plaintiff: olivia from burton, michigan, who is carrying a brown folder full of my favorite thing: evidence papers!
defendant: tiffany from flint, michigan. she’s wearing a gorgeous royal blue sweater that i would totally buy if i weren’t terrified of jewel tones. she’s carrying an accordion file with a wraparound string (!!) and i have never been so giddy with anticipation in my life.
the complaint: olivia and tiffany have babies by the same man and they used to hate each other but became friends for the sake of the children, which is feminism.
what she wants: $1500 for the cost of a van, and emotional distress.
how it went down: in may of 2009 olivia started dating _____, and four days into their courtship tiffany “pops up” and tells him that she is “nine or ten months pregnant.” okay wait, the story is changing: four days after olivia started dating him tiffany gave birth to a baby and told _____ that it was time for him to start taking care of his child, and he denied knowing she’d even been pregnant.
greg interrupts to ask if olivia is still with dude and she says she isn’t because he ran off, then he says “why don’t you get him locked up?” and every single person in the courtroom is like MM HMM. is it that easy? damn. anyway, he starts listing all the expensive shit you need to raise a kid which makes me glad i have never been pregnant with anything larger than a bean burrito. you guys are out here purchasing actual cars for your children? in this economy?!!?!?!!
we turn our attention to tiffany, whose child is 10 and challenging. all of their children have adhd and at least one has been pre-diagnosed as bipolar, and now i’m wondering how to crowdfund them a lawyer to hunt down this deadbeat asshole.
olivia and tiffany have lived together multiple times and twice tiffany has bailed on their living situation with no notice. again i am floored by the generosity of people, yet also slightly disappointed that these two didn’t start a coven to take down their mutual enemy. if i lived with my co-baby mama we and our children would start a fucking GANG and that gang would have one rival.
olivia bought a van even though she didn’t have a driver’s license (i know how this happens but come on, how does this happen?!) and agreed that tiffany could drive it only when she had her permission. olivia let tiffany take the car home on the condition that she only drive it when she needed her to, then she got reports that tiffany was “driving it all over the place.” okay listen i’m a stupid asshole, BUT: if i ask to use your car to run to the store, i’m gonna go to the far store i maybe couldn’t get to on the bus, over to my homegirl’s house for a drop by because i haven’t seen her in a minute, to costco for some bulk items, through a couple drive-thrus i couldn’t ordinarily hit up on foot, to target to get a new patio set, to the good mall, to a drive-in movie, to sam’s club for some republican bulk items, and finally to the red lobster to celebrate my great day. i’m going to live it up, then i’m going to run out of money before i remember to put gas in it and sneak it into your driveway in the middle of the damn night and ignore your angry calls the next day while i munch on gallons of cheese puffs and 30-count packages of frozen fish.
when olivia asked for the van back it was running weird and smelled like antifreeze, and when she took it in the mechanic told her that the radiator was cracked and the head gasket was blown. she told tiffany she had to help get her a new van and tiffany agreed but never paid up. shocking, i know!
the ruling: tiffany says she agreed to give olivia $450 to help her get a new van, even though she claims the damage wasn’t her fault and she just wanted to be a good and helpful friend. every car i’ve ever owned cost less than a thousand dollars and was held together by elmer’s glue and prayer, and you just gotta know that when you buy a piece of shit off a shady car lot you are driving on borrowed time and pre-blown gaskets. i know this isn’t real court, but i would have been like johnnie cochran in there proving my case about how it could not possibly be my fault that a van with a lawnmower engine and duct tape windows blew the fuck up in the middle of the street. but tiffany wrecked her own case before it even got started by agreeing to help, and judge mathis tells her she owes the full cost of the van, despite no proof of damages that were her fault alone. one thousand entire dollars for a week of joyriding in a shitty car with no heat. can you imagine? she doesn’t even fight back, doesn’t pull out her brown folder full of clues or anything! i would appeal to the supreme court, fuck this shit.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: not quite but he did go on a long mental health rant and claim he “grew out of” ADHD and i know this ain’t doctor oz and maybe greg doesn’t have to worry about responsibility and HIPAA safeguards but, like, tell these women to go get medicine.
*bangs gavel*