Roommate Sued for Disrupting Refrigerator Magnet Poem
At first, when Theresa Frankel, 21, moved into a Lakeview two-bedroom apartment with instagram mutual Margaret Mable Palmetto, 22, all seemed well. The two had different schedules, different interests, and though the two were quite amicable, they lived separate lives. That was, until earlier this month, when an incident occurred involving the magnet collection that adorned the shared refrigerator.
The classic Fridge Poem magnets–with a crucial, quirky, enchanting twist: the words in the magnet set are………. CHICAGO themed!!!!!!! It’s necessary to establish that, while Margaret Mable purchased the magnets, Theresa considers them shared property. After all, she saw them first on the shelves of Foursided Card + Gift and pointed them out to Margaret Mable, who then purchased them with her father’s credit card. The pair enjoyed use of the magnet set for several weeks, taking turns creating whimsical turns-of-phrase, such as:
Every Daley
Love Is Love
Deep-Dish
In
My
Lower Wacker
Disturbing
My Bean Is Used
…the list goes on. After a few weeks of quippy phrases, Theresa created this self-proclaimed masterpiece:
When Pigeons Fall
My Cubs Hungry
I Complain Cold
My Sox Dipped
After assembling the pieces, she took a photo and posted it to Instagram story, where many people hit “like” and a few even swiped up to say “waitttttttt…” Theresa, an amateur poet, submitted the poem to a local poetry contest and was published handily. The next day, however, she came home with a hookup in tow to discover with horror that her poem had been disrupted. Margaret Mable had used the word “Hungry,” moving it from its exalted place in Theresa’s poem to create the phrase, simply, “Me Hungry,” strategically placed right by the fridge handle.
Theresa Frankel’s fury in that moment was like no other. Her hookup described the incident as “scary,” and said that Frankel began to repeat, “Oh, so you think you’re fucking funny Margaret Mabel Palmetto? Well you’re not fucking funny!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid, ‘Me Hungry’ Oh my god shut the fuck up!!!” The hookup said that at this point she became unintelligible and he slipped out the back.
Four days later, an official lawsuit was filed against Palmetto. The charges? Emotional damages and the bowdlerization of intellectual property, which even Frankel isn’t sure is actually a crime. In her statement to the press, she raged, “I don’t even know, I’ll sue her for everything. Every possible charge in the book of law. Murder, theft, whatever, and the court can decide which ones she’s guilty of.”
As for Margaret Mable’s side of the story, she claims to be shocked. In an exclusive interview with TNR, she admitted that she didn’t view Frankel’s poem as “a real poem,” claiming, “it’s a stupid refrigerator magnet game thing-y. Who cares? And by the way, I know art, okay? ‘Me hungry’ holds the exact same artistic weight as whatever her bullshit was. She’s so stupid. And I’m literally going to SAIC for my master’s degree in the fall, so I know what I’m talking about.” We’ll make no comment on that last part, as this publication has made the conscious decision to not take a stance on the issue of graduate school.
More on this story as it develops.