Krispy Kreme and Punishment

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Krispy Cream and Punishment.

Stephen and his sister-in-law, Jess, bring the case against their significant others, Joanna and Owen.

When someone brings a box of donuts to the office, Joanna and Owen like to cut off a small piece instead of taking the entire donut.

Stephen and Jess think this is criminal.

There's nothing worse than a box full of doughnut pieces.

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.

I've never done a crazy thing in my life before that night.

Why is it that if a man kills another man in battle, it's called heroic.

Yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it's called murder.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant's in.

Stephen and Jess, Joanna and Owen, please rise and raise your right hands.

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

So help you, God or whatever.

Yes, I do.

Yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that if he was at work and saw a box of donuts, he would probably just crinkle up his nose and walk past it towards the gin?

I do.

Yes, I do.

Sure.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

They don't bring enough gin to office parties.

That's what I have to say.

Office break rooms don't have enough gin in them.

The all-staff meeting doesn't have enough gin.

Owen, Joanna, Stephen, and Jess, you all may be seated for an immediate summary judgment.

And one of yours favors, can any of the four of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

There was an awkward pause there because I was trying to figure out how we were going to do this because this is a complicated one.

I mean, we really need a bulletin board with a bunch of red threads connecting your.

your index cards because we got we got and people who are watching on the youtube they they can see this we got from my left to my right, we got Owen, Joanna, Stephen, and Jess.

And Owen and Jess are married.

And Joanna and Stephen are married.

And yet Stephen, Owen, Jess and Joanna are siblings.

And yet Stephen and Jess are arrayed against Owen and Joanna.

What a rom-com this is.

Or maybe French farce or something.

I don't know.

Judge Hodgeran, they're very small on my screen, and I've already decided not to be able to tell them apart.

That's fine.

But we'll give each of them a chance to speak now so maybe our listeners can determine what their voices sound like.

Each of them will get a guess and we'll start.

Well, I was going to start with you, Owen, but I forgot.

There's also baby Violet in the studio.

It was Owen and Jess's child, who is seven weeks old, which is a first.

We've never had a seven-week old.

child in the courtroom before.

So let's see how it goes.

We usually have to have twins like on full house.

Yeah, exactly.

Because of labor law.

Yeah.

One of them has to be tutored while the other one is acting.

Yep.

Owen, you were checking the baby.

The baby Violet is okay.

Yep.

What's your guess?

I don't know.

So I'm going to guess

Lord of the Rings extended edition.

Lord of the Rings extended edition.

L-O-T-R-X-E is what I'm writing down, even though it's wrong.

Joanna, what's your guess?

I'm going to guess that it's from an Agatha Agatha Raisin mystery novel.

I'm going to go ahead and say number seven.

Wait a minute.

Did we skip?

Did we go into an alternate reality all of a sudden?

Agatha Raisin.

Yeah.

It's a book series that Stephen and I have started listening to to fall asleep.

All right.

You represent one side of the case, Owen and Joanna.

You are the donut cutters, correct?

I just want to get this imprinted into my brain.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

And we'll explain what that means in a moment.

But moving on to the donut non-cutters, I'm going to throw in a wild card because I had another great cultural reference.

And speaking of cutters, I'm going to throw that one in too, just because it's, it's everything here is so because we have a baby in the courtroom, might as well do some nutty stuff.

Here's another one.

Here's another cultural reference for you.

This one featuring cutters.

These college kids out there, they're never going to get old or out of shape because new ones come along every year and they're going to keep calling us cutters.

To them, it's just a dirty word.

To me, it's something else I never got a chance to be.

Love these cultural references, John.

You're pandering directly to me.

I know you got both of them, Jesse.

I know you got both of them hard, but now it's Steven's turn or Steve.

I was invited to call him Steve if I wanted to.

So let's go, Stevie.

That's the one that hurts the most.

That's the cut.

That's the cut that cuts the deepest, cutter, non-cutter.

You know, I got no idea on either one.

So

the last one made me think it's got to be something sports related.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah.

How about something sports related?

I'll put that down, yeah, we'll go with that.

Name a sports-related thing, please.

Oh, oh, um, it's a movie, it's a movie, sports-related

movie, uh, draft day-is that a movie?

Draft Day starring Griffin Newman of blank check.

I'm writing it down, as wrong as it might be, and finally

we come all the way now to uh Jess,

also known as Jessica, mother of baby Violet, spouse of Owen.

I'm just doing this to get this cemented into my brain.

And now you've heard three guesses that are all wrong.

So that's three things that you can eliminate from the entire universe of words.

And you've heard two cultural references.

They are both from movies.

Race Day.

I don't know I'd say

I like that one.

Honestly, for

a new parent of a seven-week old, I'm going to give some grace to Race Day.

And I'm going to say that's an honorary win.

I got to say, from now on, as far as I'm concerned, if you can generate a high-quality movie title from an alternate universe version of Seinfeld,

like Race Day,

then you win.

Yeah.

Jennifer Marmor is with me.

She's nodding up and down.

She knows about Seinfeld movie titles.

Anyway,

I give you credit for Race Day.

That was pretty good.

All guesses are technically wrong, however.

I was looking for either Breaking Away, which is the bicycling movie about cutters.

Or

a really, really wonderful movie, which we've talked about a lot.

And another movie we've talked about a lot, which stands the test of time.

Wayne's World.

Now, if I understand correctly, Stephen and Jess, siblings-in-law, you bring the case against Owen and Joanna.

What is the nature of the justice or injustice that you seek me to redress?

Well, I I initially brought the case against my beautiful wife, Joanna,

and I sought an injunction that you, judge, in your honor, would decide that

she cease splitting shareable foodstuffs in a workplace environment, any sort of shared environment.

This came up because of donuts, correct?

So we were at a party.

What kind of party, sir?

Like a Yuletide party, Christmastime party.

Sure, sure.

