Submerger and Acquisitions

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Submerger and Acquisitions.

Thaddeus brings the case against his wife, Kelsey.

Thaddeus loves cold plunging.

He tried cold plunging at home, but doesn't have what he needs to keep it icy enough.

He wants to invest in some new equipment.

But Kelsey says, it isn't practical.

Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

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

My little boy is four years old.

You know what he was doing?

I caught him twice.

In the garden, we have chickens, and he was just eating everything.

It's strengthening the immune system.

He was eating...

He was eating chicken poop.

That was me at the moment.

But that's only our concept.

Nature knows.

Nature knows how to make him strong and good.

And then we become adults and we don't know what to eat.

No need.

Follow nature.

Bailiff Jesse Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Thaddeus and Kelsey, please rise and raise your right hands.

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

So help you, God or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's already cooler than cool?

I do.

I do.

That's ice cold, Judge Hodgman.

You may proceed.

Thaddeus and Kelsey, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary, Judgment, one of your favorites, can either of you name the piece of culture that I reference as I enter this courtroom.

Thaddeus, let's start with you.

I'm not sure, so I'm going to go with my prepared guess, which is Adam Sandler's classic, The Water Boy, especially the scene where he drinks from a glacier in Alaska.

Oh, Adam Sandler's classic, The Water Boy.

Ice Cold Glacier Water Drinking Scene.

Correct.

I've written all of that down.

You can see for yourself.

Bobby Boucher.

Yep.

Yeah.

Mad handwriting, but it's for real.

That's terrific.

Now that's a good guess.

I'm going to ask Kelsey, what's your guess?

I really have no idea.

Of course, you don't.

Of course, I don't.

I'll say In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

In Cold

Blood.

You know, I was giving Thaddeus some credit for a thematically appropriate guess, even though it's wrong.

But yours is even more impressively thematically appropriate and gruesome to boot.

Look, between the, I'm writing it down by in cold blood,

a nonfiction novel by Truman Capote that revolutionized nonfiction writing for several generations.

Wrote it all down.

You can see right there on the YouTube.

I will say that that guess is better than better and more interesting to me personally than Thaddeus is.

Sorry, Thaddeus.

But all guesses are wrong, so we have to hear the case.

Who seeks justice in this fake court?

Is it Thaddeus or Kelsey?

I do, Your Honor.

What is the nature of the justice you seek, please?

I recently got into working out.

I've had the help of a trainer.

How recently?

Probably a year and a half ago, two years ago.

We were athletes in college, but I kind of fell off of it.

What kind of athletes were you?

Kelsey played softball for four years and I threw the javelin.

Hooray!

With a name like Thaddeus, he had to throw the javelin.

With a name like, and I, and Thaddeus, I know your last name too.

And it's, you might be cool in your cold plunge, but your last name is hot as hell.

Thanks.

You've already said my name once on the podcast, actually.

I'm going to say it again.

Thaddeus Diamond.

Javelin, if you please.

One javelin, please.

It's throwing time.

That's right.

That's what you say, right?

That's right.

How far did you get?

Did you make varsity javelin?

I did.

We actually attended your alma mater, Judge.

We were both at Yale.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah, we were.

I didn't know that we had a good javelin squad.

We didn't.

That's why Thaddeus was on it.

Oh,

rule.

What residential college were you in?

I got to ask.

I was Branford, and I switched to Morse.

Yeah, it was an interesting choice, right?

Yeah.

Excuse me.

That's a terrible choice.

Excuse me, Jesse.

This is a little bit inside Yale baseball.

And also, this is a family-friendly podcast, but I'm still going to say, what the

look,

I don't want to bore the audience with all this inside Yale stuff, but I'm just going to say.

Wait, Judge Hodgerin, you don't want to bore the audience with inside Yale stuff?

Are we taking a whole new direction with the podcast?

I do want to, but we have a very special friend of the court to bring in soon.

And

I don't want to be judged by him.

And I don't want to waste time.

Needless to say,

Thaddeus not only throws hot jab, but weird jazz, makes some strange choices.

That's cool, that's right.

And now you're getting back into shape, and you want to go cold plunging, is what it says here.

That's right, yeah.

So, Kelsey and I have been married for several years.

Uh, we know how many or

uh eight, almost nine.

Nice work, thank you, fast math.

Um, essentially, what happened is I uh was working my trainer and I decided to buy a small inflatable plunge tub type thing, it was about $80 on Amazon.

And

Kelsey found out and immediately canceled my Amazon order.

Oh, which point I was a little frustrated.

And so I reordered it.

Did you ever get to plunge?

Yes, he did.

Yes.

I did.

I did it more as a joke, to be clear.

You canceled his order as a joke.

Yeah, because we're getting into it, but we were having this disagreement.

He kept insisting he was getting it.

So I used it as like a, a next move.

That was my next move.

And then seeing if he would notice, which he actually did.

He noticed that his cold plunge, his inflatable cold plunge tub didn't arrive.

Yes.

Correct.

And then you reordered it.

And did you get it?

I did.

And did you plunge?

I did.

And how did it feel?

Amazing.

And why do you do it?

For me, it's a bit.

psychological.

I don't know if I don't always do it immediately after a workout, but it just sort of

like you get in ice water, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

So you fill it up in the garden.

You're in that inflatable ice water bath.

That's right.

That you won, that you got something that Kelsey didn't want.

Psychologically, that's got to energize you.

And the feel, the sensation of a little bit of pain maybe brings you a little bit of joy when you're done with it.

I mean, I'm going to ask you one more time, sincerely.

I've been in cold water.

I know what it does to you.

Tell me why you like it.

For the listeners who don't know, why you would do such a thing.

No, that is really why.

I think you get a little bit of pain.

You get a bit of a rush.

It's almost like being on a roller coaster to me.

It's that first drop that's sort of taking your breath away.

You're only in there for, I don't know, two, three, four minutes.

And then when you emerge, there's sort of this feeling of

almost like a dopamine rush afterwards.

Like, oh, I just did something that was a little bit intense, but felt great.

And now I'm past it.

I just want to say for the record and for the listeners, it's nothing like going on a roller coaster.

Hitting the the top of a roller coaster and then going down is a very, very specific feeling of nausea and excitement that is different from cold plunging.

Fair enough.

Having done both.

Fair enough.

Cold plunging is like a thing with some evidence behind it, especially around like pain, right?

Athletes do it a lot because they sit in cold tubs.

I know this from watching sports movies.

And apparently it reduces inflammation.

and increases recovery time.

Is that your understanding?

So that is stuff I've read as well.

