Statute of Lamentations

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Statute of Lamentations, Martha brings the case against her husband, Doug.

Doug is a retired high school theater teacher.

His last production was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Three years later, he's still lamenting how good the show would have been.

Martha says, it's time to move on.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

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

There's a moment right before the second act begins where I would walk out in character and apologize for the show's glorification of reading, citing the dangerous influence of literacy on children.

Every night I'd asked for a show of hands from adults who read books for pleasure, and then I would single out one to berate them publicly.

One night an audience member raised her hand and I realized it was then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

So I have the honor of mocking one of our most prominent politicians for being, quote, a bookworm.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Martha and Doug, 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 had no part in the landmark School of the Arts 1998 production of Little Shop of Horrors?

It will be tough, but I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Well, Feed Me Seymour, here we are.

Martha and Doug, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

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

Martha, let's start with you.

Do you have a guess?

Wow.

I was racking my brain trying to think of...

A theatrical piece while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

Nothing is bowling to the surface.

So I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say perhaps a memoir by Shirley Jones about a revival of the music man while she was playing Marion the Librarian.

Marion the Librarian, the music man.

Jesse Thorne, you ever hear of that musical?

Not familiar, no.

Let me just make sure that I understand this.

You're thinking of a Broadway show, and this case is about a Broadway show.

So you're in the right ballpark.

What show is this case about?

It's about Matilda.

Matilda the Musical.

Okay, but I'll put in the music man.

Doug?

Oh, yes.

You want to take a swing at this?

I have no idea.

I don't think it's Matilda.

I don't remember anything of that from that show.

I immediately thought of Olympia Dukakis.

I don't know why.

I think we're all thinking of Olympia Dukakis most of the time.

Of course, I'm here in the studios of WERU in Orland, Maine, servicing Blue Hill and the area, 89.9 FM and WERU.org with our summertime sound mixer and producer, Joel.

Joel, Olympia Dukakis?

No, I think it's Sound of Music.

Sound of Music is your guess, Joel.

Good guess, Joel.

All right.

Here's what I have to say.

Martha and Doug, you are both very close.

But all guesses are wrong.

I led you down that road towards Matilda.

The quote is about Matilda, absolutely for sure, but it is not a quote from the show, Matilda.

And Doug, your guess with Olympia Dukakis was...

way

on base, if only because Olympia Dukakis, aside from all of the wonderful films and experimental theater theater productions she's been in, also is a guest on the TV show Bored to Death with me, though I did not share a screen or a bathtub with her as Zach Alfanakis did, but also featuring an actor named Matt Harrington.

And Matt Harrington was the second Mr.

Wormwood in Matilda the Musical on Broadway.

And if you remember, at least in the Broadway production and the original London production, which I saw, brag.

Mr.

Wormwood, that was a brag, Joel.

Hamilton.

Okay.

Mr.

Wormwood would come come out after the first act and do some crowd work and yell at the audience for liking books because his position was anti-book.

And I asked Matt Harrington if he had any fond memories of being Mr.

Wormwood in Matilda on Broadway.

And he said this was the memory that he remembered most fondly.

And in fact, he got to talk to Hillary Clinton again years later when he was in Leopold Stop, the Tom Stoppard play that just closed on Broadway.

She came to see that, came backstage, and he reminded her, yeah, I'm the one who yelled at you from the stage.

And she said, hmm, I've been looking for you.

Matt Harrington also said that he tried to corner Bill Clinton to talk to him about UFOs, but he chose not to at that time.

Okay, anyway, let's get down to this case.

And it is a case between you, Martha, and you, Doug.

You are a married couple, it says here, married for 35 years.

Yes, that's true.

It says here, you are a high school librarian, Martha, and Doug.

You are a retired high school film and theater teacher, both incredibly admirable careers.

And at the crux of this particular case, who brings this case to my court seeking justice?

Which one of you?

I do, Your Honor, Martha.

Martha, please step forward and state the nature of the dispute.

The nature of the dispute

surrounds Doug's final production as a high school theater teacher.

It was Matilda, which was scheduled to be performed in the third week of March of 2020.

They were in tech week when, if you recall your calendar correctly, all hell broke loose on planet Earth

and schools were closed as a result of COVID.

So the performances were canceled.

Right.

That was a very traumatic experience for Doug, rightly so.

He had put in a ton of work on the production.

And I was very sympathetic to his plight.

We're now three years plus

since that event.

And

I still hear multiple times a week about,

oh, if only we had been able to do Matilda.

There's still lots of complaining.

Matilda would have been much better than that.

What's he talking about in that particular circumstance?

Oh, it might be a kid singing, like, you know, if we're passing through and seeing a clip on American Idol or maybe some dance performance or maybe he sees a set somewhere.

Could be anything.

Could be anything.

Yeah, really.

You did a great job acting.

Thank you very much.

One of those times Jimmy Fallon sings like Neil Young.

Yep.

Yeah, for example.

Matilda, no offense, Jimmy.

Matilda would have been better than that.

Doug's production of Matilda probably would be better than that.

You said it.

And God forbid we see another high school play.

Doug, how did the cancellation happen?

How did it make you feel?

Tell me about it from your point of view.

There you are in Tech Week.

Week before tech, and we had everything working.

Set was coming along.

It was probably one of the more

complex things I did when I was at school.

And,

you know, the governor or whoever came on and said, well, it was a whole thing about whether schools and businesses would be closed and then things got worse and worse and worse.

And I kept thinking,

they're not going to close the school.

We'll be able to do it.

And sure enough, a week before we were to do the show or to have tech week and perform the show on a Thursday, the principal and all the administration, the superintendent, they all come in and said, we're going to have to talk to the cast.

So I get the cast together.

And, you know, they told me what was going to happen.

I was devastated and I got the cast together and told them.

We told them what was going to occur and they were devastated.

I was devastated.

My impression has always been, and it's pretty much universal, that high school theater kids tend to be very stoic and unemotional.

Right?

Probably wasn't the worst thing in the world that happened to them.

They were probably like, it's fine.

This guy goes.

Yeah, they sort of sat there for a bit.

I guess they were somewhat stoic.