A pagan festival.

Yeah, any number of things are being observed.

That's why I started with Yuletide.

But yes, the changing of the seasons.

A holiday festival in Maryland.

In Maryland.

Which is where you are.

There was a plate of cookies, and I made a comment aloud to other partygoers.

And I said, I'm really proud of everyone at this party.

that

we don't have a bunch of halves and thirds of cookies on this this plate.

If someone wants a cookie, they're taking a whole cookie.

Now, before you said this at the party, did you do one of these?

Everybody, everyone be quiet.

I want to say something I'm proud of at Yuli.

No one messed up the cookies for once.

It was less

less formal than that.

More of an offhand comment to two or three people, but then overheard, it became a conversation among a group of even five or six, perhaps.

Your offhand comment got got out of hand.

Well,

I felt like it was mostly in-hand, but then my wife observed the conversation that was going on.

Excuse me, your beautiful wife, Joanna, as you that's usually how I refer it to her, yes.

Please use the proper nomenclature from now on.

Yes, Your Honor.

So my beautiful wife joined in the conversation.

Joanna, she joined in the conversation.

She has a name.

She has a name, sir.

Your beautiful wife, Joanna, joined in the conversation.

Yes.

And

what did your beautiful wife, Johanna say?

Well, people were complaining.

I can say what I said because I joined in because Steve, I actually overheard him say, I hate those people.

People who split cookies.

And so then I joined in the conversation by saying, your wife, your beautiful wife is one of those people.

You.

Yeah.

He's one of those people.

Yeah.

So what do you have to say to that?

And that's when you filed for divorce, isn't it?

On the spot.

That's when you split the cookie of your marriage.

Yeah.

Well, and it, you know, we handled it in the moment or so, I thought, to a degree.

And then we came home.

And the following day, we're sharing this disagreement with our cohabitants in long.

Yeah.

Now, let's be clear.

Owen and Jess are married.

Yes.

Stephen, you are married to your beautiful wife, Joanna.

Yes, that's correct.

Joanna is a sibling to your beautiful sister, Jess.

And you all live together under one roof.

Yes.

Yes.

In a situation comedy called Your Life.

Yes.

Correct.

So you went back to speak to your cohabitants.

Yes.

And what happened then, Stephen?

Well, and as I noted in the initial

filing of the case, they were split within the marriage as well on this issue.

And the lines on which we are split, I would say, are pretty unusual for our

cohabitation unit.

All right.

Well, we'll get into why it's atypical, but the line, as far as I understand it, is that, Stephen, you and your sister-in-law, Jess, believe that cookies, donuts, and other communal treats at a party should not be cut.

Anything that is a

would be considered a single serve unit.

So donuts cookie

right now, for those listening.

Cupcake,

muffin, those items, not to be split.

Things like a cake, obviously you can't eat an entire cake or if you can.

Speak for yourself.

But that that would be I would not choose to, but I

would not expect someone.

I defend my ability to do it if I have to.

I would expect someone take like a

slice of a cake but not to break what would be considered an individual item jesse thorne and i are both prepared to take the matilda challenge

in front of the whole class eat that old cake show the trunch bowl we'll show that trunch bowl i i raised my hand your honor it might be helpful with four you have you've certainly spoken quite a bit

I'm a rambler.

I just want to make sure to add into our case that it's not just you shouldn't split food anywhere anytime.

It's especially when it's a communal environment, like a party with over 10 people or a workplace.

So if you have cookies at home, if you have a

sleeve of cookies at home, it's okay to eat half of one of those cookies.

Absolutely.

But when they're out on a plate at a party, it's not okay to eat half of one of those cookies.

I would side eye someone taking half of like an Oreo out of the sleeve

and leaving like the cookie, but taking the frosting.

that's not to say that wouldn't happen in our house because we also have a four-year-old

um

but

generally like splitting a food in a household i will side eye but i'm not going to go to battle over it it's mainly in

a setting where there is more than your cohabitance yeah we're not trying to go into other people's households and say no splitting i felt like leave the cookie take the frosting was sort of where the godfather 3 went wrong for me.

Take the cooking, leave the frosting, jump the shark, hire your dog.

That was the full line

from the Godfather 3, which was a weird line, very self-referential.

But it was meta.

We used to love meta in those days.

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Joanna, then, let me ask you,

you are in favor.

Here's the question.

If presented with a box of donuts, what is your preference to do with those donuts in a communal setting probably take half of a donut and why i don't have a very big sweet tooth and i will say a krispy cream i will take a whole krispy cream because they're basically air but like and they're little but most often it's dunkin donuts and it can get kind of heavy for me so i just would prefer to take half of a donut what donut would you split would you split uh i mean obviously, you would split a regular toroid donut that has a hole in the middle, but what if it's like a jelly donut or a Boston cream?

Would you cut that in half?

No, I wouldn't cut that in half.

That's too messy.

Yeah, because gross.

Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Gotcha.

Like, my favorite donut is also a sour cream donut.

And typically, there's only like one in the box.

And so I also feel like I'm being helpful because if somebody else also likes sour cream donuts, then I'm left, like leaving them.

What else do they make donuts out out of in maryland you don't you've never had a sour cream donut i've never heard of that before it's just very common i think they just use like how you use sour cream in baking sometimes like they just use sour cream in the baking of the donut the main drink is still sugar don't worry yeah so they're like um they're like well it's not like it's not like you got a big a big gooey pocket of sour cream no no not at all judge hoshman i don't even acknowledge baked donuts to be honest with you if you're not gonna fry it don't bother

yeah i i hear what you're saying absolutely owen

do you actually have an opinion on this or are you just sitting on that side of the table well it's funny because i want to clarify something i would never split a donut but that's because i eat them in performance of two yeah he eats so it's not really a concern

so why are you sitting on the other side of the table with your beautiful sister-in-law, Joanna,

and against your beautiful wife, Jess.