I just would like to say as a fact of the case, I think Kelsey disagrees on the fact.

She's a, she's a physician.

And so she, she has a different, I think part of her, well, I won't speak for her, but we, we did get in a bit of a debate over whether there are actual benefits to the practice.

We'll get deeper into that, but on a, at a baseline, Kelsey, aside from being a physician, uh, being smarter than your husband,

why don't you want him sitting in an ice-cold bathtub, in an ice-cold, inflatable bathtub?

Well, initially, I didn't want it because I was picturing how totally ridiculous he would look doing this.

But I think when the initial argument started, it was more him coming from the, you know, it reduces inflammation and me thinking these studies are not, do not have sufficient evidence.

You're just saying this because you want to do it.

If you want to do it, then make that argument, but don't come to me with fake facts.

It was kind of making me a little feisty.

To boil it down, he was arguing in bad faith and he would look ridiculous.

Yeah, pretty much.

And I think both were true.

And right now, do you have the cold plunge back?

We do, Your Honor.

He does.

You have the inflatable, right?

That's right.

And so

apparently you've won.

What are you suing for?

What is it that you want out of this?

So this lawsuit is to provide an injunction for Kelsey on canceling my Amazon orders because I intend to buy an industrial ice maker to.

can you describe the inflatable because, like, right now, all I'm picturing is what my children sit in during the summer in my backyard.

Yeah, kiddie pool.

It's not too different.

So, if you take a kiddie pool and you basically raise the sides up.

Exactly.

You raise the sides to about three or four feet, and that's what it is.

Baylife, Jesse, Thaddeus, and Kelsey both submitted some evidence.

If I can direct your attention to the evidence marked exhibit B,

this is a picture of Thaddeus in his cold plunge pool.

This photo will obviously be available on the show page at maximumfund.org and on our Instagram account and wherever you get your pictures online.

Exhibit B:

me using the cold plunge.

Look how happy I am.

Look at this too fast.

Wow.

Look at this ridiculous.

You know what it looks like.

I'll tell you what it looks like.

I have like a folding beer cooler

with a San Francisco Giants logo on it that I bought for a dollar at a garage sale that I occasionally use to keep drinks cold in the car on long drives.

That's truly what it looks like.

It is hexagonal and

a soft hexagon.

It's a soft hexagon.

It has a little plastic spigot on it.

I guess that's why it costs $80.

And then

Thaddeus is fully folded within this.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, I have sometimes been referred to as a tall glass of water.

But I mean,

it is like a soaking tub,

but a tall-sided, but small soaking tub, inflatable.

And you're into it up to your shoulders.

Yes.

And let the record show, or let me remind the court that it is not the bailiff's job to be impartial, but I have to pretend to be, so I'm not going to laugh at you in your face about this.

Yeah, we'll do that later together, John.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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All right, so Thaddeus, you're suing Kelsey because you would like to buy an industrial ice machine.

I presume because you feel like you don't have enough ice for your ice bath.

Well, let's pause on that because we do have a friend of the court here who has some experience with cold plunging

among many, many other fields.

And we're very excited to have him here.

Jesse Thorne, could you tell us a little bit about this expert witness?

That's right, John.

Our guest has a cold plunge in his very own home.

He knows exactly what to do to make it work.

He's also a comedian, an actor, legendary improviser, co-host of the podcast, How Did This Get Made, and the author of the upcoming book, Joyful Recollections of Trauma, our expert witness this week, the great Paul Scheer.

Hi, Paul.

Hi, Paul Scheer.

Hello, everybody.

And let me just tell you, fuming in the courtroom right now, fuming hearing all these

misjudgments and wild speculation about cold plunge.

I need to get in here and set.

the record straight.

I will not have it be bad-mouthed and compared to a children's cooler.

Paul, you need to cool down.

I can't.

Not after that introduction.

I can't.

I'm in.

He's in the cold plunge right now, and he just steamed all the water away.

He's so mad.

I need to get in that cold plunge to calm myself down.

Tell us, Paul, you have a cold plunge in your home.

How did you get into it?

And how do you get into it?

I like these questions.

First of all, I've been doing it almost every day for the last two years.

Wow.

I was...

kind of flirting with the cold plunge.

I understood from a handful of people that I am friends with how much they loved it.

It felt to me like it made sense.

I feel like there are certain exercise fads or trends that feel like they work a sauna, a cold plunge.

These are things that people

many,

many, many hundreds of years ago could do.

I think about Russian men in hot saunas.

I'm like, yes, this is not about them doing

keto, right?

You know, like, like, you know, so like, this is what we had.

We had hot.

We stood the test of time.

Exactly.

We have hot, we have cold.

Kelsey, you are a, you are a physician.

You went to medical school.

Yes.

You went to Yale for undergraduate.

What was that degree in?

Psychology.

Psychology.

Okay.

Where did you get your medical degree?

My medical.

My degree.

Your small, yes.

I have a Bachelor of Science from New York University.

Fantastic.

In what field, please?

Education.

Education.

I mean, you're about to school a doctor, but I I just need to know.

Kelsey, where did you get your medical degree?

University of Kansas.

I'm in internal medicine.

An internal.

External medicine.

That means pills.

That's why she doesn't want to believe in the cold plunge.

I don't do external medicine.

Yeah.

No topical solutions.

That's right.

No creams, no unguents.

No liniments.

No cold water.

You know, there's so many things I want to say.

I do want to ask,

you know, for the cultural significance of

your opening there, is that from a poem

called A Fowl Tale?

Look, I'm so happy you made a guess because I'm so embarrassed that I forgot to reveal the answer to the cultural reference.

And so now I can say that with

Thaddeus's guess and Kelsey's and your guess, which is terrific, but they're all wrong.

I was actually quoting

an online cold plunge practitioner named Vim Hoff.

Oh, I am very familiar and I actually use his techniques.

Yes.

Vim Hoff is also known as the Iceman.

You got to watch these videos, man.

He teaches you how to breathe.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

And I got turned on to this because when we requested titles for this episode on the subreddit, so we got this incredible title from internet user Banjo Solo, Reddit user Banjo Solo, submerger and acquisitions.

But someone else on the Reddit said, you got to check out the episode of Oh No, Ross and Carrie about Wim Hoff.

And I did.

And Wim Hoff is a, is someone who advocates for this, the plunging.

He, he loves to stand in a giant column full of ice for an hour at a time.

Scientists apparently are befuddled.

But according to him, there are three three

pillars to his method.

One are these deep breathing exercises.

where you almost hyperventilate, then you get into this cold plunge, and this

activates all kinds of chemistry in your mind and body.

