Marbits and a Mayo Knife

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And with me is the king of New York himself, Judge John Hodgman.

I am not the king, I'm merely the regent

holding a place for the true monarch of New York.

The exiled king himself, Jesse Thorne.

You came to New York.

We're recording this right after we recorded our incredible live show at Lincoln Center at Damrosh Park in New York City.

First time I'd seen either you or Jennifer Marmor in two and a half years in a beautiful setting full of people,

which was really astonishing to see.

All those happy people.

Well, I hope they were happy.

I was very happy to see them in the audience.

And Jesse, you,

I had to sneak out of town immediately to go hide in Maine with my family.

But you hung around New York City.

And I ask you this question.

Yeah.

Did you or did you not take Manhattan?

Absolutely.

Full Muppet style.

Good.

I went to two Broadway shows.

Yes.

I hung out with the poster guy from the Antiques Roadshow.

He has a name.

Nico Lowry.

Nico Lowry.

Nicholas Nico Lowry from Antiques Road Show.

Wonderful man, known for his boldly patterned suits on the Antiques Roadshow, and now known to me as a lovely guy.

Yeah, I got to meet him briefly after the show.

I was sorry I could not hang out.

Where did you go?

To the Grammarcy Arts Club or to the Players Club?

Well, we were meant to go to the Players Club.

Nico ended up having a little bit of a cold, so I had to cancel that date.

But I filled in for it by buying a rush ticket to the music man.

I was like, you saw Rush?

And then I realized.

Then I realized what you were talking about.

I didn't know they were playing.

I I went to see Air Supply.

It was great.

Oh, I don't want to get the letters that we're going to get of you comparing Air Supply to Rush, R.I.P.

Neil Purt.

You went to see the Music Man.

You got to know the territory then.

I, of course, know the territory with Re, the Music Man.

I thought it was a wonderful production.

The dancing in particular, the dancing and choreography, were really superb.

Hugh Jackman was strongest at the comic, at the the lighter comic parts.

Maybe lacked the intensity

and sort of

dark side of Robert Preston's classic portrayal.

And I went to see company with the great Patty Lapone,

and that was extraordinary.

That was so fantastic.

Broadway.

Broadway, the Great White Way, as it's called.

Let me tell you two stories about Broadway.

Very quick.

Sure.

My limited experience with Broadway.

Well, the Music Man specifically.

I've never seen it on stage.

I was well into my late 30s, early 40s before I even saw the movie.

I was coming to Los Angeles.

Paul F.

Tompkins could not believe I had never seen the movie.

And he was going to screen it at a friend's house, Mark McConville's house, I believe.

Former editor of this program.

And a comedic genius.

And along with comedic genius, Matt Gorley was there as well.

Another former editor of this program.

And we all sat together and we watched the music man.

And at the end of it, I said, it was pretty good.

And I don't think my friendship with Paul has ever been the same.

I could hear him closing the window shade on me because he loves it so much.

And you do too.

I think Paul would make a fantastic Harold Hill.

I think it's probably crossed his mind.

Yeah.

That is absolutely true.

I think it is obvious that Paul could capture the comic moments and the the sort of light, silly charm moments.

But I think Paul actually would do a really fantastic job with the darkness of a guy who is in town to cheat people.

And a narrative that ultimately I had a hard time watching it outside of the context of contemporary America and contemporary American politics, but a narrative where...

This guy is revealed to be a charlatan, and the town decides they would rather live in the world that he's created

than run him out of town.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Content warning.

I hadn't thought about it that way.

Well, I think it is also a very turn of the 20th century story in that those kinds of liminalities were

paramount in that time in American culture.

Country and city and faith and science and all these things were getting muddied up together at that time.

I think that's what The Music Man ultimately is about.

But just, you know, who doesn't like Marion the librarian also?

I got to rewatch The Music Man and get my friend Paul back.

But also, when I was in college, I went to college with a wonderful person named Mariah Grandi.

I believe she lives in Chicago.

She's still a top-notch singer and interpreter of the American songbook.

And

her brother, I believe, worked in the sound booth or someone she knew worked in the sound booth.

Her brother's a comedy writer, so this may not be right.

But she told me the story about someone who worked in the sound booth of cats at the Winter Garden Theater, which was running and running and running at that time.

