Krispy Kreme and Punishment

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, Krispy Cream and Punishment.

Speaker 1 Stephen and his sister-in-law, Jess, bring the case against their significant others, Joanna and Owen.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 There's nothing worse than a box full of doughnut pieces. Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.
Please rise.

Speaker 1 As Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 7 Yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it's called murder.

Speaker 10 Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant's in.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 11 Yes, I do. Yes.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 12 I do.

Speaker 12 Yes, I do.

Speaker 13 Sure.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Speaker 4 They don't bring enough gin to office parties.

Speaker 15 That's what I have to say.

Speaker 16 Office break rooms don't have enough gin in them.

Speaker 1 The all-staff meeting doesn't have enough gin.

Speaker 18 Owen, Joanna, Stephen, and Jess, you all may be seated for an immediate summary judgment.

Speaker 21 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?

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 4 I mean, we really need a bulletin board with a bunch of red threads connecting your.

Speaker 30 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.

Speaker 17 And Owen and Jess are married. And Joanna and Stephen are married.

Speaker 7 And yet Stephen, Owen, Jess and Joanna are siblings.

Speaker 35 And yet Stephen and Jess are arrayed against Owen and Joanna.

Speaker 36 What a rom-com this is.

Speaker 23 Or maybe French farce or something.

Speaker 13 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgeran, they're very small on my screen, and I've already decided not to be able to tell them apart.

Speaker 22 That's fine.

Speaker 23 But we'll give each of them a chance to speak now so maybe our listeners can determine what their voices sound like.

Speaker 5 Each of them will get a guess and we'll start.

Speaker 24 Well, I was going to start with you, Owen, but I forgot.

Speaker 29 There's also baby Violet in the studio.

Speaker 15 It was Owen and Jess's child, who is seven weeks old, which is a first.

Speaker 11 We've never had a seven-week old.

Speaker 18 child in the courtroom before.

Speaker 24 So let's see how it goes.

Speaker 1 We usually have to have twins like on full house.

Speaker 42 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 43 Because of labor law. Yeah.

Speaker 28 One of them has to be tutored while the other one is acting.

Speaker 37 Yep.

Speaker 17 Owen, you were checking the baby.

Speaker 27 The baby Violet is okay.

Speaker 44 Yep. What's your guess?

Speaker 46 I don't know. So I'm going to guess

Speaker 46 Lord of the Rings extended edition.

Speaker 47 Lord of the Rings extended edition.

Speaker 49 L-O-T-R-X-E is what I'm writing down, even though it's wrong.

Speaker 4 Joanna, what's your guess?

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 25 Wait a minute. Did we skip?

Speaker 23 Did we go into an alternate reality all of a sudden?

Speaker 24 Agatha Raisin. Yeah.

Speaker 50 It's a book series that Stephen and I have started listening to to fall asleep.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 7 You represent one side of the case, Owen and Joanna.

Speaker 16 You are the donut cutters, correct?

Speaker 4 I just want to get this imprinted into my brain.

Speaker 34 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 9 All right.

Speaker 52 And we'll explain what that means in a moment.

Speaker 22 But moving on to the donut non-cutters, I'm going to throw in a wild card because I had another great cultural reference.

Speaker 24 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.

Speaker 25 Here's another one.

Speaker 9 Here's another cultural reference for you.

Speaker 18 This one featuring cutters.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 38 To them, it's just a dirty word.

Speaker 54 To me, it's something else I never got a chance to be.

Speaker 1 Love these cultural references, John. You're pandering directly to me.

Speaker 35 I know you got both of them, Jesse.

Speaker 4 I know you got both of them hard, but now it's Steven's turn or Steve.

Speaker 53 I was invited to call him Steve if I wanted to.

Speaker 26 So let's go, Stevie.

Speaker 46 That's the one that hurts the most.

Speaker 12 That's the cut.

Speaker 26 That's the cut that cuts the deepest, cutter, non-cutter.

Speaker 46 You know, I got no idea on either one.

Speaker 46 So

Speaker 46 the last one made me think it's got to be something sports related.

Speaker 58 Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.

Speaker 23 How about something sports related?

Speaker 36 I'll put that down, yeah, we'll go with that.

Speaker 37 Name a sports-related thing, please.

Speaker 46 Oh, oh, um, it's a movie, it's a movie, sports-related

Speaker 3 movie, uh, draft day-is that a movie?

Speaker 18 Draft Day starring Griffin Newman of blank check.

Speaker 34 I'm writing it down, as wrong as it might be, and finally

Speaker 32 we come all the way now to uh Jess,

Speaker 27 also known as Jessica, mother of baby Violet, spouse of Owen.

Speaker 23 I'm just doing this to get this cemented into my brain.

Speaker 35 And now you've heard three guesses that are all wrong.

Speaker 4 So that's three things that you can eliminate from the entire universe of words.

Speaker 59 And you've heard two cultural references.

Speaker 25 They are both from movies.

Speaker 61 Race Day.

Speaker 62 I don't know I'd say

Speaker 45 I like that one.

Speaker 47 Honestly, for

Speaker 51 a new parent of a seven-week old, I'm going to give some grace to Race Day.

Speaker 9 And I'm going to say that's an honorary win.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 like Race Day,

Speaker 1 then you win.