And then you come out of it recommitted to living a more present life.

And he also lives a completely natural life where, um, uh, where uh, he, uh, his kid is allowed to eat chicken poop.

So, I mean, you decide.

There you go.

You decide whose advice to take, but I liked watching his video.

It was fine.

I've been doing it for two years.

And there's always this moment of hesitation before I step into it.

But then I do, and then I get through it.

And what that, I think that does mentally for me every day is like, it teaches my brain, I can do hard things.

I can tackle something.

It's like you're putting an obstacle in your way and then you're moving forward.

And you do this, you said, because it getting in

makes you reminds you that your body can tolerate a lot of distress and breathe through it and then become comfortable and do hard things, both the literal hard thing that you're doing right then.

And then, and then you can adapt that to other parts of your life.

How do you feel getting out of it?

Getting out of it is really interesting because you are not supposed to dry, well, you dry off, but you're not supposed to warm up, right?

You're supposed to let that cold kind of reverberate through you.

So there's all these studies about how it affects your muscles.

I will say this.

I have an inflatable one.

There are many different types of ones.

Jesse, I know you're looking at,

I don't, I believe that the best ones are the ones that you can lay down in.

I don't understand the pickle barrel ones.

You know, I think that you need to have a chiller on there.

I'm not going to go get ice every day.

I'm not driving out to the supermarket to to butt a bunch of ice, a chiller, you just kind of connect to the side.

I think that if you have the room for it, why not?

What's what's what does it hurt you?

It's like, it's like saying, well, don't get weights, like whatever.

If you have a little bit of a home gym, I just know as a parent of two that

to

have this moment, and this is what I really kind of bring it down to as well.

It's a moment of Zen and meditation.

I used to meditate a lot before I had kids.

And now when I'm in that tub, I can't think about anything anything else.

I'm just in there and I'm breathing.

And it actually brings me a mental sense of calm for those five to six minutes that I am there.

I'm like, there's nothing else to do.

I can't check my phone.

I can't do anything, but I can just focus and breathe.

And mentally.

I feel clearer and cleaner.

So that's a very long answer to your question of what I do when I get out.

I'm cold for the rest of the day.

A lot of times I'm cold for the rest of the day, but it feels good.

Paul, can I ask you this?

You mentioned that you started doing this after you had two kids.

Was part of the goal to prevent yourself from ever having children again?

I mean, that, you know, look, I read a story about a man who put that thing down to 34 degrees and one of his testicles went inside of his body.

So I think that that is,

that could be.

So, Paul, I would like to draw your attention to the evidence that was submitted by Thaddeus Exhibit A.

This is the ice machine that he would like to purchase at the cost of $330 with the coupon.

Okay.

It's a commercial ice machine that freezes.

It looks like

either it weighs 100 pounds or it freezes 100 pounds.

Thaddeus, what's the answer there?

It freezes 100 pounds every 24 hours, but it comes with 35 pounds of storage as part of the unit.

Okay, gotcha.

So that's what he would like to buy to add to his inflatable, what you called a pickle barrel type

cold plunge tub.

Yeah, I'm not into these Amazon,

these Amazon ones that just pop up like this.

I mean, gosh, I guess it could be good in there.

I don't know.

I mean, sure.

Okay, I guess I can't judge his want of the machine.

I don't like these.

I don't like these Amazon ones.

What kind of rig do you have?

And what kind of rig would you recommend if I were to rule in Thaddeus' favor?

Okay, well, there's one that is truly the Cadillac of all cold plunges.

It's called like renew therapy.

It's very expensive.

I would not, I can't, I'm not buying that.

What I have is, I have have one called,

I believe it is called the

Sheer Perfection.

Sheer Perfection.

Here's the phone number to call.

I have an inflatable cold plunge.

It is kind of the material that you might have on like a

boat, like that kind of like heavy, that kind of material.

Like an inflatable zodiac

motorboat.

Yeah, I got you.

Yes.

And it comes with a chiller, which is a small little unit that attaches right to it that filters the water.

Unlike that pickle barrel in evidence.

This actually cycles the water through.

You never need to put ice into it.

You have that, you attach it to it and you filter out the water.

You do this entire thing.

It's very easy, no must, no fuss.

And it also keeps it clean.

So you don't have to redo it every single day.

Because what you're talking about here with this ice machine, which is giant, is that it is a giant pain in the ass.

And now, if you do break your hobby, like the other evidence I see here, I don't want to get ahead of it, but I understand that Kelsey is worried that you're not going to commit to this and that was my fear too i didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on something i wasn't going to commit to but i did spend three thousand i guess that is thousands of dollars i did spend uh three yeah yes but i did three thousand because i was like that that was to me an appropriate amount of money that like comparatively to other ones yeah that i didn't want i didn't want to go all in until i knew i was going to do it and now i'm very happy with what i have because it wasn't the most expensive it's inflatable which means you can carry it wherever you want to do it.

It comes with a giant backpack if you'd like.

You can put it outdoor, you can put it indoor, and you don't have to worry about going to get ice.

And if you give it up, you can always resell it.

This ice machine, that in your house, that to me just seems like a, like, who wants that?

We should explain, Paul, that Thaddeus is also thinking about opening an Arby's.

Okay, well, then that.

Now, look, now, then we have to talk about the ice texture.

What kind of ice is this thing making?

Yeah, that's a concern.

I'm not going to lie.

That's a major concern for me with this ice machine.

If you told me you were buying a 100-pound a day 30-pound storage Pebble ice machine, I'd be all in 100%.

I don't care what else you use it for other than your beverages.

Whatever it costs, it's worth it.

The record will show that the Judge John Hodgman podcast is very pro certain kinds of ice machines.

Oh, you have to get the Pebble ice.

I mean, that's the only way to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's what I do.

There's many different ones.

There's the Plunge is the one that most people have seen on Shark Tank.

And the Shark Tank, the Plunge people, they've just come out with an inflatable as well.

And I do believe that there are a lot of different options, but I think the way that I've understood it to work the most effectively is to fully submerge your own bot, your full body.

And if you can get it in that lying down position, it's better for you.

But that.

Leave that up to the doctors to determine.

That's hearsay.

That's the one thing you'll leave to the doctors.

Yeah.

the rest we leave to shark tank.

Just I just want to verify, though, Paul.

You mentioned that you can take this one outside.

So Thaddeus could take this outside so he can do it in front of the neighbors, correct?

Well, yes.

I mean, that's, you know, look, then here's the thing, too.

Is cold pludging, does it look stupid?

Yes.

But does every exercise look stupid?