Well, it's the principle of the thing.

I think that people should have the freedom to take

fractions of donuts or other pastries without being judged over it.

Even in a communal setting?

Well, I guess they can be judged, but they have the freedom.

They shouldn't be told to stop.

Yeah.

I think is what I would say.

Yeah.

There are no communal settings in America, John.

It says it in the Constitution.

All right.

So, Jess, that's your husband speaking, your beautiful husband.

Yes.

Tell me why it's not okay to split a donut in a communal setting.

I mean,

I feel like Joanna's argument, your beautiful sister Joanna's argument, is pretty well considered.

That if there's one sour cream donut in the box,

why not leave some behind for someone else to taste if they ever were curious about this new iteration of donut?

Seems to be pretty generous, honestly.

I think

a lot of it comes down to

when I was working in a large corporate setting

and you'd get like the the instant message oh there's donuts in the break room you're like oh great i'm gonna go over after i finish this call and grab one and you go over and it's just a box that

has

the nasty ones remaining and then halves of things And there's maybe like one like tier three donut remaining.

And at that point, it's just like, well, am I being wasteful by not taking any of this?

Like these all look like they've been picked over.

And also just not seeing how the donuts are distributed.

I don't trust that everyone properly sanitized their hands or

took a splitting instrument to divide.

the object.

A donut splitting instrument like a like an ads or a hatchet.

Yes.

Just hatch it through the break room table.

Judge Hodgman, you and I both know that all donuts are split with a sad white plastic knife.

That's true.

It's true.

That somehow bends in all directions.

Jess, what would you say are the tiers of doughnuts?

Here we go.

This is my question.

Thank you, Bailiff Jesse.

My favorite go-to is a double chocolate.

So it's like a chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate icing.

That's like tier one for me.

And the glaze

yeah well you get yeah you're getting a you're getting a mezza mezzah hand sign signal from bailiff jesse thorn on that one not fried yeah not fried so that's that's my top people like what they like yeah my my mid-tier is anything that's like

kind of a cake donut with a

frosting and sprinkle so

yeah like a right like a normal like strawberry frosted chocolate frosted vanilla frosted they're kind of tier two

tier three

it's it's old-fashioned i'm sorry like when i

when i want a donut i want something sweet to counter the coffee that it's normally paired with so i won't put sugar in my coffee because i'm getting the sugar from the donut an old-fashioned donut is perfect with coffee i don't know what you're talking about may i may i say that was just then beautiful wife joanna

and whole human being in her own right by the way

chiming Chiming in with the absolute truth.

An old-fashioned donut, a fried old-fashioned donut dipped in coffee, even I,

a person without a sweet tooth, will delight in that from time to time, Jess.

Also, what kind of madness is it to suggest that an old-fashioned donut is not sweet?

Stephen,

how did this living arrangement come about?

Tasked again with explaining.

I'm going to get accused of being wordy.

You know what?

I'm going to take it away from you.

Thank you.

Owen, we haven't heard enough from you.

How did you all come to live together?

You and your wife and her sister and your sister's beautiful husband, Stephen?

There was a house.

It has six bedrooms.

It has

clearly demarcated

left half, right half.

Well, left one-third, right, two-thirds.

Well, they've run a tape line down the middle.

Tape and a wall with some doors.

And they live on one side and we live on the other.

To clarify, it's a house that had their garage converted to an in-law suite.

So there is

like an entire townhouse slapped onto the side of a single-family home.

And which part do you and your little family occupy, Jess?

We're in the single-family home side of it.

And so the...

the in-law suite is now occupied by you or by

Joanna.

Okay.

And who owned the home originally or did you all buy it together?

Or rent it or whatever, take a position of

squat.

Maybe you're all squatters.

I don't know.

I don't tell anyone.

How did it come to be?

Flashback to COVID times, Joe and Steve were headed back to school.

And rather than

there was going to be a gap in the lease for their apartment and their move to a new area.

During that gap, they knew we were going to have a baby and said, hey, that that sounds fun.

Let's go live with a baby.

So at that point.

So you already were living in

this home and then Joanna and Stephen

joined you.

So we had a townhouse.

They occupied the basement and then moved out for a couple years.

My husband and I were looking for a new home and

at one point, uncovered this house that had this very unique living situation of essentially a townhouse smushed on the side of the house.

It solved a lot of the

main friction point we had with the townhouse of there not being

enough kitchen space.

Oh, I thought you were going to say enough siblings inside of it.

Yeah.

So in this like in-law suite setup, they have a full kitchen, their own basement, two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a living.

Let me see.

Let me see.

You experienced some living together

in one space and it was fine.

You liked it.

Yep.

And then

when you were moving,

Owen and Jess, you found a house.

It was like, that's enough room for all four of us if we wanted to do it again.

Yes.

And you invited them to join you.

Joanna text and I said, hey, do you want to live together again?

And she said, if it's not in a basement.

And I said, well, it's a whole house on the side of another house.

Right.

I just needed to know who was there first because if I rule that someone's getting kicked out, that's going to affect my

sweet.

Yeah, I don't think we want them kicked out.

Well, it's not your choice.

I'll decide.

How about that?

Don, we have a mortgage to pay.

We need their rent.

None of this matters to me.

All I care about is justice.

And so you invited your sister, Joanna,

your beautiful sister, Joanna, to move in.

Yes.

And Owen, you were cool with this?

Very.

And Stephen, obviously, you were.

Free house

we pay we pay rent below market value but above nothing oh you're getting kicked out

okay so stephen i'll let you talk now you're all living together under one roof with two little kids i may add yeah any any pets four cats oh boy yeah give me some names romeo and reuben mine and joanna's cats a pixel and athena and do these cats are they kept separated or they also free flow through the home?

When Romeo and Pixel and Athena lived together during the pandemic,

there was confrontation.