Maybe it was more me that was upset about it than the kids were.

We did think we might be able to do it in May, but that never happened.

Probably in this particular instance, the truly heartbreaking news that the whole production was canceled may have been offset by the other part of the news, which is school's out.

There's no more school, which for about five minutes in the March of 2020 was kind of an exciting prospect until it became clear that it was miserable to not be able to go to school.

But Doug, you felt it very keenly, and tell me how you felt inside.

I felt really sad.

I did talk to the superintendent and, you know, hoping and wishing that we would be able to do it at some point.

Right.

So, yeah, I felt devastated.

Basically, you went to the superintendent of schools saying, this is all overblown.

Masks don't work.

It's all a government hoax.

Matilda is more important than public health.

Let's get in there and breathe on each other.

Basically, that's a pretty good way of describing it.

Well, you're passionate.

This was your production.

Yeah, absolutely.

What were some of the productions that you had done before Matilda?

One that you just spoke of, Little Shop.

Oh, yeah.

We did have a very large puppet.

It was excellent.

Incredible.

I mean, you taught, how many years did you teach?

How many productions did you put up there?

I came in on it.

I had a lot of goofy jobs before that.

I've taught about 12 years.

So I would say there at the school that I was, I did 10 productions.

I did maybe three more at the other high school I was at.

Those are just your musicals?

Yes, yep.

And we did,

you know, straight plays.

We did a straight play in the fall and the musical in the spring, as most schools do.

Right now, I want to focus on the fact that you have done all these productions, all these plays and musicals.

Was Matilda going to be the best?

That's a great question.

To me, I thought it would be the best.

I felt

I was going to have maybe another year before I retired.

I'm thinking,

this is the musical that

will make me, make my high school career.

So I thought, yes, I thought it would be one of the best.

And why?

Why, Matilda?

Why did you choose it?

Why did you think this is the one that's going to outshine everything?

Well, I saw it on Broadway.

Again, we took a group of kids to see it, and I just thought it was excellent.

I came home that night, and I remember it was in the, it was cold, it was December, I came in, I was singing one of the songs from it.

Grown-ups are awful, all grown-ups are terrible, unless they're perfect angels.

I'm every rolled doll.

I'm not going to try to lighten up that rolled doll shade.

He earned it.

So I thought that this would be a great musical for the kids and a very difficult musical.

And so I went right away and got the rights to it, which took a while through the school administration, got the rights and we were ready to go.

And once we started working on it, because the tech people were so enthused,

it really got, you know, really got me going.

I thought it was going to be fantastic.

Were you going to play Miss Trunchable, the evil teacher?

No, we had a really good young man playing Trunch Bull, and

I taught him everything that I knew, you know, how to play it.

How to be a cruel teacher?

Yes, that's what I did.

So he was excellent.

So the rug gets pulled out from under you.

Yeah.

And it's three years later, and it's still coming up.

You mentioned seeing a child sing on American Idol, Martha, as it might be a Matilda Regret prompt.

Or maybe there's a piece of paper in the road.

Like, what are some of the things that typically produce a groan of regret and what might have been in Doug?

Well, because Doug went to see the show on Broadway, and because I am a librarian and I frequently go to librarian conferences where there are lots of literary swag, we have Matilda artifacts around the house.

So on any given day, he might be triggered triggered by such an artifact.

He has a Matilda coffee mug that he uses most days of the week, so that can provoke it.

He has a pair of Matilda socks.

That can start it.

He has a Matilda t-shirt.

Or, as you say, some

random stimulus might get to him.

It could be something entertainment related or maybe a color that he sees.

Something will trigger that memory of Matilda and launch the lamentation.

What's the Matilda color?

Well, on his mug,

the Matilda color, that's a pink mug with purples and blues.

So anything in that color range might spark a Matilda

episode.

All right.

Yep.

Doug, do you happen to have 200 or more Matilda snow globes in your house?

No, I do not.

Although I wish I did.

We don't have to.

I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I'm not sure that your relationship with this Matilda merch is very healthy.

Is it still coming into your house, or was this all accrued in the run-up to the canceled production of Matilda?

It was accrued after the show.

After the Broadway pickets, in fact,

yes.

In fact, I've gone to many

librarian conventions, not because I'm a librarian, it's because Martha is, but.

Yeah, you're not some kind of creep.

No, no, no.

And sometimes they would have Matilda swag.

So the answer to your question, Judge, is it still has the potential to come in.

More can come, as long as I'm still working as a librarian.

And I would imagine that school librarians are pretty hot for Matilda because, Joel, you ever see Matilda?

No, I haven't.

So it's about this British girl who loves books and her parents hate books.

And she goes to a school where the teacher is really mean, except for one who's Miss Honey.

She's not a librarian.

That's true.

There is a librarian in it, but

it's a minor role.

Right.

Important.

Just like in a real school.

Wow.

Biting social satire on Judge John Hodgman, the musical today.

And anyway, and then the girl develops telekinetic powers and gets revenge on all the nasty adults in her life.

This musical is very hot for books, really into books.

So I can see why school librarians in particular are into Matilda.

And so the stuff is still coming into the house.

You know, you can stem that tide potentially.

I'm saying that to both of you, Martha and Doug.

I mean, i'm not blaming anyone either one of you for bringing more matilda stuff into the house but you know unless you're going to remount this thing eventually it might be good to start phasing out the matilda stuff just to be able to go through life without thinking about it too much you ever think about that doug um no i wear the socks from time to time not now because it's summer but uh i'll wear the socks from time to time are they woolen socks no they're they're like cotton socks you just like to keep the tootsies loose and free during the summer months

I suppose you could.

Yes, I do.

And the mug, I drink coffee out of it every day.

Doug, I can see you and Martha there in the studio in, I believe, Montclair, New Jersey.

Northern New Jersey is where this is all taking place.

That is the end media race of this story, right?

Yes, that's correct.

Since I can see you, I just want to confirm.

Can you please confirm by holding up your foot that you are not wearing socks?

I do have little petty socks or whatever they call them.

Oh, yeah, those low-rise socks, they count.

Yes.

Well,

I did consider wearing the Matilda socks today.

Yes, he did ask me if he should bring them.