Absolutely.

I mean, come on, like a treadmill that, like, you think about that.

We've just accepted it as part of our exercise routine, but if you just saw somebody like,

oh, so you're running on this thing and it's silly looking.

We're always going to look silly exercising.

I don't take any embarrassment in my cold plunging.

I just had Tig Notaro on Bullseye, and she has an extended bit that we discussed in her special about how completely ridiculous it is to do that physical therapy exercise where you put a giant rubber band around your knees and then

you do a crawl walk down the hallway.

And I've done that.

I just bought one of those giant rubber bands after my.

Oh, I've done it too.

Yeah, after my number of insurance-provided provided physical therapy appointments ended and uh it's just been sitting in a box where i stare at it and think can i bring myself to put this on in front of my family that's part of the therapy yeah i will say this too i i play a lot of tennis and the amount of

i used to get i used to feel like i need massages a bunch or like i get stiff and i will say that i definitely have seen a giant effect uh there that recovery time for that anecdotally at least it has increased your quality of life athletically.

Yes.

Personally.

How would you say, in a sentence or two, having the cold plunge in your life daily for two years has changed your life?

I believe that it is mentally made me ready for my day better than anything else that I could possibly do.

And especially as a parent, there are these days where I'm exhausted.

And getting into that and coming out, I really truly feel refreshed.

And I think part of that is the mental,

you know, the meditation of it, and then also just a shock to my system.

Dr.

Kelsey,

do you have any

questions or rebuttals that you'd like to offer to our friend of the court, Paul Shear?

Two years of personal research.

Yeah, and Kelsey, bear in mind, he has taught improv at the Upright Citizen Springs Trader.

Oh, yes,

and other improv places that are not as well respected.

Yeah.

Not too much rebuttal.

I'll say from what I hear from him, a lot of the evidence that's being quoted is about doing it consistently, something I'm not quite sure

is going to happen.

Let the record show that she's wagging her finger at Thaddeus.

And I will say that that is true.

Like, it's not like just have it there once a week.

Like, I think you do need, you need, yeah, it's like anything.

And the psychological benefits,

I'm not just disputing.

It just sounds like you're like, a little bit of torture puts things in perspective, I guess, is kind of what I'm gathering from it, which is okay.

But I mean, isn't that what exercise is?

I mean, of all kinds.

I feel uncomfortable.

This is, yeah, I feel uncomfortable.

This is, you know, unpleasant.

Yeah, I mean, you played softball in college, Kelsey, so you may not be familiar with aerobic exercise,

but people who do cardio,

for example.

Like longer than 60 feet.

Yeah, like a javelin thrower.

Yeah.

You know, you, you, you, you put yourself into a, you push yourself to a pain threshold and then get past it in almost every form of physical exertion.

And then it has a psychological and

so long as you don't injure yourself,

a physical benefit, I suppose.

Well, Paul Scheer, thank you for your testimony.

No problem.

Can I say one thing too?

Because I know I came on pretty strong.

I didn't want to come at Kelsey.

You were fuming.

You were fuming.

I was fuming because, look, I get it.

I get there's all these things, misnomers out there, but I will say this.

To your point, regularity is important, but that's why

you should not

take my supplements.

That's why I eat a brand muffin every day.

It's also a psychological reset, but I mean, and I met

in my tub.

I do put a metamucil in that cold punch.

I feel great.

But I will say this, that if you're afraid of it, not of not taking it and just being one of those things that are on a shelf,

try to spend the least amount of money and at the same time, not get a giant ass ice machine.

Like, that's my, like, then if you really are committed to doing it, drive to that supermarket every day and go get that ice.

Like, find a, find a beverage mart and go get that ice.

Don't buy that ice machine.

Like, it's, it's, I'm worried about that ice machine really more than anything.

The ice machine.

Paul, before we let you go, tell us, tell us about what's going on.

You've got this book coming out, Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

Yes, I wrote a book.

It's called Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

You can order it now.

I mean, I don't even know when you're listening to this, but it's okay because if you pre-order it, you get a nice surprise.

And if it's out,

you get it.

So either way, and it's a book,

kind of a memoir of, you know, over the course of the 14 years of doing How Did This Get Made, I have told many stories of my childhood.

And I thought I lived a very normal childhood until I would tell these stories.

And I would watch the shock look on Jason and June's faces, my co-host, as I told them that my grandmother once told me to make sure I locked the door because in town there was a butcher who would steal children and then put them in a chopped meat machine and then serve the children to their mothers.

So, and they're like, wait, what happened?

And I'm like, oh yeah, my grandmother, you didn't have the story about the butcher who killed children and served them as hamburgers.

It's a very common child raising technique.

To their mother, specifically.

Is it not?

The butcher doesn't serve it willy-nilly.

Well,

the funniest part of that story was the way that the mom finds out that she served her own son was as she's cooking the burgers,

the burger looks up and goes, mommy?

Now, look, there's not, that's not technically, I don't know how that could possibly happen, but it scared the living crap out of me.

So they had never heard that story before?

Yeah, I thought that was a story that everyone where the surgeon goes.

Paul was raised primarily by his grandmother, the brother Scrim.

Wow.

But yeah, so, you know, I think what it also does, though, too, is kind of uncovers a part of my life that I haven't really talked about that much and kind of overcoming this trauma of having a crazy,

you know, I had this very abusive stepdad and we were in this Trapton's relationship and kind of chronicles my mom and I escaping that and the benefits

or the or the ramifications of that throughout my life.

And then there's funny stories about, you know, an ode to a minivan and bumping into Christopher Walken and him taking me away from my parents to give me special advice about life.

Joyful Recollections of Trauma is the name of the book.

Obviously, How Did This Get Made is the name of the incredible podcast.

You should be listening and buying and getting all of these things.

You can pre-order it now wherever you get your books.

I presume, Paul Scheer, what a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you.

Yes, you can.

And if you pre-order it, you can sign up on my website and you get like DVD special features, or I should say, book special features.

I made a whole part of my website that is like addendum material.

That may not make sense before you read the book, but after you'll see some fun videos and things and clips and pictures.

Not many people funnier than Paul and Jason and June.

Three of the absolute funniest and most delightful and bright and insightful as well.

I feel the same about you all.

And yeah, so

it's a pleasure to be here to be an expert witness.

And let me tell you this, I respect you all so much that if you agree with me or if you disagree with me, it does nothing to

lose your position in my mind as great people.

I strongly recommend, by the way, John, if people are looking for an episode of How Did This Get Made to start with, I think this is very common in the How Did This Get made community that people will recommend the barbed wire episode from roughly 2011 featuring Jesse Thorne.

