Subarule of Law

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Subaru of Law.

Sophie brings the case against her husband, John.

John would like to get a Subaru Baja.

Sophie's worried his dream car includes a manual transmission.

She doesn't want to have to learn how to drive stick in order to drive his car.

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.

The stars nestle up against one another, clustered and shining.

In the silent emptiness of the universe, they brightly twinkle on because they still believe that their sparkle will reach someone someday.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Sophie and John, please rise and raise your right hands.

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

So help help you, God, or whatever.

Yes.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he lacks a convenient truck bed?

Yes.

Yep.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I don't even have a four-foot truck bed.

I don't even have a Subaru Baha-length truck bed.

A mini bed, as it were.

The smallest of beds.

It's not a king.

It's not a California king.

It's not a king.

It's not a queen.

It's not a double.

It's a twin.

It's a twin bed of truck beds.

But we're going to get into all that in a minute.

John and Sophie, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment on these favors.

Can I ask you, what was the piece of culture that I was referencing as I entered this fake internet courtroom?

Sophie, what is your guess?

I'm going to say,

what's the name of the Carl Sagan space show that he did?

Cosmos.

Cosmos.

I'm going to say Cosmos.

The stars nestle up against one another, clustered and shining.

Cosmos.

That's a really good guess.

That's a good guess.

I'm going to put it in the guess book.

John, do you have a good guess or a bad guess?

I know you love, I saw you enjoying the title Suba Rule of Law.

That's good.

Yeah.

Pretty good.

I have a pretty bad guess.

Let's hear it.

It's Herbie Fully Loaded.

Herbie

Fully Loaded.

I believe starring Justin Long, right?

The very same.

Lindsey Lohan, yeah.

Lindsey Lohan and Justin Long and Michael Keaton and Matt Dillon and Brecken Meyer and Thomas Lennon and Cheryl Hines.

Herbie fully loaded.

Not the remake of Herbie the Love Bug starring Bruce Campbell.

That was that was that no one remembers that one, but I do.

I remember you, Bruce.

Well, guess what?

All guesses are wrong.

Both guesses in this case are wrong.

I was quoting, obviously, from the four-episode short-form anime cartoon cartoon released in 2011 called Wish Upon the Pleiades.

Familiar with that one, John or Sophie?

Nope.

Nope.

It was produced by the, I don't know if I'm saying this correctly, Gaynax or Gainax, G-A-I-N-A-X

Studios, in conjunction with the automaker Subaru.

Now, why did Subaru

produce an anime about a schoolgirl in Japan named Subaru

who comes across a group of magical girls and herself becomes magical, and together they search for fragments of a spaceship belonging to an alien from the Pleiades constellation.

Do you have a guess, Sophie?

Isn't Subaru, doesn't that mean something?

I saw it in the Twitter about naming the show, so it's not really fair.

You're so close, but tell me what you've already, both of you have already lost.

We've already ruled that everyone should, should be able to drive a manual transmission.

So see, I didn't know that when I submitted the case.

No, I know.

But we're going to have some fun anyway, because I think there's some other issues to pry into here in your personal lives.

But I like where you're going with this.

What is it about Subaru?

It means the Pleiades, right?

It means the Pleiades.

Their logo.

And it's logo.

That's exactly right.

Subaru translates to...

And

I don't know if this is absolutely true.

If you speak Japanese, I could be wrong.

I'm getting this information from the website for the Subaru dealership in Ellsworth, Maine, that happened to have this information on it.

Subaru means united in Japanese.

And Subaru is also the name for the Pleiades star cluster because it's a cluster of close clusters of stars, which you can see with the naked eye.

And that in turn inspires the Subaru logo, John.

which is these five stars, which allude to the five companies that merge, excuse me, six stars, because there are five companies.

The five little stars are are the five companies that merged to create the one big company that owns Subaru, which is Fuji Heavy Industries.

And they created that logo.

And there's the Pleiades logo that is the logo of Subaru.

Subaru, of course, being the favored car of New England, a region of southeastern Canada, which I know that Jesse Thorne is very familiar with.

I don't know.

I've never heard of it.

Stanley Subaru, by the way, has some, I was looking to see maybe if they had a Subaru Baja in their fleet for you, John.

Stanley Subaru and Ellsworth.

I just drove by them on the way to the movies the other weekend.

I was in Maine for a short period of time.

Drove by them.

I always look at those Subarus.

But the only thing they have before 2008, weirdly, is a 1980, a beautiful 1980 International Scout 2.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Looks great.

Orange exterior, tan interior.

And also they have a, for some reason, they have a

1997 inflatable dinghy for $1,600.

Gray exterior, gray interior.

Check it out.

Dinghy value.

That's great.

That's good value for a dinghy.

Okay, so.

Good year for dinghies.

We have John and Sophie before us.

John, your dream is to get a Subaru Baja.

Why is that your dream?

Well, it is kind of like my car now, except instead of a wagon, it has a nice truck bed that I could put my gear in, go to the dump with a bunch of lawn stuff.

And it's just,

I don't like very large trucks.

And this is a car-size truck.

So it's like it's built for me.

Right.

And so when you say it's like your current car, I presume you have a Subaru outback.

Indeed.

Because the Baja was based on the Outback platform.

And we'll talk more about the specs of the, and frankly, the horrible history of the Baja with an expert witness that we're going to bring on very soon.

But in the meantime,

you might basically want an outback, but you want to tear off the trunk.

You want to tear off the top of the back.

Yeah.

And it seems like it'd be more expensive to have somebody do that with mine than it would be to get one.

You want an outback with a no-back.

Yeah.

It's the back part that's the issue of the outback.

Absolutely.

That's what everyone, that's what every outback owner says after they've driven their car for 900,000 miles.

I wish this thing had an open trunk.

Sophie, why don't you want this Subaru Baja?

By the way, we should get money from Subaru.

Don't you agree?

We should get money from Subaru for this one.

It's a lot of buzz marketing for Subaru.

It's a lot of buzz marketing for Subaru.

And I don't own a Subaru, but I have owned them in the past and they're good cars.

So give me some money.

I also have a Forester, so we're Subaru people.

Subaru got money from me when I bought my mom a Subaru.

You bought your mom a Subaru?

What kind of Subaru did you buy your mom?

Subaru Outback.

Subaru Outback, one of the classic Subarus.

And you're telling me, Sophie, that you have a Forester, so you're a Tubaroo family?

Yep.

Fantastic.

What year is your Forester?

2010.

2010.

Okay.

What year is your outback, John?

Also 2010.

Also 2010.

Okay.

Because you realize that, well, Bajas have not been made for a long time.

Yeah.

You would have to go back in time to get one.

Only four years compared to mine.

Only four years compared to you.

All right, fine.

Sophie, why don't you like the idea of getting this Baja?

If you love Subaroos so much.

Many reasons.

And I don't even love Subarus that much.

We didn't mean to be a Tubaroo family, but it just sort of happened.

Where in New England do you live?

Surprisingly, there's a lot in Wisconsin.

Is that where you are?

In Wisconsin, yes.

In Green Bay.

They're exporting Subarus from New England to Wisconsin now.

That's great.

Cool.

They have to stop somewhere on their way to Portland.

Yeah, they just fall off the truck in Green Bay on the way to Portland, Oregon.