And since then, we've added Ruben to the mix and we've only tentatively had some, you know, some play dates.

Yeah, some play dates, but not

a permanent.

So they believe in the separation of families.

They have not yet been brought along to your enlightened philosophical state.

Yes.

They're more old-fashioned American, you know, anti-commune, communal.

They're nuclear family cats.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, I got you.

All right.

And so that's a lot going on under one roof.

And you come to me, you're telling me the biggest conflict the four of you could have is splitting donuts in half?

Yeah, surprisingly, yeah.

That was kind of like a little bit of the friction with the shared kitchen situation was

splitting of food and groceries.

And then then

that's not an issue in the current household structure because there are two fridges and they can cook their own stuff and we can cook our own stuff.

But in the context of hosting where one might supply

donuts or

cookies, any kind of like potluck-ish thing where you have these special little treats.

Yeah.

The splitting then I know when I go to a potluck and there's a casserole there, I take half the casserole and leave the other half for someone else to try yeah but i always consider that to be polite

yeah i think from my perspective as a host when i've had to clean up after events it is very frustrating to me to find halves of things

because they don't always preserve well either whereas like if the donut remains intact

It's like

it has a little bit of a longer shape.

Yeah, like it'll last a little bit longer.

Just a little bit

in half.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

You expose those.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Stephen.

I see you're raising your hand.

Thank you very much.

Only this past Saturday morning, I was our household's representative at a mutual friend's child's birthday party.

And there was a half of a bagel cut vertically.

that was remaining on the plate with all the other bagels for the entirety of the party.

And then in the end, as I was assisting our mutual friend clean up, I had to end up being the one to throw away the half of a bagel who had clearly been depreciating in value over the course of the party.

Hang on.

When you cut a bagel to put cream cheese on it

in the traditional way,

how would you describe that

if Jesse Thorne?

Or Steven?

Sorry.

That would be horizontal, right?

Okay.

So vertically, you're talking about

you're looking the bagel dead in the eye of its hole.

Yes, judge.

And then you're cutting it and you're splitting that eye in half.

Yes, you are, judge.

Into two semicircles, right?

Of

absence, of void.

Right.

Okay.

Got it.

And I'm not saying that, you know, whoever did that is a criminal,

but I am saying that You know, I feel like

the consensus opinion, it's okay for there to be some social norms, things to more our society.

And if I hope we can all agree that whoever did that should not have done so.

Are you hoping that someone is going to break down in tears in a confession right now?

Do you suspect that it might be someone at the table?

Because

I was the only one there.

If you saw, let me ask you this, Jess.

If you saw your beautiful younger sister, Joanna, cut a donut in half and you saw how she handled it, Would you eat that other half a donut if it were a chocolate on chocolate?

So that's where it gets into the premise of having a sharing partner where I'm okay with it.

Okay, wow, here we go.

So but the records show that Steve just got very excited about the sharing partner.

I've been talking about a consenting splitting partner for a couple months now.

Well, you know, when you have four adults living together as a family under one roof, you do have to lay some, you know, write out some boundaries.

Okay.

Let's hear about it.

So my thing is, if I were to be like, no, i don't want this entire piece of cake i could look to owen and be like hey do you want to share this piece and we go and we take the the plate and i'll eat my part while he's chasing the toddler and then i'll pass him the plate to have his or vice versa so like if there's something where it's like oh you have a coworker and you're like hey i want to try half of that cupcake

Like I'm torn between these two flavors and you have someone that's game to say, yeah, let's go halves these on each and swap.

Totally fine.

It's the idea of cutting it with no game plan of what happens to that other half afterwards.

Cutting it for a ghost partner is not allowable to you.

Correct.

Beautiful sister Joanna, you raised your hand in objection to what your beautiful older sister just said.

So I have been told that if I don't find a consenting splitting partner, that I'm supposed to take the whole thing and only eat the half I want and then throw away the rest, which I find

criminal because I'm like, I could leave that half for maybe somebody else to take it eventually and try to reduce food waste rather than throw it out immediately.

Why don't you just wrap it in a little napkin and put it in the glove compartment and bring it home to your brother-in-law, Owen?

I might eventually.

Like if I go back at the end of the day and it's still there, I'll take it home.

Owen, if I were to rule that you are, you are your sister-in-law, Joanna's perpetual consenting, half-eating partner.

I'd allow it.

I feel like we're making our way to a solution.

Well, let's go back for a moment, Stephen, to this initial Yuletide party.

When you discovered that your beautiful wife, Joanna, was someone who would be willing to split a cookie and leave the other half behind.

How did you feel when you discovered this truth about

your spouse who's a whole human being in her own right?

Well, here's what it comes down to for me.

You know,

I

think that my beautiful spouse, who is independent and the whole human being in her own right, and currently the breadwinner of our couple, go her, as I'm finishing graduate school.

I think that she is a very considerate person.

I presume that to be philosophically consistent, you are morally opposed to her splitting the bread with you.

I'm going to leave that one alone.

He's a consenting partner.

Consenting, splitting partner?

Yes.

I don't know that people who do tend to split donuts, especially

into different quantities, are as considerate or as intentional in their desire to reduce waste.

Because what I have experienced in a workplace where there's a sharing of donuts, The prime example I think of is when I worked at a school that had crispy cream donuts brought in fairly often.

So it would be a box of 12 donuts, all the same donut, and there would be multiple halves left behind that ended up being thrown away.

And someone else who didn't bring the donuts in had to be the one who threw them away.

Had to be the one who threw them away.

Instead of bringing them home to Owen to throw into his open mouth.

Yes.

I don't think I can defend having a second donut when there's already a half of that same type available.

So I'm going to concede the point on that.

But let's be frank, in situations where there are multiple types of donut, those half donuts are always coconut donuts.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's

tier like 10, like worst donut.

Or it's like a donut with walnuts on it or something.

This may be a good time for the evidence that Jess submitted.