It's a great episode about Pamela Anderson's action movie, Barbed Wire.

Can't wait to listen to it, Paul Scheer.

Thank you for keeping us high in your estimation, no matter what we rule today.

And I was going to say, with regard to you, as far as I'm concerned, the jury's still out, but that's not true.

They just came back in and they vote unanimously.

You're the the best.

Thanks so much for being here.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Good luck on your cold plunge quests.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we heard from Paul Scheer,

obviously a proponent.

Any first reactions to what Paul had to say, Kelsey or Thaddeus?

So it seems like a lot of the benefits he was talking about are more psychological.

We didn't get into the weeds of the studies, which is, that's okay.

We didn't have to do that.

But it seems like benefits are psychological and also being consistent.

And the consistency is the part that I have concerns about and respectfully just want, you know, Thaddeus to prove to me that he can be consistent in something before we go out and buy a huge industrial ice maker that will never leave our home.

And you, you have submitted evidence and are prepared to give testimony that Thaddeus has not been particularly consistent in his hobbies before.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Let's take a look at this evidence.

I'll explain what I'm seeing as I see it.

Submitted by Kelsey, Exhibit D hobbies that Thaddeus has started and not kept up.

I see a tagine, which is a traditional, I believe, Moroccan earthenware cooking

vessel.

Yeah.

Vessel.

Yep.

And that is on a shelf where I presume it has lived for most of its life.

Is that right, Kelsey?

Yes, it has been used once.

He did a good job with it, but then afterwards also didn't technically clean it correctly and shattered the top part, but he replaced it and then he has since never used it again.

So he's got a new tagine cap that's never been used.

Correct.

That's an incredible Ernest Hemingway story, by the way.

I believe I used it three times before it cracked.

All right.

I'll put

that into the record.

Three times and then you, and then what did you, did you wash it in your cold plunge so the ceramic crack?

I did accidentally wash it in water that was too cold while it was hot.

So the clay cracked.

Cracked your tagine cap right there.

Then

I see

some rice and looks like a package of red mole

mixture of some kind.

This is another vessel for cooking a different dish to try to make mole.

As you can see, this is actually totally untouched.

He purchased this and

has yet to make any mole.

Thaddeus, is it true that these packages of rice and mole have never been opened?

Yes, Your Honor, but in my defense, I think Mole is a one-day preparation time.

There's a lot of work that goes into a mole.

So I would argue I just haven't found the time, but I will do it.

How long ago

did you purchase these things?

I think I bought this about a year ago.

Oh,

yeah.

It's amazing what these people get up to in Kansas City.

This is where they are, Jesse, if you didn't know.

They're in Kansas City.

Everything's up to date there, as I understand it.

Everything's up to date.

You'd think they'd gone about as far as they can go, but now they're also getting pasta drying racks and pasta machines that they're putting on a shelf.

And as well,

it looks like bottles for home brewing situation that are on a shelf.

Like these people have shelves, is what I'm saying.

What I imagine, John, whenever we have anyone

from the central 60% of our great nation on our program describing their domestic life, I just imagine these homes that go on for miles and miles with craft rooms and guest rooms and second kitchens and freezers, whole extra refrigerators in the basement.

Those, the, the, that couple that had, that couple that had the whole room devoted to model railroad shunting.

Exactly.

So obviously pasta making and homebrewing are also hobbies that you've taken up, Thaddeus, that Kelsey says you have not fulfilled or done often.

Well, these I have done.

And I would say in my defense, the pasta maker I did quite a few times, but I was not very skilled at it.

So I believe that one was just a lack of confidence on my part is why I stopped.

But I enjoyed the practice.

And then the beer maker I did make, but it spilled all over our pantry.

And so I haven't found the time to he didn't do the fermenting process correctly.

So then everything just bubbled out.

Bubbled up and out.

Of course.

Yeah,

I put the hose too far down in the, in the, what are they called, the flask or jug there?

Sometimes with these hobbies there's a little bit of a lack of attention to detail about how to how to do the process that Kelsey you didn't marry a scientist you married a medical head jock you chose this javelin chucker yeah that's true I should have known when he said he didn't become a doctor because he stubbed his toe in chemistry class that that was probably what I was getting into

I mean, you keep saying, Thaddeus, over and over, go, in my own defense, I enjoyed doing it once or twice,

but then I don't have the time anymore, or I got discouraged, or I put it away onto one of my many, very specific shelves here in Kansas City.

I'm not sure that that is in your own defense because that's exactly what Kelsey is concerned is going to happen with this plunge tub.

That's fair, Your Honor.

I guess for me, I sort of view these as like little trinket hobbies or little tchotchkes.

To me, the exercise kind of falls in a different category because as

how dare you to you, a pasta drying rack is a tchotchki.

To me, in New York City, that's a piece of furniture.

In New York City, if you have a pasta maker, you have to also use it as a washer dryer.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

You can really press out those clothes.

But this time is what you're saying to Kelsey is this time it's different.

This time is different.

All right.

Go on.

Complete that sentence.

Why?

What I would say about the cold plunge is, as the expert witness Pulsar was saying, is we, so we have three young children

and they're very, they're all boys and they're very physical with me.

One of them's only two weeks old, but I assume he'll be the same.

Still pushing you around.

A little bit.

Still controlling our life.

Those little javelins at dad.

That's right.

So to me, I feel like at the end of a long day, and I do regularly exercise every day.

At the end of the long day, maybe after putting the kids down for bed or after having done my exercise, I would like the option to have a cold plunge as kind of a way to restore myself.

And even if the medical science is not clear, just clearing my head and psychologically feeling that rush and that adrenaline would be helpful.

Kelsey, why not a hot tub?

I'm against hot tubs.

Sorry.

Do not like them.

I don't even know why I intuited that.

I was like, yeah, no, I don't.

Folliculitis.

Yes, you can get the hot tub folliculitis.

I find them to be

gross, frankly, and kind of tacky.

I don't want to warm water around

I also just don't like, I don't want a pool in my house either for the same reason.

I'm like, I think there's a drowning risk.

So I'm not really a fan of any of those.

On some telepathic level, I just knew you didn't want a hot tub either.

I think what I was trying to ask is, would you have the same, would you have the same objection to a hot tub, which is a fairly normal thing that people tend to aspire to have in their home, but you don't want that.

That's even worse.

Which is worse, hot tub or cold tub?

Probably the hot tub because I can't fold it up and put it away and not see it anymore.

It's just going to be there all the time filled with water.

