Cavy-at Emptor

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, caveat emptor.

Scarlett loves guinea pigs.

They have a long history of guinea pig ownership, starting in childhood.

Scarlett desperately wants a guinea pig in their life again, but Morgan is opposed.

Morgan says that the couple's two dogs are more than enough pets for one home.

Adding a guinea pig is too much work.

Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Otra pregunta seria, senor.

Je visto un tipo de pero pequeño que se yama guinea pig.

Y hace un ruido ha si we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, si, es un pero pequeño que dice we, we,

y se se yama guinea pig.

Una guineea pig.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Morgan, Scarlett, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

I do.

Yep.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that my little joke I was going to make just now was about the thing that he did his obscure cultural reference about?

Of course, we were going to get to the same place.

I do.

Yes.

And Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Morgan and Scarlett you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this courtroom?

Morrigan, why don't you go first?

I do not have an idea of what that is.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no poll for it.

So I'm going to use my prepared guess, which is that it was

a monologue from the villain of the movie G-Force, played by Bill Nighy.

Right.

That's the movie about secret agent guinea pigs.

Yeah, correct.

Which I thought was a decent poll.

That's a great poll.

I should have thought of it.

I remember that I was staying in the same hotel as Zach Galifanakis when he was filming G-Force in Los Angeles back when I had a Hollywood career.

So thank you for taking me on that trip through time.

Scarlett, now it is your turn to guess.

No, I have no clue.

My prepared guess was going to be in reference to Elliot, the assigned police officer guinea pig in New Zealand.

Tell me more.

I love this guest, guest, but I do not know what cultural reference you are making.

Yes, in New Zealand, there is

an official member of the police force.

His name is Elliot the guinea pig.

He has a uniform and everything with a little hat.

You can give him a quick Google search.

He is very adorable.

I think the correct word would be was a guinea pig in the New Zealand police force.

Guinea pigs do not live very long.

Oh, did he get too old for that?

I did not want to

be.

Four years old.

Time for retirement and or death.

I did not want to to put that sad news in there.

But yes, that was my guess that we were going to obscurely reference Elliot the police.

Scarlett,

I hate to say it, but guinea pig mortality must be part of today's discussion.

But also

incredible.

We won't talk about Elliot.

Named after Elliot Kalen, the famous Maximum Fun podcaster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Almost like singing about mailbags.

Elliot does.

Elliot the human, not the guinea pig.

No, and the guinea pig.

Yeah, that was something I had in common.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Well, in any case,

all guesses are wrong.

It's not Elliot Kalen, nor Elliot the Guinea Pig of New Zealand, nor is it a quote from G-Force starring Bill Nighy and Zach Galfanakis, among other actors.

Hey, if there's a GeForce 2, I'm available.

Indeed, Judge Hodgman, it's a real show, and you did a bad job.

No!

It's a real show, and you both did great jobs, but Jesse is referencing, of course, the incredible sketch, the legendary sketch by our friends, the sketch group Casper Hauser, John, James, Dan, and Rob, called Mundo de Peros.

Mundo de Peros.

And

it is one of my very favorite things.

We've quoted it many a time here on the podcast.

That's why I was afraid.

Scarlett and Morgan, that you might get it.

But

I'm glad you didn't because we get to hear the case.

And if you, listener, would like like to listen to the sketch to know what we are talking about, I made a little bit.ly.

It's over there in the maximumfun.org website under the Casper Hauser tab.

But you can go there directly by going to bit.ly slash mundo de perros,

M-U-N-D-O-D-E-P-E-R-R-O-S, all capital letters, mundo de perros.

Okay, who seeks justice in this court?

Who brings the case, if I may ask?

I bring the case, Your Honor.

Morrigan.

And your wife, Scarlett, would like to adopt a guinea pig as a pet, correct?

That's correct.

And you say, no, thank you.

Yes.

And part of your argument is that you already have

pets.

Indeed, you have two dogs that are yours,

yours and Scarlett's, named Sally and Pixel.

I wonder if you possibly might have sent in any photos of these good dogs.

We did, yes.

Marvelous.

Let's go directly to the evidence.

It is available, of course, on all of our social media feeds as well as the show page at maximumfund.org.

Exhibit A

are these two wonderful good dogs.

Sally is a black and brown dog.

That's the style of dog that is Sally.

And Pixel is black and white, no gray areas for Pixel.

And they are standing by their respective bowls, begging for food.

Pretty typical for dogs.

Adorable.

And then they're snuggling together.

These dogs are friends.

They tolerate each other.

Sometimes.

Oh, Scarlett, you say they tolerate each other?

Yes.

Yes.

Sometimes they're very cute together, and sometimes Sally is a bit of a bully and resents having a child in her life.

Yes, she's, you know, she's old.

You know, she doesn't have time for Pixels nonsense.

Right.

How did these dogs come into your relationship together?

Or were they, were they merged when you merged your lives together in wedded bliss or what?

So I adopted Sally.

Gosh, like had her for a while.

And then when we moved in together to live in Sin prior to getting married,

we adopted Pixel shortly after together.

So Pixel is the younger sibling in this fur baby array, but you adopted Pixel together.

And Sally has had,

Sally's life has been disrupted quite a bit by Pixel.

Yes.

And you want to disrupt Sally even more, Scarlett.

I think she'd be quite a fan.

By adopting prey animals into her life.

Yes, we'll talk about that in a moment.

But so far, I have not seen dogs doing anything particularly weird.

And I love a weird animal picture.

And here we have Pixel in the shower.

Jesse, can you see this picture of Pixel in the shower?

What is the dog doing in the shower?

Pixel doesn't seem very happy to be in the shower.

Well, what it's just not, this doesn't appear to be.

Okay, so like, to be clear, this doesn't appear to be a picture of you showering Pixel.

Like I put my dog in the shower sometimes to wash my dog

because you got to wash the dog sometimes.

They're stinky.

Sometimes you got to wash that stinky dog.

My dog smells nice like popcorn.

But

you got to wash the dog sometimes.

This appears to be a dog hanging out in a shower.

It's fully dressed.

It has multiple bandanas on from what I can see.

Yeah, so that was shortly after he adopted Pixel.

The shower door was open, and he went in to investigate the shower.

And then in his investigation, bumped the shower door closed and was in there for several minutes before I heard him crying.

Oh.

And then saw him in the shower looking very distressed, but also very cute.

So I took the picture.

I took the picture before releasing

in case you needed to blackmail him later.