Well, Stephen, I believe I will decide when is the best time for Jess to produce her evidence.

Thank you very much.

Jess, what is your evidence?

My evidence is a audio recording of my four-year-old and his take on the splitting of donuts.

Let's go to the audio tape.

Hey, Russell, when you go downstairs,

would you rather have one whole donut?

Or two half donuts?

Kill whole, twenty-hole donuts.

One whole donut?

Okay, thank you.

Well, that is pretty damning.

Owen, your own son has thrown your side of the argument under the bus.

How do you respond?

Well, I'm not saying that people prefer halves.

I'm just saying that it's important that people feel comfortable taking halves if that's what they prefer.

Look, one of you is going to be kicked out of the house.

That's the way the game is played.

Owen, are there any foodstuffs that should not be split in half and left behind?

I don't know.

Can you name any that you think would fall into that category?

And I'll say, no, I'd still eat that.

I had a list.

All right, so just to be clear, Jess is going to read a list of foodstuffs, and Owen is going to determine whether they are splitable or no.

And then I will listen without comment, and then I will give you my answers after you've already answered.

Danishes, split, cupcakes, split, Boston cream doughnuts.

No, I don't think so.

Eclairs.

Yeah.

cannoli sure

doughnuts yep muffins yep cookies under four inches in diameter

i'm trying to visualize that it's a small cookie i i don't know all right you know i'm gonna save this for my verdict i'm gonna go through all these myself in my verdict but before i step into my chambers

Stephen, have any other friends or family members weighed in on this matter?

They won't.

I tried to corner people at my baby shower, a time where people are there to celebrate me and should humor me in everything I want to do.

And they would not weigh in on this.

They said, that sounds like a family matter.

Stephen, Jess, I mean,

why is this important?

What is the harm, really, in letting...

in letting your beloved spouses and and

siblings and siblings-in-law do what they like.

Shouldn't everyone like what they like?

The harm is germs coming into an already germ-infested household.

I would say, you know, Jess has been an ally of convenience for me in this thing, because I'll be honest, the germ element is not important to me so much as it is.

Wow, you just threw your ally under the bus.

She might form an alliance now with her sister and husband and kick you out of the house.

No, I've very much enjoyed, you know, arguing our case.

Scrovel some more, please.

My feeling about it is that

it's the setting that you're in.

It's more of like a social grace towards other people thing than it is about

like the grossness element.

Stephen, if I've learned anything as the co-host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast, it's that a significant portion of our audience is currently labeling you a murderer for not caring that much about germs.

Yeah.

I can only imagine that a solid 25% of our audience,

when someone extends their hand to shake hands, just does that

too slow,

hairstyle move before they touch hands.

Yeah.

I thought you did care about germs, didn't you?

Go see that play

about hand washing.

We did see a very good play about hand washing when we were in London on that trip.

Look,

when you're in a foreign country, you kind of enjoy the arts.

It was on the West End.

It's highly reviewed.

But you talk about the social grace of it.

I don't understand.

Wouldn't the social grace extend to

not eating a whole, not eating and wasting a half of a thing instead leaving it behind for someone who might come down later at the brunch and say, oh, I wanted half a cinnamon roll.

Yeah, I think that those occurrences are, you know, lucky, but in my experience, especially depending on the setting you're in, not a guarantee.

And in fact, less likely than the half a thing sitting out and then having to be disposed of.

You keep emphasizing when I say having to, but the alternative to someone throwing it away or dealing with it who's not the splitter is food being sat there to rot for who knows how long.

Joanna, you have presented argument that on the one hand, you only want half of a donut or a cookie or whatever.

You don't want to waste the other half, so you leave it behind for others.

Then your other argument is you want two halves, just of two halves of different flavors.

Which is it?

Normally the two halves, I would say happen at home.

So like

if I'm making myself like a dessert and I want to taste a little bit of the various options.

And do you assign the other half of the donut or the cookie or whatever to a consenting split partner like Owen or whatever?

No, I mean, because I know that, yeah, Owen or Steve will eat it eventually.

Yeah.

Or if it's still there for, you know, breakfast or whatever, the next.

No, no, no, no, no next day donuts.

Okay.

First of all, preliminary ruling from now on.

No next day donuts.

All right.

I'm going into my chambers.

In order to chew this over, so to speak, I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Okay, I'm working really hard to remember who's who.

Owen, how are you feeling about your chances in the case?

Uh, I'm feeling good, but I think I'm just biased because it's my opinion on the matter, and I assume other people feel the same way.

But

if that's the case, then I'm definitely winning.

Owen, you've brought a lot of negative, uptight vibes to this whole recording.

You just don't seem like a chill dude or like you have a positive attitude.

All right.

How about

I'm going to go to Joanna.

Joanna, how are you feeling?

I feel good because I read

a judgment that the judge made not

so long ago in the New York Times about somebody splitting bananas.

And he wrote in that basically that the husband needed to learn some distress tolerance.

And so, you know, I just feel good about my chances that it might be a similar situation where the people distressed by the donuts maybe just need to learn some distress tolerance.

Jess, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good considering I'm coming from a germ perspective and I'm often faced having germs come into my house unwillingly from a toddler.

So I'd rather not have it come from my workplace as well.

Stephen, how are you feeling?

I'm just happy to be here

stephen says i'm just here so i don't get fined

well stephen jess joanna owen we'll see what judge hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment

you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe

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.

We're taking a quick break from the show.

And of course, John, you've been talking about this on the show, but tickets now available for the Solid Sound Festival?

Tickets are are available for the Solid Sound Festival.

Of course, I'll be there with this incredible comedy lineup.

My friends and yours, Eugene Merman, Dave Hill, Todd Berry, Brittany Carney, Sidney Washington, and the genius Gene Gray.

But I just.

John, wait, hold on.

Do you think Dave Hill, Dave Hill, one of the funniest guys in the world?