Speaker 64 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jennifer Marmor is with me. She's nodding up and down.
She knows about Seinfeld movie titles.

Speaker 65 Anyway,

Speaker 22 I give you credit for Race Day.

Speaker 24 That was pretty good.

Speaker 12 All guesses are technically wrong, however.

Speaker 10 I was looking for either Breaking Away, which is the bicycling movie about cutters.

Speaker 66 Or

Speaker 8 a really, really wonderful movie, which we've talked about a lot.

Speaker 53 And another movie we've talked about a lot, which stands the test of time.

Speaker 15 Wayne's World.

Speaker 21 Now, if I understand correctly, Stephen and Jess, siblings-in-law, you bring the case against Owen and Joanna.

Speaker 10 What is the nature of the justice or injustice that you seek me to redress?

Speaker 46 Well, I I initially brought the case against my beautiful wife, Joanna,

Speaker 46 and I sought an injunction that you, judge, in your honor, would decide that

Speaker 46 she cease splitting shareable foodstuffs in a workplace environment, any sort of shared environment.

Speaker 53 This came up because of donuts, correct?

Speaker 46 So we were at a party.

Speaker 46 What kind of party, sir? Like a Yuletide party, Christmastime party.

Speaker 62 Sure, sure.

Speaker 28 A pagan festival.

Speaker 46 Yeah, any number of things are being observed. That's why I started with Yuletide.
But yes, the changing of the seasons.

Speaker 22 A holiday festival in Maryland.

Speaker 46 In Maryland.

Speaker 55 Which is where you are.

Speaker 46 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

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 44 Now, before you said this at the party, did you do one of these?

Speaker 27 Everybody, everyone be quiet.

Speaker 36 I want to say something I'm proud of at Yuli.

Speaker 44 No one messed up the cookies for once.

Speaker 12 It was less

Speaker 46 less formal than that.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 12 Your offhand comment got got out of hand.

Speaker 66 Well,

Speaker 46 I felt like it was mostly in-hand, but then my wife observed the conversation that was going on.

Speaker 8 Excuse me, your beautiful wife, Joanna, as you that's usually how I refer it to her, yes.

Speaker 5 Please use the proper nomenclature from now on.

Speaker 43 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 46 So my beautiful wife joined in the conversation. Joanna, she joined in the conversation.
She has a name.

Speaker 12 She has a name, sir.

Speaker 44 Your beautiful wife, Joanna, joined in the conversation.

Speaker 28 Yes.

Speaker 46 And

Speaker 12 what did your beautiful wife, Johanna say?

Speaker 46 Well, people were complaining.

Speaker 50 I can say what I said because I joined in because Steve, I actually overheard him say, I hate those people.

Speaker 11 People who split cookies.

Speaker 50 And so then I joined in the conversation by saying, your wife, your beautiful wife is one of those people.

Speaker 13 You. Yeah.

Speaker 8 He's one of those people. Yeah.

Speaker 50 So what do you have to say to that?

Speaker 22 And that's when you filed for divorce, isn't it?

Speaker 30 On the spot. That's when you split the cookie of your marriage.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Now, let's be clear.

Speaker 17 Owen and Jess are married.

Speaker 61 Yes.

Speaker 4 Stephen, you are married to your beautiful wife, Joanna.

Speaker 47 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 35 Joanna is a sibling to your beautiful sister, Jess.

Speaker 4 And you all live together under one roof.

Speaker 11 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 25 In a situation comedy called Your Life.

Speaker 13 Yes. Correct.

Speaker 14 So you went back to speak to your cohabitants.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 52 And what happened then, Stephen?

Speaker 46 Well, and as I noted in the initial

Speaker 46 filing of the case, they were split within the marriage as well on this issue.

Speaker 46 And the lines on which we are split, I would say, are pretty unusual for our

Speaker 46 cohabitation unit.

Speaker 47 All right.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 61 Anything that is a

Speaker 61 would be considered a single serve unit.

Speaker 71 So donuts cookie

Speaker 8 right now, for those listening.

Speaker 61 Cupcake,

Speaker 61 muffin, those items, not to be split. Things like a cake, obviously you can't eat an entire cake or if you can.

Speaker 45 Speak for yourself.

Speaker 47 But that that would be I would not choose to, but I

Speaker 72 would not expect someone.

Speaker 28 I defend my ability to do it if I have to.

Speaker 61 I would expect someone take like a

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 69 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

Speaker 66 I'm a rambler.

Speaker 46 I just want to make sure to add into our case that it's not just you shouldn't split food anywhere anytime.

Speaker 46 It's especially when it's a communal environment, like a party with over 10 people or a workplace.

Speaker 1 So if you have cookies at home, if you have a

Speaker 1 sleeve of cookies at home, it's okay to eat half of one of those cookies.

Speaker 46 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 But when they're out on a plate at a party, it's not okay to eat half of one of those cookies.

Speaker 61 I would side eye someone taking half of like an Oreo out of the sleeve

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 70 but

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 44 Take the cooking, leave the frosting, jump the shark, hire your dog.

Speaker 36 That was the full line

Speaker 23 from the Godfather 3, which was a weird line, very self-referential.

Speaker 53 But it was meta.

Speaker 8 We used to love meta in those days.

Speaker 73 Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

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Speaker 34 Joanna, then, let me ask you,

Speaker 47 you are in favor.