I'm actually a little surprised you're not wearing Matilda knee socks pulled up over your cap.

What kind of Matilda fan are you?

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

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So Matilda gets canceled, and then you retire.

And then

your life in the theater is over at that point.

Pretty much.

Why?

Did you have to retire or did you want to retire?

No, we discussed it.

And because I did have about three months of

Zooming with students, and I could show movies through Zoom, which I did, but trying to do theater with many of my students was kind of rough with Zoom.

So that summer I decided

with Martha, I decided I think it's about time to retire.

I always thought possibly I could get back into community theater, and I did have in the back of my mind that someday I might be able to do Matilda, but that hasn't happened.

I have designed a set recently, but other than that,

I've only thought about doing Matilda.

It was for a show called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

And

yeah, it was done at a community theater in

Summit, New Jersey.

You're working at this community theater.

Why don't you try to get a Matilda going over there?

That's a good question, Judge.

Has Martha ever asked you that question?

Yes, she has.

Okay, what's the answer then?

I think I'm somewhat of a procrastinator.

I think I

also there's not a lot of places where we live where I think I could

get it moving.

And it was such a, again, it was such a wonderful experience working with my students that I guess the way I feel is that I don't know how good it could be.

I think I would be hearkening back to what was.

And Doug does have very high standards.

Well, not only hearkening back to what was, but what didn't happen.

Yes.

Yes.

And Martha mentioned that you have high standards, but Martha, do you think that it, you know, Doug probably a little bit better than I do.

A little, yeah.

Do you think that it's possibly painful for him

doing Matilda again with a new cast would be more pain than relief?

Emotionally?

I think it would be more painful only if he couldn't achieve the same caliber of excellence that it seemed that the ill-fated production was achieving.

He had a great partnership with an outstanding technical team at the high school, and I think he would be unlikely to find that in a community theater setting.

And in addition to

high school students

are better AV technicians than the people at the community theater.

Oh well no, the technicians at this production, they had full-time tech people at the high school, like professional tech people.

So

adults.

What kind of options?

And there were some kids that would help these adults.

I love the idea that it would be full-time kids, that they would pull kids out of high school.

The kids would love that too.

Sorry, you're not high school material, they would say.

However,

however, you could fly in a scrim.

Is this a public high school or a private high school?

It is.

No, it's a public high school.

Yeah, in an affluent New Jersey suburb.

I understand, but you're talking a...

To be fair, we did have kids running sound and the technical,

the professional technical people who were there would work with them and

supervising.

So we did have students doing those things.

In my previous job at another high school,

I did all the tech.

So we taught the students how to build what you needed to put into a set and I did teach a technical class there.

But at the second school I it was really great to have that professional crew to do these shows.

Are they still there at the high school?

They are not.

They all left.

All the tech people that were there have now gone.

Doug was the linchpin.

When he left, it all fell apart.

No.

Yes.

The answer is yes.

I agree.

Tell me more about that.

I mean, obviously, the students graduated and moved on with their lives, presumably.

Martha, do you think that the tech crew, like once Doug...

retired, they were like, what's the point in being here?

Well, from what I understand from Doug, they all have moved on to very interesting jobs still in their field.

But I think Doug, wherever he goes, establishes a great rapport with his coworkers.

But I think they would all look back on their days as a team together working on these shows as among the highlights of their careers.

And then Doug just abandoned them all, decided,

if not this year, then never.

School will never come back.

There's no chance that in-person school, there was a time it felt that way.

There's no chance anything is going to be back to normal again.

And yet, here I am now, for right or wrong, in the studios of WERU, just spitting in Joel Mann's face as I pass my sentences now.

But those factors contributed to Doug's decision to retire.

If you take yourself mentally back to August of 2020, we had to have the conversation mid-August.

Both of us were getting set to go back into a high school when COVID was still raging.

We didn't have a vaccine or any of that kind of stuff yet.

And we had to make the decision that it didn't make sense for two people, one of whom was of retirement age, to go back into a high school setting.

Yeah, and for sure, even if you had gone back to school in the fall of 2020, there's no way you could have done Matilda.

You can't have a theater show in that circumstance.

So I understand that.

Did you think about putting on one of those Zoom tributes to Stephen Sondheim that were popular at the time?

No.

But we did.

I did get the kids to do some videos that we sent out.

They did their songs from Matilda.

What have you been doing in your retirement aside from drinking your own tears out of your Matilda mug?

When I have the mug in my hand, it's wonderful.

No, I'm having a great time.

I enjoy retirement.

How do you pass your time?

You build a set for the other show.

I'm not saying that you have to be busy because I am married to a high school teacher, and I know that even with summers off, that is an incredibly time-consuming job when you're on.

It's very exhausting.

And I understand if you're spending your retirement just flat out doing nothing and reading books and farting around or whatever it is you're doing with your time, if you're having a good time, I don't judge it.

I'm just curious if you've got anything that you're working on that is preventing you, say, from buying a motorcycle and going around the country to find the members of the old tech crew and all the actors at their various colleges and such,

and getting the band back together so that you can finally complete this cycle in your life that is and close this wound that is oozing blood into your marriage, obviously.

I guess what I'm saying is, what are your hobbies?

Model railroading.

I read a lot.

But now that you just said that, I do sometimes feel like I wish I was back at school for some reason just so I could

do a final show.

Yes.

It's very nagging.

It nags at me.

And you're right about teaching, Judge.

It's an incredible taxing job as well as being a librarian.

I mean, model railroading isn't easy.

How big is your set, your model railroad set?

It's on top of a door.

One single door?

Yeah, it's maybe three feet by eight feet, I guess.

What is depicted or represented in the.

It's a farmland in New Jersey.

It's basically a rural setting.

Tiny apple picking, maybe.

Pretty much.

Yep.

I've been to the farmland in New Jersey.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, it is beautiful.

Yeah, and there's that one railroad that just goes in a circle there.

Now, Martha sent in some evidence, some photographs.

You're obviously a very capable builder.

Not only do we have a photograph of the model for your proposed stage set for Matilda, which looks terrific, and you can check it out at the show page at judgejohnhodgman at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram account, instagram.com slash judgejohodgman, but also photos of this dollhouse.

