Small claims court is the only courtroom in America designed on the assumption that neither side has a lawyer, and it handles more disputes between ordinary people than every federal court combined. This article explains what that court can actually do — resolve a bounded money dispute quickly, cheaply, and on the merits — and the four things it cannot do, which is where most self-represented litigants lose. It walks the decision to file through the questions that matter before the filing fee is paid: whether a legal claim exists, whether the defendant has been correctly identified, whether the court has power over that defendant, and whether a judgment could ever be collected. It then covers proof, the hearing itself, the defendant's toolkit of counterclaims and defenses, and the trial de novo appeal that quietly transforms many cases. The last third addresses the two structural forces that have hollowed out the small claims docket: the arbitration clause that keeps consumers out, and the debt buyer that uses the same court to obtain default judgments at scale. Throughout, a running hypothetical involving a $6,200 kitchen renovation shows how doctrine translates into a forty-minute hearing.