who's on judge mathis today? #276
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
plaintiff: lashanda from hazel crest, illinois. lashanda strides confidently into the courtroom in a black bodycon dress with a cropped leather jacket over it, and this is absolutely 100% how i would dress if i were a different kind of person with a different body and a different life. people in leather jackets look so! freaking! cool! but until they invent one that looks like leather but feels (and sounds) like a child’s fleece pajamas? i will not be owning one! “stiff fabric that makes noise” is my number one sartorial enemy!!!!!!!!!!!!
defendant: shrome from chicago, illinois. shrome is dressed like my favorite kind of dude to watch at the club: skintight grey v-neck (cut just low enough to give us a slice of an interesting-looking pectoral tattoo) beneath a tight black blazer over extremely fitted mauve pants. MAUVE PANTS!!!!!!!! everybody knows and loves (to hate) at least one mauve pants guy. you know who i mean, the kind of dude who has ten women of varying ages and demographics in the “talking stage” at all times who also does, like, cuticle maintenance. a dude with ~skincare~, you know? a real 90s r&b type of fella.
the complaint: lashanda says she has two children with shrome and they were supposed to get married until he backed out, now she’s suing her former fiancé for the balance due on a carpet cleaner.
what does she want: $3907
how it went down: lashanda begins her testimony “i just wanna give you a little rundown of our history” and yes please god i love when litigants come in with a prepared speech!!! okay: high school sweethearts who got together in 2006 (excuse me??????? i have to go lie my old ass the fuck down), two beautiful girls together, in a relationship off-and-on for years, shrome proposed and they’d even set a date for their wedding but then everything went downhill and they separated.
greg, lover of mess, says “what went downhill?” and lashanda says “well…i would say, i would think, he’s immature.” to punish her for not giving us the real tea the judge asks “so you just woke up one day and realized he was immature?” doyle the bailiff says “yeah, did you look over and see him sucking his thumb??” and greg laughs and turns to ask shrome to give his side of the story. i feel uncomfortable and bad for lashanda! you never know whether the judge is gonna be in a charitable “take your time, set the scene” kind of mood or if he’s gonna kick your back in like “babe, you had the audacity to pause and take a breath??? well while you’re over there breathing i’m gonna let this other guy shape the narrative!!!!!!!”
shrome says he has no idea to what immaturity lashanda might be referring (okay!!) and says they broke up because “she only cares about herself.” not to critique the storytelling abilities of today’s litigants too harshly, BUT: where’s the dirt! this judge wants the mess!!!!! who ill-advisedly looked through whose text messages in the middle of the night and overreacted to something that’s probably not that big of a deal!!!!!!!!!!!! we’re not here to thoughtfully consider our past actions in the hopes of growing into better people, we’re here to laugh at your mistakes while pretending we haven’t made the exact same ones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
greg is getting frustrated here and i’m with him. “there’s no incident that made you two decide not to get married?” he asks, pissed-edly. “well, i’m the one who decided we shouldn’t get married,” shrome replies, providing no additional context. “and there was no particular thing that caused that to happen?” the judge sighs, with even more pissed off-edness. shrome says “not really” at the same time lashanda shouts “YES” from the other side of the courtroom and alright now here we fucking go.
lashanda says that what it boils down to is that she is an ADULT who was ready to be SETTLED DOWN and COMMITTED and we all know that WOMEN MATURE FASTER THAN MEN so basically she wanted to be a WIFE and start a FAMILY and shrome was still acting like A LITTLE BOY. shrome is like “she’s not a psychologist, how is she gonna say ‘we all know women mature faster’?” and greg starts laughing but lashanda cuts them both off, saying “THAT’S WHAT IT BOILS DOWN TO.”
lashanda says that when she agreed to marry him she knew shrome was immature and even her parents clocked his childishness and greg cocks an eyebrow and says “well, how old was he when he proposed?” and shrome says “twenty-three!!” and lashanda, who now understands that the person who is 1 spilling the hot goss and 2 being INSULTING gets the judge’s precious favor and attention, says “even the songs you liked were immature, remember that donnell jones song you used to sing to me???”
now there will be absolutely zero 90s r&b slander on my watch, BUT: could it have been this bonafide jam? because i’m not a scientist, but the lyrics “…i’d rather leave than to cheat / if she give me some time, i can be the man she needs / but there's a lotta lust inside of me and we've been together since our teenage years…” provide a fitting soundtrack to this exact situation, no???
