who's on judge mathis today? #259
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
plaintiff: maurice from markham, illinois. whew i had to do a double take because i thought this was my boy omar for a split second, but he’s much older and crankier-looking than maurice appears to be, thank goodness. i honestly don’t know what i’d do if i saw someone i knew on this show, and i am relieved i don’t have to find out today!!! maurice is wearing a black dress shirt with a purple checkered tie, and it’s clear he got a fresh lineup and goatee sculpting on his way into court.
defendant: whitney from chicago, illinois. she’s adorable! whitney is dressed like she’s on her way to give an easter speech down at the tabernacle african methodist episcopal zion church: white church dress with thin gold belt, baby pink cardigan with only the top button buttoned, hair barrel-curled and hot-combed into submission. i can’t see her feet but i know in my churchy bones they are shoved into frilly socks and black patent leather mary janes!!!
the complaint: maurice says he dated whitney and all was well until he found out she was cheating with the neighbor and got pregnant, so he’s petitioning for a DNA test and suing for emotional distress.
what does he want: $5000, aka one pack of diapers and a can of formula; whitney is also countersuing for $5000, aka two jars of gerber and a jogging stroller.
how it went down: maurice says that up until three years ago he was in the streets, bangin and hustlin and sellin drugs, but then he met whitney and decided to “give up the life.” okay not to toot my own butt, BUT: i told y’all she looked like a little missionary walking into the courtroom!! of course she showed him the errors of his sinful ways!!!!!!!
maurice says that at first it was cool; he was happy with whitney and “loving on her,” until one day he went to use her phone and discovered that she was messing with the dude across the street. the one casualty of our move last summer is that i no longer have the pleasure of wasting literal hours of my day watching our chain-smoking, natty ice-drinking neighbor across the street airing out his septuagenrian titties while mowing his lawn wearing circa-1989 foam headphones and smoking a marlboro red down to the filter. one summer a bunch of kids who’d been playing outside banged on the front door and when i opened it they breathlessly started yelling “lady your car is rolling down the street!!!” pointing hysterically at the little green mini cooper slowly making its way unassisted down our cobblestone hill. i was like “oh shit, that’s the neighbor’s car, run across the street—” and as we all turned to look at my man’s house to our surprise he was standing on his fucking porch drinking a beer without taking the burning cigarette out of his mouth, watching as his car slow motion crashed into a construction barricade like he was at the movies. COOLEST MAN ON THE DAMN PLANET. i drove by a few weeks ago and he was standing on his lawn holding a large little caesar’s hot n’ ready pizza and eating it out the box in the middle of the afternoon. what a legend. i will love him forever.
but he didn’t get me pregnant, though!!! maurice says that he and whitney had been together for five or six months when he saw the texts, and greg is like “what did they say?” (MESSY) and maurice says the neighbor was texting things like “can i come over for morning sex” and “your [redacted] is so good” and “i’ll wear socks this time, i promise.” i’m sorry i know this is not the point but can we please stop and think about what circumstances might’ve prompted that last text??????? were his feet crusty??? toenails too long???? is he a flip flop guy and whitney hates foot germs on her sterile floors????? i would watch a three part documentary on why that text exists!
maurice says that whitney came clean (i mean, i get it? if someone says you’ve got good [redacted] you’re just gonna not claim it??? pffft) and they eventually got over it and stayed together. he says that two months later whitney told him that she was pregnant, and when he asked her if the baby was his her answer was an unequivocal YES. and that was good enough for him, until three months later when the two of them were walking down the street and the neighbor shouted “take care of my baby!” at maurice. omg??? you literally have to kill someone for that???? the entire courtroom gasps at the same time, assuming they’re going to hear about the neighbor’s immediate murder at maurice’s hand next. but no, maurice says he confronted whitney and and not dude and she told him that “he’s just saying that to get a rise out of you.” yeah………….a knife rise!