Speaker 10 Here's the question.

Speaker 50 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?

Speaker 8 Would you cut that in half?

Speaker 50 No, I wouldn't cut that in half. That's too messy.

Speaker 12 Yeah, because gross. Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Speaker 64 Gotcha.

Speaker 50 Like, my favorite donut is also a sour cream donut. And typically, there's only like one in the box.

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 46 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

Speaker 27 yeah i i hear what you're saying absolutely owen

Speaker 46 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

Speaker 40 so why are you sitting on the other side of the table with your beautiful sister-in-law, Joanna,

Speaker 44 and against your beautiful wife, Jess.

Speaker 46 Well, it's the principle of the thing. I think that people should have the freedom to take

Speaker 46 fractions of donuts or other pastries without being judged over it.

Speaker 7 Even in a communal setting?

Speaker 46 Well, I guess they can be judged, but they have the freedom.

Speaker 57 They shouldn't be told to stop.

Speaker 50 Yeah. I think is what I would say.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 1 There are no communal settings in America, John.

Speaker 1 It says it in the Constitution.

Speaker 27 All right.

Speaker 29 So, Jess, that's your husband speaking, your beautiful husband.

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 55 Tell me why it's not okay to split a donut in a communal setting.

Speaker 47 I mean,

Speaker 23 I feel like Joanna's argument, your beautiful sister Joanna's argument, is pretty well considered.

Speaker 41 That if there's one sour cream donut in the box,

Speaker 51 why not leave some behind for someone else to taste if they ever were curious about this new iteration of donut?

Speaker 75 Seems to be pretty generous, honestly.

Speaker 61 I think

Speaker 61 a lot of it comes down to

Speaker 61 when I was working in a large corporate setting

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 13 has

Speaker 61 the nasty ones remaining and then halves of things And there's maybe like one like tier three donut remaining.

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 I don't trust that everyone properly sanitized their hands or

Speaker 61 took a splitting instrument to divide.

Speaker 61 the object.

Speaker 7 A donut splitting instrument like a like an ads or a hatchet.

Speaker 60 Yes.

Speaker 61 Just hatch it through the break room table.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgman, you and I both know that all donuts are split with a sad white plastic knife.

Speaker 59 That's true.

Speaker 22 It's true.

Speaker 32 That somehow bends in all directions.

Speaker 1 Jess, what would you say are the tiers of doughnuts?

Speaker 69 Here we go.

Speaker 8 This is my question.

Speaker 7 Thank you, Bailiff Jesse.

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 46 And the glaze

Speaker 49 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

Speaker 61 kind of a cake donut with a

Speaker 61 frosting and sprinkle so

Speaker 61 yeah like a right like a normal like strawberry frosted chocolate frosted vanilla frosted they're kind of tier two

Speaker 61 tier three

Speaker 61 it's it's old-fashioned i'm sorry like when i

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 49 and whole human being in her own right by the way

Speaker 30 chiming Chiming in with the absolute truth.

Speaker 53 An old-fashioned donut, a fried old-fashioned donut dipped in coffee, even I,

Speaker 8 a person without a sweet tooth, will delight in that from time to time, Jess.

Speaker 1 Also, what kind of madness is it to suggest that an old-fashioned donut is not sweet?

Speaker 35 Stephen,

Speaker 7 how did this living arrangement come about?

Speaker 46 Tasked again with explaining. I'm going to get accused of being wordy.

Speaker 58 You know what? I'm going to take it away from you.

Speaker 9 Thank you.

Speaker 11 Owen, we haven't heard enough from you.

Speaker 22 How did you all come to live together?

Speaker 23 You and your wife and her sister and your sister's beautiful husband, Stephen?

Speaker 3 There was a house.

Speaker 46 It has six bedrooms. It has

Speaker 46 clearly demarcated

Speaker 46 left half, right half. Well, left one-third, right, two-thirds.

Speaker 1 Well, they've run a tape line down the middle.

Speaker 46 Tape and a wall with some doors.

Speaker 46 And they live on one side and we live on the other.

Speaker 61 To clarify, it's a house that had their garage converted to an in-law suite. So there is

Speaker 61 like an entire townhouse slapped onto the side of a single-family home.

Speaker 33 And which part do you and your little family occupy, Jess?

Speaker 61 We're in the single-family home side of it.

Speaker 17 And so the...

Speaker 4 the in-law suite is now occupied by you or by

Speaker 15 Joanna.

Speaker 11 Okay. And who owned the home originally or did you all buy it together?

Speaker 6 Or rent it or whatever, take a position of

Speaker 11 squat.

Speaker 47 Maybe you're all squatters.

Speaker 57 I don't know.

Speaker 42 I don't tell anyone.

Speaker 47 How did it come to be?

Speaker 61 Flashback to COVID times, Joe and Steve were headed back to school. And rather than

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 Let's go live with a baby.

Speaker 61 So at that point.

Speaker 40 So you already were living in

Speaker 16 this home and then Joanna and Stephen

Speaker 36 joined you.

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 61 at one point, uncovered this house that had this very unique living situation of essentially a townhouse smushed on the side of the house.

Speaker 61 It solved a lot of the

Speaker 61 main friction point we had with the townhouse of there not being

Speaker 61 enough kitchen space.