Whereas you have a couple of, maybe you have 15 or 20 extra large shelves where that fold up cold plunge thing could go.

I will give you credit that you have exercises different.

You've been very dedicated and you have consistently done that for a year and a half.

But the cold plunge, I still feel like I can count on one hand how many times you've done it.

And so I'm, Your Honor, just looking for some kind of show of seriousness, like Paul referred to of going to the store and getting ice.

Yeah, because Paul Shear was not into you getting that commercial ice maker.

Well, Your Honor, that's, I would say that's, I think it's two hands for what it's worth that you could count on.

But I, does Kelsey have a normal number of fingers?

As far as I can see,

under 10 times.

Under 10 times.

And how many, and if that were in 10 days, that would be something.

Well, this is, yeah, there's a little more color to this, which is so I think I got it in the summer and then i did use it fairly regularly for the first couple of months i would say at least once a week yeah in my defense i used it a few times and then got tired of it

not a very good defense

paul mentioned that what research there is has to do with

water that's at temperatures below 60 ish um temperatures in the in the 50s or or 40s you don't have to go down to the 20s or 30s or something in fact you probably probably shouldn't.

That's the temperature, generally speaking, of water that comes out of the cold spigot in your kitchen.

So

what's wrong with that?

That's a great question.

And I defer to Kelsey on the science.

I will admit that I'm not contesting that she is smarter than me.

So I don't want to.

you know, fight her on that evidence about what temperature.

But the big thing for me is in the Kansas summers, it can get to be 100, 105, 110.

And so the outdoor spigot that we have is actually linked to a non-insulated crawl space.

So the water that comes out of our hose is actually fairly hot.

I think what I did it late last summer, it was coming out at about 70 or 80 degrees.

I would murder a human for a non-insulated crawl space.

That's all I'm saying.

Yeah.

I would never murder a human.

He would murder a human and use the human for insulation for his crawl space.

I wouldn't do that.

I wouldn't do that.

I'm not a figure from Paul Shears growing up,

a local neighborhood monster of any kind, just a, just a simple, a simple neighborhood judge.

It says here

that if I were to rule in your favor, Thaddeus, that you would want to put the tub in the basement and get an ice machine big enough for him not to have to worry about having enough ice, which would also, I suppose, be in the basement.

You really want a cold plunge in the basement?

Yeah, I'm location agnostic.

I don't particularly care what I do.

I sort of come by it naturally.

I love my father, but he's probably the least self-conscious person on the planet.

And so I'm kind of that way as well.

I'm, I'm weird.

And I just, I think for me, it's not about where it is.

It's just what I'm doing.

So whether it's outside or in the basement, like the location or who's watching doesn't really bother me.

You mentioned your dad.

You mentioned weirdness.

You say that weirdness runs in your family, according to this affidavit I have here.

And you submitted some evidence throwing your own child under the bus about how your son eats a hot dog.

Explain the photo that I'm seeing here.

So, I think, I think, like genuinely, I think Kelsey thinks I'm just putting on a show, which is why she canceled the order initially.

But to me, this is actually just hobbies I enjoy things.

So, this is a photo of how my son eats a hot dog, which he believes it's a sandwich and eats it from the top.

If you haven't yet gone over to the Instagram counter, the show page to see this photo,

no child is pictured, just one child's hand who has momentarily relinquished what looks like a very delicious hot dog.

Yeah, that this middle, this middle son has been eating by holding it.

I'm, you know, a hot dog is not a sandwich, but he's eating it sandwich style, so he's not taking a bite from one end, but instead holding the hot dog like a piece of corn on the cob and taking a bite out of the middle with the hot dog facing him and the bread on the top and the bottoms.

I think that gets it across.

This is a $1.25 hot dog from a big box store.

So you're saying that you're not specifically doing these hobbies and

cultivating these eccentricities in order to get Kelsey's goat or attention.

You're doing it because it's innate.

It's in your genetics.

It came down from your dad and has been passed on to at least one of your offspring.

Is that right?

That's right.

And what did your dad do that was weird?

Because you mentioned your dad for zero reason.

And I'd like to know why.

Yeah, my father's an amazing man.

He's very interesting.

But I think one story that comes to mind is he, he didn't quite know how to dress himself.

So when he was going down to a family gathering, he came down with a purple turtleneck under an American flag sweater.

And

my mom had to tell him to go change because that wasn't acceptable attire.

So he's always doing stuff like that.

He's very interesting.

I just figured out my Halloween costume and it's not even

May.

Thaddeus, when Kelsey says that you don't follow through on your hobbies and she doesn't trust you enough to ice yourself consistently to justify the purchase of a commercial ice machine, how does that make you feel?

I think it's understandable.

I love my wife dearly, so I tend to agree with her on most things.

But I think this, like I said, it's, it's, it's a different category.

So to me, it feels like I would treat this differently.

Plus, $300 for

a sort of hobby is a fair amount of investment for me just mentally.

So I think it would compel me to use it more.

Well, but spending money on hobbies, even though there were smaller ticket hobbies, never compelled you to follow through on them before.

I mean, you said that each was like maybe a 40.

Look, that pasta machine is not a $40 pasta machine.

It's not.

No.

How much was that?

I think there was a kit.

In fairness, I also subscribed to a kit that shipped some of these.

One of those, it was called Culture Kit, I think.

Was it one of those subscription boxes that sends you a useless hobby every month?

It was.

It's

all right.

You can get a pasta machine that looks like that for 30 to 40 to 80 bucks.

Okay.

I mean, probably not a very good one, but yes.

But I mean, between the brew kit and the thing, the pasta machine and the bourbon nosing kit.

Yeah.

Like you've spent $300 on hobbies before that you haven't finished.

Why is it different this time?

I guess for me,

I would use this in a way that's part of my daily routine.

How are you going to change the water if your inflatable cold plunge is in the basement?

basement?

I have a drain basement.

Like we have an unfinished area of the basement where we'll have sort of a floor drain and then I'll use a spigot.

I came prepared with answers, Kelsey.

I got to give him that.

Yeah, I guess so.

You did have that.

Kelsey, what would it take for Thaddeus to prove that it's different this time?

Is there anything he can do?

Basically, to do this, the little solution, I know he doesn't.

like it, but to go to the quick trip and get some ice if he feels his water is not cold enough.

And to do that for like, I don't know, a month of five days, whatever, five days a week, three to five days a week, and

do that consistently, then I would be open to having this, you know, more of a discussion.

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

I'm going to go down into my basement and get have a nice glass of pebble ice and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Dr.

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

I don't know.

I feel okay.

I feel like I've left myself open to a lot of other options.

