Squatters Rights

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Squatters Rights.

Diane brings the case against her husband, Will.

Will grew up attending a summer camp deep in the wilderness of Ontario, and last year, he bought it.

Diane loves being a camp director and living off the grid, except for one thing: the communal outhouse called the Fort.

Diane wants a proper toilet in their cabin, but Will says privacy is impractical.

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.

Sitting there before me in the living room, shirtless, barefoot, and wearing only an old pair of jeans, sat my biblical companion, Michael Rapunzel, the great guru of the commune known as the Brotherhood of the Spirit, the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Spirit in Flesh, the Pied Piper of Western Massachusetts, and the Grand Wizard of Warwick, sitting with a half-empty bucket of Kentucky fried chicken right in front of him.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Will and Diane, 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, yes.

I do, yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that, as far as I know and want want to know he does not use the bathroom

yes i do judge hodgman you may proceed we shall maintain the taboo of our excretions jesse

i shall never admit that i use the bathroom

and that way we can continue to travel the world together indeed and indeed and having a podcast together uh will and diane you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment and one of your favors can either of you name the piece of culture that i referenced as i entered this fake courtroom?

Let's start with you, Diane.

What's your guess?

I have no idea.

So I'm just going to say

wet, hot American summer.

Wet, hot

American summer, a great summer camp movie.

Great summer camp movie.

For a summer camp-themed case.

Yes.

I love that guess.

Captures the tone of the film perfectly.

No comment on its rightness or wrongness yet.

Judge Hodgman, I'm an expert on this one because a guy I know wrote the foreword to the published screenplay of Wet Hot American Summer.

I won't say who it was, but it rhymes with messy torn.

Did you really write the foreword?

All right.

That's a good plug.

Go out and get that.

The published screenplay of Wet Hot American Summer.

In fact, let's make that your guess, too.

That's what I meant.

That's what I meant.

That's what I meant.

The movie and the published screenplay.

Actually, can I change it to, I would like my answer to be the

intro to the published screenplay of Jesse Thorne's introduction.

Okay.

Three guesses.

Yes.

Correct.

All right.

I'm not going to comment on the wrongness or rightness of all guesses yet.

For now, Will, it is your turn to guess.

What is your guess, sir?

The best I've got is some kind of Tom Cruise movie.

Some kind.

Why?

Sometime captures the tone.

What's the reasoning behind that guess?

We're talking about your summer camp.

We're talking about toilets.

We're not talking about stunts or missions impossible.

I was just thinking of the one where he's in his underwear sliding through the living room.

Risky business.

Yes, that's the one.

And I have no idea why that movie popped into my mind.

Well, because he was not even wearing jeans in that.

But he was shirtless and shoeless.

See, yeah.

And risky and business.

And my wife can vouch for the fact that my cultural connections are entirely arbitrary.

No, you don't have time to be watching movies at summer camp.

That's right.

If those kids are lucky, you're going to screen a 16 millimeter print of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.

And that's it

in the multi-purpose room.

That is what they used to do.

They used to do the films and they would have to tape them together, right?

Sure.

Tape blind.

Yeah.

Yep.

Well, we'll talk more about your summer cam in a sand because right now I got to tell you, all guesses are wrong.

The quote that I read to you is a 2009 blog entry by a person named Tom Devine of Northampton, Massachusetts, who I do not know personally.

Might be a listener to the show.

Maybe I've met him a thousand times.

Sorry, Tom, if I have.

But Tom was describing his brief membership in a Western Massachusetts commune that was called Brotherhood of the Spirit and later the Renaissance community.

Now, Jesse Thorne, just last week we performed live in Turner's Falls, specifically at the Shea Theater, which I only recently learned and frequently forget because it's so weird, but the Shea Theater in Turner's was the high church and epicenter of the Renaissance community at its height in the 1970s.

And at that time,

the commune that this person, Michael Rapunzel, had started in a tree house in Leiden, Massachusetts had grown to hundreds of members and dozens of profitable businesses.

They basically had taken over Turner's Falls.

And that's, we'll talk more about this later, Jesse, but it's around that time that Michael had changed his name to Rapunzel to focus less on being a commune leader and more on being a drug and booze addled rock star.

with a band called The Spirit and Flesh.

Now, why he would change his name to Rapunzel to become become a rock star when his literal birth name was Michael Metallica is just one of the strange decisions that this guy made that led to the commune

eventually hating him and paying him $10,000 to leave the commune forever, which he did in the 1980s.

And then he went out to the Hudson Valley and passed away from cancer in 2003.

And that's when our friend Monty Belmonte took it over?

Yeah, exactly.

The Brotherhood of Spirit, aka the Renaissance community, does not exist, at least not in any recognizable form now.

I think some of their businesses are still around, but the Shea Theater is now a community theater where we perform as live Judge John Hodgman shows from time to time, along with a lot of other great community events.

There's no more cult in Turners.

But this was a completely unknown and wild history to me, even when I was spending huge parts of my life in the Pioneer Valley and performing at the Shea.

And if you want to learn more about it, there's a documentary about this, the Brotherhood of the Spirit, that's called Free Spirits.

Uh, you can get it at acornproductions.net.

And that's where you can also find a photo of Toilet City.

Jesse Thorne, I think I texted you Toilet City, right?

You have texted me a photograph of Toilet City, John.

Would you open up your phone and look at Toilet City for me and describe what you see?

Yeah, I see

whatever algorithm lives inside my phone being ruined forever.