Yeah.

These are terrific dogs.

Thank you.

We kind of like them.

And

the question now is, are you going to disrupt their lives with a Guinea pig, aka Guinea?

Or make it better.

AKA a cavi or cavi?

How did we say it, Jesse, at the top?

We had that wonderful.

It was KV.

KV at amtor.

KV, of course.

being the animal family that includes guinea pigs.

And what else, Jesse?

I'm going to say hamsters?

I don't know about hamsters.

They're rodents native to South America, including the domestic Guinea pig, wildcat, and the largest living rodent, Capybara.

Capybara,

such a wonderful animal.

You can't just say the name.

You must sing it.

Cappy Barra.

People have been sending me baby Capybars that fit in your little hands, and somebody opens the hands and that big flat nose comes out from the little hands opening them.

So, Scarlett, you are

a Guinea pig enthusiast.

Yes.

Going way, way, way back.

You've had guinea pigs in your life.

What, in childhood?

Or what are we talking about?

Oh, gosh.

Yes.

So starting in childhood, I did have a guinea pig.

I got my first guinea pig.

I can't remember the age, but I was really insistent on having one.

So not only did I hustle my ass to the library and do all the guinea pig research I could.

Yeah.

I then prepared a PowerPoint presentation to my family about the reasons why I was qualified to own a a guinea pig.

And, you know, shortly after that, I did get my guinea pig.

What would be, I mean, I hate to do, I hate it.

I remember how I hate time and subtraction, but generally speaking, ballpark, what age would you have been when you probably 10?

Okay, good.

Probably 10 because I think I was really excited about making double digits.

And did you present a PowerPoint for us today?

I did not.

I think I've read everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm sorry.

That's all right.

I suppose I'll hear the case in any case.

No, no, it's just to like continue to build the background of

my guinea pig expertise.

Guinea pig lore.

Yeah, I'm a guinea pig lore, as my wife calls it.

I was.

I learned a lot about my wife in the preparation for this case.

Like, you're at a guinea pig 4-H club, which is bananas to me.

Not just was I in a guinea pig 4-H club, I was vice president of said guinea pig 4-H club.

An executive.

I did lose the race for president to the uh daughter of the leader of the group um you lost nepotism nepo baby 4-h nepo baby in the guinea pig club there was nepotism in the guinea pig 4-h club

um what is that person's first and last name

Morgan has to make an Excel list to keep up with my current vendetta.

I'm sorry, sorry, repeat your beef.

Repeat that again clearly into the microphone.

Morgan has to keep an Excel list to what?

To keep track of all my vendettas.

Wow.

Your beefs.

I tell you, I do not want to end up on Scarlett's Excel sheet.

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Yeah, I'm talking about entree bowls, but you know what?

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So how many guinea pigs will you say you've had in your life?

Wait, I want to hear about the 4-H Club.

Hold on, let's hear about the 4-H.

What do you know about it?

I mean, it was a 4-H club.

Where did you grow up?

All over, but the 4-H Club was in Michigan specifically.

Oh, well, that's guinea pig ranching territory.

All the kids get involved in guinea pig raising there, right?

I mean, you would, I guess so, because it was a pretty, pretty fruitful club with a lot of us.

And we all, every week, we met and we brought our guinea pigs where they socialized.

They had a good time.

We would

make.

clothing for them.

Wait, not nearly.

Wait, wait, wait.

This is not, look, I'll grant you.

I'm from the inner city.

I grew up going to the boys' club so that I wouldn't join a gang or whatever.

Right.

However, this is not fitting with my understanding of what happens in the 4-H club.

No, I mean, we also did 4-H things.

Did you show them at state fairs?

Yes, we did.

Thank you.

Did you ever get a blue ribbon?

No, because I did not present mine state fairs.

because my nepo baby and b27 got it exactly correct yes i ruined the day of pepper's existence is pepper her name or their name or his name i cannot remember the name we'll say it was meryl street jr

pepper

pepper is a great name for an arch nemesis my lifelong enemy pepper pepper the guinea pig oh well pepper is the guinea pig yeah oh i thought that was the name of your of your enemy

no my guinea pig was my guinea pig was not nearly as pretty as Pepper the guinea pig.

So no 4-H fairs for Pepper, but we did go to them.

Okay.

And members of the 4-H Club did bring their guinea pigs.

You did submit some evidence of some of the guinea pigs that you have been a companion to in the past,

and they're very cute.

I'm looking at exhibits D and E here.

Now, here we have two guinea pigs and a very small dog.

Who are these

young people

yes so there is cupcake and there's genevieve the guinea pigs genevieve is the one with the voluptuous hair cupcake is the one with the smooth hair um and then there's a did you know that this dog was not a guinea pig or or did you think this was a different guinea pig it does look guinea pig-like um but it is indeed a dog its name is lily it was our childhood uh dog and they are all sunbathing because guinea pigs love the sun so you can just take them out the backyard you let them hang out there.

They kind of wander around with your with your supervision.

Do you have a backyard, a sunny backyard in Chicago for your guinea pigs, your potential new guinea pigs?

We actually do.

We have a brick sort of shared patio situation.

No, she's shining a bad light in the brick patio situation.

It's actually asking a question.

Do you share that backyard with a family of predatory vultures or condors?

No.

There are rats that are approximately guinea pig size that do frequent it.

I was going to say, if not, probably friends for the guinea pig.

So this is

Cupcake, and the other one is named

Genevieve.

Genevieve.

Very adorable.

They're beauties.

Date stamped 728-2001.

I don't like to do subtraction.

I hate to think about time, but I presume they're no longer with us, these wonderful guests.

No, no, no, no.

These are your childhood guinea pigs.

And here's one from 2007.

Who's this?

Is that the one that was a beautifully staged photo shoot?

Yeah, this appears to be a beautifully staged photo shoot.

That's cupcake.

Cupcake is celebrating Mardi Gras.

Cupcake seems to be nested in a pile of feather boas,

plastic beads, crowns, and masquerade ball masks.

Cupcake may be doing like a nice wide shot thing.

It's a Christmas movie.

This is Cupcake in the year 2007, so Cupcake was a very long-lived guinea pig, if I am doing my subtraction correctly, which I often don't.

I think it's been so long.

I'm not going to lie.

No, I understand.

I do think they lived a nice, long, healthy life

and a fabulous one at that.

With you and your family, they seemed to be very happy.

They seemed to thrive in your care.

I would like to think so.