Speaker 33 Oh, I thought you were going to say enough siblings inside of it.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 61 So in this like in-law suite setup, they have a full kitchen, their own basement, two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a living.

Speaker 9 Let me see. Let me see.

Speaker 4 You experienced some living together

Speaker 41 in one space and it was fine.

Speaker 67 You liked it. Yep.

Speaker 17 And then

Speaker 21 when you were moving,

Speaker 21 Owen and Jess, you found a house.

Speaker 15 It was like, that's enough room for all four of us if we wanted to do it again.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 69 And you invited them to join you.

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 57 sweet.

Speaker 61 Yeah, I don't think we want them kicked out.

Speaker 11 Well, it's not your choice.

Speaker 36 I'll decide. How about that?

Speaker 13 Don, we have a mortgage to pay. We need their rent.

Speaker 12 None of this matters to me.

Speaker 12 All I care about is justice.

Speaker 7 And so you invited your sister, Joanna,

Speaker 24 your beautiful sister, Joanna, to move in.

Speaker 4 Yes. And Owen, you were cool with this?

Speaker 1 Very.

Speaker 74 And Stephen, obviously, you were.

Speaker 69 Free house

Speaker 46 we pay we pay rent below market value but above nothing oh you're getting kicked out

Speaker 38 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?

Speaker 46 When Romeo and Pixel and Athena lived together during the pandemic,

Speaker 46 there was confrontation.

Speaker 46 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

Speaker 46 a permanent.

Speaker 4 So they believe in the separation of families.

Speaker 19 They have not yet been brought along to your enlightened philosophical state.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 46 They're more old-fashioned American, you know, anti-commune, communal.

Speaker 28 They're nuclear family cats.

Speaker 45 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, okay, I got you.

Speaker 42 All right.

Speaker 63 And so that's a lot going on under one roof.

Speaker 22 And you come to me, you're telling me the biggest conflict the four of you could have is splitting donuts in half?

Speaker 36 Yeah, surprisingly, yeah.

Speaker 61 That was kind of like a little bit of the friction with the shared kitchen situation was

Speaker 61 splitting of food and groceries.

Speaker 36 And then then

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 But in the context of hosting where one might supply

Speaker 61 donuts or

Speaker 61 cookies, any kind of like potluck-ish thing where you have these special little treats.

Speaker 64 Yeah.

Speaker 30 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

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 61 because they don't always preserve well either whereas like if the donut remains intact

Speaker 61 It's like

Speaker 58 it has a little bit of a longer shape.

Speaker 61 Yeah, like it'll last a little bit longer.

Speaker 15 Just a little bit

Speaker 69 in half.

Speaker 74 Yeah, right. Exactly.
You expose those. Yeah.

Speaker 34 Go ahead, Stephen. I see you're raising your hand.

Speaker 6 Thank you very much.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 46 that was remaining on the plate with all the other bagels for the entirety of the party.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 62 Hang on.

Speaker 19 When you cut a bagel to put cream cheese on it

Speaker 12 in the traditional way,

Speaker 7 how would you describe that

Speaker 12 if Jesse Thorne?

Speaker 12 Or Steven?

Speaker 36 Sorry.

Speaker 66 That would be horizontal, right?

Speaker 58 Okay.

Speaker 23 So vertically, you're talking about

Speaker 22 you're looking the bagel dead in the eye of its hole.

Speaker 3 Yes, judge.

Speaker 32 And then you're cutting it and you're splitting that eye in half.

Speaker 46 Yes, you are, judge.

Speaker 75 Into two semicircles, right?

Speaker 30 Of

Speaker 74 absence, of void.

Speaker 66 Right. Okay.
Got it.

Speaker 46 And I'm not saying that, you know, whoever did that is a criminal,

Speaker 46 but I am saying that You know, I feel like

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 5 Are you hoping that someone is going to break down in tears in a confession right now?

Speaker 7 Do you suspect that it might be someone at the table?

Speaker 38 Because

Speaker 46 I was the only one there.

Speaker 40 If you saw, let me ask you this, Jess.

Speaker 38 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?

Speaker 61 So that's where it gets into the premise of having a sharing partner where I'm okay with it.

Speaker 15 Okay, wow, here we go.

Speaker 40 So but the records show that Steve just got very excited about the sharing partner.

Speaker 46 I've been talking about a consenting splitting partner for a couple months now.

Speaker 60 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.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 61 Let's hear about it.

Speaker 61 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

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 Totally fine. It's the idea of cutting it with no game plan of what happens to that other half afterwards.

Speaker 53 Cutting it for a ghost partner is not allowable to you.

Speaker 69 Correct.

Speaker 5 Beautiful sister Joanna, you raised your hand in objection to what your beautiful older sister just said.

Speaker 50 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

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 18 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?

Speaker 50 I might eventually. Like if I go back at the end of the day and it's still there, I'll take it home.

Speaker 5 Owen, if I were to rule that you are, you are your sister-in-law, Joanna's perpetual consenting, half-eating partner.

Speaker 46 I'd allow it.

Speaker 34 I feel like we're making our way to a solution.

Speaker 4 Well, let's go back for a moment, Stephen, to this initial Yuletide party.

Speaker 52 When you discovered that your beautiful wife, Joanna, was someone who would be willing to split a cookie and leave the other half behind.

