TEASER: Members Only Mailbag April 2025

It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bill of Jesse Thorne.

With me is Judge John Hodgman.

Hey, if you're a member of Maximum Fun, first of all, thank you.

And second of all, great news.

The new episode of the Membo Mailbag is now in your bonus content feed.

As you may know, this is our members-only mailbag where members write in letters to us that may or may not be disputes.

They might be life events or requests for advice or advice for us.

We read them all, we comment on them.

It's me and Jennifer and Jesse having a real old-fashioned rollicking docket good time.

And if you're not a member, here is what you're missing.

And of course, if you want to hear the full episode, memberships at Maximum Fund start at just five bucks a month.

Maximumfund.org/slash join.

Let's go to that little bit of the membo mailbag.

I know we just talked about this.

Maybe it was on a podcast or a membo mailbag, but so forgive me if we're repeating.

But do you remember that time we were in the Portland airport in Portland, Maine?

Excuse me, Portland jetport, it's called.

I've never stopped thinking about it, John.

I mean, I love Maine for a lot of reasons, but this one time, this guy is walking around.

Now, was it a St.

Bernard or a Bernie's mountain dog?

Do you remember?

I think it was something a

little smaller than a, it might have been a St.

Bernard, but it was sort of like a, generally speaking, a sort of, I would call it the category i would describe it as his barkley style dog yeah a real walk-on sofa yeah and we're like look at that incredible dog and the guy walked right over to us and he says you want to pet it it's our designated emotional support animal for the airport jennifer marmer were you there with us on that one no i was not i really missed out

not only did we get to pet that incredible dog in that lovely airplane.

It's a very nice little airport.

Nice little airport.

Jetport.

It's called a jetport.

I don't know why.

No one knows why.

It's called a jetport.

No, we didn't come in on a prop plane, John.

No, that's right.

But

we were there hanging out in this airport

talking about maybe Dave Foley and

fondly.

And this dog came up.

We got to pet it as much as we wanted.

And then when this dog left, the man gave us dog trading cards for the dog.

Do you still have it?

I kept it for quite some time, but I don't know.

I couldn't tell you where it's located right now.

Yeah, I've never seen that.

I've been through that jetport more than a few times since then, and I've never seen that big old emotional support dog.

But I think all airports should have them.

And I'm going to make another,

this is a non-binding resolution.

You know what?

It's binding.

We'll just see what happens.

If you are bringing...

a dog on an airplane as an emotional support animal, first of all, with rare exceptions, we know what you're doing.

We know what you're doing.

If you went to a website and got a vest for money to bring your dog onto an airplane because you want to, who could blame you?

I'd want to.

I think you need to offer that emotional support animal to everyone on the plane.

Everyone gets a pet.

Everyone gets a pet, or at least me.

It's only fair.

At least I'm sitting next to you.

That's a time when it is particularly important

to talk to the pet's owner

simply because

when a dog is in a place like that, they may very well be working

and it might disrupt their work to pet them.

Generally, it's fine.

Like

even, you know, like I have an old buddy

who has a seeing eye dog.

And

if he comes and visits, like, I'm most allowed to pet his dog.

You know what I mean?

Right.

But, um, but it is important to ask in case the dog is working.

Well, of course, you should always ask to pet a dog under every circumstance.

But yes, I'm not talking about distracting working animals.

No, we're talking about.

Deserve the emotional support of

when we're at the freaking airport or an airplane.

Yeah, if you have an emotional support animal and you know the kind I'm talking about, right?

The kind that is not actively working, but you know what I'm talking about, Jennifer Marmor.

I know.

You ought ought to share the emotional support.

I would just say,

you know, you're walking onto that plane, and people are kind of looking at you going, like, we know what you're doing.

But if you were to then take the dog and go, would you like, would you like to pet my dog?

I would be so happy.