So was it always just Cupcake and

Genevieve or were there any others that I should know about?

No, at one point in time,

as you know, guinea pigs pigs pass.

And upon the passing of, I think it was Cupcake, we got Isabella as a buddy because guinea pigs do like other guinea pigs.

Isabella.

So there was another guinea pig, Isabella.

There was a third, yes.

The fact that guinea pigs like to be paired up is also a point of concern from my angle.

If there's one, there will be two.

Yeah, that's something I want to discuss in a moment.

But before we go into the future, let's go back into the past a little bit more.

What about having guinea pigs do you miss scarlet oh my gosh so guinea pigs are great because one

you know when they're happy to see you because they are so vocal do they make a noise i'm not making this noise jesse thorne do they make a noise

They are fantastically verbal

pets.

Why won't won't you make the noise, Scarlett?

We're having a great time making the noise.

Yeah, we're having fun making the noise.

I think you guys are just really helping me.

Even Morrigan, your spouse is making the noise.

We're not doing it.

I'm sorry.

I mean, what if it were a condition of my ruling in your favor?

Yes.

You must make the noise.

But you must rule my favor.

So

you miss their

gregariousness.

They talk to you when you come home.

What else?

Yeah.

Unlike dogs, which don't pay any attention to you whatsoever.

Furiously quiet and chill.

They listen, I have to pull up

my notes here because I did come with notes.

Thank you.

They work on your schedule.

They are, I can't remember the word for it, but they're not nocturnal and they're not like on schedule.

Are they diurnal?

Diural.

Crepuscular.

They are diural, which means that, and they also

daytime animals.

And they all stop looking at my notes.

You were cheating.

Not cheating.

I'm trying to remember the word crepuscular.

I love the fact that Morgan and I both know the word crepuscular and love to say it.

It's a good word.

So they adapt to your schedule and they are ready and happy to play at any time of day, but also happy to relax at any time of day, which makes them an ideal pet because transparently, dogs, believe it or not, are a lot of high maintenance.

So when you want to play with them, they most often just want you to walk them.

And if they want to play with you, then and you don't feel like it, then you have a problem.

Yes, yes.

And you can't just put them in a box in the back of the closet like you can a guinea pig.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's just that

the playtime you can have with them is a lot more low-key.

It could be on kind of your terms, and the guinea pig is still very happy.

I'm a self-described gleek, and one of my favorite pastimes and hobbies is re-watching episodes, early seasons, specifically of Glee and Degrassi on repeat.

So that would fit.

A guinea pig would fit perfectly into my lifestyle of TV watching because they like just to be held for long periods of time.

They like to be held?

They do.

And they just like to sit in your lap and you can just pet them and they just purr and squeak.

What kind of squeak do they make, actually?

You can't get that out of me unless I win.

Do you want to do the purr even?

Nope.

It says here at the guinea pigalliance.com, guinea pigs are crepuscular creatures, meaning they're most active at dusk and dawn.

They're awake for up to 20 hours a day.

So your guinea pigs need constant food and water in their housing.

They need toys to keep them entertained day and night.

And also they make a noise.

We, we, we, we, we, we, we.

That's what they posted on guinea pigalliance.com, Jesse, during guinea pig awareness week, according to the internet.

Do they have like a.wav file that you can play on there that that gives you the noise?

I just want to put on the record, if you do rule in my favor, my guinea pig noise would be more accurate than all five guinea pig noises.

I would never compel you to make a noise if you do not feel like making a noise.

And I apologize for even suggesting it.

I'm just excited about Morgan pronouncing the file type WAV as a.wav.

Yeah, that was pretty wavvy.

That was wild.

That was wild and wavy.

I love it.

I don't mind it.

I don't mind it at all.

Morgan dances to the beat of her own drum.

Yeah.

Scarlett, how long have you been guinea pigless?

So I have been guinea pigless basically since I went to college, which was, oh my God, like 13 years ago.

I don't like time.

I don't like to talk about it or think about it.

You're college educated.

Good job for you.

Did you major in gleeology?

I wish I did.

So Scarlett, you had guinea pigs in college or up until college?

Up until college.

And not since.

So technically, I've not had guinea pigs since college, but post-college, I did get a chinchilla, which is of the rodent variety family.

Is that a kv?

Let's find out.

I feel like, no, that's my,

but it is.

It was, it is in the same vein of owning a piggy.

Um,

Morrigan, you know what?

Was I correct?

You're wrong.

Damn.

Yes, a chinchilla is a kv.

Oh, I thought because it was like a on its hind legs, it would have a different sort of

lineage.

They are members of the cavity, chinchillidae and well wait a minute they're caveomorphs i don't know

i'm gonna stop reading the internet and pay attention to this conversation we're having

caveomorphs used to run on uh

fox afternoon

oh boy i bet we could sell a whole young adult series of books called caveomorphs tomorrow we'll split the we'll split the uh proceeds uh uh four ways or more we'll include everyone oh i want to chinch so bad.

Chinchas are not that good of pets, though, right?

Chinchas are so beautiful, but I remember hearing that they aren't nuts about being domestic animals.

Is it true the chinches aren't chill?

Tell us, Scarlett.

He would look me dead in the eye, take his little paw full of poop, and throw it out the cage if I did not clean that cage in time.

Like that chinchilla made it my problem

when he was unhappy.

So I will not deny that was the spiciest rodent I've ever, I've ever met.

Wow.

Now, another thing to bring up about the chinchilla scar, what happened to the chinchilla when you acquired Sally, your dog?

Okay.

Oh, Sally.

I'd like to see where this is going, counselor.

Okay, no, no, no.

Okay.

So let it be known that I never grew up in a family that taught me like good dog ownership practices.

My family, as you can see, we had like a little dog, right?

Yeah, you had a little floof of a dog and a couple of guinea pigs there.

So when I had gotten my chinchilla initially, um, I had had it for about three years, um, pretty long stint, like loved the guy, even though he was mean.

Um,

two quick questions, just to orient myself in time.

This is a post-college chinch, right?

Yes, you're living independently where

um, in Chicago, in Chicago.

What's the name of this chinchilla?

Ollie, Ollie, okay, go on.

Yes, Ollie.

I have, I'm, you know, I had, I've acquired Ollie.

Ollie was a great pet for me.

Um, Ollie lived a great life.

Unfortunately, when I decided, like, okay, it's time to like also get like another, like I'm ready for a dog, like I'm ready for that like more involved pet ownership experience.