I guess the biggest reason is I don't want to drive stick.

We already have a perfectly good car that is automatic, and

I'm scared to drive stick.

It seems hard.

And I already had a very, very hard time learning how to drive the first time around.

I didn't get my license until I was 23.

And it took a long time.

I had to take like professional driving lessons and

a lot of anxiety surrounding driving.

Look, getting your driver's license at the age of 23, there's no shame there.

But did you grow up in Wisconsin?

Yes.

Oh, then you're in Madison.

You should be ashamed then.

Yes.

Sorry.

My mistake.

I thought maybe you grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, where you never needed to have a car, or New York City, for example, where no one needs to have a car.

Well, I lived in Milwaukee for a while, and they have very good public transit.

All right, Milwaukee.

How old were you when you lived in Milwaukee?

Oh, like college aged 18 to 22.

Right, 18 to 22.

You were going to, you didn't need a driver's license then.

And you grew up in Madison, right?

In the area, just outside of Madison.

Just outside of Madison.

Were you the last of your friends to get a driver's license?

Yes.

Yeah.

What was the holdup exactly?

I just was very, very anxious about it.

Sure.

Had yet to be diagnosed OCD,

which was a big factor.

And then

once that was diagnosed, I surprisingly was able to get my driver's license.

So worked through all of that, but

it was a long process.

there was a lot of, a lot of crying and a lot of John gripping the seats and trying to teach me.

Um, and now I don't love driving.

I do it competently, I think, um,

and safely.

I've never gotten a ticket or gotten in an accident or anything, but that's great.

I, uh, I don't want to have a drink.

You only drive in the driveway.

Like, that's not the same thing.

Even in the driveway, like, I've, I've run into our neighbor's trash cans.

I've run into my trash cans.

Oh, no.

So, I mean, I don't count that as an accident, but so I still am very hesitant about driving.

Sophie, how do you make it all the way to your neighbor's trash cans?

Well, we have a shared driveway, so I've backed out into them a few times,

a couple times.

We haven't told him, so I hope he doesn't listen to this.

Wisconsin is known as the state of shared driveways.

Sophie, you have your own beautiful forester, though.

I do.

Do you live in a culture where you name your cars?

I do not.

Yes.

What is the name of your Forester?

DeForest Kelly?

We call it Dr.

Clayton Forrester.

Oh, Dr.

Clayton Forrester.

Yeah, much, much better.

From Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Yeah.

Played by Trace Beaulieu.

Sorry to mispronounce your name, Trace, if you're listening.

That's terrific.

Dr.

Clayton Forrester, what color is it?

Dark gray.

Dark gray.

Subaru dark gray.

I love it.

Well, you've got your own car, so why do you need to worry about what kind of car John drives around in?

You ever have to use his car?

I mean, I have.

Yeah, we've used it for lots of things.

I worry about if there's an emergency and I would need to drive it for whatever reason.

He's usually the one to drive if we do like kids stuff.

Like our kid has two cousins who he hangs out with fairly often, and we drive them around in John's car, which we wouldn't be able to do in a Baja because it only has four seats.

Well, the Outback only has four seats.

No, it's got three in the back.

Oh, it's got a bench in the back?

The Baja has bucket seats in the back.

Yeah.

That's what you like, right, John?

Buckets in the back?

You bet.

I'm really into that.

Someone's going to write a song about the Subaru Baja with that lyric in it: Buckets in the Back.

Sophie, what kind of emergency are we imagining?

Something where

John has hurt himself, and also you lost your car?

I mean,

I guess.

Or if my car broke down, if the battery has died before.

If it gets stuck in the neighbor's garbage.

Yeah, if I run into garbage cans.

Right.

If I don't drink, but John does.

So if we're out somewhere, like we'll drive his car, but I'll drive it.

I'll drive us back home.

Have any of these emergencies, how long have you been together as a couple?

Like 14 years.

Married for 10.

Congratulations.

And you have, you mentioned that you have offspring.

We do.

Yes, an eight-year-old.

An eight-year-old.

Okay.

That's your only child.

Yes, he is.

Oh, great.

Then get ready for a super smart, afraid of conflict narcissist in your life.

It's going to be terrific.

Has such an emergency come up in the eight years that you've that you've in the 10 years you've been married or in the eight years you've had a child have you had to leap in to the out back and save the day so far Sophie not yet not yet but that's you never know that's the thing you never know the thing about the future John you never know you never know know.

Joaquin Anduhar, the baseball pitcher of the 1980s, taught us his favorite word in English was, you never know.

You never know.

John, how do you respond to Sophie's concerns?

Oh, boy, where do I even begin?

Try the start.

Yeah, so

yeah, she has never had to use my car for any like real reason that we couldn't have just used her car instead.

Already established.

Move on to your next argument.

Okay.

I,

yeah, I just can't envision a scenario where we would actually have to use my car or hers.

May I offer an argument that you could.

I'm offering this to you.

Yeah, I'll take it.

You can take it or leave it.

You know what I mean?

Objection.

Overruled.

Here,

this is the argument I'm going to make.

Sophie, my wife, I know I have a perfectly functional car right now.

And I know that in an emergency, you would be able to drive it because there's a lot of skill transfer between a forester and an outback.

But here's the thing, Sophie, my wife.

I just want to Baja so much.

I just want to Baja so much

that even though

I appreciate that simply the presence of a Baja in our shared driveway may trigger your OCD

because of your concerns that you might not be able to drive it should you have to.

I still want to get it in a manual transmission format.

You want to try that one?

Does that feel right, John?

What do you think?

That feels pretty right.

I just want to, like, enjoy, you know, driving.

John, why do you want a manual transmission?

I've never owned one, and I just, I would like to,

I'm bored while I drive, and I just want to have like a little more enjoyment of

that piece of my life.

Wasn't the Fiero a manual?

No, it was not.

Oh.

Oh, you had a Dicktown-style Pontiac Fiero?

1988.

Whoa, what color was it?

Red?

It was red.

It had to be red.

Where is it now?

The dump.

The dump.

Oh, no.

It was a long time ago.

He had it when I first met him.

To be fair, that's probably where a pontiac fiero belongs yeah this one especially

pontiac fiero and the chrysler leberon convertible are the great the great boondoggles of the nadir of american car making 1988

1988 chariot pontiac fiero of course is the third co-star of dicktown on hulu i want to be clear though i would be glad to own either one of those sure absolutely drive around in either of those in a second yeah absolutely you rig it up you have one foot foot in one and one foot in the other and drive them around like a chariot.

Only if the LeBaron is a woody.

I love talking about cars.

Isn't that weird?

It's great.

I don't know how they work, but I love talking about them.

And they're also destroying this planet.

But let's keep talking about them anymore.

We're just talking.

It's just thoughts.

It's just thoughts right now.

We're not burning fuel.

As we say on Jordan Jesse Coe, what is a podcast if not saying words?

Good point.

Got to keep saying them.

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

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org/slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast, also brought to you this week by Made In.

So you know that Made In makes the pots and pans and griddles and woks and more that pro-chefs like Tom Calicio use every day at their homes and in their restaurant.

But they are also used by non-pro-chefs like me.

You know, I spent the summer smashing those burgers on my big carbon steel griddle I've been talking about all the time.