Tell me about this dollhouse.

What does this have to do with the case, Martha?

Oh, the dollhouse has been a work,

I'm going to use that term loosely, in production, I'll also use that term loosely, for 34 years.

Wow.

it was a gift to me on our first christmas in the house where we have spent our married life that was 34 years ago and it is still incomplete well let me say this based on these photos there are two photos yes one is of an interior sitting room with two little armchairs in a birdcage And this thing is beautifully appointed.

And

did Doug build this from scratch?

Well, he built the house.

He did not build the furniture pieces.

You see the flooring, the floorboards, the wallpaper, the electric lights.

He put all of that in.

And then he went to the dollhouse shop.

Sure.

And

together, I think we selected these furnishings and he installed the furnishings.

I think this room looks terrific.

And you obviously have a knack, Doug, for both micro and macro set dressing.

Although, I have to say, Doug, that as I look at this dollhouse, I see a door without an extra tiny New Jersey farmland on it.

It's true.

It's a real disappointment to me.

And then it should have an extra, extra tiny little house in it, which inside looks like this house.

How does it make you feel, Martha, when you walk by this unfinished dollhouse?

This incomplete gift, this house of empty rooms that your husband has failed to furnish for you.

Over the years, there have been times where it did cause a little pang in my heart, like maybe he didn't care enough to finish it.

But then I balance that out with all of the other very wonderful things that Doug is and does for me.

And

this little lapse is really minuscule in comparison.

So I'm at the point now where if it brings him pleasure to do it, then he can do it on his own time.

I've kind of outgrown

the interest in the dollhouse myself.

In my defense.

There is no defense.

You haven't finished it.

What is your defense?

In our house, it's very old, and there's no place really to work on it other than, you know, where I've been working on it, which is the dining room.

Our basement is a grotto.

In fact, the Model Railroad is in my shed.

So you have a few problems in getting these things done.

So, Doug, your defense for not finishing the dollhouse is that it's in the dining room?

I'm not sure I follow.

Well, again, some of the stuff that I do is going to create all sorts of dust and a mess.

So I have to work periodically.

How much mess are you making putting in swinging doors in the dollhouse?

No.

What kind of, what are you, sweeping up sawdust after you put the swinging doors in?

Teeny tiny broom.

First I have to put the straws into the teeny tiny broom.

I have to source them, build the broom, then with

into a teeny tiny dust pan?

Well, I have tiny saws that I use.

I do have small saws.

There's a place that you get saws and that I use for my railroad.

I think that place is called Small Saws R Us.

Doug, this house appears to be fully built.

What we're really talking about is purchasing and arranging tiny furniture.

Yeah.

Can't you just go to tinyfurniture.com and order some tiny furniture and then arrange it?

I bet Small Saws R.

Us probably can recommend a place.

Actually, it is.

It is in New Jersey.

It's a place that I get them from.

First of all, when you say it's in the dining room, is it in the middle of the dining room table?

It was.

Now it's on the side, this little shelf area, because again, in our house, we don't have a lot of closets.

So we have a little cabinet that's off to the left, and I've put it there for now.

And I will put it back on the table when I start working on it again.

Obviously, we're on a little bit of a side quest here, but I'm trying to get the sense from both of you.

And Martha, maybe you can answer.

Is the dollhouse itself a nuisance or is what it represents more of a distraction to you, Martha?

Oh, that's a very interesting question.

If it's an unfinished project in the middle of a dining room table, then that's sort of annoying, right?

Because you can't have people over for dinner or what have you.

You put this unfinished dollhouse on display on a side table in the dining room, then it becomes, I mean, it's pretty novelistic, right?

It's like, hey, we're going to have the Waltons over for dinner tonight and we can dine next to this novelistic representation of where our marriage is at.

How you gave me a gift that you never finished.

This is the perfect place to keep your glass menagerie.

But I think you have hit on something with, you know, what it represents.

And I think it is kind of a symbol of the tendency toward procrastination.

And maybe that's putting it

too gently.

And as Doug himself has said, a symbol of the hazards of perfectionism, not being able to ever achieve this level of excellence that you want.

So you just keep putting it off and putting it off.

So it's problematic in both ways, sort of, you know, physically and emotionally.

That's true.

Procrastination tends to be a term that describes not finishing or undertaking a chore or a task because it brings pain or displeasure, like doing your homework, which the tenane and displeasure there is self-explanatory.

Working on a dollhouse for your wife, when you have an affinity for building things and set designing and building things like model railroads, to me, it seems like there should not be a pain or displeasure there unless it is an emotional pain or displeasure.

Why does working on the dollhouse give you discomfort?

Is it perfectionism?

Is it a sense that you're never going to get it right?

That's a good question.

I think it's something that's just not a priority at this point.

It was, and I do want to finish it.

Not that the railroad was a priority.

It's just something I wanted to do and I always did.

And as a kid, I had model railroads.

Is the railroad finished?

It is.

So why is the railroad finished and the dollhouse not?

That's a good question.

That's a really good question.

I'm waiting for a really good answer.

I guess a model railroad is somewhat more visual, that it moves, it's somewhat like a play or a musical that you're working on, that it's sort of happening.

I guess the dollhouse, I always thought I'd finish it by the time I'm

80.

But

I don't really have a great answer for that.

I always think that I'm going to finish it.

I'm going to try to tie this back into Matilda, which is the reason that we're talking here, right?

When we talk about Matilda, are you sad that it got canceled due to COVID and then you retired and you couldn't do it?

Or are you sad because you are left with an incomplete feeling or lack of closure about the production or your whole career?

It's an incomplete feeling.

An incomplete feeling.

Did you feel that your career came to a satisfactory conclusion?

I did not.

But in many ways, I thought that that was the best thing I ever did.

Teaching was the best thing I ever did.

But I felt that because COVID just put an end to everything, and it's not just me, I mean, there are so many other things that were going on, but I felt that other teachers had the opportunity to retire properly or people had the opportunity to end things or finish things

without them being stopped by something that was so horrific.

I'm getting too detailed here, but

Yeah,

I feel like I did well in what my career was in the last 12 years.