True.

And Dave Hill from before as he introduces himself in all of his social media videos.

Do you think Dave will be following up on his tours with Tenacious D by doing BMX-based comedy?

Because he's been doing a lot of comedy on a BMX bike lately.

I would not be surprised if Dave broke out a BMX bike on stage.

There's definitely going to be sweet solos, right?

Like he's definitely ripping into some guitar solos, but I think he may also do those solos on a BMX bike.

Yeah,

Dave is going to be dropping some delicious licks, as will all of these incredible comedians.

on the comedy stage on Saturday afternoon.

And that's in the afternoon.

If you come and see us all day long, we have three big shows all day long with all these comedians.

You're not going to miss a lick of Wilco, by the way, because they play in the evenings, Friday night, Saturday night.

And I just need to say, I didn't even realize until someone mentioned it to me, some friends of friends who are going to be at this thing that Iris Dement is going to be playing.

And I love Iris Dement.

Let the Mystery Be is one of my favorite songs.

And I didn't even, there's so much talent at this thing that didn't, for some reason, even register that I'm going to get to go see my hero Iris Dement play.

Solid Sound, it is, it only happens every other year.

It happens at Mass Mocha, which is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, beautiful museum made out of an old electric parts factory in a beautiful part of western Massachusetts.

Go to solidsoundfestival.com to see the lineup and get your tickets.

I also want to give a shout out to my friend Christopher Frizel,

who was long ago the editor-in-chief of The Stranger in Seattle.

He's an incredible writer, incredible editor.

And now he runs incredible book groups online and in person.

And you know, it's been one of my projects to read Middle March this year by George Elliott.

And it is an incredible book, which you will enjoy if you read it.

But I've been, my enjoyment of it has only been enhanced by going to Chris's Middle March book club on Zoom every Saturday afternoon.

There are only a few left.

It might be over by the time you hear this, but go over to frislet.com and see what else he's got going on, because Chris is amazing.

And if there's a book that you've been wanting to read, and you want to just hang out with some people online who love reading books, it's going to be a really fun experience for you.

So I have to really suggest that you check him out and check out his sub stack and check out my sub stack, hodgman at sub whatever it is, hodgman.substack.com or the other way around.

I want to mention, John, something really special that you and I can take 100% full credit for and give no credit to the actual artistic people involved, which is this.

There is an amazing program in the Maximum Fund Network called the Beef and Dairy Network.

Oh, yeah.

The Beef and Dairy Network is a comedy podcast that pretends to be an industry podcast for the beef and dairy industry.

So all of its interviews are about, are beef related.

And for many years, one of the themes on the Beef and Dairy Network podcast is that the seed money to start the program was lent to Ben Partridge, the show's host and creator, by quote, the American actor Ted Danson, unquote.

And in recent years, Ted Danson in the world of the show has been demanding that the loan be repaid in grain because grain captures the power of the sun.

So he will only accept repayment in the form of grain.

Now, it has been really difficult for Ben to get together enough grain to satisfy the American actor Ted Danson.

And on the latest Beef and Dairy Network episode, something incredible happened, which is Ted Danson appeared on the program to demand his grain.

Now, the American actor Ted Danson?

The American actor Ted Danson prepared his crows and rang his dark bell.

Those are two things that happened on this show.

And

look,

I'm not saying who helped Ted Danson know that he should go on the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, but I'm just going to say it's two of the hosts of one of your favorite podcasts who happened to have his email and ask him really nicely.

And as it turns out, Ted Danson, besides being a genius, is also one of the nicest dudes ever.

And he totally got it and was totally amazing on the show.

Yeah, it is.

That was an amazing thing.

You don't need to know anything about the Beef and Dairy Network to listen to this episode.

It is a breathtaking piece of comedy.

It also features an extensive interview with a dental expert who talks about how many celebrities

have implants made of cow teeth.

Dental appliances made from cow teeth.

So, just take your number two pencil and write down these names: Beef and Dairy Network, Ted Danson, Christopher Frizzell, Iris Dement.

These are just things and people that we absolutely love, and we bet you will too.

Write those things down and go search for them.

Now, shall we get back to the episode?

Let's do it.

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

People sometimes ask me how much sort of writing I do on the verdict before I deliver it.

And the answer is basically none.

I kind of have been thinking about the case, and I've sort of been thinking about what the crux of the case is.

And

I formulate an opinion, and then I give it some consideration while Jesse's talking to the litigants.

And then I just sort of freestyle it.

And in this case, I've done zero preparation, and I don't even know what I'm talking about because i've just been trying to remember your names there's just so many of you in this alternative lifestyle house in maryland and i'm just trying to remember i mean you're all beautiful and you're all spouses and you're all siblings and you're all everything and i'm just trying to remember where you stand on every issue and everything else they didn't even bring their housekeeper alice

But I do have to come up with a decision and I do have to vote one of you out of the donut house.

Who shall it be?

There are some weirdos who are rooting for the baby.

Owens kept a silent profile this entire time.

Joanna's made some good cases.

So has Jess.

Steve didn't come to make friends.

And guess what?

He made one anyway because I'm your friend, Steve.

Even though

I've been giving you the business.

Let me respond to something that Joanna said first of all.

Joanna, you're not wrong that I did rule recently in the New York Times magazine about cutting things in half.

In this case,

there was a husband and wife.

And the wife had recently had a baby.

And she, during the time she was pregnant, she was unable to tolerate bananas because they made her nauseated.

And now that the baby is born, she is reintroducing bananas into her life, but she can only eat half a banana at a time, which means they have a banana tree, you know, where the where the bananas hang down.

Not a literal tree, but like a little wooden hook and you hang the banana bunch on it.

And she's cutting the bananas in half and like giving that banana a haircut and eating half the banana.

And the husband was like, that's gross to me.

And I agreed with him.

It was gross.