So it's a photograph of some

hippies.

Yeah, you can say it, hippies.

And just classic old-timey hippies, some of them shirtless, others wearing peasant blouses.

Right.

And it's a mixed gender group.

And

you can never tell with these long hairs.

I know, really.

And

they appear to be sitting on five different toilets.

It's five people sitting on five different toilets, hanging out and reading newspapers and magazines and chatting.

Right.

This, this was the Brotherhood and Spirit communal toilet circle.

The toilets are arranged in a circle so that you have to look at other people while they are doing their business.

And it says the caption is 1971, boys and girls using these toilets, quote, to get over their hang-ups, but also to erode their individual sense of privacy.

and make them more submissive to the cult, I think.

And this is kind of what you got going on up at your cult/slash camp, right, Will?

Well, our toilets are more in a row.

And we have, we have six toilets.

Uh-huh.

So we're all facing, we're all facing the same direction, not each other.

We're not savages.

Oh, we're going to be looking at a photo of your toilet city in a second, but let me get a little bit of background in here.

So, Diane, you and your husband Will

purchased a boys' summer camp in Ontario.

You bought a camp.

Why did you not buy a zoo?

Because that movie was already taken.

So

yeah.

When did you buy this summer camp and why?

We bought this summer camp, I think, in November of 2023.

Oh, okay.

Recently.

Recently, yes.

It was, I mean, it was, you know, a year-long process of getting there, but yes, we bought it.

We actually met through this summer camp as well.

Oh, okay.

Well, Will, you have history with this camp, correct?

That's right.

I started as a camper when I was 12 years old.

So tell me about this camp and your history with it.

What's the name of the camp?

The name is Camp Pathfinder.

It's located on an island in Algonquin Park, Ontario.

The camp specializes in wilderness canoe tripping.

We

go on canoe trips all over Ontario in handmade wooden cedar canvas canoes

and then come back to Pathfinder Island where we

have fun and poop together.

I can hear the sound of every listener clicking their keyboards as they rush to the URL

and I encourage them to check it out.

It looks like a lot of fun.

This episode of our show is a real skibbity nightmare.

What is the body of water that these handmade canoes ply?

We go,

Algonquin Park is a region of

thousands of small lakes connected by trails called portages.

And so we go from lake to lake.

The camp itself is on a lake called Source Lake.

Oh, like the Source Community, another commune north of in the in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles in the 70s.

We are really struggling to not be cult-like.

Source Lake is called that because it is the source of the Madawaska River, which flows towards the sea.

So these portages are areas where you carry the canoe, right?

You get out of the lake and you carry it to the next lake.

That's right.

Okay, got it.

The Source Family were known as the Source Family because they were the source of green goddess dressing, which they invented in the 70s.

Really?

Yeah.

They pumped it out at the Source Family restaurant on Sunset Boulevard.

The Source Family also has a great documentary.

I mean, these are good documentaries you you can be watching.

You should be showing them at your camp, in fact, I think is probably a good idea.

We'll put it in the queue right after deliverance.

Yeah.

What are the ages of your campers?

We start at seven years old and we go up to 16 years old.

And

you started at seven years old.

I started at 12.

All right.

But then I was a counselor and

a senior staff.

person as well.

And why and when and why did you decide to buy it?

Oh, gosh.

I became a school teacher and continued working at the camp well into my 30s and then met Diane

while I was working at the camp because her family has a cottage across the lake.

So I paddled over in a canoe and asked her out one day.

We ended up getting married at the camp

and have, as we've had a family, we've continued going back to the lake each summer.

And so when the opportunity became available, available, it was sort of a dream for our family.

And we'll decide how much of a dream it was.

But you did it.

And you spent a last summer there as the director, as the director of the camp.

Yeah, we completed our first summer as owners and directors.

And it says here that the camp is off the grid.

How off the grid is it?

What is life like at Pathfinder Island?

Which really sounds like a CD-ROM game from 1997.

But

We're accessible by boat.

So we get all of our food and supplies brought over to the island on pontoon boats.

I trust everything is No Name Brand from Loblaws.

I love that you know them.

I can't stop thinking about them.

They came to visit us once in Canada.

People from No Name Brand came and visited us, and I still use my No Name Brand water bottle and flip-flops when I go to the pool.

I have my No no-name pack of playing cards.

It just says king on one side.

It's a very comfortable yellow on all the labels.

Yeah.

Look it up.

No-name Canadian brand groceries, everybody.

If you haven't heard me rant about it, particularly their evaporated milk can has a beautiful cow on it.

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Let's get back to whatever we were talking about.

We were talking about how Camp Pathfinder is not a cult.

You get, you get your food canoeed in, correct?

Motorboat, but.

Motorboat.

Oh, okay.

Well, they're lucky.

And do you have electricity?

We have

a cable that brings electricity under the lake.

And we've got electric service and just a couple of buildings, but none of the sleeping areas have electricity.

Just the kitchen and the office, that kind of thing.

Do you have a well?

Do you have running water or what?

We pump water out of the lake and we run it through a rigorous filtration process.

Okay.

Everyone in this, everyone.

All right.

Gotcha.

It's tested regularly so that it's.

Hey, Diane, I wasn't going to say anything about drinking this disgusting lake water.

I was going to let it pass.

Diane, when Jesse introduced this case, he said that you love spending summers at the camp apart from this toilet issue.

That may or may not be true.

That's just something I wrote.