And she told the story about how,

in cats, the cats, who are actually humans dressed up as cats, their cat costumes are so tight that they couldn't body mic them.

This is the story I was told.

So they had these highly sensitive mics at the foot of the stage so that before every performance, the people in the sound booth could hear every conversation of everyone in the front row.

And

the conversation that was relayed to me by Mariah as being her favorite was that between two

mature women, one had never seen cats before, and the other had.

And the one who had seen cats said to the other one, You've never seen cats before?

Oh,

you're gonna love it.

It's about these cats,

and they sing beautiful and they dance

even better and at the end of the show one of the cats sings a beautiful song and then they blow her out of the theater

cats is there more to it than that i don't know that was a spoiler warning i should have given a spoiler warning because at the end of the show they put her on a tire

and they blow her out of the theater.

I don't know if Mariah Grande listens to this show, but Mariah, it's nice to talk to you.

I always remember that story.

I hope you're doing well.

And I hope I'm right in remembering that you're in Chicago.

Here's a case from...

Oh, a case?

What's that?

Yeah, from Octavia in Missouri.

By the way, sometimes people write in to correct my pronunciation of the name of the state, Missouri.

Right.

My father was born and raised in Missouri.

And he called it Missouri.

So I'm going to call it Missouri because that's what he called it.

And he's dead now.

He don't want his ghost to be mad at me.

That's what you got to do.

You got to pronounce things the way your dead dad pronounced them or else you get the eventful ghost situation.

Anyway, I have some washing to do.

Dear J Squad.

I have to put some socks away in the dresser drawer.

Dear J Squad, I believe that Lucky Charms type cereal should be eaten grains first, then marshmallows.

Everyone knows this is true, but my friend Melissa insists on eating it all together and thereby setting off cataclysmic chain reactions in the universe.

I seek an order that she either stop eating it altogether or damages for any harm caused by her unethical cereal habit.

Now, first of all,

there is no lucky charms type cereal except for lucky charms, because it seems to me that this is what this case hinges on.

Whether or not

lucky charms are not merely magically delicious, but also magical, such that if you eat them in the wrong order, it will affect the universe.

I don't believe this to be true.

That said, let's just be precise.

It's called lucky charms.

They're not called grains.

They're shaped, pulverized oat, according to this Wikipedia article.

SPL.

And of course, they're not called marshmallows.

Technically, within the cereal biz,

they're known as mar bits.

A term invented for lucky charms.

Marshmallow bits.

The first time I gather in history that marshmallows had ever been this size, which is a tiny bit size of bit-sized marshmallows.

Jesse Thorne, did you ever eat lucky charms?

I never ate lucky charms.

That was a General Mills cereal.

I was a Kellogg's person.

Sweet breakfast cereals weren't prevalent in my home.

No.

I don't know if I've even had a bite of Lucky Charms.

Jennifer Marmor, what about you?

You ever eat a Lucky Charm?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I've eaten a lot of lucky charms in my life.

I mean, it wasn't like my main cereal, but I've definitely, definitely eaten them.

Okay, and how would you eat them?

I mean,

I'm not a cereal and milk person, so like that wasn't a thing that I did.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hold, hold on, hold on.

What?

What?

What are you even talking about?

I just eat dry cereal as a snack sometimes.

But,

okay.

I mean, great.

Did I know this?

How long have I known?

This is a major thing to not know.

Really?

Yeah, that's not a big deal.

I don't think, I think it's pretty common to eat cereal with milk in it.

I think it's pretty cool.

Of course, it is.

Of course, it is.

I understand.

That's part of a complete nutritious breakfast that they're trying to sell you.

This is one of my weirdsies.

I don't really enjoy milk.

I don't enjoy the texture of

soggy extruded oat paste.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So, if you were going to snack on some lucky charms,

your hand is the spoon, as it were.

Never mind the milk.

You grab them indiscriminately or do you eat the extruded oat paste first?

Yeah, pretty indiscriminately.

I'm also one of those people who likes the marbots more than the marshmallows.

Well, I think that that's the point of this whole case, right?

Isn't that Octavia's point?

Could be.

That you save the marbot.

I mean, Octavia is saying she saves the marbots to avoid damages and harm and shame reactions in the universe.

Wait, are the marbots the grains, oats things?