But fall is on the horizon and it's time to stop smashing and start braising and stewing and roasting vegetables in your carbon steel pan or slow cooking chili in your made-in stainless steel stock pot.

Or maybe you've got a kid who's going to college.

Maybe they're going to UNC Chapel Hill.

Shop Made In's collegiate collection and you can send your kid a UNC Dutch oven so they can host one of those classic tar heel dorm room pot roast parties.

I'm sure they exist.

Whatever you want to make in your kitchen, though, you can make it, you can serve it, you can savor it in Made Inn.

From cookware to tableware to glassware to pro-grade knives, Made In is dedicated to making exactly what demanding chefs are looking for.

The carbon steel cookware is the best of cast iron and stainless clad.

We've talked about it before.

It gets super hot.

It's also rugged enough for grills or open flames, and you can season it to a non-stick surface.

Really special stuff.

And all of the Made In products are sold online, so you get professional-grade cookware for a lot lot less money than other high-end brands.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common.

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com and tell them that Judge John Hodgman sent you.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in my new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.

And I agree with them.

And it goes so well with my Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.

Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to?

Quince has the good stuff.

High quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm weather, and increasingly chilling leather, all at prices that make sense.

Everything I've ordered from Quince has been nothing but solid, and I will go back there again and buy that stuff with my own money.

John, you know what I got from Quince?

I got this beautiful linen double flap pocket shirt that's sort of like an adventure shirt.

And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

Oh.

It's like a it's like a mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling, because with merino wool, it like it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, honestly, even if I do need to wash it, I can just wear it in the shower when I'm traveling and then

roll it in a towel and it's pretty much ready to go.

Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

Quince has wonderful clothes for women, men, kids, babies.

They have travel stuff.

They have gifts.

They have quilts and bedspreads.

They've got everything.

Go over there and find out for yourself.

Keep it classic and cool with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com/slash JJHO for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e.com slash jj-h-o to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com slash JJ Ho.

John,

what does your commute involve currently?

What are you using your outback?

First of all, does your outback have a name?

No, my outback doesn't have a name.

Oh.

Because it's termless?

Not Paul Hogan?

Yeah, it's

Lumen Onion.

Yahoo Sirius.

Oh, Yahoo Sirius would be a great one.

Yeah.

See, if I plan on getting rid of it soon, I don't want to name it yet.

You know what I mean?

Do you hate that car?

Boomer.

It's short for Boomerang.

No, I don't hate the car.

Don't hate it at all.

I just, I'm bored and I would like to

enjoy

when I do drive.

Sometimes it's longer, like if I'm going up to the UP or going down to

Wisconsin River or something.

Yeah.

And the Wisconsin River is a river in Wisconsin.

I know my Wisconsin geography and Michigan geography.

He almost never drives because he bike commutes to work almost exclusively.

What is your work, if I may ask, John?

I'm a medical laboratory scientist.

Oh, wonderful.

And if I may ask, Sophie, do you have a career that you would like to be public with?

Sure.

I'm a graphic designer and a freelance writer.

John, did you know that some graphic designers and people that work in science labs listen to this podcast?

It never ceases to surprise me.

Just the wide range of listeners that we have.

So, most of your driving is recreational.

Yeah, I would say so.

And if you were going to rate the level of importance of a Baja, which has an open cab, a tiny, little teeny, tiny open cab, for what did you say, your garden stuff, garden dump stuff?

Yeah, I mean, and just like if I want to put like my kayak paddles or like snowshoes.

Snowshoes.

Yeah, those won't fit.

Just like wet stuff that, no, I just don't want to get my outback all wet.

And John, let's be frank.

You want to drive a weird car?

I mean,

that's a joy too.

I mean, this is what I'm trying.

Do not excuse the pun driving at,

which is, do you rate...

the manual transmission higher than the open truck bed, open truck bed higher than the manual transmission?

Or is it just the weird combo that is the Baja that is most important to you?

It's the weird combo.

I would really like to drive a manual transmission car as like my car that I drive.

But yeah, I think that the utility of the Baja is like made for what I would like to do.

When did you first see one of these cars?

In the wild or

in an advertisement?

Because

they were only made from between 2002 and 2006.

So there were still some print ads at the time.

Probably when I was in high school.

I mean, I see them.

There's a couple in on the east side of Green Bay here that I see now and again, but I don't remember the first time I saw it.

Are you stalking Bajas in Green Bay?

I might be.

Wouldn't surprise me.

Sophie, tell me about John's relationship with the Subaru Baja.

Does he talk about it a lot?

Has he been sneaking out and looking at them?

Tell me more.

I mean, I had never even heard of this car until maybe like a year and a half ago when he suddenly said, I want to get a Subaru Baja.

And he showed me it, and I said, that's a really dumb car.

And then he said that it was,

then he said that it was

manual.

And I said, we should not get that car.

But he insisted that it would be good for me to learn manual and, you know, has all his reasons for why he wants to get it, which is fine.

It's a classic hetero-husband argument style.

It's like, I'm going to make it about everyone but me.

There's a universal law that everyone should have of Subaru Baja.

It's not that I want it.

It's just it's the only rational thing to do.

And he made a lot of spreadsheets about it and like researched it heavily.

And

then he started looking for them

a little bit obsessively.

Do you think he still has that job at the medical lab or do you think he just bikes to the coffee shop to look up

fired six months ago?

Just walks down to the corner store and grabs an auto trader.

He found one

in Michigan, Iowa?

Where, Iowa,

and was was all set to go and get it.

So

with all due respect, you got to know the territory.

Somewhere around the Midwest.

If it's not Wisconsin, whatever.

He's making a reference to the music man.

Don't let Jesse Thorne push you off your stride

with some patter songs from the music man.

So

you got your eye on a Baja now, eh?

No, that one didn't pan out for me.

The Iowa Baja did not pan out?

No, it didn't.

All right.

We have an expert witness on the line who's going to tell us a little bit more about this weird car because that is ultimately Sophie's objection.

Our expert witness is a stand-up comic actor in the court's official vehicular expert, River Butcher.

Hello.

Happy to bring my expertise back to the program.

Welcome back, River Butcher.

Thank you for being on our very, very well-received episode on moving violations.

Yes.

Earlier.

And so when we were talking about super, because I remember one time, a long time ago, I was talking to you, River, because

we like to think and talk about cars for some reason.

I do.

I'm not a drag racer.

I'm not a Carol Shelby.

You know what I mean?

I do know what you mean.

I did see Ford versus Ferrari, so I know what you're talking about.

Yeah,

I'm not

Christian Bale in that movie.

No.

Tinkering away.

No.

I just, you know, I like to read Wikipedia pages about

the, the Panther body chassis that used to be in the, in the Crown Vic and stuff like that.

I don't know why.

I like to have my breath taken away by the ultra-rare 1984 Ford LTD station wagon, you know, that I drove past the other night and was like, that was my first car, except mine was the sedan.

You know, this is how we like cars.

Experiential.

Exactly so.

And one time I was talking to you and I said, what, and this may have changed, but I believe, if I remember correctly, I was like, if you, if you were going to get your ideal car,

what would it be?

And I think you said a Subaru cross-trek.

Oh, that was the car I was going to get for a while.

For a while,

that was what I was vibing on.

And they were making a hybrid.

And I was like, that's what I got to get.