It's just that I wish it ended a little bit better.

A finishing point, something that really

ended what I was doing and that I felt good about.

I was going to say, I think, you know, Doug being a drama teacher, I think his expectation was that he would like to go out with a bang.

And what happened was he kind of went out with a whimper.

And he's not just a drama teacher, he's also a drama king.

It's pretty dramatic.

Yes.

Can I ask you a question, Martha?

Yes.

So, the reason that there's a funeral when somebody dies isn't just that they got to get in the ground somehow.

It is a ceremony or a ritual that provides for the living an opportunity to recognize the absence in their life and allow it to be, you know, a fond memory rather than exclusively a loss.

Do you think that there is

any kind of ritual or ceremony that could give your husband something like that feeling?

I've wondered about that too, because this is bundled up with not only the loss of the production, but also the loss of his career, right?

His professional life went away at the same time.

And often that's marked by, say, a retirement party or something along those lines.

You know, maybe we could have a retirement retirement party to sort of put an exclamation point at the end of Doug's career.

So that it would be Doug's career exclamation point, the musical.

May I ask you a personal question, Doug and Martha.

Have either of you either together or separately been in therapy?

No.

I have.

Interesting.

Martha, when Matilda comes up for Doug, what is your reaction?

These days, I usually ignore it.

Sometimes there might be a physical reaction, like my eyes rolling into the back of my head.

But now that we're into this for three years, I don't really give it life.

Yeah, but when someone does something that annoys you in your marriage, even if it's someone you love very much and especially if it's someone that you live with, and you don't say anything about it, that doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.

That doesn't mean that you don't have feelings about it.

For example, when Doug moans and mopes, even though you're not saying anything about it or giving it life, Does it make you feel something?

Yeah, I mean, I find it irritating.

It's not the way I work in the world to hang on to things forever and bring them up repeatedly, but it is the way he works in the world.

And I know that when he's voicing it, it's going to be short.

It's temporary.

I know it'll come again.

But in that moment, I don't want to fan those flames and make it something bigger than it needs to be, especially by making it be about me.

And what would you have me order if I were to rule in in your favor?

How would I force Doug to look forward rather than what seems to be a fairly ingrained personality trait, which is that he kind of dwells and mopes on the past?

Does he dwell and mope on the past in other areas or just Matilda?

Well, he does have a tendency to mope, but not for this extended period of time.

It's usually there's an end to it.

You know, he'll move on to something else.

So this is unusual.

I think it could be helpful for him to have a project, to have a plan, to have a deadline for something.

So I don't know if there's anything that you could think of that maybe you could, I don't know, order him to work on.

Oh, yeah.

With a deadline.

I'm thinking about that very seriously.

Yes, that's right.

Okay.

Maybe after three months, you could light his door on fire.

That's a possibility.

When you moan into your mug, now that you hear what Martha's feelings inside are, how does that make you feel about your behavior?

It makes me feel like I'm a pest.

You know,

it's hard to not...

I like to express myself to her, and I don't always realize that I'm ⁇ you know, like, why don't you just keep it to yourself?

You know, so

but you know, so I can see what she's saying.

And I can be pesty about, we're talking about Matilda.

I am,

I bring it up to friends even.

You know, if we're out, I always bring it up.

So

is that true?

Like, if you are out with friends, Martha, how does Doug bring it up at the dinner table?

Oh, it's 100% true.

For instance, if we were to have just met you, Your Honor, as we have, but if we did so in a social setting, usually the idea of, well, what do you do or what are you retired from comes up, and people are often fascinated by the fact that Doug was a high school drama teacher.

Once they latch onto that, it's usually within three minutes that the absence of Matilda will come up as the topic of conversation.

Yeah.

And are they equally fascinated by that?

Not so much.

Not so much.

No.

No.

Doug, do you want to be over it?

I mean, the ruling that you asked for is that you be allowed to continue to mourn.

Is this a good feeling for you, or would you like to be past it?

As much as I like the memory, I would love to be past it.

I think everything that everyone has said is very true.

But sometimes I like to let people know: hey, I did this, I did that, I have all these shows that I did, and

I like you to know that I did that.

Well, this is not a zero-sum game.

Yeah, I'm not asking you to give up your memories.

I'm just asking, like, the feeling of pain around it is something you would like to get beyond.

Do I understand that correctly?

Yes, that's correct.

And I'm not quite sure that pain, I think pain might be too strong a word.

I think it's some.

No, it's perfect.

It's a perfect word.

I gave you the perfect perfect word.

But yes, I.

You feel frustration that it's not as important to Martha or me or your dinner table companions that Matilda did not happen as it's not as important to them as it is to you.

Is it a feeling of frustration or just a wishing?

I wish it were as important to them.

Yeah, I guess it's frustration.

I guess it goes back to if people saw the show, then I wouldn't be the,

if we actually did it, I wouldn't be this frustrated about it.

So, you know, it's all in my brain.

You know, it's all, it's, I saw it up to the point when I was looking at the kids that day and saying, we're not going to do it.

So it all comes back to me that way.

But I wouldn't say it's, it's, it's pain so much.

It's, it's more, it didn't come to fruition that it just in the, it sort of nags at me.

It's a nagging.

It's a nagging thing.

A nagging thing, yeah.

Like an itch that you can't scratch.

Yeah, and I don't know whether I mentioned this before, but when I was Zooming with the kids, I had one meeting with them.

They weren't that interested in doing it.

Why do you think they weren't as interested in bringing Matilda back?

I think it goes back to what you guys said before.

Their minds go to the next thing.

It's going to be the next show next year.

We're going to be able to do it, even if we're doing it with masks.

So I think they go do their own thing, and that's just the way they are.

It's like they moved on.

Pretty much.

It's like they moved on like monsters do.

Did they want to do something else?

Was there something else in mind?

Or did anything but Matilda?

They wanted to do Clue, and I said, that ain't going to happen.

Wow.

Why are you so anti-Clue?

It's not amusing.

Right?

I mean, we're talking about an adaptation of the movie based on the board game.

I'm asking you, I don't know why you're laughing.

I'm asking you.