So let me ask you: did you love spending this summer at the camp overall apart from the toilets?

I did.

I did.

I,

well, I grew up going to my family's cottage across the lake.

It's a pretty small lake.

Right.

Because

the camp and my cottage is in.

Well, it's getting smaller every day with all these campers drinking

It's true.

It's true.

So my family has a cottage there from the, we got it in the 50s.

It was my, my grandfather and grandmother's.

And then, so I started going up when I was a little kid.

So the place is very near and dear to my heart.

The lake is.

And

so I, yeah, I do love it up there.

And I love it.

Well, I mean, your family cottage probably has a working toilet, right?

It had a.

no.

I think you should describe the cottage outhouse.

Yeah, please describe the cottage outhouse.

So it has an outhouse, a single, single-use outhouse, composting outhouse.

Right.

Built and designed by Will, sitting right here next to me, my husband.

You're saying that until you met this young swain who canoed across the lake to woo you, you didn't have any bathroom in your grandparents' cottage?

We had an old septic toilet that went to like a big tank underground.

Septic tank.

It was a septic tank.

Could not withstand.

Could not handle the poops anymore.

No, no.

It was all done.

Honestly, I would hate to drive that pontoon boat.

There is that boat, the poop boat.

You mean there's a boat that goes around emptying septic tanks all around the lake system?

It's a very special boat.

Yes, it's a very special boat.

Why is there not a sitcom set on this poop boat?

Canadian poop barge.

The poop deck really has a meaning in that one.

Yes.

Now, you are not Ontarians, either of you.

No, we live in the great state of New Jersey.

Was your family Ontarian?

Is that why they had the cottage up there?

My grandfather was from Rochester, which is somewhat.

closish.

So, yeah.

The expanded Ontario universe.

Yes, yes.

Rochester, I I think, expands further north because they just want it to be colder.

Got it.

Well, I'm not talking about your family camp experience anymore.

I'm talking about summer camp for boys, adventure canoe trip, living the whole summer on Pathfinder Island.

Do you love it?

Set aside the toilets.

We're going to talk about them in a second.

Do you love it?

Yes or no?

I do.

I really do.

I love being on the lake.

I love the community.

Yes.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

That sounded a little rehearsed.

No, I really do.

I really, I genuinely love it.

And we have three daughters

that are.

Did they spend the summer with you?

They did.

They did.

How old are they?

They are,

it's her birthday today, our youngest.

She's seven today, seven, nine, and 13.

Oh, wow.

And they wanted, they enjoyed spending a whole summer at a boys' canoe trip camp?

The oldest went to a girl, like a girls' camp.

Oh, they were somewhere else.

For one month and then was with us for one month.

Got it.

Yeah.

i'm glad there's so much love on pathfinder island but let's go down to toilet city diane you submitted some photographic evidence of what is now known and has always been known i think as the fort and let's take a look at that evidence

exhibit away to the toilet city where the boys are canoeing in the holes are

yeah

yeah take me home

All right.

Exhibit A, the Boys Communal Outhouse, aka the Boys Fort.

Along with the camp's one-eyed cat.

Oh, that's not a euphemism.

There is a cat, Opal.

Oh, look at that.

This image obviously will be available on our show page at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram page at judgejohnhodgman.

And I'm going to tell you right now, this image is a real roller coaster

because

you start at the top and you're reading, your eye reads: one, two, three, four, five, six toilets right next to each other, no barriers whatsoever, side by side, in a very dystopian kind of

zero privacy poop bunker.

And then, just when you feel like terrified, there's this beautiful little one-eyed cat looking at you at the bottom of the photo.

It's very, it's a real, it's a real run from disturbing to cute in this photo.

She did not lose her eye in the toilet, by the way.

I'm glad to hear that.

John, it's a beautiful cat, but context is everything.

And this beautiful cat, in the context of this terrifying toiletscape, really seems like it has dark magical powers.

It really does.

Opal, the one-eyed cat,

lives at the camp.

That's right.

Opal is the pet of our assistant director, Erica.

And where does Opal use the bathroom?

Wherever she wants.

All right, fair.

What kind of toilets are these, Will?

These, I should clarify, are the staff toilets.

Oh, that's why they're so nice.

Well, they are the most advanced in terms of communal pooping.

The toilets that the campers prefer to use do have

partial dividers

creating some separation.

Oh, right.

Due to the reasonable demands of parents.

Exactly.

Right.

Wanting their children to not be traumatized.

So to be clear, this structure that is called the Boys' Fort or the Fort is not actually used by the campers.

It's used by the staff.

Correct.

The boys' fort is

adjacent to the picture we're looking at

and is similar in all respects, except that

there's a wooden divider between each.

So they have a modicum of privacy.

A modicum is a perfect word for it.

Right, but they're not sitting in a circle like Toilet City in Western Massachusetts.

They're sitting in a row facing out towards a screen.

A view of Source Lake.

Right.

So unless you're walking right in front of them, you're not going to see them.

Correct.

But these toilets are the staff toilets and the director's and director's family toilets.

Is that what's happening here?

These are the, this would be what we call the men's fort.

So

this is where I poop.

Do you know what the definition of fort is?

I don't know the exact origin of our usage of it,

but I know in

the history of Canada, early fur traders would set up outposts along the shore of Hudson Bay,

and

those all were called forts.

John, many things can be used to fortify a fortification.

Stone, adobe, holes full of doo-doo.

That's right.

