plaintiff: nina from las vegas, wearing a cute royal blue bandage dress with cutouts near the clavicle.
the defendant: carlton from las vegas. pink dress shirt, shiny baby blue tie, dressy vest: looks like a carlton.
the complaint: nina rented a room in carl’s house for herself, her daughter, and her two cats. carl refused to return her security deposit after she moved out. she says despite being attracted to each other when they met, they decided to keep things platonic because they wanted different things in life. carlton counters that things didn’t work out because nina was rude to his “female friends” (UH OH) and he kept the deposit because she damaged his home.
what does she want: $283 which, again, is a steal? honestly, i would pay you $283 for me to not to have to get on a fucking plane from las vegas to chicago. look, i have ~pride~ or whatever, but not so much pride that i could get through booking a series of flights, carefully folding my good court tv vest into my suitcase, meticulously measuring out my 3 ounce bottles of shampoo and body lotion, taking a $50 cab to the airport, getting a government-sanctioned pap smear courtesy of the TSA, walking four miles to my gate, spending money on overpriced convenience snacks, stuffing myself into an airplane seat, pooping in a tiny closet someone just fucked in, trying to use shitty plane wifi, arriving late, checking into a bedbug-infested hotel, and getting up early to nicely dress myself to get to the nbc studios on time, all to defend my honor for three hundred mother fucking dollars. why torture yourself like this? it couldn’t be me. is he all out of plasma to sell??
how it went down: nina moved into the house in january, agreeing to pay $650/month for rent and utilities. has soon as she moved in she noticed that many women were coming in and out of the house, which made her deeply uncomfortable. they’d had a discussion prior to her moving in where they’d decided that neither of them would bring dates home. greg asks her to explain why she was uneasy, and nina says she felt like carlton was using her presence in the house to make other women jealous. carlton is flipping through a stack of papers and chuckling to himself during nina’s testimony.
carlton also sounds like a carlton. he says that he thought nina would be a good roommate because they have kids around the same age and similar interests. he also specifies that nina is not HIS TYPE. hmm, okay. he would often do things like watch her daughter while nina was at work and take her on outings with his own daughter because the two girls got along. he says that nina would act shade toward his female guests, saying things like “wow i don’t think i’ve ever met you before, there are so many women in and out i can’t keep track.” first of all, this is not female solidarity. why make the woman feel bad when you could just pull her aside while dude is in the bathroom and say “listen bitch, this corny dude is cheating on you. grab me a lock of his beard hair and come to my room in an hour. I KNOW HOW TO CAST SPELLS.”
okay now nina also has papers and there are many neon pink flags sticking out from them. i admire how prepared the litigants always are. i’d be trying to sue people with greasy napkins and blurry screenshots. i’d be scrolling through my phone like “does anyone in the courtroom know how to recover a deleted photo??”
the ruling: nina says that carlton charged her for half a carpet cleaning fee and a broken faucet, which seems pretty reasonable to me? i had to replace our downstairs faucet a few weeks ago and it cost approximately six trillion dollars. apparently the cats puked on the carpet and greg says that’s just “normal wear and tear,” the kind of thing a landlord should naturally have to pay for, but i told my cats that he’s incorrect and if they even think about trying that shit they’re going to jail. nina says the faucet broke due to nevada’s corrosive water. apparently in his lease carlton says that she’s responsible for all the repairs in her living space, and greg checks it and he’s not lying! dang people, you gotta read that fine print!! (guaranteed that i have signed my internal organs away to corporations but i just wanted to get a check, so this is a lesson as much for me as for anyone else.)
but then nina pulls out a fucking PHOTOGRAPH OF THE FAUCET. (side note: am i the most reckless tenant that ever lived? my ceiling fell in, two fucking times, and i never took a picture of shit! who lives like this?!) the picture proves that the sink was gross and falling apart, and the judge concludes that this was pre-existing damage and she’s not responsible for it.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: not once! wow!!
*bangs gavel*