A, and food waste is gross.

B, baby bananas exist.

I mean, why not just get smaller ones?

But I said, why don't you, why don't you practice some distress tolerance?

Your wife just grew,

just grew a human in her body.

So leave her alone on this because that half of half a hanging banana is going to be the least of the messes that you have to deal with for a while.

And Owen and Jess know this to be true.

And so do all of us because baby Violet threw up in the podcast.

I have to mention that because people don't maybe necessarily know that I do write that column for the New York Times magazine.

And that was a fun one to write.

But I will not say that it was an applicable judgment in your defense, Joanna, because what I was saying

to the

half a banana wife's husband is,

take it easy, dude.

She just had a baby.

Someone else just had a baby.

your sister, your beautiful sister, Jess.

So if Jess wanted to eat half a cookie and you were mad at her, I would be telling you, take it easy.

You know what I'm saying?

Fair enough.

But, you know,

you only have one baby named Steve, and he's a grown man.

But you're not wrong to look at precedents in this courtroom because

this case falls between two of the biggest legal, fake legal precedents that we have.

People like what they like.

Some people just want half a cookie.

Some people just want half a donut, right?

Some people just want half a cinnamon roll.

But also be mindful of the work you leave for others.

When you have, and Steve is nodding really hard right now.

When you have, when you take

half a cookie or half a donut and you leave it behind, you're leaving behind something that someone else might enjoy eating, but more often than not, just has to clean up.

So let's get to the quiz.

Jess gave her beautiful husband, Owen, a quiz of

which single serving foods are splitable, in his opinion, and which are not.

We registered his answers.

Now it's time for me to give my answers, the definitive ones.

I wrote them all down here on a piece of paper.

Look, Danish, do not split.

Cupcake, do not split.

Boston cream donut, do not split.

Eclair, do not split.

Cannoli, do not split.

Donut,

I'll reserve that for last.

Muffin, do not split.

Four-inch cookie or smaller, do not split.

Donut, Do not split.

Now,

why?

It has been established,

and you have all witnessed it in your office parties.

Half a donut

is garbage.

A whole donut is a treat, even to me.

Half a donut is something that someone has mangled with their grubby fingers.

If you didn't see them do it, you can only assume the worst.

And paradoxically, half a coconut donut is twice the garbage.

Science doesn't know how that happens.

Now, I understand and appreciate

all of the arguments that you have mustered, Joanna.

Also, never put mustard on a donut.

And

there are situations in which splitting a donut or a bagel or a slice of pizza or a Danish or an Eclair and a cannoli

is perfectly acceptable, but it's a very specific situation.

And it's one that's that's been accounted for in Steve and Jess's cosmology.

If you are there with someone who wants to split that thing with you, and you offer to do it, and they say yes, or

if you have a, if you have a, a, a brother-in-law like Owen, who's like Mikey, he'll eat anything,

and you know he's going to eat it no matter what, you split it.

But if you don't have that person around,

if you're in a communal situation like an office party or a cocktail party or

I mean, whatever kind of like

whatever kind of donut party you have in your weird love house

and you're leaving it behind and the person, the per the other person has not seen you split it.

I don't care how many people come down the stairs the next morning saying, I was hoping for a half a cinnamon bun.

That person is a unicorn.

Most people are like, I wonder who touched that cinnamon bun.

Should I eat it?

Unfortunately, no, You shouldn't eat half that cinnamon bun unless you've seen who split it and unless you've decided to split it with them.

If you cannot make eye contact and have a prior arrangement for someone to eat the half the thing that you don't want, just take the whole thing, eat it.

And if you must, if you can't finish it, if you really don't want it, wrap it in a napkin, throw it in no one's mouth when you get home.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Go nuts.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Stephen, I'm going to start with you.

How are you feeling?

A relief you can hardly imagine, Payloff.

Why is that?

Well, I made an offhand comment during one of the breaks in this recording that I felt like I was becoming the villain.

And I had that banana-splitting case in the back of my mind this whole time.

Jess, how are you feeling?

A relief going into Saturday where this verdict will be tested because there will be donuts and bagels at a children's birthday party.

Joanna, how are you feeling?

You know, disappointed, only slightly.

You know, I like to win.

I think most people do.

But,

you know,

I'll take the judgment.

I will be more responsible about my preferences and eat what I want and figure out what to do with the rest.

Oh, and you look pretty chill about the whole thing.

I do worry about the precedent being set because it just feels like it will lead lead to more wasted food.

But personally, I'm looking forward to all three of them bringing me their leftovers.

I think at the end of the day, the primary result of this is everyone's going to come up to you and say, hey, you want to split this with me?

And you'll just say yes to everyone.

It's a win.

Stephen, Jess, Joanna, Owen, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having us.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

We'll have Swift Justice in just a second.

First, our thanks to Redditor Taco Salad.

That's T-A-A-K-O, John.

That's Justin's character on the first Arc of the Adventure Zone.

Yes, I know.

Yes, that's great.

They named this episode Crispy Cream and Punishment.

If you want to name a future episode, join us on the Maximum Fun subreddit, maximumfun.reddit.com.

Now, Jesse, I rarely do this, but I just want to shout out an honorable mention to Redditor Wildcard underscore 71 for suggesting Taurus reform,

which I really liked a lot because a donut or a traditional donut is in the shape of a Taurus.

If you don't know, look it up.

But I could not deny Krispy Cream and Punishment by Taco Salad.

That was the one for this one.

But hey, I love seeing all of the fun names that you come up with.

We both do.

We all do.

So get over there to the Maximum Fun Subreddit.

And when we put out a call for case names, suggest a pun or two.

Evidence and photos from the show are posted not just on this episode's page on maximumfund.org, but also on our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

We got a lot of cool stuff going up on that Instagram.

So if you're not following it, you're missing out.

It's not just evidence, but lots of cool video stuff as well these days.