I misunderstood, maybe.

No, no, no.

Octavia says you should eat the grains first, the oats, the paste, the non-marbots.

Save the marbots for last.

Okay, I misunderstood.

She's saying it's because she's afraid that

the marbots have magical powers.

Right.

You know what she should do?

What?

Well, first of all, I think her whole method is too much work.

But

second, she lives in Florissant, Missouri.

Sorry, Jesse's dad.

And it's not far from Arcola, Illinois, Amish country.

And I've been there, and where Rockham Gardens used to be, I believe, there is a store that they sell, you know, Amish goods and normal foods.

And I mean, Amish foods are normal, sorry.

But they sell all kinds of things, including bags of what appear to be just the lucky charms marshmallows by themselves.

It's a little something called doing it right.

Are you telling me that the people at the Amish market are picking out the marbets and putting them in bags and feeding the grain the oat paste, presumably to

their pigs and such?

Maybe to their horses on their buggies.

Right.

Those are probably too sweet for the the horses, but I don't know where they're getting, where they're sourcing these marbots from, but it exists.

And you can verify that we are talking about hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, rainbows, red balloons, unicorns.

Yeah.

The current lineup of Marbots and Lucky Charms.

Look, I haven't been to this store in quite a few years, but

the first time I was there, I was blown away by this bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows.

Octavia, get your vehicle, if you have one, and point it at Arcola

Illinois, is how my dad used to say it.

Illinois.

It's like two and a half hours.

Nice trip.

Nice trip.

I'll tell you something.

Do you have a feeling, Jesse Thorne, on what is correct here?

Is there a correct way to eat Lucky Charms?

Yes or no?

I've never heard of this before.

I don't want to tell people how to live their lives.

That's not why I started this podcast.

I just want to tell them that they're wrong a lot of the time or they're right.

However, eating a spoonful of

Lucky Charms style Marbits feels like too much to me.

And it does feel a bit like it violates the lucky spirit of Lucky Charm cereal specifically, which is you're eating a bunch of oats, but then you get lucky.

You got a charm.

Oh.

The charm is the marbit.

I never thought of that.

Yeah, I got to go with that, Octavia.

You're violating the luck of the charms.

I suspect, Octavia, that some degree you feel like eating the extruded oat pellets

is like the vegetables of the cereal, and you have to get through them in order to earn the dessert.

But let me tell you, those extruded oat pellets, they're also in shapes.

I don't know what they are, weird Celtic runes.

I don't know what those shapes mean.

But they're also covered in sugar.

So it's all dessert.

Yeah, they're good.

Mix it up.

Those oat pellets are really good.

I like them.

Yeah, they're really good for you.

I didn't say that.

No.

Yeah, that's a stretch.

They're tasty.

They're not very good for you if they're coated in sugar, I suppose.

Did you know that the marbots have powers?

What kind of powers are we talking about here?

Magical powers that Lucky the Leprechaun has because of these marshmallows.

That's why he so jealously guards his pot of lucky charms.

According to to the lucky charms official website the heart charm gives life to objects the star charm gives power of flight horseshoe charm is power of speed clover charm power of luck blue moon power of invisibility

blue moon charm trumps star charm every time listen to this american life it proves it invisibility is better than flight rainbow charm is the power to teleport Red balloon charm is the power to float.

I always felt that red balloon was really horseshooted in there.

Yeah, it was a later addition.

I mean, I remember when they added the

red balloon.

Yeah.

It's a stretch.

That's a stretch.

You already got the star charm power of flight.

And then the unicorn charm, which is a

relatively recently recent new marbit, brings color to the world.

There you go.

If you wanted to see those marbits, go up there to Arcola, Illinois.

Otherwise, just take a big old bite.

And, you know, go easy on that stuff.

Here's something from Shay in Boston.

My roommate Charlie and I bring a suit against our third roommate, Logan.

We enjoy baking.

When one person makes brownies or cookies, we split them equally.

Charlie and I eat our portions within a day or two when they're fresh.

Logan leaves their treats on the side table.

Every day when we ask if they're going to eat them, Logan will say, yes, I'm going to eat it later.

But this is a lie.

Eventually, after many days, Logan decides the treat's no longer good and throws it out.

Notable conflicts include the cinnamon twist incident and the two-week ossified cupcake.

