who's on judge mathis today? #273
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
plaintiff: laron from valparaiso, indiana. laron strides confidently into the courtroom looking like one of those hip young gospel dudes whom spotify has tricked me into nodding my head along to on more than one occasion. has that ever happened to you? you throw on a mix called something like “lo-fi rnb intercourse vibezzzz” and you’re jamming or whatever and then twenty minutes in you stop dead in your tracks like “i’m sorry WHAT did he say??? give the glory to WHOM????” haha yeah, me neither. anyway laron is skinnyswole and wearing a fitted black polo and tight khakis, nicely accented by his nba draft pick haircut and thin movie villain mustache.
defendant: meagan from merrillville, indiana. meagan is………………..here on her lunch break??? she’s wearing the jp morgan senior client associate special: crisp black slacks, an open-front black blazer, and a silky shell (an item of clothing i have literally never had a need to purchase in my many years of working as a donut-bagger and cat shit-sifter) in a color you know is cheekily called something like “fresh aubergine” or “roasted prune.” meagan has bright blond hair and perfectly-blended blush (something i struggle to achieve, but we’ll get into that another time) and her eyelash extensions are so dense and thick her eyelid muscles gotta be brolic as hell. serving high glamour at the bank, we love to see it!!!
what does he want: $1375
the complaint: laron used to date meagan and is now suing his ex-girlfriend because he claims she asked for money to fix her car when they were together but she hasn’t paid him back in full.
how it went down: laron says he met meagan one may while he was in barber school and she was in school to become a cosmetologist, and goddamn it i told you so, them cheeks are PERFECTION. he says they were friends for a couple months before graduating to something more intimate, then they moved in together in july. alright i’m not stupid (yes i literally am), but whyyyyy are you moving in with someone 1ish days after you start banging them?????
my dumb-people math says that even if laron met meagan at the stroke of midnight on may 1st and they became instant friends-for-two-months immediately thereafter and consummated their relationship at 11:59pm on the 30th day of june, if they moved in together in the eleventh hour of the 1st of july they would have only been sexual partners for 23ish hours at most!!! why, barring extreme hardship, would this ever sound like a solid idea?
laron says things started to “get rocky” (yeah, i bet) about four months in. i’m honestly surprised it took that long??? good for them! the judge asks laron to clarify and he says that things were up and down, and because they’d moved in together so quickly he didn’t really know meagan (YEAH, I BET) and didn’t realize how immature she is. at the time they moved in together he was 20 and she was 18, and apparently meagan had a big problem with laron’s constant partying and hanging out with his friends. i’m sorry to be the one to break it to young laron, but i know some women in their 40s (and 50s, and 60s, and 70s…) who aren’t gonna be too keen on that either! we want you at home getting on our nerves and violating our trust where we can see you!!!!!
greg says “i think you might’ve been too young for that, uhhhh, emotional entanglement. i’m not an advocate of DEEP LOVE in the TEEN YEARS.” (emphasis his) he then says a lot of words that basically boil down to “don’t marry the first person you have sex with,” which is incredibly good advice. he warns that you might “get antsy” and want to see what else is out there. or, the rest of your brain might fully form and you might become an actual human person with real thoughts and more-specific desires in a romantic partner.
meagan says that when she first met laron at school she noticed he was pretty flirtatious with all the girls. despite that, she says they started hanging out outside of school and forged a “pretty deep connection.” um, okay? in world record time??? meagan says that she did indeed move in with him two months after they first got together, and everything was cool until laron started “acting secretive.” she says he would take secret phone calls and go out without telling her where he was headed and, of course, she assumed he was cheating.
meagan, who definitely sounds like she smokes newports if you know what i mean, says that on the day before valentine’s day (damn, my birthday!!) laron received several nudes from another woman (damn, on my birthday???) she didn’t recognize. greg asks “where’d you see them?” and she says “on his phone,” in then greg launches into a weird, long diatribe about hurting your own feelings by snooping on your boyfriend’s devices, which then prompted meagan to start explaining how laron’s phone was actually open when the message popped up and she wasn’t technically snooping and he should’ve taken it into the bathroom if he was worried about it and oh brother i hate all of this!!!!!!!!