Dank memes, even.

Some very dank memes.

If you have a dank meme, please tag at JudgeJohn Hodgman when you post your Judge John Hodgman dankness, because we're having, it's a dank meme of the week over there at Judge John Hodgman.

I love dank memes.

D-M-O-T-W.

I'm sorry that they've taken us so far away from democracy, but I enjoy when they're about my podcasts.

Anyway, we're on TikTok and YouTube at Judge John Hodgman Pod as well.

You can also see all that short.

There's original video content, not just stuff from this show.

And make sure that you're following us.

Hit the subscribe button on YouTube and hit those alerts so that you can enjoy the live premieres of the video of every Judge John Hodgman episode.

Also, this week I got a new video camera with a wide-angled lens,

which means I have to angle my computer even further away from my disgusting pile of banker's boxes.

But you do get to see more of my weird office.

You are committed to those bankers boxes.

Those banker's boxes have been in the background of your webcam shot since we have been doing this podcast.

I would say like seven years ago, I'm like, I'm going to clean out my files and I put them all in banker's boxes and I've done nothing with them since.

And they're just sitting over there.

I got to get, I got to, I got to get a clerk.

Yeah.

Court clerk.

Get a court clerk.

I love it.

Just get one of, just get one of Clarence Thomas's adopted children or whatever.

Hey, follow and subscribe to see our episodes and video only content over at the YouTube.

We're having a lot of fun over there and enjoy interacting with you on Premiere Day.

And speaking of following and subscribing, I want to say thank you to Catherine Sings, who follows the show and subscribes, as it were, on Apple Podcasts.

Catherine Sings gave us a five-star rating over there.

And not only does Catherine Sing, she also writes poetry.

In her review, she wrote, Judge John Hodgman is a winner.

We listen to him while we eat dinner.

His bailiff Jesse really adds to the case, if you give less stars, then you're off base.

So listen to Catherine Sings.

Give us five stars on Apple Podcasts.

Or...

Leave a review wherever you listen to the podcast.

It really does help people discover the show, even simply telling a friend who maybe isn't on social media.

Oh, what a joy that might be.

We're going to get an email from our friend Lynn Manuel Miranda.

I once had an extended discussion with him about how strongly we feel about whether people's doggerel verse scans

the scanning of doggerel verse.

This uh, Catherine Sings's poem may not scan, but it does track.

Very grateful for it.

Uh, Judge John Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Andrew Epig and Molly Mountain at Clean Cuts in Baltimore, Maryland.

Our social media manager is Natty Lopez.

The podcast is edited by A.J.

McKeon.

Our video editor is Daniel Speer, our ever-competent producer, Jennifer Marmer.

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

You ready for this, John?

I'm ready for it.

Get your judgment ready.

Mr.

Laverne on the MaxFund subreddit writes, My friend says that a plain omelet is the same thing as scrambled eggs.

I say they are obviously different.

They may not be obviously different.

And boy, oh boy, was I ready for this one?

You've been ready since the first take.

Ready.

I probably think about scrambled eggs and omelets about nine hours out of every day.

I love them and I love making them.

I love taking the snotty chaos of eggs and heating them into beautiful order.

Scrambled eggs, you would traditionally cook over low heat, very slowly, to create very creamy curds.

An omelette is cooked over medium heat.

And yes, an omelette without fillings is still an omelette.

You are creating a kind of flat wafer of egg.

It's the kind of thing where you put the egg in the pan and it's over medium heat and you keep bringing the edges in and letting the uncooked egg flow out until you have sort of a flat egg and then you fold it over.

But it's a completely different beast than traditional scrambled eggs.

And by the way, it's better than traditional scrambled eggs as far as I'm concerned.

So literally,

Mr.

Laverne, let me say to your friend, eat it.

Get a good plain omelet and eat it.

John, are you a slow scrambled eggs or a fast scrambled eggs guy?

I'm a fast scrambled eggs guy.

And in fact, I'm a high heat scrambled eggs person now.

You know,

when

you see

people scrambling eggs in Asian stir-fry tradition.

That is a high heat over a refined, not in butter, but refined oil, like a high heat, high smoke point oil in a wok, for example.

But I just like, I slam that heat into the pan.

I put in some canola oil or some safflower oil, and I scramble those eggs really fast.

And I find that they come out really tender and delicious to me, and they bubble up and they're great.

That's how I do it.

Now, are those scrambled eggs or an omelette?

Let's fight about it.

How about that?

How about we hear some more cases about eggs?

Do you keep some backyard chickens and your hens are laying too many eggs and you don't know whether to start selling them or not?

Let me know.

What about egg chairs?

Which is the best one?

Arnie Jacobson or the Ovalia egg chair?

What is the best way to make scrambled eggs in your opinion?

I'm going to say, Gordon Ramsey, eat it.

I don't like his way of doing it.

It's gross.

Whatever your dispute around eggs is, send it to us at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Let's get scrambling, maximumfund.org slash jjho for your egg disputes and I don't know any other disputes or all of the disputes.

You know, our friend Jay Kenji Lopez Alt,

he adds a starch slurry to his scrambled eggs.

I know.

Keeps them tender.

You know what?

Call him up and get him on that egg thing because I'd like to talk to him about it.

I'd like to talk to, I'd like to talk to Kenji about his eggs.

And I'll tell you this.

If you're a member of Maximum Fun, tell us you're a member of Maximum Fun because right now on our monthly mailbag, which is a special episode of Judge John Hodgman, only for members that you will find in your bonus content feed, we are answering all member questions.

Yeah.

We'll see how long we can do this.

I think we may be able to keep this up.

If you're a member, let us know.

You will get an answer to your question either.

on this show or on the member mailbag show because we are nothing if not willing to provide fan service.

If you're a member, we're here for you.

We will decide it for you.

If you're not a member, you know what to do.

Go to maximumfund.org/slash join, and we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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