And so then what I ended up doing is getting a Toyota RAV 4 hybrid.

So kind of a similar thing.

So Subaru is in the, and you will not forgive the pun, rear view mirror for you.

That's right.

But that object is suddenly closer than it appears because we're talking about the Subaru Baja.

Yes.

Very excited about this.

Meet John and Sophie.

Hello, John and Sophie.

How's it going?

Hello.

Hi.

I think you know the terms of their dispute.

I believe I do, yes.

But for the listener who is not familiar with the Subaru Baja,

let's talk a little bit about what the crummy car this is.

Disclaimer up top: it is not a drink at Taco Bell.

Despite what you may have heard.

What do you know about that Subaru Baja?

Well, what i know about it is a my partner wanted one um when she was a kid

and b uh that it's it feels it's almost like an action figure of a car you know like you can

it's like a bop it you know you can twist it you can spin it you can bop it um you can do a lot with it um

but my assumption well supposedly on the surface i mean it seems that way yeah it seems that way it's kind of like every truck that is built now that's like yeah it's a truck it has a four-foot bed.

You can not put anything in it that you would want to put into a truck.

Like, honestly, I feel like a Subaru Baja has a bigger bed than most trucks do these days.

But all new trucks have eight seats in a built-in barbecue grill.

That's right, right.

You can fold down and put your Yeti in a cup holder in the back.

So that's what's important these days.

It's also $100,000.

So it's a working man's vehicle.

The Baja is $100,000?

Oh, no, the truck.

No.

Oh, the truck is.

Like, basically every every truck.

But the Baja is not,

there's a question mark, it seems to me, about whether it's even a collectible.

Because on the one hand, based on my reading, you know, they only made it for four production years.

It was not well received.

They thought they were going to sell 24,000 a year.

They sold 30,000 total.

So there are only 30,000 in the world, which you would think would make, I mean, the scarcity makes things collectible.

So few.

and there are and there's and there are a lot of people in the world I mean we have data points of two right now

you

you and Sophie whose partners just wanted to get this goofy car because it feels like a funny toy because if you look at it online if you haven't seen one in life it is a Subaru outback with a little tiny truck bed in the back

And sometimes they put kind of cool lights on top.

And it looks like something you would put, as you say, Ripper, you put a little action figure in it and go room to room around your bedroom carpet.

To be fair, John, it also has a tailgate that folds down with a flippy cage that

flips over and covers the end of the tailgate to extend the bed.

To be fair,

it has a flippy.

Yeah, you can extend the cab by a, like, what, nine inches with a

with a with a little cage.

I believe everything will fall out of anyway.

Yeah, right.

Right.

And not unlike Coldplay, they are all yellow.

I've never seen a not yellow Super Upa.

Yeah.

They have a very toy-like vibe to them.

They did.

And part of the reason that they're not as well loved as you might think is that, as far as I can tell, most of them are crummy.

Like they were, they were initially severely underpowered for what a quote-unquote truck is supposed to do.

They had very, very poor towing capability, very, very poor payload capability.

And they were just toy.

They were toys.

And

eventually they added

a turbo version, which gave it a little more oomph, I gather.

But apparently, it was really slow.

And John's whole thing is, like, my car is boring.

And he's driving an outback.

So, sure, that's what you get.

Yeah.

Well, yes.

Although, I think there's some zippy outbacks.

I don't know.

Are there some zippy outbacks out there?

I mean, I feel like they are zippy.

And also, to me, like an outback, look, this is just my, you know, as a, as a trans man, I come from lesbian heritage.

So I'm I'm never going to disparage

any Subaru product of any kind.

It's just against my ethnicity.

River didn't even go to the Toyota dealership to buy the RAV4.

He went to a lesbian car dealership.

They were like, we're so sorry in this pandemic, we're out of Subaru.

So the next best thing we can offer you is a RAV4 hybrid.

So

the situation now is, hey, John has a 2010 Outback.

Yes.

And it has no name.

Just so that you know, Sophie has a Subaru Forrester from 2010 that she has named Dr.

Clayton Forrester.

Of course.

It's very good.

It's very good.

MD.

MD D D S.

Yes, exactly.

John has not named his Outback because he hates it.

It's Bahara.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, and this is why you can so easily walk away from your Subaru outback.

Exactly.

John.

What is your dream Bahadur?

You've circled one in Iowa.

What are the specs on that one?

Do you remember?

It's no longer for sale, but it represented your dream at one point.

Well, what I'm looking for is either a 2005 or 2006 Subaru Baja turbo with a manual transmission.

Is the current Outback a manual transmission?

No, it is not.

No, he wants a manual transmission.

Sophie does not drive manual.

This changes things for me.

Sophie doesn't drive manual and is nervous about learning

because

she came late to driving and she had a late

relatively later in life diagnosis of OCD and that made it difficult for her to learn to drive and she's still nervous about driving.

She doesn't want to transition to a trans

manual transmission or even have one in the driveway because it makes her concerned.

Right.

Do you guys often use each other's cars currently?

Absolutely not.

No.

Okay.

No.

Yeah.

That's John quick.

John is quick with the answer there.

Absolutely not.

Okay.

So how

first question,

if Sophie were not in the picture, because I guess that's an option, right, John?

You divorce your wife in order to get a Baja?

Baseline, do you think that trading a 2010 outback for a 2005 Baja Turbo, is that

a good move or a bad move or lateral?

So baseline, which I would guess means like throwing out all technical details like mileage and all of those things, I kind of have two

assessments, unfortunately.

I have a binary of thought on this, which is my first thought is absolutely not.

From a car perspective, terrible idea.

Why is it a terrible idea car-wise?

I mean, I think that it's you're you're switching from a for me, and this is like actual like usability, you're switching from a very reliable vehicle to a pretty you're you're you're rolling the dice with the Baja, you know, they only made 30,000.

That's not a big, you know, uh, pool of like possibility, you know, like you're not seeing like the faulty parts of it.

Obviously, you're, you're buying one that someone has had and maintained.

So if you're able to find one from somebody that has maintained it regularly, then it might be a fun version of manual transmission.

You know what I mean?

But to me, from my experience in vehicles, I would not go from a 2010 to a 2006.

Honestly, for maybe any vehicle.

Like just

a step backwards no matter what.

A step backwards in terms of year.

I would go from a 2010 to a 2000, but there's something about those years.

John just like

physical reactions.

You're not gaining any classicness

in exchange for your

five years of use on the car.

Yes.

Right.

Extra wear and tear, and also the question mark of other ownership and what went wrong with that question.

Yeah, and like also something for cars in that range, like the electricity is going to be a persistent issue, like just no matter.

That's why I'm saying I would go just because of the mid-2000s.

Yeah.

The electrics were bad.

Well, it's just like a shift to the electronics in the car, which we were pre-like Apple car, you know, all these things.

And so it's just something for me that I would be like, that I'm going to have to pay for in a couple years or a year you know you're saying that john should not get a baja but instead invest in a subaru brat that's exactly what i'm saying

as long as it has those two seats in the bed that point backwards

subaru brat is an early version of the baja it was a it was a knockoff same deal instead of a outback it was the it was the subaru leone or aka the loyale and they just knocked off the back made a tiny little truck bed and they molded two plastic seats in there facing backwards with little jump seat handles so that they could get around calling it a truck.