anyway shrome’s defense, ie his example that lashanda is selfish and only thinks about herself, is that when he’d call her from work during the day to ask her to put a pop in the freezer so it would be cold when he got home she refused to do it. “what kind of woman wouldn’t get out of bed to put her man a pop in the freezer?” he asks the void. i don’t know, the normal kind? the kind who doesn’t want to spend an entire evening cleaning can shards and grape-flavored stalactites off her vodka bottles and lean cuisines because that same man forgot to remove the frozen pop he requested once he got home???
so he left. “over a pop?” asks the judge, incredulously, and shrome says “that time.” i cannot relate to the kind of relationship that features a lot of comings and goings and leavings and stayings and you know why? because i am TIRED, which might also be perceived as MATURE. greg is like “he left over a pop??? ma’am, you might be right about his immaturity” and when shrome protests the judge asks for a better example of lashanda’s failure as a fiancee and he begins “well, one time i asked her for a bowl of cereal” and okay lady this is now your fault. if i’m fighting over faygo and lucky charms with someone i did not give birth to???? I LOSE.
lashanda says that one day while she was at work shrome called to tell her he had the opportunity to start his own business. lashanda says that shrome had often talked about wanting to quit his job to be his own boss and he dreamed of going into business for himself (i’m sorry to be like this, but so does my eighteen year old cereal-loving stepkid???? young people are not serious!!!!!!!!) and he was gonna start a carpet cleaning company (maybe i spoke too soon, that is a very adult-sounding dream) but he needed lashanda’s “good credit rating” to get started.
oh man, i looooove having a friend with good credit. i had to build credit from literally 0 because i’d never had a credit card or a school loan, and i was like…27? 29?? when i first started?????? me and a secured card with $250 on it couldn’t convince a bank to give me shit. even now, as a longtime bill-paying 43-year-old, my lady had to get the mortgage loan because the bank was like “is this person actually alive?” when they ran my social security. so i get it. “this person with a 740 credit score trusts me” are the sweetest words in the english language!
so lashanda financed the carpet cleaning machine for shrome with the expectation that he would keep up with the weekly $110 payments. they were living together at the time, but when shrome moved out (after making the first of thirty payments) he stopped paying for the carpet cleaner. shrome interjects that he’d just moved back in (exhausting!) prior to starting his business (on lashanda’s dime!) but then he moved right back out (tiresome!) because he was sick of her being “disloyal.”
apparently she’d texted her other babydaddy and shrome found out because, by his own admission, he regularly went through lashanda’s phone. maybe i’m naive, BUT: couldn’t she be asking for diapers or some shit? texting him the location of the next peewee football game??? asking him to swing by target because super golden crisp is buy one get one free?????
the ruling: shrome says that the carpet cleaning machine was a gift from lashanda and just as my eyeballs unstick themselves from where they’ve rolled to the top of my skull greg says “did you make any of the payments on it?” and shrome says “yes” and greg says “WHY DID YOU DO THAT IF IT WAS A GIFT?” man, i love when he sets a trap and gets all perry mason on a litigant!!!! it’s thrilling!!!!!!!!!!! shrome says “i was being nice until she could pay it off” and did i get confused? is this actually her son??? because i refuse to believe a human with a fully-developed adult brain thinks this strategy is going to turn out in his favor!!
while lashanda thumbs through her printed-out text sheets™ to give evidence to the judge, shrome has fully pivoted to pretending he has no idea what anyone is talking about. lashanda’s witness is like “he never paid any money” and shrome is like “why are you HERE? i don’t even KNOW YOU!” his oscar-worthy performance might be funny if we all hadn’t figured out what a waste of time this was thirteen minutes ago, but now i just wanna hear whatever lies he texted her and watch lashanda collect her check.
and now greg is performing a soliloquy of shrome’s messages. “i’ve been so hurt by what you did to me, i never knew you didn’t care enough to not do that to me, i’ve never been so hurt or had my feelings stepped on the way you did me. i was hurt beyond measure.” he pauses as the entire courtroom bursts out laughing, probably because thirty seconds ago shrome said “i know what kind of woman i left! why would i ever be sad?” yeah man, you kicked that warm soda lady to the curb and never looked back, oops except for this ream of kinko’s printout documentation that proves otherwise!!!!
greg says “you can’t refuse to pay because she hurt your feelings” and shrome laughs because he knows. he knew before he even came in here how it was gonna go down today, judgment for the plaintiff’s mature ass! i hope she celebrates with an ice cold can of rc cola!!!!!!!!!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “you’re 37 and he’s, what, ten years younger than you? oh wait, one year??? sir, you really are immature!”
*bangs gavel*