Um,

I just felt bad for the chinchilla because I lived in a

studio apartment at that time.

Right.

You could only fit one fern in your shower.

Well, while many, I, well, at one point in time, At many points in times, the chinchilla and the dog could both roam free in the house and be completely fine.

i don't know if that's true you i i would you were not living with me you did not witness this

okay in fact i think i could probably find evidence of it

when the chinchilla was in its cage sally liked just to sit at it and stare at it all day yeah she did not bark at it paw at it anything and i don't think the chinchilla really cared but i did start to feel really bad for the chinchilla yeah i was like you know what if i'm waking up every day and this dog looking at me i'm like feeling distraught yeah i think ollie cared So, so having a large predator staring at you all the time.

And I want to reiterate, they so they were fine.

Like, I put them out, and they both just kind of harmoniously lived together when they like roamed around the space.

Is it possible that it wasn't the chinchilla having a crisis as that was happening, but the dog?

Like, the dog was having like an existential crisis, thinking about cages and ownership and whether why it couldn't run free.

Probably, you know, and so, but let it- Is it a cavior?

I don't know.

So, so what Morgan's coming to like really wants me to point is that I did have to one day sit down and acknowledge that I was not ready for both dog ownership, chinchilla ownership, and the potential stress being put on the chinchilla, which I own up to my mistakes.

But now, let me tell you, this chinchilla is living the best life because I found it a farm owner who now lets this chinchilla, and I see photos and videos of of it all the time.

Literally, that chinchilla is living in a penthouse on a farm where it gets like to roam on like acres of land.

This sounds like a

story a parent tells their child on the chinchilla has to be put down.

Does it live with my childhood dog Sonoma?

Why, yes, they're best friends and they talk every day.

I found a college student who was majoring in like agriculture

and she has a farm now.

Uh-huh.

And like, that was that the chichilla truly lists.

And I see videos of it all the time.

Ollie is the happiest little camper.

He's still thriving.

So yes.

How old is Ollie at this point?

I don't know.

Was this college student double majoring in agriculture and farscape studies by any chance?

Oh my gosh.

But while I may have like felt that, you know, I wasn't ready for both at that time.

And I did feel a little bad for the guinea pig.

I found it.

I owned up to my mistake and I found it literally a better life.

Like that guinea pig pig doesn't that chinchilla does not care about me that chinchilla is glad i'm gone but you wouldn't be here if you felt that you were not going to repeat the same mistake with a guinea pig i would never be here if i felt like i was going to repeat that same mistake i'm that was that was what eight years ago or something like that like i care so long ago scarlett before i move on Quick question.

If I were to rule in your favor and you were to get this guinea pig, what would you name this guinea pig?

Because that could really make a big part of my decision.

I have not decided yet because it depends on um the overall color and breed of guinea pig I land on

what is something it would you know okay all right it would be something probably like I'm the one who named pixel so pixel being on theme you're talking about

technological

it would probably be a little techie we're football photo people so that's where we got pixel from your what people

camera like a photography like photography yeah

you know you could name your you know you could name your uh guinea pig 8-bit

that's actually kind of funny pretty good right it's actually pretty good that's i'm not i'm actually not going to pretty good that's actually pretty good

uh morrigan why do you hate 8-bit so much or all guinea pigs i should say yeah it's the the resident uh small furry animal hater why don't you want a guinea pig i guess is probably the more less leading question

number one is um that i just like don't like love caged animals in houses i think they are like inevitably kind of smelly it takes up a lot of space that we don't have an enormous amount of like we have some space i wouldn't say we were cramped but you put your plant in a cage a cage called a shower could you just keep the guinea pig in the shower with the dog yeah they just all live there let it be known then you don't have to think about them let it be known we have a plan for guinea pig space that we can touch on later.

Morgan, how large is your domicile?

So it's a four-bedroom apartment, but that makes it sound, I think, bigger than it is.

Chicago, I moved to Chicago.

Like the rooms are not large.

Any of them, except for maybe my office,

would be cramped with a queen-size bed in it.

Like they're not, they're not huge rooms.

But it's the two of you and your two dogs, but also

that you have a house guest currently, right?

Yes.

My youngest sister, My younger sister just moved in with us

temporarily as she navigates her first

industry.

That's very generous of you.

But she comes with a dog, too, right?

Yes.

It's a very cute beagle that we should have sent pictures of.

Forget it.

That dog is dead to me.

I'm not interested in any sister dogs.

His name is Winston.

Pretty good.

He's not just a beagle.

He's a mini-beagle.

We have room that could be used for that, but it could also be used for other things that are not a guinea pig cage, I'm sure.

Wait, you have so many rooms.

You have one that you haven't even decided what to use it for yet.

Well, no, that's currently housing our house guest, my sister-in-law-in-law.

So, um, what normally was in the bed, been a guest bedroom in the past, but got it.

So, Scarlett, your suggestion is that when your sister

eventually gets a place of her own and she and Winston move out, that the guest room then become a guinea pig salon.

So while the request is post my sister moving, finding her own space is the timeline of a guinea pig.

I actually prefer to keep it in my office because one of those rooms, those four bedrooms is my office.

I work from home and I wanted to keep it in that office space so I can be like in the room with the piggy.

And that will more or less contain the stink that Morrigan is concerned about?

That and the fact that my guinea pigs are all litter trained.

Well, your potential guinea pigs.

Your potential guinea pig.

My previous ones are all litter trained.

Notice we've already moved the post to plural guinea pigs, Your Honor.

No, I was

a slippery slope.

I was referring to my previous guinea pigs have all been litter trained.

So the stink, in theory, is handled every day and scooped out cleanly.

Who walks the dogs?

Me, Your Honor.

That would be Morrigan.

Yes, Morrigan.

Who feeds the dogs?

We both do.

Mostly me.

Who takes the donks to the veterinarian?

That's both of us.

Yeah.

Though often, just because of my schedule, it ends up being me.

You see the narrative that Morgan is trying to build here, Scarlett, that Morrigan does more of the pet care in the house so far.

Is that true or false?

True.

You acknowledge that Morris.

I am acknowledging that the agreement for our division of labor, based on the amount of jobs I have, it makes more sense for you to be the default like caretaker for the dogs.

But I jump anytime she's got a gig or she's out or she is sick, I'm right in there jumping on it.

Morgan, are you happy with the pet care sharing arrangement that you have?

I would like if Scar did a little bit more walking and taking the dogs out.

