She says it's not about the money.
Of course -- it never is.
Still, Bridgeport's Trela Jackson feels compelled to demand $10 million from McDonald's, for putting a slice of American on a Quarter Pounder that -- she insists -- was ordered without.
"They have to be held accountable when they make mistakes," Jackson insisted.
In the wake of being abandoned by Timothy Houston, her attorney, who asked off the case last month, this mother and co-plaintiff of "McCheese" protagonist Jeromy Jackson spoke out this week. Talking exclusively to our Cara Bailey, she made her best argument to the public for why a fast food giant should be obliged to make her a multi-millionaire.
"They think they can get away with so much and not take responsibility," she said. "(McDonald's) jerked me around for years."
We all know the Jacksons' story well enough by now.
Jeromy is allergic to cheese. Yet he still bit into his burger back in Oct. 2005 with reckless abandon, prompting a trip to a Clarksburg emergency room. He turned out just fine, but the scare cost his mother a cool $700.
She thinks McDonald's should reimburse her for that hospital bill -- plus pay an additional $9,999,300 for good measure.
"I'm not some money-hungry person trying to make a buck off McDonald's," Jackson insists.
Yet, she is. That is, if you believe a person's deeds mean more than their words.
Jackson's deeds -- she filed her lawsuit with the Monongalia Circuit Court in July -- were loud enough to attract national headlines and talking heads, over-consumed by her raw audacity. If there ever were an epitome of that national scourge otherwise known as the pursuit of "jackpot justice," said critics, this was it.
Trela Jackson didn't ask the court for $700. She asked it for $10 million, enough to make her family filthy rich -- to bestow upon her generational wealth -- all because some teenage order clerk made a clerical error.
We know now, she wasn't kidding. Jackson is looking for a new lawyer, to help her press ahead.
"For goodness sake," she said. "After two years of trauma and stress, we do deserve something."
And so do the rest of us, forced to tolerate people like the Jacksons as they clog up our courts with their self-serving frivolity. Here's hoping Circuit Court Judge Robert Stone delivers.