So I think hopefully there are other solutions besides the gigantic ice maker.

You're basically in support of anything that can be packed into a giant backpack, as Paul Scheer put it.

Yes, exactly.

That sounds great.

A giant backpack.

For sure.

Thaddeus, how are you feeling?

Not great.

Not as confident as when I came in.

I think the expert testimony was on my side, which I appreciated.

But in eight years of marriage, Kelsey tends to win all the arguments.

So I'm, I'm a little nervous that the judge is taking her side.

Thaddeus, what's the most important thing to remember when you're throwing a javelin?

Always release early so that you don't accidentally hit yourself in the foot, which I did once.

That's a much more sort of

baseline piece of information than I expected.

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

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Judge Hodgman, we're taking a quick break from the case.

Let's talk about what we have going on.

What's going on with you, John?

Jesse Thorne, I've mentioned it before, and now I can say it officially.

The comedy stage at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival is booked and ready to announce.

It's June 28th in western Massachusetts, and you're going to go there and see Wilco and the large-scale installation art and everything else.

I'm also here to tell you on that afternoon, Saturday the 29th, the comedy stage is going to feature me and Gene Cray,

plus Dave Hill, Sidney Washington, the great Todd Barry, the great Britney Carney, and special add-on that we haven't mentioned yet, the great Eugene Merman.

They're all the great.

Come and see your favorite comedy friends.

You'll probably run into a guest of Monty Belmonte, and he'll love to talk to you, and I will too.

So come, please see us up there in North Adams, Massachusetts.

The whole festival is June 28th through the 30th at Mass Mocha.

That's the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

It's Wilco's Solid Sound Festival.

On the Friday night, Wilco is going to be playing Deep Cuts.

And Saturday night, Wilco's going going to be playing an incredible Wilco set with all kinds of music, arts, entertainment, and good food, by the way, in between.

It's a lot of fun.

I hope you can make it.

Go to solidsoundfestival.com.

Jesse Thorne, what do you have going on?

Well, I actually have a new Instagram account.

So I hope people will follow me there.

For years and years, when I signed up for Instagram, you couldn't switch between accounts in the Instagram app.

And so I was using Instagram for my menswear blog, put this on, which is still online, putthison.com.

And of course, our shop at putthisonshop.com.

So if you follow at put.this.on, you will continue to get outfit pics and our PTO man picks, which are compilations of some of our favorite outfits from social media that week and all kinds of other, you know, neat shop-related stuff, all kinds of stuff like that.

But if you want stuff about podcasting and comedy and such, follow at Jesse Thorne, very famous.

At Jesse Thorne, very famous.

By the way, if you happen to work at Instagram, drop us a a line because the person who has at Jesse Thorne has never used it.

So I would love to have that.

Also, there's someone impersonating me and has been for years that many people I know follow.

So yeah, drop us a line if you're that person.

But in the meantime, follow me at Jesse Thorne, very famous.

And that really is me.

You may have heard my clicky keyboard in the background as I searched that up and I hit follow back.

Now we're talking.

So thanks for the follow.

And I'm so happy to be following you there too.

That's where you're going to find pictures of my dumb dog, Junior.

Oh, come on.

And your good friend John Malkovich, it looks like.

Yep, me and John Malkovich are up there.

That's incredible.

Me and Alice.

Go follow him.

Yeah, you're right.

Oh, all these fun people.

And there's Tig Notaro.

And there's Junior, just sort of like staring lovingly at a ball like a dog should do.

Is your Instagram account feature pictures of Jesse Thorne smiling while holding up a bag of pitted prunes?

Probably not.

Go follow Jesse Thorne.

Very famous.

Yeah, shout out to California prune ambassador and comedy genius Guy Branham, who inspired me to buy those California prunes at a local grocery store.

I've been eating them.

They're very fancy.

They're not just for old people who have internal problems.

They're also a very fancy treat.

On behalf of Guy Branham, on behalf of California Prunes, I'm Jesse Thorne.

Let's get back to the case.

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

Let me start by thanking our expert witness, Paul Shearer.

And it's true that a lot of what he

said resonated quite deeply with me.

Insofar as I am not a cold plunger, I don't have a thing in my house, but I have gone swimming in Maine.

And at its warmest, I asked a friend of mine who lives there year-round what her estimate would be of the temperature of the ocean in Maine in August at its warmest.

At its warmest, 64 degrees.

And very, very frequently, much lower.

And I know this because she, our friend Molly, Jesse, you've met her.

Yeah, Molly's cool.

Is a frequent winter swimmer,

going out when the water is 50, 40, 30 degrees, oftentimes when the water is warmer than the air in the middle of winter.

And I've never done it.

I've watched her do it.

She takes a lot of precautions.

She always goes with a friend.

Unlike Paul Scheer, she definitely dries herself off as soon as she gets out.

It's an immediate warm-up situation because it could be catastrophically hypothermic if you don't.

And she only goes in slowly and then comes out and doesn't take any risk of getting hypothermia or staying in there too long.

Very, very careful about it.

But

she has reported experiencing, and I dare say, though I am not a winter swimmer,

as a like early summer swimmer in Maine, what Paul Sheare reports is very true.

There is a huge psychological impact

in convincing your brain to go into that water, a massive sort of physical shock as you're in it and dealing with it, and an enormous sense of euphoric release as your body acclimates itself to the water, and then you feel comfortable in the water.

And when you come out, it's an enormously wonderful feeling.

And I think that

I make no claims as to the physical benefits, and I offer incredible warnings as to the possible downsides, which include not-for-nothing drowning and hypothermia and cardio shock.

I mean, consult your physician,

whether or not you're married to her.

You should consult your physician and make sure that cold plunging is right for you.

And by the way, it is plunging.

It is not sitting around forever.

It is a short period of time.

It is a it is a it is a

shorter experience than swimming would be, right?

And while I will not, I am not a doctor of internal or any kind of medicine, so I'm not going to make any claims to actual physical health benefits, but the psychological benefits are, I mean, it is a very meditative experience.

It really does

focus you entirely on the present.

And the psychological benefit of

breathing through and and reminding your body that you are going to survive this, I think, is huge psychological benefits to me that carry over into lots of areas of my life.

So, unfortunately for you, Dr.

Kelsey, I am pro-cold plunge.

The question here is

whether this is the best way for Thaddeus to do it and whether he will continue enough to do it in order to invest

in a commercial ice maker that is kept in the basement.

Now, you know, that Paul Scheer said that he was not in favor of that commercial ice maker.

And I will be very honest with you, nor was I.