And if I was not essentially right now, like the situation is when I'm at home, I am doing all the dog stuff.

And the only time I don't do all the dog stuff is if I'm

at a job.

So it sounds like you're not 100% happy.

Right now, even without the addition of a new animal in the house, you wish that Scarlett, your wife, would maybe pick up the.

Yeah, I would like if Scar had less of a

I'm happy to babysit my kids when my wife is that way, you know, kind of vibe to the dog and a little bit more i'm just gonna take the dogs for a walk because i can you know how do you feel about that scarlet no i don't disagree with her like let me let me stress that i always want to be able to uh when my wife is saying there's something that you know she'd like more of in terms of my effort around the house it's something i definitely definitely wish i could do uh i want to do more of if you were to get a guinea pig which one of you with regard to the dogs would be in charge of ensuring that the dogs don't eat this guinea pig for food?

It would

first of all, it would be a combined effort because, in general, we should all make sure the guinea pig doesn't get eaten for food.

But my overall responsibility would be protector of the guinea pig, which includes keeping it in its very spacious guinea pig office with the door closed at all times.

But I mean, you know, Morgan, you did mention guinea pigs are prey animals.

Yes.

Do you, what do you, what do you think about having a prey animal for a pet?

I mean, I have no problem with it in general.

It's more of just the dynamic of

Pixel and Sally both have a pretty high prey drive.

Like, like I mentioned previously, we have rats because we're in Chicago.

And sometimes they'll be in the back sort of enclosed area we have.

In the patio?

Yeah, in our little shared sort of

courtyard area.

And if they see one of those, they are locked in and charging at it.

Even if you were able to keep the guinea pig safe from being eaten for food by these dogs,

it would have to be a disruption to their lives.

Don't you think, Scarlett?

I think I believe that the guinea pig would be so far into the room, because where I'm envisioning putting

its nice pimped-out cage

is far enough in that back room that while the dogs probably know it's there, unless I'm out walking around with the guinea pig, it would be pretty hard for them to like

truly put two and two together.

They're not smart dogs.

We love them, but they're not smart.

Well, it is true.

It is true.

And Jesse, you'll, as a longtime dog owner, you'll back me up on this.

Dogs have no sense of smell.

No.

Right.

The only way that they know, and they also have no sense of object permanence.

The only way that they would know that there is an animal is if you show it to them right in front of their dumb eyes.

They would definitely smell it, but I'm telling you, like it would become like a Wilfred situation where they like, they like know the dog is there, but they like the guinea pig is there, but they're like, we can't hear it.

And we smell it, but like we've never seen it.

And I think they might maybe just like roll like I don't know.

Sally, talking about the Elijah Wood TV show.

If that became a Wilfred situation, I mean, on the plus side, you would have have those beautiful, soulful eyes of Elijah Wood.

God, a couple of times I met Elijah Wood in person because he's come on bullseye.

He's the loveliest man in the world, just the nicest, brightest guy.

But you're just sitting there and you're like, oh my God, look at those eyes.

You're just like getting, you're just drawn into his eyes.

It's unbelievable.

Fall into those limpid pools.

I can't believe that Scarlett just obscure cultural referenced their way out of explaining the answering the question I was just asking, which is these guinea pigs stink and the dogs are going to smell it and they're going to be upset.

Sally already was upset about Ollie the Chinchilla.

But the thing is, Ollie the Chinchilla and Sally lived in a studio apartment.

And during that time, Sally did not terrorize the chinchilla.

In fact, they at one point in time used to roam around, have a good time and play.

And she never pawed at the cage.

She just stared at it i only ever witnessed sally sort of staring hungrily at the cage i've never seen this cooperation that scar speaks of so if you're saying so hormone if they lived if the worst that happened to this guinea pig was that uh chinchilla was that the dog stared at it a lot in the cage then if we have a whole separate room for them i can only imagine the situation being even better let me ask you this scarlet how many times would you say would be too many times for the dogs to catch and try and kill the guinea pig

i mean one time but

i also that would require the dogs catching and

hurting my guinea pig which i would just simply not allow to happen

vis-a-vis through the closed door the fact that it's staying in its guinea pig pig kingdom

Your Honor, let the record show that

Scar's now referring to it as a guinea pig kingdom.

I hate to tell you,

I did note that for the record, Morgan, and

you might not be happy to learn this is very exciting to me.

I would like to miss a nude joke.

This is something that I'm very tempted to rule in favor of.

Well, just imagine like the

episode of The Office where Michael Scott tries to make Tube Town.

Tube City.

Now I get that reference.

I would really like a Tube City situation in my office for my one guinea pig.

Your one one lonely, woebegone guinea pig

with no friends.

That's a good point because Scarlett, here's the thing.

I have a sister-in-law who's a whole human being in her own right.

Her name is Jennifer.

And she

is a guinea pig fanatic, loves them, self-proclaimed.

I'm not putting that on her.

She would say it herself.

She's had multiple guinea pigs over the years.

and loves them very much.

And so I asked my sister-in-law, who's a whole human being in her own right, named Jennifer, if she had any thoughts, advice, bits of information that she wished she had before she adopted a guinea pig, just about her experience in general.

And she reported that there are cardinal rules, in her words, the cardinal rules of guinea pig husbandry are,

one,

no mixing boy and girl guinea pigs.

Either all boys or all girls.

Two, they need to eat 80% hay.

Yes.

The rest, pellets and fresh veggies, but you need 80% hay.

Do you have a good source of hay in Chicago?

Yes.

Is it deep dish hay or tavern-style hay?

But anyway, I forgot about

the other cardinal rule of guinea pig husbandry, which is every guinea pig needs at least one companion.

I am not against a companion.

Oh, are you?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, okay.

Phew.

I think that's what Morgan was most concerned about.

They would only get one guinea pig instead of two or three.

But

I have to respect and appreciate that my wife is scared of more than one guinea pig.

I'm not scared of more than one guy.

Whoa, here we go.

Nerve touched.

It's not a fear.

It's an acknowledgement that it's sort of a give a mouse a cookie situation.

It's not like a mouse.

You get one guinea pig, you're going to need another.

But you've already upped it to two very sneakily there, Scarlett.

I do not need to.

I would love to.

But the guinea pig needs to.

The guinea pig needs to.

Even Morgan acknowledges that.

I would feel bad if you only had one guinea pig and it was just sad and lonely.

I would too, but I would also want to respect.