whitney introduces herself saying “he knew when he met me i was messing with the neighbor because i told him i was messing with the neighbor.” okay, i was expecting something along the lines of “rose from the dead, rolled the stone away” from little miss bible study but you know what? this works too, amen!!!!! whitney says that she and maurice didn’t move in together until after he’d discovered the neighbor situation and forgiven her for it, and that the problem between them was actually that maurice never helped her or did anything for her while they were together. greg is like “what do you mean?” and whitney says that maurice laid around all day playing video games and never paid bills or helped around the house and, despite the fact that he had a job, he never bought groceries or offered her any money. greg says, slowly and scarily, “what shift did he work?” (WHAT) and whitney says “during the day” (SO?) and greg snarls “well if he worked the day shift then he couldn’t possibly be at home playing video games then, could he?” (AHH, I GET IT, GREAT POINT COUNSELOR)
there’s an awkward silence (cue: me peeling my skin off like layers of an onion) and the judge is all “what were you trying to prove with that anyway” as if she was trying to get slick and trick him or something? like not helping at home isn’t a real issue??? and whitney just sighs like the tiredest woman on earth and OH NO that just makes him more mad. greg pivots and says “do you want to say anything about this pregnancy” (yikes!!!!!!!) and whitney says that she told maurice he should get a DNA test while the baby was still in utero if he doubted the paternity. she says that she wasn’t sure at the time, either, so she encouraged him to find out and he decided not to. WHO’S LYING HERE? maurice was so emphatic about whitney’s reassurance when she told him she was expecting, yet whitney is equally emphatic that she was *shrug emoji* about whose baby she was carrying, how does this happen, how can two people interpret the same situation so differently??? i mean, were they even standing in the same room during this conversation??????
greg gives whitney (and us, by default) a rudimentary lesson in how babies are conceived and yeah i’d say if he’s resorting to explaining birds and bees and sperm and eggs she’s already lost. the judge tells her that she’s “severely damaged her credibility” (the playstation/xbox thing was that serious????) and that maurice comes across as more honest and credible, so i guess it’s him who decides who’s lying! maurice is laughing and whitney just shakes her head sadly and now i am terrified of whatever this DNA result is gonna be!!!
maurice says that after the baby was born he asked whitney whether or not he should sign the birth certificate and she said she was 100% certain that he was the father (across the courtroom whitney interjects that she absolutely did not say that) so he did. he says that he was with the baby all the time and he loved being a father. then greg’s like “so why are we here?” and maurice says that whitney’s niece ran into the neighbor recently (a few years have passed) and told him she “almost threw up because he looks just like my baby.” whitney says she doesn’t believe this story because (brace yourselves)……………………..maurice is currently boning that very niece. see this is why i don’t usually mess with these paternity cases, because there’s always something icky that makes me go “ohh that poor kid” and that’s a weird feeling to be having at small claims court!!! this is a place for broken hot tub disputes!!!!!!!
the ruling: the judge asks whitney what her countersuit is for (at this point it’s like watching a cat slowly torture a mouse to death) and she starts to try to tell him several times (“well he’s sleeping with my niece—” “he’s yelled at me several times in front of my—” “once he shattered a glass and tried to cut—”) but he cuts her off before she can get the full accusation out! he really hates this girl!!! whitney gets frustrated and starts packing up her accordion of truth™; she’s got a stack of papers and receipts and i would love to know what is on them but, uhhhh, this ain’t that kind of case today. it’s clear that this is over, she’s probably trying to distract herself or something, but greg shouts “she’s trying to run outta here! doyle get the results before she escapes!!”
doyle races in with a sheet of paper that looks like he found it on the floor of my car and greg reads it in silence before saying “let’s let her read it to the court.” umm i am packing my (emotional) accordion of truth™ because it’s obviously downhill from here (rip green mini coop). whitney sighs when she reads the paper and then says “there’s a 0% probability that he is the father.” i know this is a mental defect on my end, but whyyyy was i waiting for her to declare “you are not the father?” i have daytime TV brain poisoning!!!!! maurice doesn’t have a baby but he is getting five thousand newborn dollars which, frankly, is better!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “well, maybe he knows how to lie better than you do!”
*bangs gavel*