Nor was I until I learned they made a pebble ice version.

Now I'm thinking about getting one

because I love, I love ice and I love pebble ice and you do too, Dr.

Kelsey.

So where, what's the, what's the losing proposition here?

350 bucks.

Maybe you get a coupon.

Maybe you wait until there's a coupon and you have this thing in the basement.

It gets Thaddeus off your lawn, and he'll just be chilling in the basement, chilling and draining in the basement.

It seems like a self-contained thing.

Why would I not order in his favor now that I know there's a Pebble Ice machine?

And here's the reason: as great as the Pebble Ice Machine might be, it hums.

Ice machines make noise.

One of my, and you know, I'm very lucky in this life that I found a career that afforded me enough financial security that I no longer need to sleep in the same room as a refrigerator.

And the fact of the matter is, though I'm sure your basement is fairly soundproof, although your crawl space is uninsulated, I'll remind you.

Knowing that you have a commercial ice machine running in your basement all the time,

it's going to remind you of it.

It's going to be chugging along there.

I don't think it will be ecologically more sound than buying ice, honestly.

And it's going to hum and it's going to make a noise.

And every time you have to go down into the basement, you're going to hear that hum.

And if Thaddeus isn't down there with that hum, cold plunging in that moment, you're going to think to yourself, why do we have this thing?

I don't necessarily believe Thaddeus will be down there plunging because you gave me the evidence of all the hobbies that have been cast aside.

And it's okay that he've cast them aside because he had fun with them for a while, but they're not plugged into your wall humming, reminding you all the time.

Didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't do it.

So I can't, in good conscience, rule in favor of getting that ice machine unless and until Thaddeus has proven

that cold plunging is now a part of his life.

Kelsey, you said a benchmark.

If he cold plunges for a month, three to five times a week, then you would consider an upgrade.

Then you would consider possibly buying some new equipment.

And I think that that is eminently fair.

And I think this is true about, frankly, any hobby that Thaddeus might want to take on and spend money on in the future.

Whatever hobby it might be, including cold plunging, before he can spend money on it, 100 cold baths within a timeframe that Kelsey feels is okay, because I don't want to do the math, that

is a commit, a commitment to a regular routine that proves that you're going to keep it up with that quick stop ice.

And then I would recommend that you get something like the sheer perfection that Paul Sheare has.

Something that can fit in a backpack, can go outside, that has an air chiller, that isn't relying on ice, that you can set up and use in good weather outside and bad weather inside.

To me, that's, I mean, I know that it's a high, high price, but I think that's a much, a much nicer way to take your cold bath.

Alternately, if you really feel at that point after

a hundred baths that you need to get that ice machine, make it a pebble ice.

This is the sound of a gavel.

The ice man cometh.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kelsey, do the math for me on how you're feeling right now.

I'm feeling pretty good.

I think the judge came up with a great solution and feel comfortable with it.

Thaddeus, how are you feeling?

I feel okay.

Usually when I get in a fight with Kelsey, this is the expected outcome.

But I think the judge is fair in his ruling.

I'm hoping Kelsey will give me time served for the existing 10 plunges I've done.

I'm excited to get in the tub and prove my mettle.

Well, I'm excited to hear how everything goes.

Thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

We'll have Swift Justice in just a second.

First, our thanks to Redditor

Banjo Solo for naming this week's episode Submerger and Acquisitions.

Join the conversation over on the Maximum Fun subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com.

We'll be asking for title suggestions there, so keep an eye out for those.

Evidence and photos from our show are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

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So make sure you go subscribe there as well.

Hey, I'm smiling because I want to say thank you to BWRP2016 over there on Apple Podcasts.

They left us a rating, and that rating was five stars.

BWRP 2016 says, There's not much that has been a consistent presence in my life for over a decade, but this podcast is one of those things I came for the silly squabbles and dad jokes and stayed for the camaraderie, which is true.

Thank you, Comrade Jesse.

Thank you, Comrade BWRP2016, for that wonderful review.

If you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts, why don't you go over there and give us a rating and a review?

It really does help new listeners find the show, as does just talking about the podcast to your friends or telling them about it wherever you get it, right, Jesse?

Yeah, no matter what podcast app you use, telling a friend about Judge John Hodgman makes a really huge difference for us.

And look, point somebody to the video if they like watching video, send somebody a clip from the video.

If that's what you're into, Share it on social media.

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

This episode engineered by Brad Burrow and Carly Farmer at RealMedia KC in Kansas City, Kansas.

Natty Lopez runs our social media.

Our video editor is Daniel Spear.

Our audio editor, A.J.

McKeon.

Our producer, the ever-capable Jennifer Marmer.

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

Snoom Maps 3172 on the Maximum Fund subreddit says, my partner hangs each individual measuring cup on its own hook inside a cabinet door.

The cups tessellate for a reason.

Congratulations, Snoon Maps3172 on knowing a terrific word.

Snoon Maps just goes, or Snoom Maps is like at the butcher and just says like, yeah, could you tessellate those steaks for me?

Yeah,

that's a great word.

And I'm inclined to rule in your favor just because of your vocab, but it doesn't matter if you're not the one cooking.

Whoever is the one using those cups gets to hang them or store them, however they want, however works for them.

It's their mise en place.

If that's yours, if that's your gig in the house, Snoop Maps, tessellate those cups.

Otherwise,

keep your nose out of those cups.

Hey, we had a wonderful expert witness today, Paul Scheer.

Paul, as you know, co-hosts the wonderful and hilarious movie podcast, How Did This Get Made?

And speaking of movies, we decided on this podcast that age 11 is the perfect time to watch William Friedkin's The French Connection.

But why not hear some more movie disputes?

Is your household split on the next movie night decision?

Are you absolutely sure that Rose had enough room for Jack at the end of Titanic on that door or whatever it was?

but your friend is equally sure that Jack had to drown.

Hey, if you're a fan of How Did this get made, when it comes to the movie Drop Dead Fred, are you Team Fred or Team Sanity?

Submit your movie cases to me at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

Indeed, submit all your cases.

It doesn't matter what it's about.

Right.

We got all kinds of places we need questions.

We're putting them on YouTube.

We're putting them in the podcast and in quick judgments.

We're using them for the main meat of the podcast all over the place.

Just send it in, you dingus.

Yeah, and you know what?

In the past, I've said this isn't about etiquette, this is about a dispute between one person.

Have you got an etiquette question?

Let me know.

You got a grammar question?

Let me know.

Maximumfun.org/slash JJ Ho.

Yeah, that's what it is.

What else do we have to say, Jesse?

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

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