Yeah, no, I agree with you.

That's exactly the reason I said, no, we're not doing doing that.

But they went on and did it.

So that's fine.

You know, and they did whatever they had to do.

They did what they had to do.

They did what they had to do.

I don't resent them.

They did what they had to do.

If they had to make Clue, fine.

I have no regrets, no resentments whatsoever.

They don't want to give up on the greatest production of Matilda that ever would have been on the boards in northern Jersey.

That's fine.

I'm just going to be over here with my little saws, grinding a tiny little axe.

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

I'm going into my dressing room now.

I'll think it over.

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

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits from the courtroom.

Oh, Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer.

Yes, Jesse.

What color MMs are in his dressing room?

Just brown ones, right?

Just brown ones.

Oh, I thought you wanted the tan ones.

I was in just brown room

or whatever.

Damn it.

Who got this dressing room together for me?

Martha, how are you feeling about your chances well i think i'm feeling pretty good that there will be a judgment that acknowledges uh my position i'm not sure that i'm going to see a change in the behavior though how are you feeling doug i um feel good about it i feel good about talking about it and um which i haven't really done that much other than to you know think think about not having it done.

So I think the judge will go to my favor.

Yeah, I feel good about it.

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

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

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

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

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

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

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Law.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

The Van Freaks Road Show is headed your way.

That's the most ambitious Judge John Hodgman tour in history.

We're going to Dublin, Republic of Ireland, London, and then London again with Jordan Jesse Goh, by the way.

That's not even talking about all the cities we're about to hit in the United States, Midwest, and East Coast.

Can I see if I can micro-machines the cities since it's the Van Freak Trojo?

What would be more Van Freaky than that?

Lexington, Chicago, Madison, St.

Paul, Austin, Atlanta, Durham, Charlottesville, Washington, D.C., Portland, Boston, and Brooklyn, New York City.

That's fun.

I'm going to do that too.

Lexington, Chicago, Madison, St.

Paul, Austin, Atlanta, Durham, Charlottesville, Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York.

I got triped up because I started adding the states.

That was a mistake.

This really is our biggest tour ever.

And we need you not only to come out, but to submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

All of the ticket information is at vanfreaksroadshow.com.

We've already booked,

we're already booking antiques roadshow experts on this tour.

Yeah.

Yeah, just to be clear, we're the van freaks and we're on a roadshow because we love antiques roadshow and we love Mitsubishi Delica Japanese adventure vans.

We are currently booking antiques roadshow appraisers to be on stage.

If you have a Mitsubishi delica and you bring it to the show, I will get in your van.

And if you have a case that we hear on stage,

then

we'll get to hang out and you can even, you know, maybe enjoy some of the cheese cubes that they give us backstage or whatever.

If you live in one of those cities, not only should you rack your mind as to whether you have a problem with anybody, but why not post something on Facebook or Twitter?

Jesse and John are looking for people with problems because I bet that you're like cousin or or something that lives in Lexington, Kentucky, or your uncle that lives in Charlottesville, Virginia has a very weird and baroque issue with somebody else that you should be submitting at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Yeah, think about your weird dad

or your fun uncle, your sibling, your roommate, your mom, your stepmom, whoever's in your life is doing something wrong whom you love, but you want to have a little fun with them on stage.

VanFreaksRoadshow.com.

I'm just going to be very clear here.

We have not meaningfully been out on the road like this for a long time.

The show is a lot of fun.

I dare say that in the past couple of years, we have gained quite a few new listeners who have never, ever, ever been to a Judge John Hodgman live show.

It is a lot of fun.

It is a lot of audience participation.

It is also a nice time for young adults to join their parents in a little mutual loving ribbing.

We're as clean on on stage for the most part as we are here in the studio.

So come on out.

Join us on the Van Freaks Road Show by going to vanfreaksroadshow.com.

Find a place where we're going.

Go get there and bring us your beefs.

We have stage elements.

We have musical elements.

We have costumes.

Costumes.

We have live cases.

We have yelling at audience members on behalf of other audience members.

That's true.

We have all the things you're looking for in a Broadway Smash, but we're bringing it to your hometown.

Come along with us on the Van Freaks Road Show.

All the tickets, all the details, and of course, the link for submitting your cases is at vanfreaksroadshow.com.

See you out there.

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

I'm not coming out.

Judge Hodgman.

I'm not coming back.

There's people waiting for you.

The M ⁇ Ms are wrong.

I'm not coming back.

The M ⁇ Ms are wrong, and the temperature is too cold in here.

I'm wearing a sweater eating the wrong M ⁇ Ms, Jesse.

How can I work in this environment?

I'm sorry.

Look, because I'm a professional, I'm going to come back in.

All right, fine.

Thank you.

Believe me, you're going to be hearing from my representative.

We have the same representative.

Yeah, he's going to be talking to himself.

And seen.

You know, I was in my dressing room and I was thinking to myself about the great career of Olympia

And I recalled a little movie she was in called Moonstruck, written by John Patrick Shanley.

Oh, I see.

It's a good movie, and everyone should watch it.

I feel like people aren't watching Moonstruck enough these days.

But the point is, I was thinking about Olympia Dukakis, and I think I'm remembering this correctly.

Share has fallen in love with Nicolas Cage, and it's a disaster because she's engaged to Nicholas Cage's older brother, played by Danny Aiello.

And she finally confesses to her mom, Olympia Dukakis, I'm in love.

And Olympia Dukakis says, get over it.

That's what Martha wants to yell at you.

Get over it.

Get over it.

Watch that movie.

Get over it.

And there's part of me that wants to yell at you about that too.

Part of me that wants to yell at you about that too.

Get over it.

But the reality is that mourning and grief take their own time.

And it is really challenging to grieve properly for something that is lost when there is no ceremony or,

you know,

act of putting something to rest, such as a funeral, as Jesse was mentioning.

You know,

the way you celebrate something coming to an end in the theater is you put it on stage, you do it, and then you have a cast party, and then you get out of there.

Then you get over it.

You're over it.

A lot of things that we lost, a lot of time and people and other great losses because of this pandemic, we couldn't properly acknowledge their passing, and that's hard.

Obviously, theater is just a thing.