That was still a passenger vehicle.

And it was absolutely the most mortal way to put your children in mortal danger.

1975 to 1981.

Brats rule.

If John was asking for a Subaru brat, I would have.

fired you from the podcast and ruled in his favor.

I would have, you wouldn't have to fire me.

I would have agreed with you.

So, all right, that's the first thing.

Not a good trade for a car.

What's the second issue?

My, my second thought is live your life.

Do what you want to do.

You know what I mean?

That's the thing.

It's like, if you look at it nuts and bolts with the car, it's like probably you're rolling some big dice, you know?

But I'm also just like, live your life, make mistakes, or win, win the best Baja they made out of 30,000.

You know, get the one that they really, you know, whoever was on the line that day put their heart and soul into it.

And it actually has its own spirit and it's going to drive you around wherever you guys live and you're going to have the best time.

You don't want a car.

You don't want a car with a spirit.

Then you get a Christine.

Yeah, but you could also have my mother the car.

So

what about the manual transmission issue, River?

Sophie doesn't want to learn to drive manual concerns.

Then don't.

That's that's what I think.

I mean, if you don't want to do it, don't do it.

It is stressful.

It can be, it was a very stressful thing for me to learn how to drive manual transmission.

However, I was lucky to be taught by people who were very patient and kind with me.

Like one time I got stuck in traffic, like at a light, and I stalled it out.

And I like was losing my mind.

I was like, oh, no, because everybody's honking.

And the person that was teaching me how to do it just turned to me and was like, they had to learn too.

Right.

So just slow down, start the car, and here we go.

And I had to do that a couple times to realize like, oh, everything's okay, you know, and drive up and down some hills over and over again to be like, oh, I'm not actually on a roller coaster.

I'm in control here.

But it is pretty wild.

And but so for me, it was a very rewarding experience because I was guided through that very kindly and compassionately and with a lot of patience.

And the reward of that was, oh, I can do this thing.

And the reward could have also been like, you know what?

This is actually not for me.

You know, like both outcomes are totally chill.

You know what I mean?

Like you could do it and be like, actually, no, this is too much.

And that makes a lot of sense, you know, to me.

River Butcher, thank you so much for your expert opinion.

What's going on with you?

What's the name of your special again?

No, the name of the special that's on YouTube.

Comedy Central's YouTube is called A Different Kind of Dude.

You can watch that whenever you want.

You know, just put it on the background, get my view counts up.

I would appreciate that.

Live your life, everybody.

Press play.

Get a bottle of your life.

Whether it's a Subaru or, you know, the Taco Bell version.

River is on Twitter at RivButcher.

And if you're in LA, he's at the Elysian Theater August 19th.

And do check out that that special, A Different Kind of Dude.

It's on Comedy Central's YouTube channel.

What did you think of River Butcher's guidance with regard to driving manual, learning to drive a manual transmission?

It made me more nervous, actually, because

I thought he was going to say, like, learn manual.

It'll be great.

Because

of the last episode that he was on, you guys were really talking up how great Manual is.

So now that he told us about stalling on hills and people honking at him, does not make me feel great, which that is what I'm scared of happening.

Why are you scared of that happening?

You mean when you're in the car or just are you scared of it happening for him?

I'm scared of it happening if I'm driving the car.

You're never going to, if this were to happen, you were never going to drive this car.

Does it just bug you on a elemental level?

Yes.

How does it make you feel?

Like when you picture that Baja in your shared driveway and the Outback gone, do you feel the way I feel when I watch old videos of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disneyland?

Just hairs pricking up on my, like just feeling sick to my stomach irrationally?

I would be,

I guess, just upset that it's a car that I can't drive.

I just, I can't get that out of my head that if for some reason I needed to drive it, I wouldn't be able to.

I would feel like I need to learn how to drive manual.

And I know that's going to be a big deal for me in my my life to do that.

And I mean, we have our separate cars, yes, but like they're our cars is how I've kind of always viewed them.

So if John gets the Baja, like it is definite, that's not my car at all.

Like that's his car.

Do you feel this is an act of selfishness?

And I say that without judgment.

No, not at all.

He absolutely.

He deserves it.

I really, that's why I don't want the ruling to be like, he can't get this car no matter what.

I just want it to be automatic so I can drive it.

But he really deserves whatever he wants to have.

Honestly, he works really hard.

He's he's worked really, really hard the last few years.

He's a frontline healthcare worker.

Like, I think if anybody deserves to have their stupid car that they want, it's John.

I just want to be able to drive it.

That's all.

John, why is it so?

I know you're bored in the outback,

but wouldn't it be a huge step up just to be in a goofy-looking Baja, even with an automatic transmission?

I

guess

no,

if I do it, I would like the whole package.

I don't want to just,

yeah, I want it all.

To me, it feels like I would always be longing for something else.

And I might as well just be wanting it in my current car rather than

in a lesser Baja.

In a lesser Baja.

I'm going for top Baja.

Taja?

Taja.

Judge Hodgman, imagine he buys the automatic Baja.

Right.

He's driving around in it.

His experience is exactly the same as driving around in his current Outback.

They are the same.

The exact same car.

It's the same car.

Right.

If he has a manual transmission, then it's slightly different.

He feels the weirdness of the vehicle that he's driving.

He has a connection at all times to his weird car truck.

It's more tactile.

You know, I get to, what, feel the road?

Is that what they say?

Bearing in mind that we're in a very difficult time for a lot of people financially.

Some people don't even have one car, never mind two.

But also bearing in mind that, you know,

you're only having one child.

Therefore, you're going to spend a lot less money in your life than if you were to have two children.

You're going to have that one child bonus

that you could potentially spend on some luxury items for yourselves.

What's your budget for the Baja currently?

Like, if you were to replace Out At Back, could you only buy it if you had to sell the Outback?

Is that the situation?

Yeah, and honestly, we just don't have room for a third car.

How dare you?

How dare you?

I don't care what driveway you share with your neighbors.

You live in Wisconsin.

You don't have room.

Stop it.

You don't have room.

I live in New York City.

You don't have room.

You have a yard, don't you?

A big yard.

You got a big yard, right?

Yeah.

Just cement the whole thing.

The big yard's already full of fieros.

Big yard.

You could fit a few Bajas in the yard.

Yeah,

put a few hobby Bajas in the yard.

Don't have enough room.

But I guess

would it feel weird for you to get just a third car for the benefit of your midlife crisis?

Yeah, most definitely.

Because you would have to acknowledge that this is a midlife crisis that you're having.

Yeah, I've been having one for like 10 years.

Since you were 24 years old.

You never know when midlife is.

That's true.

You don't ever know.

You don't ever know.

But do you feel

now that you're a parent?

of an eight-year-old, do you feel youth slipping through your fingers?

Do you feel like you don't get to play with your toys anymore?

And also maybe you're not getting the attention that you thought you might be getting in life, and therefore, you got to get a funny-looking car

that looks like a toy so you can drive around, and people go, Hey, bah!

And you can feel like

as Max gets older, no, I'm finding that I actually have more time now to do the weird things that I would like to do.

What other weird things are you up to, aside from stalking subcompact trucks in Boom Bay, Wisconsin?

Um, I don't know.

I like uh, right now, I just like to

play music and

stuff like that.