Speaker 55 How did you feel when you discovered this truth about

Speaker 49 your spouse who's a whole human being in her own right?

Speaker 46 Well, here's what it comes down to for me. You know,

Speaker 58 I

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 46 I think that she is a very considerate person.

Speaker 69 I presume that to be philosophically consistent, you are morally opposed to her splitting the bread with you.

Speaker 46 I'm going to leave that one alone.

Speaker 46 He's a consenting partner.

Speaker 23 Consenting, splitting partner?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 46 I don't know that people who do tend to split donuts, especially

Speaker 46 into different quantities, are as considerate or as intentional in their desire to reduce waste.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 46 And someone else who didn't bring the donuts in had to be the one who threw them away.

Speaker 52 Had to be the one who threw them away. Instead of bringing them home to Owen to throw into his open mouth.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 1 But let's be frank, in situations where there are multiple types of donut, those half donuts are always coconut donuts.

Speaker 61 Exactly.

Speaker 43 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 61 That's

Speaker 61 tier like 10, like worst donut.

Speaker 3 Or it's like a donut with walnuts on it or something.

Speaker 46 This may be a good time for the evidence that Jess submitted.

Speaker 51 Well, Stephen, I believe I will decide when is the best time for Jess to produce her evidence.

Speaker 21 Thank you very much.

Speaker 25 Jess, what is your evidence?

Speaker 61 My evidence is a audio recording of my four-year-old and his take on the splitting of donuts.

Speaker 26 Let's go to the audio tape.

Speaker 76 Hey, Russell, when you go downstairs,

Speaker 76 would you rather have one whole donut?

Speaker 76 Or two half donuts? Kill whole, twenty-hole donuts. One whole donut? Okay, thank you.

Speaker 14 Well, that is pretty damning.

Speaker 51 Owen, your own son has thrown your side of the argument under the bus.

Speaker 55 How do you respond?

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 5 Look, one of you is going to be kicked out of the house.

Speaker 60 That's the way the game is played.

Speaker 14 Owen, are there any foodstuffs that should not be split in half and left behind?

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 61 I had a list.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 32 And then I will listen without comment, and then I will give you my answers after you've already answered.

Speaker 61 Danishes, split, cupcakes, split, Boston cream doughnuts.

Speaker 64 No, I don't think so.

Speaker 61 Eclairs.

Speaker 64 Yeah.

Speaker 67 cannoli sure

Speaker 61 doughnuts yep muffins yep cookies under four inches in diameter

Speaker 23 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

Speaker 5 Stephen, have any other friends or family members weighed in on this matter?

Speaker 61 They won't.

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 They said, that sounds like a family matter.

Speaker 18 Stephen, Jess, I mean,

Speaker 12 why is this important?

Speaker 69 What is the harm, really, in letting...

Speaker 28 in letting your beloved spouses and and

Speaker 44 siblings and siblings-in-law do what they like.

Speaker 29 Shouldn't everyone like what they like?

Speaker 61 The harm is germs coming into an already germ-infested household.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 63 Wow, you just threw your ally under the bus.

Speaker 18 She might form an alliance now with her sister and husband and kick you out of the house.

Speaker 28 No, I've very much enjoyed, you know, arguing our case.

Speaker 61 Scrovel some more, please.

Speaker 46 My feeling about it is that

Speaker 46 it's the setting that you're in. It's more of like a social grace towards other people thing than it is about

Speaker 46 like the grossness element.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I can only imagine that a solid 25% of our audience,

Speaker 1 when someone extends their hand to shake hands, just does that

Speaker 1 too slow,

Speaker 62 hairstyle move before they touch hands.

Speaker 62 Yeah.

Speaker 46 I thought you did care about germs, didn't you? Go see that play

Speaker 61 about hand washing.

Speaker 46 We did see a very good play about hand washing when we were in London on that trip.

Speaker 66 Look,

Speaker 1 when you're in a foreign country, you kind of enjoy the arts.

Speaker 46 It was on the West End. It's highly reviewed.

Speaker 44 But you talk about the social grace of it.

Speaker 17 I don't understand.

Speaker 5 Wouldn't the social grace extend to

Speaker 33 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.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 46 And in fact, less likely than the half a thing sitting out and then having to be disposed of.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 17 Joanna, you have presented argument that on the one hand, you only want half of a donut or a cookie or whatever.

Speaker 4 You don't want to waste the other half, so you leave it behind for others.

Speaker 22 Then your other argument is you want two halves, just of two halves of different flavors.

Speaker 40 Which is it?

Speaker 50 Normally the two halves, I would say happen at home.

Speaker 68 So like

Speaker 50 if I'm making myself like a dessert and I want to taste a little bit of the various options.

Speaker 59 And do you assign the other half of the donut or the cookie or whatever to a consenting split partner like Owen or whatever?

Speaker 50 No, I mean, because I know that, yeah, Owen or Steve will eat it eventually.

Speaker 66 Yeah.

Speaker 50 Or if it's still there for, you know, breakfast or whatever, the next.

Speaker 62 No, no, no, no, no next day donuts.

Speaker 34 Okay.

Speaker 32 First of all, preliminary ruling from now on.

Speaker 34 No next day donuts. All right.

Speaker 60 I'm going into my chambers.

Speaker 14 In order to chew this over, so to speak, I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 46 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

Speaker 46 if that's the case, then I'm definitely winning.