It's a thought.

It's a small thing compared to a lot of the other things that were lost, but it's meaningful to you, Doug, and rightly so, because it was something you were very invested in, something you had put a lot of work into.

It was coming at the end of a career that you care a lot about and still do.

And what makes it even doubly problematic is that a theater, unlike, you know, film or television or a book, theater exists in a moment in time.

It exists in the moment that it is performed on stage.

And even if you do the exact same show with the exact same cast the next night, or in your case, on March 21st, the matinee, 2 p.m., I have the old poster here.

Even if you were to the exact same performance, the exact same cast, it's not going to be the same as that night before.

And nothing's ever the same as the final night, the closing night of the show, 7 p.m., March 21st.

It never happened.

At the Performing Arts Center at Reducted Name Regional High School.

There was part of me that thought, oh, I got a perfect solution here.

He should get that motorcycle and get the gang back together.

Not necessarily to remount Matilda the musical, but maybe just do a concert.

You know, maybe get the kids back when they're back from college, visiting their folks or whoever, as much as the cast that will come back, maybe over a school holiday and book a theater, just

do a reading, a staged reading, the show in concert, as they say in the musical circles.

And then you would have that closure.

But then I learned those kids don't even want to do that.

These creeps have done what you cannot do.

They have moved on with their lives, not only to Clue, but to other, whatever else is in their life.

This was a disastrous idea for you to retire, Doug.

I have to tell you.

When you learned that those kids didn't want to do Matilda, it was not time for you to go gently into that good night.

I realize that it made sense on paper, but look at you suffering the loss.

I mean, getting through a career and coming to an end, it's not something that I've done, but I know someone who's getting close to it and you've gone through it and I've talked to people gone through it.

It's wildly disorienting.

And when you mope around with your Matilda mug, I mean, you are grieving that show that you cannot get back.

You can never get it back.

It would be folly to even try.

Even if you were to mount it at the community theater, I realize now it would be folly to even try.

You wouldn't be able to get it back.

It's going to be open-ended for the rest of your life.

And when you're moaning around with that mug, you're also moping, you know, that

unceremonious, literally unceremonious end to that career.

Just as your students who are seniors had an unceremonious end to their high school career, they did not have a graduation, you know, but they don't care because they're young and they can move forward and they've got lots ahead of them.

Whereas you are just cruising right into retirement, which is a hard enough thing to cope with.

So my first...

and very serious sentence without passing judgment on either of you is to go to a place of no judgment called therapy and talk this through.

You got to find someone to talk about.

Because I'm in here, you know, I've had a wonderful time talking to you, Doug, and I can tell that you want to talk about this stuff.

I'm not a licensed therapist.

I'm a fake internet judge.

You should speak to a licensed therapist to work through some of these feelings.

Because I think that more than any act of a party or a relaunch of the thing or whatever, that's going to help you come to terms with the fact that sometimes there is a, you know, something is lost and there's no way to honor it properly.

And the only thing you have to do is just get over it in time.

You know, let that pain subside.

Now, I want to talk to you about procrastination too.

Procrastination is a term that we use and we kind of sneer at it, right?

Like it's a pedestrian thing that kids do when they don't want to do their homework or they don't want to do their chores.

People say, stop procrastinating, like it's nothing.

Like you just turn it off, right?

And I didn't understand how weighty procrastination really is until I heard Linda Barry, the cartoonist, talk about procrastination.

I mean, it destroys you.

Why should you put off doing something that you love to do?

Why do you put off doing something like finishing a dollhouse when it speaks to all of your pleasures in life?

The constructing of little sets, the using of little tools, the expression of love for your wife, whom you clearly do adore.

Why can't you finish it?

Why are you putting it off?

And the answer is that there is some feeling that is unpleasant when you consider setting down to work at it.

The reason that I procrastinate writing sometimes for years is the absolute conviction that I have that when I sit down to write, I will not be able to do it.

I can't do it anymore.

I have no ideas.

I will never have another idea.

I will never see my way through something.

And this has been proven time and time and time and time and time again.

When I sit down to write and I force myself and I'm uncomfortable and I don't like the feeling of it that when I sit down and I start to write, it's fine.

Not only is it fine, but it's great.

It's actually one of the most pleasurable things I can do in this life, not only because it isn't as hard as I thought it would be.

It tends to be fairly easy once you get moving, but also because it is a deep, deep, deep pleasure that is far outweighs the superficial pleasure that I get out of reading Am I the Asshole on Reddit.

Very superficial pleasure.

Can't stop that.

I don't procrastinate on.

There's no pain going to it.

There's a pain surrounding your memory of Matilda, and there's a pain surrounding the finishing of this dollhouse.

I am sure of it.

And if you explore it with a therapist, I think that you will be able to have a better grasp on what that pain is and how to deal with it.

Now, for Linda Berry, she feels the same anxiety and procrastination around creativity, even though it is the thing that she is the best of the world at and she loves doing it.

When she sits down to draw, she faces that same blank page and is like, I don't know how I can do it.

And what she does, and and I've talked about it on the podcast again, is to just draw spirals or doodle, something that has absolutely nothing to do with ideas or creativity.

And for whatever reason, the brain locks in and remembers the simple muscle motion of the hands and starts giving feedback that then becomes creativity and the work itself.

And then it's, and then it's easy.

There is a measure of forcing yourself to sit down and do it, but what is the equivalent for you when it comes to that dollhouse?

Because what you need in your life, Doug, is an opening night.

You need a deadline.

You said it yourself.

If there were a deadline, you probably would do it.

You know, when theater is happening, there is a profound physical transformation.

You are stepping out and the audience is there waiting for you.

And it may be terrifying, but the minute you step out on stage, your reptilian brain tells you you are going to do this and it's going to get done.

And you do it.

You need an opening night.

You were robbed of that opening night.

It nags you to this day.

I don't blame you.

I don't know that it's fair to continue to bore Martha with your sadness.

Go bore a therapist.

That's what you pay them for.

But you need an opening night.

I don't know how to give that to you with Matilda.

I don't think there is a possibility.

But with regard to this dollhouse, I can give you a deadline.

It's got to be done.