Please order Logan to eat their treat within three days or else it becomes communal property for Charlie and I to eat.

If it sweetens the deal, we have a cute cat and a menagerie of stuffed animals with their own names and personalities.

Uh, yeah, I would say that that sweetens the deal.

Because this case is pretty open and shut.

If you abandon a treat, a cookie or a brownie or whatever, on a side table for more than three days, or maybe a little pile of marbits for later that you've saved,

guess what?

You're already sharing that with ants.

Never mind your roommates.

Unless you put it under one of those little

cheese domes.

Do you have a cheese dome, Jesse?

I would love to, but you know, you know how it is living in the city.

I have a cake dome.

You have a cake.

Of course, you got to have a cake dome because you don't want...

Is it glass?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

You want to see that cake, but you don't want flies and ants to get on it.

Yep.

I got to get a dome for like my cheese plate.

That's on my list of to-dos.

But meanwhile, I don't think that Logan is putting a dome over these abandoned treats.

And so I obviously find in Charlie and Shay's favor.

And mostly I just wanted to use this case to ask Shay the question, what are the names of these stuffed animals?

I've sent you an email with photos of most of the stuffed animals, and I have obtained from Shay a list of all of their names.

The cat, the actual living cat, which is a black cat, is named Artemis.

But the stuffed animals are Steggy the Stegosaurus.

Zealius the Brontosaurus, Clover the guinea pig, Iggy, whose full name is Igor, Destroyer of Worlds the Hippo, Panonica the Pangolin, Jamil the Camel, Riley the Monkey, Oliver the Hedgehog.

This one really gets me.

Bosque, the stuffed pear.

Bosque pear.

Plus Shay says, a stuffed radish whose name I can't remember.

And for a while, they were keeping a chocolate-covered gummy bear named Hans Hoffman as a pet for Oliver.

which you will remember is the stuffed hedgehog, but they lost Hans Hoffman.

These animals go to animal school during the day, and we will send you a class photo.

For now, here is Iggy and his baby socks in a group photo of some of the gang.

And Shay says, I've forgotten the little bear's name.

And all the sweaters that

these animals are wearing were all knit by their roommate Charlie.

We will post the photos, including this photo of...

Iggy, destroyer of worlds, the hippopotamus and his baby socks, which is a beautifully disturbing photo of a stuffed hippopotamus in a hand-knit sweater and baby socks covered in an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.

Explanation not provided.

But whatever's going on up there in Boston between Shay and Logan and Charlie, I like it.

I like it.

I want to hear all about Animal School.

I want to see these photos.

We'll post the photos as they come in, obviously, on our Instagram page at judgejohodgman and on the show page at maximumfund.org.

Have anything you want to say about these photos?

Do you see them?

Doesn't matter.

I mean, there is quite the menagerie here.

It's quite the menagerie.

The real question here, though, 100% is, how did this one one animal get stuck inside this jigsaw puzzle disaster i mean it looks like the aftermath of it some kind of jigsaw puzzle tornado yeah where whatever kind of animal this is it's face down and wearing a little sweater and socks it feels to me as though uh they didn't teach in animal school the lesson of don't try to pull down a jigsaw puzzle off the table or you're going to get smashed by that jigsaw puzzle.

And then these friends, these humans who live there, just walked by and said, oh, that's funny.

Igor has been smashed by jigsaws.

I'll take a picture.

That would be a fun thing to send without any context whatsoever.

Oh, as we speak, I have just gotten more photos, including the class photo.

We will be posting this, obviously.

And there I see that stuffed radish, but I still have not seen Bosque the stuffed pear.

I need to see Bosque the stuffed pear.

Get me that photo, Shay.

Keep them coming.

And meanwhile, Logan, you're out of luck.

You got to eat those treats in three days or else

everyone gets to eat them, plus the cockroaches.

Let's take a quick break.

We'll have more of the docket in just a second.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week, and we have a case from Aaron.

When preparing berry pancakes, which method is superior?

Mixing berries directly into the batter before ladling, or ladling the batter onto the grill and placing placing the berries on top of the as-yet-uncooked side.

The former is Aaron's way, the latter Alex's way.

The mixing before ladling is Aaron's preference.

The topping on the griddle is Alex's preference.