You would sacrifice the happiness of your guinea pig, the false happiness of your guinea pig, the happiness of both of your dogs,

and

honestly, the happiness of your wife, just so that you could have something to hold while watching reruns of Glee.

Any of my attorney present?

Plead the fish.

You don't have to answer.

You don't have to make, I can't compel you to make any noise you don't want to make, even if it's a wee, we.

But there is an issue here, which is maybe an issue of a promise made and a promise to be kept, because I have it here.

When were you married, Morgan, you and Scarlett?

That was a year and a month and a bit ago.

So December 3rd.

2020.

Oh, happy anniversary.

Or, yeah.

2023.

Just kidding.

It's one of those years.

I don't know.

What is time?

I don't like time.

I don't like subtraction, but which year is it?

Which anniversary?

2023.

Which anniversary is it?

The first or the second?

Just pass our first, yeah.

Right, which is the rodent anniversary.

And I have, and I have it here on authority.

Says here that

just before you got married,

Morgan suggested that you maybe consider getting a guinea pig.

Says here in your vows, Morgan, that you promised to buy Scarlett a guinea pig.

Is that not true?

That is incorrect.

But was a promise made or a suggestion or there was there was at some point in

some conversation or another, a mention that maybe we could consider guinea pigs at some point in the future, but not now.

Disagree.

Which was in no way a promise that there would be a future guinea pig.

Scarlett, it looks like you are looking at your phone trying to find some evidence you'd like to present.

I know I have.

The wiretap you had on our conversation.

So I do keep guinea pig prop, I do send my wife guinea pig propaganda.

There's a lot of TikToks of guinea pigs.

And texts and photos when I go to the pet stores and I see guinea pigs.

I can't hold up right now, but

about a year away from the wedding, I did finally send her a guinea pig photo and I was like, this could be ours if you let me.

And she said, we can't get a guinea pig.

until after the wedding.

You can get one after the wedding.

Wow.

And she did say you can get one after the wedding.

I know it's the word can.

Can as in it is possible to do so, not as in, I allow it.

But you agree that the statement we can get a guinea pig after the wedding does sound a lot like Scarlett.

So after the wedding includes all of linear time.

So I

it's true.

It's true, but it does sound, Morrigan, like you were kicking this can down the road a little disingenuously.

If you didn't want to have a guinea pig at all, that could be construed as a false hope.

Correct.

How do you, how, how, how do you feel learning Scarlett now that that hope was false?

It was a little rude.

Like, do you think, Morgan, that you could ever have a guinea pig?

I think if we had

more space, potentially,

I just think right now, like, you having the guinea pig in your office would mean that the door would have to be closed all the time, which I think would make our dog sad and it would make me sad because I couldn't see you during the day.

You don't care about me during the workday.

I do care about her.

I have to pull her in.

That's untrue to talk to me.

And then you groan and you pull off your headphones because you're listening to this podcast and it interrupted you.

Well, never mind the fact, though, Scarlett, you're also working nine to five and five to nine or whatever.

Like you're out of the house for big chunks of time when that guinea pig would be

a prisoner in its own castle and guinea pig kingdom.

It's important to note that one, it is living in a in a very, it's going to be living in a great kingdom.

But also, as I mentioned earlier, they, they are, they are, they play when you play.

It's also, so they're available all the time.

So, including the peak times I am available, they will be happy to play.

And then, you know, it's also important to know that guinea pigs love routines.

If there's one thing you can like look up about guinea pigs is that they fall into routine very well.

So, if I were to say, start my routine where I'm spending more time with my guinea pig at night and early in the morning, that guinea pig would happily adjust.

Guinea pigs are awake for up to 20 hours a day.

This means your guinea pig needs constant access to food and water, as well as safe hiding places and toys to keep them entertained day and night.

How do you feel?

How would you feel if I were to allow Scarlet to

build the habitat, as you say, to see if they will eventually come?

Field of Dream style.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it would be a probably a substantial expense, I imagine, to construct this guinea pig kingdom.

With my own five to nine money.

But do you, have you talked about this possibility, say, with obviously Sally and Pixel have a vet, right?

Yes, you do.

Have you talked about, like, we're thinking about adopting a guinea pig?

What do you think?

How's that going to work with our particular dogs?

Or does that vet treat guinea pigs?

Or do you know a vet who does?

I was going to say, so I would have to take, I mean, you can take your guinea pig to like a traditional vet like you would for Pixar Sally, but I probably would take it to an exotic vet.

And I have done some research and there are a handful within our neighborhood.

Got it.

Morrigan,

this has been going on in your relationship from the beginning, it sounds like four years, right?

Yeah, it's been going along, at least since we started living together.

Okay.

And how do you feel when Scarlett keeps bringing this up?

Like a cruel monster or the only reasonable person on earth?

Sometimes both.

I feel like I have a very reasonable position that like before guinea pigs happen, I would like more help with the dogs and

that I will probably end up at least sometimes cleaning the cage out of pure like, you know, you just don't believe something will come up.

Yeah, that Scarlett will be able to.

If you could believe that Scarlett

was going to be 100% responsible for the guinea guinea pig under edict from a podcast, for example.

Would that change your feeling about this or no?

Well, I just think like logistically, there will be times where for whatever reason, Scar is unable to do it because, as mentioned before, they have a very busy schedule.

And who knows, they might take a trip or something.

I don't know what's in the future, but I will probably have to do something with this guinea pig.

I don't know.

I don't believe it would be a regular occurrence, but either way, it would mean that I definitely won't have more help with the dogs because

there will be 8-bit priorities.

Scarlett, I hear your passion for guinea pigs, and I feel it.

And I have a question.

Is there an option?

Have you considered fostering a guinea pig with a rescue organization to see how it would fit into your life?

Yeah, to find out if your dog would kill it.

We are foster failures with Pixel.

We fostered Pixel and then we kept him.

But we did foster another dog previously, but we did not keep.

I wonder, honestly, if a rescue organization would even

allow you to foster or even adopt, allow you to adopt a guinea pig into a home with two, now, three, well, two dogs eventually.

I wonder.

Or even adopt a singleton.

I know someone in my life who would like to adopt a cat, and it's very hard to adopt a

single young cat right now.

They don't like it.

It's very hard to adopt

most animals.

Yes.

Anyway,

I don't think it's unheard of, though.

In fact, I know it's not unheard of, as evidenced by my photo of my childhood dog and my guinea pigs hanging out, that people will adopt guinea pigs in multi-diverse animal homes.