Speaker 1 Owen, you've brought a lot of negative, uptight vibes to this whole recording.

Speaker 1 You just don't seem like a chill dude or like you have a positive attitude.

Speaker 62 All right.

Speaker 1 How about

Speaker 1 I'm going to go to Joanna. Joanna, how are you feeling?

Speaker 50 I feel good because I read

Speaker 50 a judgment that the judge made not

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 1 Jess, how are you feeling?

Speaker 61 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.

Speaker 61 So I'd rather not have it come from my workplace as well.

Speaker 1 Stephen, how are you feeling?

Speaker 46 I'm just happy to be here

Speaker 1 stephen says i'm just here so i don't get fined

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 77 you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe

Speaker 77 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.

Speaker 78 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.

Speaker 77 Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

Speaker 79 The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

Speaker 79 We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

Speaker 80 And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

Speaker 77 So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 80 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.

Speaker 80 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?

Speaker 45 Episode 64.

Speaker 80 So, how close are we to learning everything?

Speaker 80 Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.

Speaker 45 Oh, we're ruined.

Speaker 80 No, no, no, it's good news as well. There is still a lot to learn.
Woo! I'm Dr. Ella Hubber.

Speaker 76 I'm regular Tom Lum.

Speaker 80 I'm Caroline Roper. And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

Speaker 80 And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Speaker 73 Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 44 Tickets are are available for the Solid Sound Festival.

Speaker 22 Of course, I'll be there with this incredible comedy lineup.

Speaker 29 My friends and yours, Eugene Merman, Dave Hill, Todd Berry, Brittany Carney, Sidney Washington, and the genius Gene Gray.

Speaker 12 But I just.

Speaker 3 John, wait, hold on.

Speaker 1 Do you think Dave Hill, Dave Hill, one of the funniest guys in the world?

Speaker 62 True.

Speaker 1 And Dave Hill from before as he introduces himself in all of his social media videos.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 44 I would not be surprised if Dave broke out a BMX bike on stage.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 29 Yeah,

Speaker 29 Dave is going to be dropping some delicious licks, as will all of these incredible comedians.

Speaker 53 on the comedy stage on Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 9 And that's in the afternoon.

Speaker 14 If you come and see us all day long, we have three big shows all day long with all these comedians.

Speaker 33 You're not going to miss a lick of Wilco, by the way, because they play in the evenings, Friday night, Saturday night.

Speaker 33 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.

Speaker 24 And I love Iris Dement.

Speaker 14 Let the Mystery Be is one of my favorite songs.

Speaker 23 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.

Speaker 35 Solid Sound, it is, it only happens every other year.

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 12 Go to solidsoundfestival.com to see the lineup and get your tickets.

Speaker 23 I also want to give a shout out to my friend Christopher Frizel,

Speaker 37 who was long ago the editor-in-chief of The Stranger in Seattle.

Speaker 58 He's an incredible writer, incredible editor.

Speaker 39 And now he runs incredible book groups online and in person.

Speaker 5 And you know, it's been one of my projects to read Middle March this year by George Elliott.

Speaker 38 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.

Speaker 18 There are only a few left.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 38 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.

Speaker 75 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 There is an amazing program in the Maximum Fund Network called the Beef and Dairy Network. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 The Beef and Dairy Network is a comedy podcast that pretends to be an industry podcast for the beef and dairy industry.

Speaker 1 So all of its interviews are about, are beef related.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And on the latest Beef and Dairy Network episode, something incredible happened, which is Ted Danson appeared on the program to demand his grain.

Speaker 63 Now, the American actor Ted Danson?

Speaker 1 The American actor Ted Danson prepared his crows and rang his dark bell.

Speaker 70 Those are two things that happened on this show.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 62 look,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 33 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 28 That was an amazing thing.

Speaker 1 You don't need to know anything about the Beef and Dairy Network to listen to this episode.

Speaker 1 It is a breathtaking piece of comedy.

Speaker 1 It also features an extensive interview with a dental expert who talks about how many celebrities

Speaker 1 have implants made of cow teeth.

Speaker 58 Dental appliances made from cow teeth.

Speaker 62 So, just take your number two pencil and write down these names: Beef and Dairy Network, Ted Danson, Christopher Frizzell, Iris Dement.

Speaker 40 These are just things and people that we absolutely love, and we bet you will too.

Speaker 5 Write those things down and go search for them.

Speaker 63 Now, shall we get back to the episode?

Speaker 1 Let's do it.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Speaker 63 People sometimes ask me how much sort of writing I do on the verdict before I deliver it.

Speaker 22 And the answer is basically none.

Speaker 40 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

Speaker 22 I formulate an opinion, and then I give it some consideration while Jesse's talking to the litigants.

Speaker 51 And then I just sort of freestyle it.

Speaker 17 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

Speaker 27 But I do have to come up with a decision and I do have to vote one of you out of the donut house.

Speaker 44 Who shall it be?

Speaker 28 There are some weirdos who are rooting for the baby.

Speaker 22 Owens kept a silent profile this entire time.

Speaker 4 Joanna's made some good cases.

Speaker 44 So has Jess.

Speaker 9 Steve didn't come to make friends. And guess what?

Speaker 54 He made one anyway because I'm your friend, Steve.