I make tape loops out of old cassettes, so I'll go to like the thrift stores and

pick up any tape of like that they're going to basically throw out and never get used again and kind of repurpose it.

You got to talk to David Reese about that.

You owned a Fiero.

You make tape loops out of old cassettes.

He just got really into photography again, too.

So there's like cameras everywhere now.

And like he's got all of these synthesizers.

I'm sitting on the floor in his room, like toe-to-tip synthesizers.

He's got a lot of weird hobbies that he gets to do with no qualms from me.

She's great.

John, if your Subaru Baja was in the shop for a week, how much would it disrupt your life?

Um,

not at all.

Uh, I could always move the garbage in Sophie's car to another spot and drive it.

Um, is this your garbage or your neighbor's?

You're talking about garbage in Sophie's car.

Well, that's one of the reasons that she uses my car is because her car is like a trash heap.

And she just doesn't like taking guests in her car if she doesn't have to.

So if she's using my car,

I'm looking at Sophie here in the teleconference.

She's basically buried in a pile of your synthesizers

talking about how you you can do whatever you want.

You've earned it.

You deserve whatever weird hobbies you want.

And you're sitting over there in your room full of weird plastic bins going, her car is full of trash.

Come on, dude.

Be nice.

Well, that is the reason that she would use my car is because she doesn't.

It's not full of trash.

What's in her car?

Just be descriptive.

Don't be mean.

It is full of trash.

Oh, okay.

Never mind that.

That's why everyone has their own car.

But she also knows where everything is.

So I have to give her some credit.

Like, if she, even though, like, some of her spaces are very trash-esque, she knows what's there.

And if I have to find something, she'll know where it is.

So, wait a minute, but your whole argument here is what?

That your life would not be disturbed if you didn't have the Baja for three weeks because it's a piece of junk that you bought out of

a garage in Iowa or whatever?

It's already a third car.

He bikes to work.

That's true.

It's a fun car.

Well, we'd have to trade in the outback for it.

Right.

You don't have the money lying around for a spare Baja is what you're saying, Sophie, right?

Quick question.

And I'm not making any promises, but if the Judge John Hodgman podcast were to buy John a Baja just as for fun,

would you feel unnerved by it?

If you still had the outback as a backup, an outbackup, as it were?

No, not at all.

If it was a third car, great.

He can go nuts with it.

All right.

Sophie, do you think that your objection is about the practical implications of this decision?

Or is your objection about asking John to accommodate the anxiety that comes with your mental illness?

Hmm.

That's a good question.

Both.

I think both for sure.

I think there is some, I see I'm going to argue against myself here, but could see why he would want me to learn

as sort of a to push back against my anxiety.

You know, if it's just my anxiety that's making me not want to drive stick, anybody with OCD will tell you that you should probably do it anyways then, because that's how you work through that stuff.

But you don't have to drive it, right?

If there's an emergency, I will.

So, John, despite the court's bail of being in the bag for you, obviously,

I do think that

this is something that will cause anxiety for Sophie.

And that may be a price that she has to pay if I order it.

But I'm offering you as an option:

what are you willing to trade for the damages that you will cause?

Is there something that she wants that you don't feel so great about?

Maybe you've never talked about that.

No, I don't think of anything that I've ever seen.

Yeah, I'm trying to think too.

I know she wants to put a bumper sticker on it if I get it.

What kind of bumper sticker?

My husband's midlife crisis is this car.

I bought this over my wife's objections.

I have a bumper sticker that I've had for a while that I already have a bunch of stickers on my car, so I haven't found the right place for it.

And at least if I

get to place a single bumper sticker on his car, it'll kind of feel like it's our car still because he's not a real bumper sticker kind of person.

I don't think they even paint the back of Subaru's.

They just assume that you'll paper them with bumper stickers.

The bumper sticker is from an artist I really like.

It goes by Wizards of the Barge.

And it just says, Wizard butts drive me nuts.

Wizard butts drive me nuts.

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

I'm going to go in.

I'm going to go sit in the plastic molded chairs in the back of my open bed

chambers.

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

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Sophie, how do you feel about your chances in this case?

You know, I think it could go either way.

I actually kind of feel like I have less of a case than when I started.

But I was worried that

the judge's bias towards manual transmission would really be against me.

And I didn't feel that quite as hard as I thought.

So we'll see.

Sophie, do you just want to drive John's car because your car is full of garbage?

I mean, it is the nicer car.

And his Outback has heated seats, which is really nice in Wisconsin, too.

We'd be giving that up.

John, how do you feel about your chances?

Not great.

Why is that?

Because I thought that the

previous court cases regarding manual transmissions would shine a little bit more in my favor towards this.

Plus, your butt's super cold in the winter.

John, Sophie, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say in just a moment.

I'm Emily Fleming.

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Matt Lee.

We are real comedy writers.

Real friends.

And real cheapskates.

On every episode of our podcast, Free With Ads, we ask, why pay for expensive streaming services when you can get free movies from apps with weird names?

Each week, we review the freest movies the internet has to offer.

Classics like Pride and Prejudice.

Cult classics like Point Break.

And holy sh, what did I just watch?

Classics like Teen Witch.

Tune in every week as we take a deep dive into the internet's bargain bin.

Every Tuesday on maximumfun.org or your favorite pod place.

The Flophouse is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

Robert Shaw in Jaws, and they're trying to figure out how to get rid of the ghoulies, and he scratches his fails and goes, I'll get you a ghoulie.

He's just standing above the toilet with a harpoon.

No, I'm just looking forward to you going through the other ways in which Wild Wild West is historically inaccurate.

Do you know how much movies cost nowadays when you add in your popped corn and your bagel bites and your cheese?

You can't go wrong with a Henry Camill Mustache.

Here at Henry Cavill Mustache's the only supplier.

The Flop House.

New episodes every Saturday.

Find it at maximumfun.org.

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

Let's talk about what we've got upcoming.

What's going on with you, John?

Well,

I've been following some very good news from the Dick Town family.

Of course, Dick Town, the show I co-created and co-starred with, is on Hulu for you to enjoy.

All 10 episodes, all two seasons are out there, and there's so many talented people on the show who are so gracious with their talents to lend them to our silly dumb cartoon, including Weird Al Yankovic.

Look, do I have to plug for Weird Al Yankovic?

No, we all love Weird Al, but

if you don't know, you need to know.

Weird Al did not merely sing the theme song to season two of Dick Town, which you can see at Hulu, but also there is a movie coming out about his life called Weird, the Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Got a release date this week.

It's going to be coming out November 4th.

And then a little later in November, I just learned about a book of photos called Lights Camera Accordion.

This is photos of Weird Al Yankovic spanning 45 years, all of them taken by Weird Al's drummer, Dave, quote, Bermuda Schwartz.

That's a document that I want to see.

Anna Akana, who's incredibly talented.

She played Meg on Dick Town.

She is a single out.

She's a musician.

She's an actor, and she's everything.

She's everything.

Her song is called Sunshine.

It's great for driving around the summer.

Google Anna Akana, a.k.a.

N.

A.

Ronald Peet, who plays Tucker, incredibly talented actor.

He had just had a short film that he starred in called Catalina that premiered at the Outfest Film Festival last month.

Whatever Ronald is doing, please check him out.