Scarlett, you love guinea pigs.

It's so clear.

And I love your passion for them.

But you also love a human named Morgan who does not want a guinea pig, at least not right now.

Why not

give up for the sake of your marriage?

I am not against a timeline that she sticks to.

Roasted.

There was all.

Yeah.

But I need

to work on my, I need to work on my dismissive cough.

That was great.

That was some good scoffing.

But

I need it committed to.

And the timeline cannot be her

post-wedding timeline of, yeah, once Sally passes, because you cannot make me wait for the demise of my own dog to get a guinea pig.

Why not?

My dog I've had for nine, ten years.

I know.

Well, and but, you know, after a suitable grieving period.

It feels morbid.

It feels like a very morbid timeline.

Like if it was like something more, more like less tied to the death of my very first adult, like my adult life dog,

it would feel less morbid.

Well, I was just going to say, I don't know how you put it less morbidly.

I mean, after we no longer have Sally, I guess is one way you could put it.

Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn't feel bad that Pixel doesn't have a friend post Sally?

Well, yeah, but you also want a dachshund.

You want a wiener dog.

I do think I would look cute without a wiener.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into

my habit trail right now that is my chambers and crawl around my plastic tubes.

I'll find a little bit of sawdust to nuzzle into.

I'll think about it.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Scarlett, how are you feeling about your chances right now?

Not good, sir.

Why is that?

In the Scarlett v.

guinea pig case, I just think that the the american people uh would stand by morgan

americans are not ready for guinea pigs i mean the american people have not necessarily been making the best choices lately um and uh the american people are not deciding this case morgan how are you feeling about your chances I feel pretty good, but I do think my casual mention of maybe after the wedding we can get a guinea pig might damn me

and may constitute some sort of binding legal promise.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment.

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One

thing my sister-in-law, who is a whole human being on her own right, and his name, Jennifer, said, I have no regrets, exclamation point.

I love my piggies exclamation point.

Are you sure this wasn't just Scarlett that you were texting?

This was my sister-in-law, and I did not ask her if she had any regrets.

This was in response to no question.

It was simply, I think, a reflexive defense

that I think people who love guinea pig owners often have to express to people who don't have guinea pigs because guinea pigs are complicated animals.

They are these

little squeaking, you may have heard that they make the noise, wheat, wheat, wheat, these little squeaking balls of fur, they are prey animals,

which are complicated to keep as pets because their socializing is

often

it gets confused with their desire to live.

They're more, they tend to, like, as someone who never had a guinea pig, but had his, was tricked into having a series of hamsters by various children who lived in my house,

who died

horrible deaths.

The children?

No, no, the children are fine.

This is not an Edward Gorey book.

The hamsters were not, you know,

they were afraid.

They were bitey.

They were angry.

They turned on each other.

They had to be separated.

I know that hamsters are not guinea pigs, right?

But I'm just saying that this is part of, I have to acknowledge part of my trauma that informs this, which is that having prey animals for pets,

they want to survive and they want to hide and

they will bite you.

And then they are also prone to...

complicated diseases, which often take tragic turns, as indeed, you know, happened recently for Jennifer, my sister-in-law who's old in her own right.

I think that, and even I, a person who had been traumatized by hamster death, had to say, that's a pretty cute animal.

You have nothing to regret, Jennifer.

You love your piggies, just like you do, Scarlett.

You love your piggies, they're part of your childhood.

And I think 8-bit is an incredible name for a guinea pig.

And Morgan, I'm going to say something here.

You did a, you did a, I'm not saying a bad thing, but an unwise thing.

Saying,

uh, well, let's talk, let's, maybe we can have one after the marriage.

That was a bad maneuver, both in the sense, both in the reality show sense, like you played, you played the game poorly.

You're no Boston Robin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because that's just, that's tactically an error because that's only going to come back around and

nip at your fingers like a prey animal later.

And you will be held to that.

Not exactly a promise, but it is a hope that you offered.

And I think it's pretty clear, a false hope, at least where you stand in

your relationship and in your apartment in Chicago and in your pet portfolio now

that you don't want to have a guinea pig, not now or for the foreseeable future, and with understandable reason.

You have a very full pet portfolio in your home.

You have two dogs,

one of whom

gets confused and goes, tries to take a human shower.

And you, you know, you have a wonderful relationship

with a beloved person, but you know, Scarlett's very busy.

And for both reasons of schedule and,

you know,

physical limitations that need to be navigating,

they're not holding up their end of the fur baby bargain at the moment.

At least they're just not.

You're taking the brunt of it.

Trust me, as someone who

was a freelancer and has been self, marginally self-employed for the past 25 years, when we had kids, younger kids and animals,

it does fall to the freelance person to fill in the gaps of childcare and animal care and so forth when the person who is working outside the home just can't do it.

And

it is a cardinal rule of guinea pig husbandry that one guinea pig will not do.

I think that it is essential that you have two guinea pigs if you're going to have any at all.

And I think that it is disingenuous of you, Scarlett, to suggest that this isn't already on your mind.

I mean, the thing, you know, marriage is a contract and you have to live up to it.

And that means, that means first and foremost that you have to take care of each other, the humans in the relationship, right?

First and foremost.

And

you do sacrifice things that you might want in order to maintain and live up to the promises that you make being married.

This would be very cut and dry indeed if you had never said that dumb thing, Morgan.

Sorry.

If you had not spoken your truth, because that's the other part of getting married is you have to be really adept at learning and understanding what your truth is and really speaking it and

and you're the truth of your happiness and the truth of how much of your happiness you're willing to compromise on i think it's clear that scarlet's happiness is very very entwined with the idea of having guinea pigs in the future

and you have a tacitly agreed to that morgan and it's not exactly fair but none of this is

but But at the same time, Scarlett, you have to acknowledge that the person, the human that you love most in the world, I'm presuming, is very, very skeptical about this

to the point of maybe not liking the idea at all, and with good reasons.

Like,

it's going to be a burden upon Morgan.

It's going to be a burden upon Sally.

It's going to be a burden upon Pixel

and certainly a burden upon you, too.

But even you are not, even you are not making the fool's promise, I will do everything.

The promise every five-year-old child makes to their parents when they demand a dog.

I'll do everything.

I'll do everything.

You know that that's not going to be the case, but it will be a burden for you as well.

And I've got to say, I'm grateful that you already know that right now, it is not a good time to bring guinea pigs into this apartment because you have a sister and a and a dog who's already living there.