Speaker 5 Even though

Speaker 14 I've been giving you the business.

Speaker 4 Let me respond to something that Joanna said first of all.

Speaker 5 Joanna, you're not wrong that I did rule recently in the New York Times magazine about cutting things in half.

Speaker 8 In this case,

Speaker 74 there was a husband and wife.

Speaker 38 And the wife had recently had a baby.

Speaker 4 And she, during the time she was pregnant, she was unable to tolerate bananas because they made her nauseated.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 34 Not a literal tree, but like a little wooden hook and you hang the banana bunch on it.

Speaker 5 And she's cutting the bananas in half and like giving that banana a haircut and eating half the banana.

Speaker 7 And the husband was like, that's gross to me.

Speaker 34 And I agreed with him. It was gross.

Speaker 15 A, and food waste is gross.

Speaker 54 B, baby bananas exist.

Speaker 8 I mean, why not just get smaller ones?

Speaker 4 But I said, why don't you, why don't you practice some distress tolerance?

Speaker 23 Your wife just grew,

Speaker 17 just grew a human in her body.

Speaker 32 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.

Speaker 17 And Owen and Jess know this to be true.

Speaker 9 And so do all of us because baby Violet threw up in the podcast.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 51 But I will not say that it was an applicable judgment in your defense, Joanna, because what I was saying

Speaker 25 to the

Speaker 5 half a banana wife's husband is,

Speaker 24 take it easy, dude. She just had a baby.

Speaker 25 Someone else just had a baby.

Speaker 40 your sister, your beautiful sister, Jess.

Speaker 7 So if Jess wanted to eat half a cookie and you were mad at her, I would be telling you, take it easy.

Speaker 32 You know what I'm saying? Fair enough.

Speaker 14 But, you know,

Speaker 33 you only have one baby named Steve, and he's a grown man.

Speaker 51 But you're not wrong to look at precedents in this courtroom because

Speaker 22 this case falls between two of the biggest legal, fake legal precedents that we have. People like what they like.

Speaker 38 Some people just want half a cookie.

Speaker 12 Some people just want half a donut, right? Some people just want half a cinnamon roll.

Speaker 41 But also be mindful of the work you leave for others.

Speaker 54 When you have, and Steve is nodding really hard right now.

Speaker 35 When you have, when you take

Speaker 53 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.

Speaker 26 So let's get to the quiz.

Speaker 44 Jess gave her beautiful husband, Owen, a quiz of

Speaker 38 which single serving foods are splitable, in his opinion, and which are not.

Speaker 19 We registered his answers.

Speaker 38 Now it's time for me to give my answers, the definitive ones.

Speaker 75 I wrote them all down here on a piece of paper.

Speaker 38 Look, Danish, do not split.

Speaker 20 Cupcake, do not split.

Speaker 63 Boston cream donut, do not split.

Speaker 69 Eclair, do not split.

Speaker 16 Cannoli, do not split. Donut,

Speaker 30 I'll reserve that for last.

Speaker 34 Muffin, do not split.

Speaker 25 Four-inch cookie or smaller, do not split. Donut, Do not split.

Speaker 27 Now,

Speaker 62 why?

Speaker 4 It has been established,

Speaker 63 and you have all witnessed it in your office parties.

Speaker 32 Half a donut

Speaker 12 is garbage.

Speaker 16 A whole donut is a treat, even to me.

Speaker 7 Half a donut is something that someone has mangled with their grubby fingers.

Speaker 16 If you didn't see them do it, you can only assume the worst.

Speaker 29 And paradoxically, half a coconut donut is twice the garbage.

Speaker 9 Science doesn't know how that happens.

Speaker 51 Now, I understand and appreciate

Speaker 21 all of the arguments that you have mustered, Joanna.

Speaker 12 Also, never put mustard on a donut.

Speaker 31 And

Speaker 72 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

Speaker 47 is perfectly acceptable, but it's a very specific situation.

Speaker 53 And it's one that's that's been accounted for in Steve and Jess's cosmology.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 33 if you have a, if you have a, a, a brother-in-law like Owen, who's like Mikey, he'll eat anything,

Speaker 21 and you know he's going to eat it no matter what, you split it.

Speaker 38 But if you don't have that person around,

Speaker 59 if you're in a communal situation like an office party or a cocktail party or

Speaker 21 I mean, whatever kind of like

Speaker 4 whatever kind of donut party you have in your weird love house

Speaker 4 and you're leaving it behind and the person, the per the other person has not seen you split it.

Speaker 44 I don't care how many people come down the stairs the next morning saying, I was hoping for a half a cinnamon bun.

Speaker 7 That person is a unicorn.

Speaker 12 Most people are like, I wonder who touched that cinnamon bun. Should I eat it?

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 28 This is the sound of a gavel.

Speaker 28 Go nuts.

Speaker 51 Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom. Stephen, I'm going to start with you.
How are you feeling?

Speaker 46 A relief you can hardly imagine, Payloff.

Speaker 43 Why is that?

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 1 Jess, how are you feeling?

Speaker 61 A relief going into Saturday where this verdict will be tested because there will be donuts and bagels at a children's birthday party.

Speaker 1 Joanna, how are you feeling?

Speaker 50 You know, disappointed, only slightly.

Speaker 50 You know, I like to win. I think most people do.