Do I understand that correctly?

That's correct.

I don't make pancakes.

I just don't.

That's not my morning treat.

Do you make pancakes, Jesse?

I do from time to time.

You make them with fresh main scallops.

I'm sorry, blueberries.

If I've got a nice bucket, yeah.

Get a nice gallon of blueberries.

And how would you put the blueberries into that pancake?

I would probably put them in the batter, but I would be careful when ladling because they would sink eventually, wouldn't they?

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

You get even distribution if you put them in the batter.

You have to keep them mixed.

You have to keep it like, you know, you know what you get is a concrete mixing truck.

That way it never settles.

Right.

Just a big, and then just

it's constantly turning.

The berries are getting distributed all the time.

You're making a ton of sense here, John.

I don't make pancakes.

They're not my treat.

I mean, I've done it.

It's satisfying to make them.

But, and I've never made berry pancakes, but I know someone who has made a lot of blueberry and other berry pancakes.

And that is our friends at Shopson's restaurant.

here in New York City, which is started by Kenny and Eve Shopson in the West Village.

It's now in the Lower East Side and run by their children, primarily Zach Shopson, Tamara Shopson, and Melinda Shopson.

The other two Shopson brothers are off in the world not making pancakes for some reason, fine.

So I asked Tamara what she would do, and she sent us this audio reply.

Hi, my name is Tamara Shopson, and my family runs the restaurant Shopson's.

When we make pancakes, we put the pancakes down on the griddle and then we sprinkle blueberries in the raw side and then we flip it and cook it.

But when we do raspberry pancakes, we mix the raspberries in with the batter.

We do this because maybe raspberries are more delicate and they burn before the pancake's cooked or the little pieces fall out, whereas that doesn't happen with blueberries.

And

why do the extra step if you don't need to with the blueberries?

Because it's a real pain in the ass to mix the raspberries in with the batter.

But also, you get like a perfect scatter with the blueberries.

But also, it's just the way our dad did it.

So, that's why we do it.

Do we have to bleep out pain in the ass?

Do we bleep that out or no, Jennifer Marmor?

I don't know.

Valerie Moffat, do you know what we need to do in order to maintain our coveted non-explicit rating?

I I would ask Jennifer Marmor.

Jennifer Marmor?

I feel like ass isn't one of the seven words that you're not allowed to say on radio, so it feels fine to me.

I'll say this just for fun.

Bleep it out anyway.

Bleep it out.

Leave all this in and bleep it out.

And bleep everything.

Got it.

You got it.

Bleep out all the ass.

Bleep out the ass.

That's what I say.

Well, there you have it.

The Shobson's way is to scatter blueberries because it is more time efficient.

And I would venture to say that people who enjoy blueberry pancakes, and I certainly expect you to write me letters, want a little of that hot, scorched blueberry that you only get when that top layer is sort of

in contact with the hot top of the grill or the griddle.

That scorched blueberry.

You know what I'm talking about, Jesse Thorne, right?

Yeah, you got to get a little bit of the Maillard reaction.

A little of the Maillard reaction, exactly.

And also, you need to also get a little of that trypophobia trigger because you have those blueberry holes on top of the pancake.

My wife has that.

Does she have it?

Yeah.

And we never had a name for it.

It was long before it became an internet meme.

My wife would tell me about how much she hated holes and how upsetting they were to her.

Yeah,

it's a legit thing.

It is discomfort and distress caused by images of things with lots of little holes in them, which are pancakes as well.

Pancakes, they have those little bubbly holes.

I love them.

I love watching pancakes cook, but I don't love eating them.

But I guess ultimately, ultimately, Aaron, it depends on the berry because you heard it directly from Tamara Shopson, Aaron, raspberries are too delicate to plop on top.

You got to mix them in.

Send in some more berries, Aaron.

Aaron only.

I don't need any berries from any of you other people.

If there are any other berries on your list, I'll let you know what to do.

I'll check with Tamara.

I'll let you know what to do.

Here's something from Sarah in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

I find it odd when people go out to eat and all order the same entree at a restaurant.

Sometimes if my husband and I go out, I'll change what I'm getting as an entree because he wants the same thing.

Is this weird?

Should I just get over it?

Do servers think it's odd when a group of two to four people all ordered the same thing?

