literally hate this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
dorothy assures the judge that she is currently a certified, licensed, professional nurse (isn’t there a healthcare worker shortage right now in this country?????? sweeties, go to work!) and says that she initially offered her laptop to keri just to lower the temperature in the room the day of the wettening, but she wasn’t admitting guilt!!! dorothy says that keri assured her she didn’t have to pay because the computer still fucking worked. whatever keri’s genius bar-friend (i’m sorry) told her to do worked and the laptop was fine!!!!! dorothy says that she and keri hung out for months after that and keri never said shit about the computer until her laptop died for good………………….four years later????????????
bitch i’m screaming. i thought it was weird that at one point earlier keri turned around to dawn and was like “how old is she now? eight…nine?” in reference to the one of the children i thought i’d heard her previously say were all under the age of five, but the judge didn’t bring it up so i assumed it didn’t matter. HOMEGIRL IS REALLY ON HERE SUING FOR A 4+ YEAR OLD LAPTOP????? first of all, if that’s how it works i should’ve sued apple like five times by now, i feel like all i do is sell my soul for a new computer or phone every couple years!!! this is so great and so stupid and i cannot believe they pulled this child out of paste-eating story time to testify on syndicated television about the events of a day four years ago!!!!!! i’m sorry but WHY torture this wee babe over ten minutes from their fifth year of life on this planet? what could she possibly recall??? i mean, is your skull even all the way hard in kindergarten??!!?!?!!??
the ruling: witness dawn stands up (thank god) and says that the computer “never worked right” immediately after watergate (hehehe), and she heard dorothy agree to buy keri a new computer. the judge says “okay but………..what about the other allegation?” and witness dawn is like HUH and then greg is like YOUR DAUGHTER and man i thought we were just gonna pretend she wasn’t here being traumatized over a dell latitude 7280 business laptop 12.5in HD, intel core i5!!!!!!!!!!!
well i kinda thought it was over for dorothy the minute this adorable little girl rolled in with her pinchy cheeks and bouncy curls, but when she opened her mouth and her angelic soprano came floating out i was like “she gone!” and motioned to dorothy to meet me in the lot by our subaru. kiana testifies that when they were in the bedroom four years ago looking at keri’s laptop (probably on the dark web, damn kids) dorothy’s son said he was thirsty and he took her water glass and it spilled all over the laptop. same thing she said four years ago, except this time to a rapt audience of millions. (okay fine, hundreds of thousands at most!!)
greg’s not gonna call the fucking geek squad to figure out exactly what day this poor laptop’s waterboarded motherboard fried for good, so he rules in favor of the star witness, who is probably not even old enough to watch this damn show!!!!!!!!!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “you finished nursing school? oh good, congratulations, now you can pay.”
*bangs gavel*