Speaker 64 But,

Speaker 50 you know,

Speaker 50 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, and you look pretty chill about the whole thing.

Speaker 46 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 61 It's a win.

Speaker 1 Stephen, Jess, Joanna, Owen, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 61 Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's Justin's character on the first Arc of the Adventure Zone.

Speaker 9 Yes, I know.

Speaker 28 Yes, that's great.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 59 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,

Speaker 22 which I really liked a lot because a donut or a traditional donut is in the shape of a Taurus.

Speaker 23 If you don't know, look it up.

Speaker 8 But I could not deny Krispy Cream and Punishment by Taco Salad.

Speaker 74 That was the one for this one.

Speaker 22 But hey, I love seeing all of the fun names that you come up with.

Speaker 30 We both do. We all do.

Speaker 44 So get over there to the Maximum Fun Subreddit.

Speaker 9 And when we put out a call for case names, suggest a pun or two.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 38 Dank memes, even.

Speaker 1 Some very dank memes.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 63 I love dank memes.

Speaker 47 D-M-O-T-W.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry that they've taken us so far away from democracy, but I enjoy when they're about my podcasts.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 44 Also, this week I got a new video camera with a wide-angled lens,

Speaker 19 which means I have to angle my computer even further away from my disgusting pile of banker's boxes.

Speaker 31 But you do get to see more of my weird office.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 53 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.

Speaker 34 And they're just sitting over there.

Speaker 30 I got to get, I got to, I got to get a clerk.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Court clerk.

Speaker 70 Get a court clerk. I love it.

Speaker 1 Just get one of, just get one of Clarence Thomas's adopted children or whatever.

Speaker 44 Hey, follow and subscribe to see our episodes and video only content over at the YouTube.

Speaker 51 We're having a lot of fun over there and enjoy interacting with you on Premiere Day.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 44 Catherine Sings gave us a five-star rating over there.

Speaker 22 And not only does Catherine Sing, she also writes poetry.

Speaker 7 In her review, she wrote, Judge John Hodgman is a winner.

Speaker 64 We listen to him while we eat dinner.

Speaker 44 His bailiff Jesse really adds to the case, if you give less stars, then you're off base.

Speaker 44 So listen to Catherine Sings.

Speaker 14 Give us five stars on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 60 Or...

Speaker 27 Leave a review wherever you listen to the podcast.

Speaker 10 It really does help people discover the show, even simply telling a friend who maybe isn't on social media.

Speaker 60 Oh, what a joy that might be.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 the scanning of doggerel verse.

Speaker 17 This uh, Catherine Sings's poem may not scan, but it does track.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment. You ready for this, John?

Speaker 63 I'm ready for it. Get your judgment ready.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 17 They may not be obviously different.

Speaker 24 And boy, oh boy, was I ready for this one?

Speaker 1 You've been ready since the first take.

Speaker 58 Ready.

Speaker 17 I probably think about scrambled eggs and omelets about nine hours out of every day.

Speaker 22 I love them and I love making them.

Speaker 24 I love taking the snotty chaos of eggs and heating them into beautiful order.

Speaker 30 Scrambled eggs, you would traditionally cook over low heat, very slowly, to create very creamy curds.

Speaker 33 An omelette is cooked over medium heat.

Speaker 18 And yes, an omelette without fillings is still an omelette.

Speaker 29 You are creating a kind of flat wafer of egg.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 69 But it's a completely different beast than traditional scrambled eggs.

Speaker 12 And by the way, it's better than traditional scrambled eggs as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 47 So literally,

Speaker 19 Mr. Laverne, let me say to your friend, eat it.

Speaker 17 Get a good plain omelet and eat it.

Speaker 1 John, are you a slow scrambled eggs or a fast scrambled eggs guy?

Speaker 47 I'm a fast scrambled eggs guy.

Speaker 22 And in fact, I'm a high heat scrambled eggs person now.

Speaker 17 You know,

Speaker 27 when

Speaker 27 you see

Speaker 75 people scrambling eggs in Asian stir-fry tradition.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 48 But I just like, I slam that heat into the pan.

Speaker 12 I put in some canola oil or some safflower oil, and I scramble those eggs really fast.

Speaker 54 And I find that they come out really tender and delicious to me, and they bubble up and they're great.

Speaker 7 That's how I do it.

Speaker 17 Now, are those scrambled eggs or an omelette?

Speaker 47 Let's fight about it. How about that? How about we hear some more cases about eggs?

Speaker 44 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?

Speaker 66 Let me know.

Speaker 1 What about egg chairs?

Speaker 5 Which is the best one?

Speaker 28 Arnie Jacobson or the Ovalia egg chair?

Speaker 4 What is the best way to make scrambled eggs in your opinion? I'm going to say, Gordon Ramsey, eat it.

Speaker 7 I don't like his way of doing it.

Speaker 69 It's gross.

Speaker 14 Whatever your dispute around eggs is, send it to us at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Speaker 56 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.

Speaker 1 You know, our friend Jay Kenji Lopez Alt,

Speaker 1 he adds a starch slurry to his scrambled eggs.

Speaker 32 I know.

Speaker 1 Keeps them tender.

Speaker 32 You know what?

Speaker 54 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.

Speaker 1 And I'll tell you this.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We'll see how long we can do this.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows, supported directly by you.