I forgot about the traditional doo-doo.

doo-doo hole fort structure.

My main question looking at this photograph is, and it's a beautiful photograph that people should definitely take a look at.

Is if you're in the middle of nowhere in Ontario, where did you find a chic interior design and home decor store to purchase these decorative toilet seats?

Yes, all along the back row of the back wall and the side wall.

are decorative toilet seats that seem to have plaques attached to them.

Oh, gosh, yeah, those are really important.

Those are

commemorative toilet seats

with names painted on them from some of our most legendary canoe expeditions.

So

when a

canoe trip descends a river for the first time in Pathfinder history, they'll get to write their names on a toilet seat, and that toilet seat will get retired up onto the wall of our fort.

What a more fitting tribute to exploration than a decorative toilet seat on the wall of a shed.

Excuse me, fort.

We are a boys' camp.

I understand.

I love it.

Okay.

So

I'm looking at this photo now.

What about this could possibly be not acceptable to you, Diane?

Well, so this is the boys' fort.

The ladies' fort, as it's called,

looks the same, except instead of six toilets, there are four.

Okay.

But other than that, it's completely identical.

We don't have

no dividers in the ladies' fort.

And again, the ladies' fort would be used just by she, her people at the camp.

Yes.

And not campers, presumably.

Yes, there are no lady campers.

Adult, adults and your daughters.

And my daughters, yes.

But we do have some female

swim staff and staff members.

Got it.

Okay, got it.

Yeah.

So why don't you want to poop and pee right next to the people I employ?

Yeah, exactly.

What's wrong with that?

It seems like team building to me.

I mean, I think

for a lot of the boys, it is.

I think that they call it a board meeting when they all go together.

Oh, brother.

Oh, gee whiz.

You didn't want to know that, sounds like.

I love it.

Yeah, so I think, but yes,

I do like some privacy.

And that's, that's pretty much it.

How do your daughters feel about using the ladies' fort?

Our middle daughter's fine with it.

Our younger daughter does not enjoy it.

And our oldest, I think, does not, she's like a teenager now.

So I think it's uncomfortable for her.

What is how far away is the

toilets from your home?

Very good point.

Do you have an owner's cabin or something?

We have an owner's cabin.

I think Will and I have a bit of a dispute of how far the walk is from our owner's cabin to

find out.

To

the fort.

I think it's about a seven-minute walk.

And what would you say, Will?

I would say it's about

less than 90 seconds.

That's a very, very big discrepancy.

But to be fair, Will is holding his eyeglasses thoughtfully, so I'm inclined to trust him.

How do you account for that discrepancy, if possible, Diane?

Seven minutes versus one and a half minutes.

Do you really wait until it's an emergency will and then you have to hot foot it there?

To be fair,

you know, in the night when it's dark

and there's a need to go number one,

most boys don't make it all the way to the fort, whereas girls often prefer to make it to a seat to pee.

And

when it's dark out, the process of getting your shoes on, locating your flashlight, navigating up the trails might take a little bit longer.

But during the day, I think it's pretty quick.

I mean, seven minutes is how long it takes for me to walk to the subway.

And that is where I usually poop and pee.

It's a couple of city blocks.

And how does that go for you to have to walk the seven minutes?

Oh, it goes.

Great.

Even if it's only

a four-minute walk.

That's what I was going to say.

If we sort of put it down the middle and it's a four-minute walk, I should say that in the middle of the night, I will just go outside.

Yeah, you're on Pathfinder Island.

Yes.

Yes.

Now, let me just backtrack here.

You just bought it.

So was this, and I hate to put it this way, but was this past summer summer number one or summer number two?

Summer number one.

And overall, how did summer number one go?

Give me a headline, each of you.

It was a mortality-free summer.

Everything went really smoothly.

Congratulations.

I should say every summer at Camp Pathfinder is mortality-free.

That's right.

That's right.

And

it was

the weather was

amazing and unbelievable.

And everybody had a great time.

You mentioned that the campers love

to go hang out together and sit on toilets together and have these board meetings, right?

How do their parents feel about it?

I think the parents, once they hear about it from their kids,

come on board because parents tend to, when they're sending their kids to camp, have a lot of trust in their kids to

navigate

new scenarios independently.

Yeah, I mean, it feels like part of camp, I mean, to be sure.

But it's not like you're not getting any complaints other than from inside the house.

Correct.

All right.

And I'm looking here at camppathfinder.com.

I don't mind saying the URL.

Why, thank you.

If I poke around here on this lovely website, am I going to find a picture of Toilet City or no?

I don't believe we've got a current photo on the website.

No.

You save that.

You save that.

You don't put that in the advertising?

I'd like to let some things emerge as surprises.

All right.

These toilets are, what kind of toilets are these?

They're called vaulted privies.

So the toilets, uh the waste goes down well well down into sorry i i didn't realize it was also a renaissance fair camp

no it's very high-tech uh they go down into a a tank a trough that drains into a uh large uh underground lake called source lake and then they drink it uh Everything's kept completely separate.

They go into a large underground tank that's made of very thick plastic that is then pumped out at the end of each season by the very special boat.

That's right.

And Diane, as attractive as the men's fort and the ladies' fort, I presume, are as well, you are suing for a private toilet in your own cabin.

I'm suing for

a very particular private toilet.

What kind of private toilet are we talking about?

I would like to refer to Exhibit C.

It's called the Cinderella toilet.

The Cinderella Travel Incineration Toilet.