I don't know, Martha.

When has it got to be done by?

Well, since it was originally intended as a Christmas present, maybe by this Christmas.

This Christmas.

Yep.

I would do it.

I would get it done by a week before Christmas.

You know?

And then he could have an opening night because we always host Christmas Eve.

Right.

And our Christmas Eve could be Unveiling of the Finished Dollhouse.

Unveiling of the Finished Dollhouse.

I like it.

And by the way, you two, I'm going to put some heat on this.

Opening night, I want you to broadcast it on Zoom.

I'll be there.

I'll be there for the unveiling of the dollhouse.

Fine.

I don't know, Jesse, will you be there?

Yes or no?

Maybe.

I don't know.

Are there any apples in it for me?

I have a plus plus one, so yeah.

You can have some tiny apples.

We'll do it.

Well, I'm committing to it.

Are you committing to it?

Oh, I'm totally committing to it.

Okay.

There we go.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Missy mole.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Martha, how are you feeling?

I feel great.

I think the judge did a wonderful job of acknowledging Doug's feelings and coming up with some practical ideas.

I hope Doug will take him up on the idea of therapy.

And I'm looking forward to the opening night on Christmas Eve of the dollhouse.

Doug, how are you feeling?

Good, better.

I didn't think I was going to feel this good at this point.

But the judge is a wise person.

I'm going to take his suggestion.

And as I said before, I like the idea of getting this done at a specific time.

And I think, too, if I have to look to the future and understand that maybe

a production of Matilda might happen someday, you know.

So

I'm very thankful for the judge.

Do you think your door could have like a little

hayride and little tiny apples?

Absolutely.

Cool.

Why not?

Doug, Martha, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

It was wonderful.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

We'll have swift justice in just a second.

First, our thanks to Ski Walker on Reddit for naming this week's episode Statute of Lamentations.

Join the conversation over there at the Maximum Fun subreddit.

That's at maximumfund.reddit.com.

We ask for our title suggestions there.

Keep an eye out for those.

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

So you can follow us there.

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

This episode engineered by David Amlin at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey, and Joel Mann at WERUFM in Orland, Maine.

Our social media is run by Marie Bardy.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now here's Swift Justice.

Case

one

on the Maximum Maximum Fund subreddit says, I'm a high school English teacher.

I teach my students that the Oxford comma is mandatory.

One of my students, however, insists it is optional.

He takes every possible opportunity to advocate for his false opinion.

Well, the Oxford comma, of course, or also known as the serial comma, is when you're listing things and you say, like, I got a bag of chips, comma, an apple, comma, and a soda.

Sometimes that last comma is dropped.

So I got a bag of chips, comma, an apple, and a soda, no comma.

That would be not using the serial comma or the Oxford comma.

It is called the Oxford comma because using the Oxford comma when listing items, that last comma in a series of items, is part of the style guide for Oxford University Press.

And that's a pretty good university.

That said, just because it's used by Oxford University doesn't mean that it is, sorry to say, Keska 1 mandatory.

Indeed, it is not used.

It is not part of the style guide for, say, the New York Times or the New York Times magazine, where the Judge John Hodgman column net runs every week.

Now, I myself do use the serial comma because it can clear up some misunderstandings.

The misunderstanding that Wikipedia gave, for example,

was particularly good.

If you are dedicating your book, and this is from Wikipedia's example, you could dedicate your book to my parents, Ayn Rand, comma, and God.

But if you do not use the Oxford comma and don't put that comma between Ayn Rand and God, it would sound like I'm dedicating my book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God, but very specific.

That's Ted Cruz's campaign book dedication.

Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is it is recommended in certain style guides, including Strunken White by good old E.B.

White, resident of Maine, but it is almost never considered to be mandatory.

And you can make it mandatory in your classroom, case school one.

It is the style guide of your classroom.

And frankly, I like it.

But unfortunately, we are descriptivists, not prescriptivists here.

And evidence does not back up the fact that it is mandatory as a worldwide rule.

We are creatures who made up language.

There is no natural law to it.

And unfortunately, as much as it pains me to join your student against you, it is not in the world mandatory.

Hey, we've talked a lot about the workplace of high schools.

A lot of people don't work in a high school.

Some people work in an office.

Some people are working from home.

We're looking for your workplace disputes.

Disputes about work-from-home Zoom etiquette.

We're talking about break room infractions, shared fridge stealing situations.

How casual is too casual for a Friday?

Maybe you work in a restaurant.

I'd love to hear some disputes between front-of-house and back-of-house.

Gig workers are also welcome to air their grievances if you drive a DoorDash or Uber or what have you.

Let us know what your disputes are with your fellow coworkers, with your bosses, with the world.

Just send them in.

Your workplace disputes to maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

And that's not the only disputes we want to hear about, right, Jesse?

Wait, hold on.

Jennifer is staring daggers at me.

I'm pretty worried about this situation.

Uh-oh.

What are her workplace disputes?

Looks to me like she's typing in maximumfund.org slash JJHO on her alt account, high school teacher Jane Doe.

Send us those workplace disputes.

And hey, any dispute, we'll take any dispute, of course, at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

No cases too small.

We love to hear what you're beefing about at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

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

Hey, it's your Judge John Hodgman.

You'll remember last week in our episode titled Disbard, I ordered Howie, the bard of the YCC camp up there in Montreal, to write and record an apology song for his friend Mark, whom he had called out in song in front of campers and counselors from three separate camps over 20 years ago.

Howie was very happy to comply and did a wonderful job and offered us lifetime free consultation on matters of Canada's constitutional law, which he is an expert in.

But meanwhile, here's the song.

The day

was filled

with all the thrills of newcomb ball.

Hockey was fun,

swimming

all done.

Then it was time to sing our song

And when I sang Captain Jimara

Why don't you sit on down

I felt a thing you didn't share it

As I played the clown

But I see it now

I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings

During the festival of sports

I didn't know that you were reeling on the indoor basketball court.

It wasn't right

under those halogen lines.

So forgive me, Mark.

You forgive me, Mark.

Thank you so much, Howie.

Thank you so much, Mark.

I hope that your camp wounds have healed.

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