By the way, an accommodation that Morrigan made on behalf of your family, a pretty big one.

I trust it's a happy accommodation.

Do you know what I mean?

It all works out fine, but it's like,

you know, I would say that though Morgan gave you that

hope, and though maybe Morgan thought it was false hope, it has to be true hope.

Obviously,

nothing can move forward until

Savannah and Winston move out.

And I know that it's morbid, and I know that it's hard, and I know that it's challenging.

And maybe you'll even think it's cruel.

But I don't think the conversation happens until you have one dog in your life and not two.

And

I think that you owe it to Sally, who was already bedeviled by a KV before,

to let her finish her journey on this earth, having already adapted to Pixel and Winston.

And though I know that that's harsh, these decisions are hard to make about when to bring in new animals and when not

and to bring in big changes.

And I think that it's reasonable to give both your wife and your elderly dog a chance to just be chill where it's at for a while longer.

At the same time, it's your office.

If you want to build a guinea pig kingdom in there,

I would love to see weird designs.

That's incredible.

Like, I think you should trust that this podcast believes in your mission and that your kingdom shall rise

and it shall have two guinea pigs in it.

But

not until there is less going on in your house so that the labor in taking care of the dogs and the guinea pigs and the humans, the emotional, the happy emotional labor of taking care of each other is

in a place of balance that will allow the guinea pigs to come in and then rule.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Morrigan, how do you feel right now?

It's kind of what I was expecting.

I felt like we were always going to get into some sort of compromise vis-a-vis guinea pig acquisition.

But I'm glad that the judge took my side when it comes to limiting it to one dog when it comes to having guinea pigs.

Although, as previously stated, Scar does also want another dog after Sally passes.

So we'll see.

Scarlett, how are you feeling?

Mildly cheated because I know she's also going to want a second dog when Sally passes.

Morgan, Scarlett, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

This week's episode was named by Reddit user Ambitious Factor 715.

You can join us on the Maximum Fun subreddit at r slash maximum fun

over there on Reddit and in the Reddit app.

That's where we ask for our title suggestions.

You can also just enjoy the title suggestions of others.

Just enjoy them.

That's what I do.

I go over there, and you you know what I do, Jesse?

What do you do?

I enjoy them.

I enjoy the heck out of them.

Evidence and photos from the show are posted on our website at maximumfund.org, as well as on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

And we're also on TikTok and YouTube with full video of episodes.

So go and like and subscribe and share the episodes.

Maybe one day something we make will hit the algorithm and people will learn about our show.

You can help, of course, by liking and subscribing and sharing and leaving comments and so forth.

Meanwhile, thank you to Lisa Huntress on Apple Podcasts, who left us some very kind words and a five-star rating.

Lisa Huntress says about the show, quote,

In the spirit of helping and the way you're asked to help, I'm rating this podcast.

It's very kind, they suppose that's what we say.

It's like, if you like the show, it really helps us to go over and rate it somewhere.

So Lisa did so, and they say, I just came out of a meditation retreat.

We could all use more of that these days.

My heart is filled with gratitude for the wisdom that Judge John Hodgman and I dare say Bailiff Jesse Thorne has shared over the years.

Thank you for your gentle and light-hearted presence.

Thank you, Lisa Huntress, and indeed, everyone should try to practice a little bit of mindfulness.

Take a few minutes out of your day to just breathe and

concentrate or not concentrate on some quiet time.

And then go ahead over to Apple Podcast and rate and review us, if you please.

Or go over to Pocketcast and do the same thing.

Or, as I say, if you're watching us on YouTube, you can leave a comment on the episode, like, share, subscribe.

All of these things really do help other listeners, new listeners, discover the show, and we're very grateful.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode was engineered by Colin Bollinger and Max Fabian at Tightrope Recording in Chicago, Illinois.

The podcast is edited by A.J.

McKeon.

Our video producer is Daniel Speer, and our ever-capable producer is Jennifer Marmer, childhood neighbor, grandma neighbor of Elijah Wood.

Grandma neighbor of Elijah Wood.

And this is our last episode with social media manager Natty Lopez.

Our thanks to Natty.

Natty's done so much wonderful work on our social media

over the last year.

Thank you so much.

We'll miss you.

And a big welcome to our new social media manager, Dan Telfer.

Welcome aboard, Dan.

He's a very hilarious guy, very funny stand-up.

If you've never seen his stand-up comedy, we're so excited to be working with him.

Now,

I just want to say thank you, Natty Lopez.

You're wonderful and you brought so much energy and verb to social media.

And we're going to miss you a lot.

And

Dan, I also, I love a lot too.

And you're going to enjoy interacting with him on the social media.

If you see Dan posting, make sure to tell him what your favorite dinosaur is.

Chances are, you're wrong.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with quick judgment, Meow underscore Meow says it should be illegal for someone at work to chat hi

and then not immediately follow up with their request.

I'd like a ruling that one must say, hi, please send me that report or whatever it is that they want, or just not say anything at all.

Okay, Miao Meow, here's what I have to say.

Hi.

You're absolutely right.

People should follow up.

They should follow up their first sentences with second sentences, whether they're talking or chatting.

You have to understand that when you start saying something, the other person is, if they're polite and gracious, is waiting for you to finish.

You should be considerate of their time.

Hey, that's a workplace beef, and we need more beeves from your workplace.

Surely you've got some for us.

Maybe your colleagues have fun lunch plans on your work from home day.

Boo.

Do you hate how your coworker folds sweaters on the sales floor?

Are they doing it wrong?

Does someone in your coworking space monopolize the best desk?

Hey, do you work in the mornings

in a lovely coffee shop in Brooklyn?

How do you feel when someone comes and takes your chair and says, we're holding this table for our party of six in a coffee shop.

It's not my chair, of course, nobody's chair.

It's just they weren't sitting there yet, but they told me I couldn't sit there because they were waiting for a party of six.

This isn't a we work space.

Yeah.

And I said, okay.

And then guess what?

The other people never showed up and they left.

Wow.

Beeves.

We're talking about.

Workplace beeves, whether you work in an office, work in a coffee shop, or work at home.

Send us all your workplace disputes at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

that's where we get all the disputes that you might have for us and indeed we need those disputes don't we jesse indeed on any subject you can submit them at maximumfund.org slash jjho no beef is too big or too small for the judge john hodgman podcast that's maximumfund.org slash jjho and we'll talk to you next time on judge john hodgman

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