I know vaulted privy sounds very fancy, but Cinderella toilet sounds also very lovely.

You sent a link to a

off-grid living solutions website that offers the Cinderella Travel Incineration Toilet.

And by the way, on sale right now, 10%

off.

You can get it for a mere $4,000.

It normally retails for almost $4,500.

Sounds like a pretty good deal.

Tell me what is an, tell me, I mean, of course, I know what an incineration toilet is, but let's, let's pretend that I'm not lying.

I will pretend that you have no idea.

So you put, you, you, you, you poop and pee into it.

And then

there's a small propane tank outside the cabin that starts a fire.

I don't know.

Fire starts somehow.

You don't know.

You don't know.

It burns it.

It incinerates.

It burns the waste product.

It burns into this.

I mean, you can see on this pile of ash here

that it makes it into that.

And then you can grow things out of it, apparently, according to this photo.

But it's not a composting toilet.

They're indicating that this is a green solution.

Is it?

I mean, what is your take on this, Will?

Why not get an incinerating toilet for your wife?

Why doesn't she deserve an incinerating toilet?

Well, you mentioned the cost

and

$4,500 is just for the toilet.

The installation is almost as much.

And then when you consider it in Canadian dollars, it comes to almost $10,000 for the toilet,

which is significant.

Not that...

That's too much.

Your wife doesn't deserve it.

Well, no, exactly.

I would hesitate to put a dollar value on the comfort of my wife and daughters.

And three daughters.

Exactly.

You know, in terms of this being a green solution,

you know, that's hard to define.

I would say that burning the propane, and when we're talking about evaporating urine, that's a fairly energy-intensive process.

I'm always talking about evaporating urine.

Exactly.

I can't get this guy to shut up.

We're in the van on tour.

Blah, blah, blah.

Evaporating urine.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Energy intensive.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I'm also reviewing some pros and cons of incinerating toilets here on the internet.

You know, there's propane involved.

If you don't have electricity,

you're going to need to power the incinerator.

And then it and then it has this smokestack.

And some people say it stinks.

Have you heard that, Will?

I have heard that some people smell an odor.

It stinks.

Yeah, that's what stink is.

That's what stink is.

Trying to make your argument here for you.

Stinks.

You know, I had not used that in our discussions to date because I fear that any solution is going to have a stink element.

Oh, do they?

I can see that point.

The lines of toilets that dump into a single tank that gets pumped out at the end of the season don't smell so great.

That's why you have to have them three city blocks from your home.

About as much as an incinerating toilet.

But one, once per year, 10,000 Canadian to come get, take the poop away.

Yes, about that.

I got to change my career.

I could be driving a Canadian poop lake boat.

That's where the money is.

I mean, just, oh my gosh.

We could be swimming in Tim Hortons right now.

And why, why not?

You have a...

Will had put in a composting toilet to your family cabin, if I remember correctly.

And a a composting toilet

is an alternative outdoor toilet situation that I have seen and used in outhouses before, both at the Rosenmeyers property in Prince Edward Island, and when I was visiting our friend Chuck Bryant at his camp in Georgia, composting toilet.

So you have a friend who has a camp.

Yeah, I got all kinds of people in my life.

You just know, yeah.

No, I'm not talking about a summer camp for boys.

I'm talking about a place where he pitches a tent, literally.

Gotcha.

Barbecues.

Yeah.

I think he is, he is, I think he is composting.

Maybe he is incinerating.

I don't remember.

But I do know a composting toilet is one where

you do your business and then you turn a crank and it all gets put into a compost and then it actually can be used as fertilizer.

So I don't know whether there's a cost difference there, but why an incinerating toilet as opposed to any other option?

The camp tried to do a composting toilet and

it was ineffective up there.

Yeah, composting toilets can be finicky in terms of their mechanisms and requirements.

The composting process is a delicate one.

You have to have

very

carefully managed temperature and moisture levels, and there's small machines and motors that turn and rotate the compost, and it can require a lot of maintenance.

If a composting toilet was the solution, you would have to put it in an outhouse.

Yes.

Nearer to your owner's cabin than the forts are, but still outside.

Yes, correct.

And people would look at that and they would be like, well, well, well, the king and queen have their own outhouse.

Is that part of your consideration, Will, that if you get an incinerating toilet in your home, it's going to cause morale to plummet throughout the camp?

And then there'll be a takeover of Camp Pathfinder and it's going to be a Lord of the Flies type situation.

A mutiny of sorts.

Hold on, Will.

Wait until you have the conch.

Okay, go ahead.

A pootiny?

A poopiny.

No, I'm not worried about that.

You know,

as the owner of the camp,

I recognize that I need to have the support of my family to do this job.

And so I have no shame about wanting them to be comfortable and happy in their pooping.

And you think the rest of the camp would understand?

I hope so.

So your consideration is purely price.

Is there any other consideration as to why you will deny your wife?

And I mean, your daughters want this too, right, Diane?

Yes.

Yeah.

He did come up with a second option to the outhouses, which I can refer to exhibit D.

Let's take a look at exhibit D.

This looks like a bucket.

Yeah.

So I concede that the,

you know, hiking to the group forts is not necessarily going to

everyone happy.

And so some sort of private solution makes a lot of sense.

And in considering sort of the three major options, an incinerating toilet, a composting toilet, or a bucket privy, the bucket seemed like it was going to be the most practical,

the least worrisome, and

the least likely to have maintenance issues.