I'm going to, first of all, Hopkinton is where the Boston Marathon starts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is the most populated Commonwealth in, and indeed the only Commonwealth in New England, which is an area that you know of very well, Jesse.

Gonna be frank, I'm not familiar.

And the Boston Marathon, do you know where it ends?

I couldn't tell you.

The finish line somewhere.

Yeah.

The finish line in the back bay.

Yeah, one of those big tapes.

One of those big tapes.

Where that tape happens to be, that's what you aim for when you're running a marathon.

Aim for the tape.

Yeah.

Aim for the tape.

Aiming is so important in marathons.

That's right.

This is how you win a marathon.

Aim for the tape and run your off.

Meanwhile, I don't know a lot about what servers think because I've never waited to tables.

I did some work at Claire's Corner Copia, a vegetarian restaurant in New Haven, but I was just running orders out to tables.

I was not, you know, a proper server.

So if someone ordered, you know, if I were

a server and they said, I want to have a grilled cheese sandwich and I want the same grilled cheese sandwich, I don't know if I would find that weird.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are delicious, but I do know someone who not only has served quite a few tables,

but also

has has served those tables in a restaurant known for its rules that you cannot order the same thing as other people.

And that restaurant is Shopson's.

And guess what?

Tamara Shopson has an identical twin sister named Melinda Shopson.

And I received an audio response to your case, Sarah, from her.

Hi, I'm Melinda Shopson.

I am one of the many siblings that grew up in the Shopson's General Store, which is a restaurant that my parents started, Kenny and Eve.

And when I was a kid, we had a rule that was the no-copying rule, which is not the same as everybody ordering the same thing, but it meant that you couldn't,

if you came in and you sat down and you saw that your neighbor had something you wanted to eat and you said to my mom, like, hey, I want to eat that.

What is that?

My mom would say, oh, well, that's chicken, pecan, wild rice, and chiladas.

And then you would go to order and she's like, oh, no, you can't have that because you're copying and that's cheating.

Because I guess my dad wanted people to come up with their own ideas, but also I don't think he really liked cooking things twice.

But if you came in with your friend and you both were like, we both want chicken, pecan wild, rice, enchilada, and you hadn't copied from people around you, then you could do that.

And that is a little weird.

I agree.

It's like, it's very

unusual to get a table where people order the same thing, I have to say.

And it's weird, but you know,

it's not the same as no copying.

It had never occurred to me in visiting one of those diners that have those extraordinarily long menus,

comically long menus, that the issue might be that the chef proprietor doesn't want to cook the same thing twice.

Well, Kenny Shopson, who is no longer living, was a highly opinionated person and a very wonderful person if he wasn't yelling at you.

And even when he was yelling at you, because probably he was yelling something at you that you needed to hear.

And I would encourage you, all the shops do a lot of different things, which I'll mention in our segment in a second, but Kenny Shopson's book, Eat Me, is wonderful.

And it really outlays his whole philosophy about why you shouldn't order something that someone else is sitting right next to you and eating.

I will warn people that there are some swear words.

There's a lot of in this book.

You know what I mean?

The Shopsons all, the Shopsons all talk a lot of.

But in any case, if I were to go to a restaurant and my dining partner was ordering first and they picked an entree that I had my eye on, I would not order the same entree.

It's not because it's, I mean, I guess I misunderstood the Shopson's rule, which is you can't copy the table next to you.

But even at the same table, it just feels like

we're here for for this experience.

Let's try as much of this menu as possible.

Not that I'm necessarily going to grab a bite of my neighbor's meal, but it feels a little bit,

I don't know.

There was a movie called Single White Female.

It feels a little copying to be like, yes, I will also have the rat tattooie or whatever it is.

Do you think that that's wrong, Jesse?

I think there are restaurants where that's very true.

I think there are restaurants where there is a signature dish and it would be appropriate for everyone to order that signature dish.

If I was in Langer's Delicatessen near MaxFun headquarters and everyone at my table ordered the number 19, now, to be clear, Valerie's invited and she hates coleslaw, so she's not going to order the number 19.

What's the number 19?

That would be

pastrami, coleslaw, and Swiss on rye.

I'll take two of them.

They're spectacular.

Or let's say I was here in northeastern Los Angeles or in Pasadena.

Right.