Ronald Peet, P-E-E-T, and of course, David Reese, co-creator of Dick Town, co-star of Dick Town, and my friend, who left, by the way, a

delicious can of North Carolina peanuts for me on my desk, which is very nice of him.

I'm not plugging peanuts, though.

I'm plugging his podcast, Election Profit Makers, that he makes every week with his childhood friend John Kimball.

It's just so, look, it is about politics, and we need to be thinking about politics.

Go to mobilize.us if you want to volunteer or help out with a candidate of your choice, but you can also laugh along with these guys.

It's really been a lot of fun listening to them talk about politics and everything else under the sun

at Election Profit Makers.

So go ahead and listen to it, won't you?

Election Profit Makers is the name of the podcast.

Jesse, what do you have going on?

Well, Judge Hodgman, you know how you have your own animated television show on FXX?

Yes, that's right.

And Hulu now.

It's available on Hulu primarily now.

Well, so do I, John.

What's that?

Yes, that's right.

The news was revealed at Comic-Con in San Diego by the one and only legend Aisha Tyler.

What?

The star of episode one of the new season of the legendary television program Archer is none other than Jesse Thorne.

I cannot believe this is true.

And by star, I mean I think I have two or three lines.

But they're in the opening scene.

They're right up top.

This is a lifetime dream come true.

This is something that I have gazed at with starry eyes and that my heart has longed for with sour resentment of every friend of mine who's been on the show

for 10 years.

Archer is my favorite show, and

I could

not

be...

more thrilled.

Congratulations.

I truly could not be more thrilled to be on that program.

It is the thrill of a lifetime.

There is a writer on the show named Mark who grew up in Santa Cruz and used to listen to Jordan and I when we were doing college radio.

That would be Jordan.

Listen to me in that case, but okay.

Okay.

Go ahead.

He used to listen to Jordan and Jesse

on college radio in Santa Cruz.

Wow.

Still listens to Jordan and Jesse go today,

heard my pleas, sent me a DM on Twitter.

If I pitch you as a guest voice, would you be interested?

I said yes.

And it all worked out.

It was really incredible.

So thanks to everybody at Archer for putting a dumb guy who wasn't even SAG eligible on the show.

Now I am SAG eligible.

Congratulations twice then.

Thank you very much.

What a dream it will be to pay $3,000.

to join SAG.

So amazing.

I'm so happy for you.

I'm so excited.

And now that you've joined SAG,

maybe we can put you in a cartoon.

I should have been doing that all along.

I feel like a terrible monster.

It's true.

But Archer is on August 24th on FXX.

So watch the season premiere of Archer to hear your friend.

Can you say what your character is or no?

I can't.

Look, I'm not going to say.

Mum's the word.

Have you already recorded it?

Yeah, I recorded it.

I recorded it a year ago.

I mean, I also do host some podcasts that you should listen to and stuff, but mostly you should just watch me on Archer because it's the highlight of my career.

We'll be back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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

First of all, I just want to say:

wizard butts drive me nuts.

Never knew how strongly I felt that till now.

I realize that now.

Wizardofbarge.com.

Wizard Butts Drive-Me Nuts bumper sticker, $7.

Adding to cart.

I don't even use bumper stickers on my cars.

Second of all, it's very rare that we overturn settled law here in this courtroom.

And as I said as we opened,

we kind of have settled on people should learn how to drive manual.

But our expert witness, River Butcher, really moved me to reconsider that.

As did you, Sophie, for that matter.

I love to drive manual.

It's a lot of fun.

The common thing that people say is you can feel the road.

No offense, John.

That's bullroar.

You can feel the road in any car.

What you can feel is the car.

It becomes,

you know, what you are doing is you are literally manually

changing the way the car works in order to give it more power.

It gives you more tools as you drive down the road to, as we discussed in an earlier podcast, to engine brake, to downshift brake, to go into neutral.

It's fun.

You have a little, you have a little toy to play with.

Instead of just like

out back in the way, like you're like, vroom, vroom, and vroom again.

It's fun.

It's fun.

You feel like you're in Ford versus Ferrari, dropping it down into second or whatever.

Cool.

It's super cool.

It's a lot of fun.

You feel the car.

You don't feel the road, John.

You feel the car.

It's a toy.

I will say that if John had a long commute

or a daily commute of any length,

particularly if traffic is involved, a manual transmission is a pain in the neck.

Pain in the neck.

It hurts after a while.

We have a manual transmission Jeep that I love to bomb around in in Maine.

But if that were my daily driver,

no good.

Because after a long day of driving that thing, I've had a lot of fun.

I'm definitely sunburned all over, but also my right shoulder hurts from operating that stick and my left leg hurts from operating that clutch.

And I have to lie down for a while.

There's pleasure to be had too, John,

in a daily driver.

that has an automatic transition and heated seats.

On top of that, Sophie, you had difficulty learning to drive to begin with.

And

if for whatever reason,

and this goes back to our original case where we

made this ruling, if this were a reason where you lived together and had one car

and could not afford to get another or to replace it, And that car were a manual transmission and there was not an automatic transmission around,

The situation in that case was the spouse had never learned to drive manual.

And in that case, I felt it was imperative that they do learn to drive manually because there could be an emergency where the day, where the person who drives all the time would become incapacitated, and they only had one vehicle, and it happened to be manual.

Plus, it's fun.

But in your case, it's not an emergency.

There will never be.

There will never.

I mean, it would have to be the wildest confluence of horrible events that would make you have to sit down into that Baja and learn how to drive it on the spot.

And I have to say, we have settled law that overrules people should learn how to drive shift, which is people like what they like.

If you don't like

the feeling of driving,

it's your choice.

I agree with Riverts.

Don't do it.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

I know that's challenging for someone with a diagnosis of OCD.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

Right?

I believe you when you say losing the backup of the outback would make you worried.

Now,

is that something that you should confront and work through?

Is that an anxiety that you want to get past in your life?

Well, that's between you and

whoever you're working with, if you're working with a therapist, to talk about and think about.

You know, I don't think it's going to be an issue that this Baja is going to cause your house to burn down

because you couldn't, I don't, whatever the situation would be, you know, like because you couldn't drive it.

I don't think that's going to come up.

But A, I don't predict the future, and B, that's not what's at stake here.

What's at stake here is

you're feeling confident that everything is okay in your life and you deserve to feel that way, especially when you're surrounded by synthesizers that you don't play.

Hobbies that John already has, that he enjoys, and so forth.

John, I think you deserve to have the weirdo car that you want.

I get it.

I've loved a brat my whole life.

If I had, what was it, $9,600

in Indiana, Jesse?

That's correct.

I totally get it.

I get it.

I get why you want to get it,

John.

And I think you deserve to get it.

You know what I mean?

But this is not a completely neutral situation because I do feel confident that it would cause Sophie concern that she does not deserve to feel.

Recently, in the Judge John Hodgman column net in the New York Times magazine,

a woman was saying, my husband says I should learn to drive a stick shift because we're going to Europe and all the rental cars there are manual.

And he can't drive because he is blind.

And we're leaving in three weeks.

And it would cost a lot more money to get an automatic transmission.

I'm like, I think everyone who wants to learn to drive shift, it should not be intimidating.

It's great fun if you can get past it.

It's a little bit of work.

If you can get past it, you should do it.