So the way this bucket would work is it's basically a wooden box with a toilet seat on it.

And inside that box is just a bucket.

And the bucket would have one of those green compostable bag liners,

kind of like a doggy bag, but bigger.

Yeah, but bigger.

And then

after

a...

Are you suggesting that my poops are bigger than a dog's?

Just

a family collective.

Depends on the size of the dog.

Yeah.

And so after an event or several, you would just tie up the bag and take it out with the garbage.

As Norm McDonald might say,

the way a bucket toilet works is, Jesse, it's a bucket.

Yeah.

How often would you change out the poop bag in your bucket toilet, Will?

I would commit to changing it out after every poop.

Or if I'm not there at the end of each day.

Would you deal with the poops of others?

Good question.

Happily.

Is that what you're offering?

I'm in the business of dealing with the poops of 110 boys.

No, you're not.

They're all going down into a tank.

Yeah, the boat deals with the poops.

You pay the boatman.

I would argue that that's dealing with it.

Paying a poop sailor is not the same as emptying a bucket once or multiple times a day.

Fair enough.

But I'll ask you this, Diane.

Let's say that he's as good as his word.

And every time you and one of your daughters uses the bucket,

you pull on a little chain and it makes it sounds a little a woogah horn.

And Will's going to run back and tidy up your hold on to that.

I need something.

I need something different from this situation.

If this is going to happen, Will,

you're going to direct a scene with Diane.

Uh-huh.

This is going to be an enactment of what happens

when your wife has pooped in a bucket.

so you can give her the dialogue that she needs to use.

And I want to know, I want to see your reaction on microphone and camera.

I pooped.

And I peed too.

Great.

And then, Will, what would you do?

Immediate podcast Emmy for that performance.

Great, would you kindly knot the bag so that I can

knot her own bag?

Oh,

why don't you, you're, you're hauling it, Will.

Why don't you knot the bag?

Would you like me to knot your bag?

Always.

Things are getting weird on Pathfinder Island.

This is the best episode of the show ever.

Have you proposed knotting the bag to your daughters and how do they feel about the bucket toilet option?

I don't think in a substantive way.

No, no.

Like when you said to your 13-year-old daughter, here's a solution.

You can poop in a bucket.

What was her reaction?

We have not had the conversation.

You haven't even brought it up yet.

How do you suspect it's going to go?

I suspect they're going to go for the more sleek, incinerating Cinderella toilet.

I mean, the marketing is clearly better on that product.

Also, they're not pooping into a bucket.

They're pooping into a flame chamber,

which is awesome.

Yeah.

Kind of shot myself in the foot on that one.

Now I'm going to throw away my sewer connected toilet so I can poop into a flame chamber.

This thing even comes with a flange.

Break it down for me.

Incinerating toilet, $8,000 American, $10,000 Canadian outlay, and then it would cost a certain amount of money to keep it running all the time, right?

Probably

cost of propane.

You would add to your cost of propane.

Potentially maintenance if it breaks.

Potentially maintenance.

Many, many, many, many delicate moving parts.

Many delicate, fragile sensors.

The bucket has no moving parts.

Very simple.

Yeah.

It's true that there are no moving parts to a bucket.

What's your budget for Project Bucket?

10,000 Canadians.

All right.

You kids are just joking me.

$25.

Well, you know, the picture that you sent in

looks like a real toilet.

It just happens to have a green bag in it that catches everything.

You could build a little wooden box to

conceal the bucket.

Yeah.

You know,

you have to buy the bags.

And the Canadian government wouldn't have a problem with this?

No.

I mean, I presume not, but I just want to double check all, trying to get all of the angles here.

Yeah,

all of these solutions keep the human waste out of the water stream.

How realistic do you think it is, Will, that you'd be able to empty this bucket efficiently?

You've got so many other responsibilities.

That's a fair point.

Realistically, I concede that there may be times when my wife or daughters may find themselves just emptying the bucket themselves.

Because they don't want to wait for you to come and do it.

That's right.

Or they might just walk away and let you come and get it.

Later, yeah.

Which would be fine as well.

That would, would that be fine with you, Diane?

If you never had to knot the bag.

I mean, I feel like I will be knotting the bag most of the time is my, is my feeling.

Realistically, you think that you're going to have to do it.

Yeah.

That, yes, I do feel that.

And I feel I don't want to do that.

Fair.

Why don't you and your daughters just stay at your family cabin and enjoy your composting toilet and everything that that cabin has to offer?

It's hard to be in two different places with three kids.

Like, I find it difficult to,

oh, I left this thing at that place and we got to go back there to get your, you know, your swim floaties or your bathing suit.

And it's just easier to all be in one place.

Plus at camp, the meals are all cooked and

done.

Oh, okay.

Got it.

Unlimited sloppy joes, John.

That's the secret here.

Yeah,

what do you serve for food there?

You got that bug juice?

There's definitely bug juice, yes.

Will, is there something about an incinerating toilet

that violates the spirit of Camp Pathfinder?

That is to say,

if the Judge John Hodgman podcast were to buy you one

and install it for you, and pay for its upkeep, would it still be a problem for you?

Judge, that's a great question.

Thank you.

And I'll preface my answer by saying that I really do want the absolute best,

most comfortable pooping solution for my family.

So do I even need to go and consider my verdict?

My argument is that the bucket system is

the best

solution for the pooping.

And that and my argument comes down to reliability, right?

The summer is two months long.

That's 60 days of pooping.