the judge starts lecturing, saying he never looks at his wife’s phone because he doesn’t wanna misconstrue something and i’m sorry?????? what does that have to do with this very different people?? also, if i may, meagan didn’t say she caught laron calling the babysitter “honey” in a text about snack time, she said the two of them were home watching a movie when ANOTHER LADY’S ENTIRE ILLUMINATED ASS LIT UP THIS MAN’S PHONE. i don’t look through kirsten’s shit because i don’t care about spring plantings or whatever the fuck the moon is supposed to do tonight, but i can’t say i wouldn’t at least raise an eyebrow if in the middle of an episode of fargo a different kind of eggplant sprung forth from her phone???
he says “so you two played that game, and is that how you broke up?” meagan says “yes” and judge mathis asks “have you been back together since?” and when she says “no!” i feel a genuine surge of pride ripple through my entire body as all my muscles instantly relax. good for her!!!!!
laron says that meagan’s car had a $3000 transmitter problem in november and she was short on the money so he offered to help her out. laron says he wasn’t in a rush to get the money back because they were in a relationship, and he says eventually meagan gave him $100 in december, another $100 in january, and then in february claimed she caught him “cheating” and used that as an excuse to stop paying on the loan.
the judge asks if he did it and laron emphatically states “i did NOT” before going on to say that meagan moved out of his place a couple days later before blocking him on all her socials. he says he texted her multiple times asking when she was going to pay back the money she owed yet she never responded. meagan kinda starts awkwardly laughing while trying to defend herself and it’s making me laugh involuntarily. she’s like “i didn’t receive any texts” haha “probably because” ahaha “i blocked him” hahahaha “because he cheated on me.”
meagan says that she thought the money was a gift because they not only often gave each other money back and forth but also it “was november and that’s [her] birthday month.” hmmm okay, maybe there’s that immaturity young laron was talking about. she says that laron never asked for his money back until after they’d broken up. the judge is like “he never asked for the money back or arranged a payment plan or give you a deadline to repay?” and meagan, again stifling a laugh, which makes me worry that she’s gonna screamed at, says “never.”
the ruling: i feel like a trap has been set here but my lawyering skills are off and i’m not sure what kind. is the fact that she gave him money proof that she owes him the rest?? the judge asks laron if he has any proof that meagan agreed to pay his money back and laron pulls a fistful of printed out text sheets™ from his accordion of truth™ and hands them off to doyle.
then greg performs an incredible dramatic reading: “hey, everything smooth? i ain’t trippin’ but i’ma need that money. i gave you $1500, you only gave me $125. run the rest. you ain’t never have to block me, this didn’t have to come to this.” the judge says that doesn’t sound like a man who gave her a gift, but also he flashes the paper toward the camera and you can see an embiggened white space between his texts and sure he could’ve paused to compose his thoughts but laron also could’ve deleted an incoming or outgoing text, but i don’t think this show has a forensics budget!!!!
the judge asks the still-smirking meagan if she gave laron $125 and when he asks if it was toward her debt she says “no, it wasn’t towards anything, he just asked me for $125.” okay the laughing is weird but this girl knows how not to self-incriminate, and i am extremely impressed. the judge quickly pivots and asks why she didn’t respond to laron’s text messages and as meagan is stumbling over her answer he pivots right back and says something about the $125 and meagan says “pay back the loan” and ah shit, he caught you slipping, girl!!!! greg says “what loan?” and meagan says “the loan, uhhh……………….he’s talking about?” and that’s it, the judge doesn’t believe anything she’s said, i’m sure an actual lawyer could’ve told her what not to say (laron literally had possibly-doctored evidence????) but who cares, judgment for the plaintiff who, in the hallway after the case, still insists he didn’t cheat. oh my god, man, you already won!!!!! you don’t need her to unblock you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: doyle, tryna be cute: “what does he mean by ‘rocky’?” greg, without missing a beat: “rocks? y’all smoke???”
*bangs gavel*