But absolutely, do not, do not be driving.

I don't know why your vision-impaired husband would want to be driven around twisty mountain roads by a person who has only just learned to drive.

That's not the way to learn to drive stick.

So, even though I think you deserve to have the car that you want, John, and I want you to have this Baja,

there is both the practical concern that you are giving up a reliable daily driver, which it turns out is the better of the two cars.

You know what I mean?

If you had the junkier car, the one that is filled with trash,

the one that does not have heated seats,

right?

But Sophie, this is the better car, right?

The outback is the better car, right?

I would say the nicer car.

Yeah.

You can't trade the nicer car.

If you have two cars,

you can consider maybe trading the junkier one for a fun car, but not the nicer one for a fun car.

And you can't trade out Dr.

Clayton Forrester.

It's rough for you, John.

It's rough for you.

But do you know what?

I have a solution for you.

And this is, you're not going to like this, but it is a solution.

I'm looking at Sophie in the teleconference there.

I see a lot of synthesizers.

You could sell them.

You could redistribute, since you don't have extra Baja money lying around,

you could redistribute some hobby money, start building a Baja fund.

There might be other stuff or things you could do

to fund a fun car, because that's what the Baja would be, a hobby, an extra hobby.

I mean, I don't know if those are valuable synthesizers.

I could see the pain on your face when I suggested it.

But,

you know,

we don't live in a magical world.

Wizard butts drive me nuts.

We live in reality.

We have limited resources.

You don't have all the resources in the world.

If you want to add, I mean, I don't think it makes sense practically or emotionally for you to swap out your daily driver for a fun car that you have no idea how reliable it's going to be.

And it's going to make the person you love the most anxious.

I love you.

You get a fun one, but you got to find another way to fund the fun.

You could sell all those synthesizers.

I don't know what else you got.

You got some plastic bins behind you.

You got like a chest of drawers.

Maybe there's, I think there's maybe $10,000 hiding in one of those drawers.

I don't know.

Get a weekend job.

Sorry.

Like

you're having a midlife crisis because you feel like your teenage years are gone.

Why don't you be a teenager and go work on the weekends?

You're paying a lot of money.

Bring the kid.

The kid has nimble fingers.

It would be incredible.

You would be the king of the Baja Club if you were able to roll up in your Baja and say, yeah, I earned this making hamburgers

on my Sundays.

I don't know what.

But that's, I think that's what you got to do.

I want you to have this Baja, but you can't swap out the Outback.

You got to find a way to get it as a fun car.

And if that means,

I don't know.

I don't know what.

Making some sacrifices, maybe,

you know, saving up for a while, go for it.

Put a little Baja jar, you know, next to the, next to the, on the kitchen counter.

Every time you, I don't know what, put $5 in it every week.

I don't know what you do.

I don't know.

I don't know what you do, but you got to find another way to fund the Baja.

You got to fund the fun.

And plus,

you're only ever going to have one kid.

So boy, oh, boy, you got a whole college education that you can spend on fun stuff.

Holy moly.

Right, Jesse?

No, my kids aren't going to college.

Heck no.

Bad news, gang.

Daddy's a public radio host.

Even, I mean, the truth is that even if you just, even if you just imagined the amount of extra money that you would spend on babysitting for that second kid,

that's got to be some Baja money right there.

So save your money.

Sell some stuff or save your money.

Get the Baja, put the bumper sticker on it.

Have the time of your life.

Make some room in the yard.

You're going to get it, but not today.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the court.

John, you must be hurting.

Yeah, it doesn't feel great, but I understand the ruling.

Sophie, how are you feeling?

Great.

I think that was a great judgment, and I appreciate how much consideration the judge took in making that, especially considering he really likes driving manual.

How are you going to feel when John's working weekends and you're stuck driving the kid around in the garbage car?

That's not great.

I don't think I want him to get a weekend job, but he does have a lot of synthesizers he could sell.

Well, John, Sophie, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Before we hear a letter from a listener about downshifting, John in the business, we call that a tease.

Oh, yeah.

That one's irresistible.

I can't wait to keep listening.

That's why every episode of Good Morning America, when they cut to commercial, they say, well, later on in the show, we'll talk downshifting.

We want to thank Twitter user at Ruthie Griffith for naming this week's episode Subaru of Law.

If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter for naming opportunities.

I'm at Jesse Thorne.

John is at Hodgman.

While you're there, you can also hashtag your Judge John Hodgman related tweets, hashtag JJ Ho, and join the conversation over at the Maximum Fun subreddit at maximumfun.reddit.com.

Always fun over there.

Hey, Jesse, speaking of social media, I have an Instagram, personal Instagram account, which is at John Hodgman.

And we'll post this on the John Hodgman Instagram account as well.

But I put a picture up of the back of a Subaru Baja because everyone knows that the back of a 1990s Subaru Impreza hatchback looks like Christian Slater.

And I ask people, what does the back of a Subaru Baja look like?

And I got to go with Glenn Gauthier right now as in the lead with Billy Bob Thornton and Slingblade.

Go check it out.

As John mentioned, instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

You can find all of the evidence from this case.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Now, here's that letter from Aaron about down shifting.

So you might remember, John, that the last time Riv was on the show, we talked about shifting down instead of braking to slow a manual transmission car.

Right.

Aaron is a tractor trailer driver and has this to say.

Aaron says, as a tractor trailer driver for the past 18 years, which is very cool to imagine someone listening to a trucker listening to our show, that's great.

10-4.

I hope you're safe out there, good buddy.

I just wanted to reinforce that, as you noted, tractor trailers are very heavy and slowing them, particularly on downgrades, that is to say downhill and tractor trailer talk, it's a very different animal from slowing down a passenger car.

Here is the generally accepted method to maintain a controlled speed when negotiating.

a downgrade.

First, use the same gear or maybe one lower that you needed to climb the grade.

Second, use your engine brake.

That's also known as the Jake brake, which is a modification of the engine that

look it up, jake brake on Wikipedia.

It's beyond my understanding, but it has to do with

opening the exhaust valve at different times to make the

sound that is engine braking,

which is very loud and prohibited in certain densely inhabited areas.

And then only, only use your service brakes, that is your brake pedal, as needed in short bursts.

This avoids overheating your brakes, which causes them to fade, says Aaron.

And this is why you see runaway truck ramps on long downhills.

If your brakes have faded, a sudden stop in a sand pit, while undesirable, is far better than running into oncoming traffic.

I would agree.

Thank you for listening.

Stay safe out there on the roads.

If you have a dispute you'd like to submit to Judge John Hodgman, we want to hear about it.

Any subject, no case too big or too small, submit your cases at maximumfun.org slash jjho.

That's maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Any case, look, we sift through them.

We'll decide if it's important enough.

You don't have to worry about it.

If you got a case, send it to us.

We'll see what we think.

I love to hear from you.

And, you know, look, this is one of those things where, you know, we've talked about manual shifting before, and you might think, oh, they've already ruled on that.

Well, you might change my mind.

So even if you got something about

one of the old chestnuts, like washing dishes or how to make the bed, give me a try.

You don't know.

Might be perfect for the podcast.

And in any case, I'll be glad to hear from you.

So go ahead to maximumfund.org/slash JJHO and give us your beefs.

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

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned, audience-supported.