And

with a toilet that is potentially malfunctioning and having a number of days with no solution, in my mind, is a worse outcome for my beloved family than having the bucket toilet, which is going to be 100% reliable.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Will, would it be possible to obtain some sort of, I mean, this is crazy.

I know everything comes in on a barge, but some sort of backup solution like

a bucket.

Yeah, I'm thinking of a bucket.

Could you get a bucket onto the island just in case?

Too expensive.

Too expensive.

All right, but let's be real about expense for a second here, because I can imagine this is a big, this is a big, not only life change, but a big financial burden to run this camp, right?

Camps are not like how you become wealthy

owning camps.

I'm sure that there's a ton of insurance and upkeep and

year-round maintenance and everything else.

I mean, I think it's sometimes hard for one spouse to say to another, I'm sorry, honey, we simply cannot afford an incinerating toilet.

Is that what this comes down to?

No, not for me.

All right.

So what does it come down to?

I think I it my instinct is to analyze the engineering of it

and think about the reliability.

I had not considered,

you know, an option A with a backup solution on standby.

I will say.

that you have said, well,

if we ever did get any kind of

bucket bucket or toilet situation in our cabin, that you would still use the fort.

That's right.

Why?

I love it.

The front windows of the fort look out over the lake.

The conversations you get to have in the fort with friends are completely unique kind of conversations.

You're just sitting there with your pants down, having a bowel movement and chatting.

That's right.

So just because you love the fort, do you wish that Diane also loved the fort?

No,

I don't need that personally.

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

I'm going to go into my chambers and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

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

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years, and

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, we have some new t-shirts in the Max Fun store.

That's right.

Everyone's long been a fan of our wonderful weird dad shirts, that weird dad logo designed by the great Aaron Drapplin.

Well, guess what?

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We're like, something's missing in our lives.

And he's like, you're right.

How about a weird mom shirt?

And we got them.

Weird mom shirts are now in the Max Fun store.

No matter what type of parent you identify as, you can be weird.

As long as it's it's weird, we have a t-shirt for you at maxfundstore.com.

And also bumper stickers.

Weird mom, weird dad, bumper stickers are available there as well, as well as a new old favorite, right, Jesse?

The Canadian House of Pizza and Garbage.

Just in time for our grand return to Canada at the beginning of 2025, you can celebrate the holiday season with one of the greatest Judge John Hodgman cases of all time, in which

a litigant was accused of of getting pizza out of the garbage, indirectly, granted, right, granted indirectly by saving up points that others had thrown into the trash can at a fast food restaurant.

Yeah.

And honestly, when we're talking about the particular pizza pizza chain that he was taking the pizza out of the garbage from, when it's already garbage, when it goes before it goes into the garbage, I guess it doesn't matter.

Yeah, exactly.

You can get that.

And not only in t-shirt form, but also in koozie form, which is the perfect way to express the garbage inside of you.

That's right.

We have a brand new Canadian House of Pizza and Garbage koozy cold beverage insulator sleeve that you can stick right into any holiday stocking you like.

And what better gift to give this holiday than tickets to Judge John Hodgman Live?

We are currently in New England.

But at the beginning of 2025, we will be on the West Coast, including, it can finally be announced, our San Francisco Sketch Fest show.

That's right.

We'll be at Marines Memorial Theater in San Francisco during that San Francisco Sketchfest on Groundhogs Day, Sunday, February 2nd.

And that's just part of our tour.

We're also going to Vancouver, Canada, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, California, where we will also be joined by whom, Jesse?

Jordan, Jesse, go.

But John, last time I looked, that show was 99%

sold.

Whoa.

I don't know.

That means, I guess that means there's like three or four tickets left.

So you better go grab those if you're in LA or get yourself a ticket up to SF Sketchfest.

Have a great time.

Make a weekend of it.

All of our tickets are always available at maximumfund.org slash events.

Get them for yourself or a loved one now.

And if you have disputes that you'd like us to hear on stage at any of these shows, make sure to let us know at maximumfund.org slash jho.

And John Hodgman, if you know a dad in your life who is not weird, for years, Judge John Hodgman, listeners, among others, have been asking me to bring back the put this on ball caps that say dad on them.

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So go to putthison shop.com.

You can find those along with an infinite number of other wonderful things to give someone you love this holiday season.

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Start clicking some links.

Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Burt and I I went down across the lake to go to the camp to light the fire.

Light the fire, Bert, I said.

So,

so,

so, so,

that were the incinerating toilet.

I said to light the fire, not the toilet, Bert.

You said it yourself.

You knew who you married.

You were there

enjoying a beautiful summer with a working toilet.

It was almost like a fable.

You were there enjoying a beautiful summer in Ontario with a working toilet in your family cabin when across the water came this creature

to tempt you away from all of that and to bring you back to Pathfinder Island and keep you there forever.

And you agreed.

You knew what you were getting into.

And over the years, you agreed, I trust and hope.

you knew that Will had this obsession with Pathfinder Island.

And at some point, I trust, Will came to you and said,

I want to buy the camp.

It will secure a future and legacy for our daughters forever.

And you said, yes.

And I trust that when you say, I know who I married, that you also knew that, Will, you were going to go and not be home for big portions of the spring and fall, leaving your three children in the care of your wife.

And it's hard, even when you have two children, one children, or zero children.

Will,

your dream is, is fascinating and lovely and novelistic.

I think it's an amazing thing to do with your life, to find a place that is so meaningful to you where you've devoted so much.

time and to take a huge

risk and make a huge life change.

And I trust and sense that you're very, very grateful that Diane is supportive of this dream, which is yours.

And I guess one you share together, but mostly yours.

And one that she gets to visit and be a part of for two months out of the year.

I think that she deserves a toilet that she is comfortable with.

I mean,

I get it that there are costs.

I mean, that's not cheap.

$10,000 Canadian toilet, forget it.

That's not cheap.

I agree.

And I'm sure you've got a lot of expenses.

You know,

gotta, gotta, you gotta maybe buy a bucket, start putting money in it.

Not pooping in it.

Well, you can poop in it too, but it might ruin the money.

You should buy a bucket and you should start putting aside money for this incinerating toilet

as a couple because you have shared finances after all.

So

maybe it's worth trying summer number two with a bucket.

But I think that you should start saving up money to buy your bride and the incinerating toilet she loves.

I appreciate that

they take energy,

they cost more, they have small sensors and stuff that will break down, but people have them.

They do work.

It's not like they don't ever work.

And the truth is,

the occasional expense and hassle of repairing or maintaining an incinerating toilet, I have to imagine is going to be less onerous ultimately than you being on bagnoting duty for the duties

multiple times a day.

I mean, I think that, and

quite honestly, I hope that this dream comes true as it has already done, but comes truer every year, and that the the camp financially is sustainable and I dare say even profitable.

But

there may come a time when you're like, whoa, I can't keep this up anymore, just like the previous owners of the camp did, the old man from before who owned that camp.

And you may need to sell it.

And guess what?

Incinerating toilet is going to be a real attractor to a new buyer.

It's an investment.

not just in the happiness of your marriage, but also in the camp itself.

So I do think that you owe it to your spouse,

especially now and your daughters also.

Because as you know from attending camp and now owning camp, summer is short.

Time moves in one direction.

People grow up.

Not everyone.

works at their summer camp and into their 30s.

I would dare say that that's something of an anomaly that you felt that connection with camp.

Look, I have children who went to camp.

One of them hated it.

The other one loved it and does feel a connection to camp.

People feel real connections to the places where they spend this time.

And there is definitely

bonding that occurs through

pooping in the same room, among other activities.

But I don't think it's necessarily true that your own children,

as they grow and into

their fullness as whole human beings, aren't necessarily going to want to spend

every summer at the camp themselves.

One of them's already going to another camp.

I don't know where she poops, but the thing is,

if you want your children to come to you as they grow older and you grow older and as your lives separate, you got to provide them with comfort and enticement and something other than bucket, honestly.

So I think that it's an investment, even though it's expensive, and I appreciate that.

A composting toilet, I would have thought might be a more cost-effective way to do it, but I understand there are different complications.

But even though it's expensive,

I think that you will gain more than what you spend over time

by making your wife and daughters a place that they can

defecate in privacy.

So I rule in favor of Diane and your daughters.

This is the sound of a gavel.

I hope you're not using the toilet.

It's broken.

The toilet doesn't flush.

Judge John Hodgman rules: that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Diane, how are you feeling about this decision?

I am feeling ecstatic.

I feel

very grateful to the judge for his ruling.

And

as always, his rulings were deeper and more profound than just the matter at hand, which I appreciate.

Will, how do you feel?

When I search my feelings, I feel like Judge John is right.

This is probably the right decision.

The bucket concept was

probably

more

of my own design and thinking than

putting my girls first.

Diane, Will, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

It was fun.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

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We do.

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That's a very dapper name.

Doc Robert over on Apple Podcast.

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That's you and me, Jesse.

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We do.

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Our podcast producer is Daniel Speer.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment.

Dave Brarian on the MaxFun subreddit says, My sister uses a spoon to mix medicine into her cat's meals.

When she's done, she rinses it and sets it on the clean dish drainer tray.

Please make her wash the spoon with soap and water.

Jesse, I also use a spoon to mix medicine into our cats' meals.

And one thing that I do is I definitely don't rinse it off and put it in the tray.

I immediately throw it into my spoon incinerator.

No.

If that's not your judgment, John, we're going to get letters.

If I've learned anything.

Scrub that spoon.

Look, there's probably nothing wrong with the cat food that your cat is eating.

You could probably enjoy it yourself.

God or whatever, help me.

I have been tempted.

But

you don't want to just rinse your cat food spoon.

You want to give it a good old wash with some good old hot soap.

Well, regular temperature soap and hot water.

Unless, John, you have a cat disease, in which case you might want a little bit of that cat medicine.

That's a good point.

If you have a cat disease, consult your doctor.

Meanwhile, we are around the corner from the holiday season, and you know that that means holiday parties.

I would love to hear about your party-related disputes, all of your party fouls.

They don't have to be winter holiday-themed.

I don't mind if they do, but any party at all, any time of year, if I can paraphrase Andrew WK, when it's time to party, we will always bring justice.

Oh, man, you know what?

If we get a really good party dispute, I'll send Andrew an email.

I haven't seen him in too long.

Yeah, maybe he'll lend us a few words of advice and wisdom and justice.

The greatest of all party legends, one of the best dudes in the world.

We're eager to hear about any dispute.

No dispute is too small.

Go to maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Of course, if you are in one of the places where we have an upcoming show, which is the West Coast in January and early February, make sure and note that when you fill out that quick little form.

It's at maximumfund.org/slash JJ HO.

And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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