And I visited Pie and Burger.

Okay.

Well, if everyone at my table ordered a cheeseburger and a slice of pie, I wouldn't look askance.

Yeah.

No, of course not.

They have other foods available, but why would you order them?

If you were to go to a pizza parlor and one person gets two slices of pizza, you don't go, oh, shoot, I wanted two slices of pizza.

Now I have to eat garlic knots.

That's not true.

You can get calzones.

I think, and, you know, Shopson's itself

is a, you know, kind of more in the vein of a diner style restaurant, an informal, large menu, lunch and breakfast restaurant.

But still, I feel like

it depends on the place.

And if you go to a place where there's a lot of imagination at work

in the menu, you should try.

You should not all get the same thing.

Experiment a little.

It's my feeling.

But if your question is, Sarah, do servers think it's weird if two to four people all order the same thing?

I'm going to take Melinda Shopson's word for it.

Yeah, they think it's weird.

They think that maybe you're

aliens.

Maybe you're aliens from another planet.

Or

you're those kids from the village of the damned and you all look alike and you all order the same thing.

You're pretending to be human.

It's a little weird.

It's a little weird.

Do what you need to do, but it's a little weird.

I wonder if the server at Le Pan Cotidienne thought it was weird that my mom and I both ordered the same waffle the other week when we were there, especially because we look so much alike.

I know.

I was just going to say, having met your mom last week in New York and picturing the two of you going up to order the same waffle at Le Pen Co de Dienne, the daily bread, I would say that a server probably found it to be

damn adorable.

But it was fun because, first of all, the waffle was great.

Highly recommend it.

What tell me about the waffle?

It was really good.

Number 19?

Yeah, it was the number 19.

It had coleslaw and Swiss cheese on it.

Coleslaw.

It was mixed berries and whipped cream.

It was delightful, not too big.

Was it a big, thick Belgian waffle?

Yes, but it wasn't humongous.

It was like a really good size.

Right.

And she ordered it without the whip because she can't do dairy.

And I said, I'll have what she's having, but with the whip.

Right.

And that was fun to say, I'll have what she's having.

I'll have what she's having.

It's a perfect argument for copying the other person at the other table.

Yeah, I feel like just eat what you want.

Don't think about it too much.

Don't think about it too much.

But four people ordering the same entree in a restaurant, I'm going to say it's unusual and you will face the consequences of

your unusualness.

And you know what?

We're all unusual in our own ways and we're all facing those consequences with bravery.

So that's great.

It doesn't matter what the servers think of you.

If you really want to eat the thing you want to eat, it doesn't matter if your partner gets to it before you do on the menu.

Go ahead and do it.

All right.

I'm going to not be judgmental on this one for once.

But, you know, the consequence will be the server will be like, yeah, I think we got four midwitch cuckoos out there.

That's the original name of Village of the Damned.

The movie about those creepy kids who all look alike that no one knows what I'm talking about.

And it's an obscure cultural reference.

Some people are getting it.

I thought you were calling me and my mom witches, but we're just mid.

No, I think it's the mid witch cuckoos was the novel that the Village of the Damned was based on that all had those identical kids with that platinum blonde hair and they all wear their little suits.

Yeah.

And then they took over that town.

Jennifer, I'm not going to speak to you and your personality here, but I will say that your mother is anything but mid.

The absolute furthest thing from mid.

Yeah, max

maximummom.org.

Hey, every week I receive a number of cases

involving settled law.

People who are writing in, not knowing, for example, that a hot dog is not a sandwich, and they ask, and they just haven't, they just don't know that we've already ruled on a topic.

And I don't want to leave these folks hanging in the inbox just because they haven't listened to a podcast for 10 years.

That's not fair.

So I'm just going to, before we go to the break, Jessie, I'm just going to clear a couple of these out.

Great.

First of all, to Rose in Durham.

We've heard this case a lot.

And the answer is this.

Listening to audiobooks is an entirely equivalent experience to reading a physical book or a book on an e-reader.

Equivalent in the sense that one is not better than the other.

However, they are cognitively different experiences.

And for accuracy, I have ruled that you do say you listen to an audiobook.

You read a book.

That said, Rose, your husband Sasha is being a jerk by saying that you only listen to it because there's nothing worse about listening to an audiobook.

In fact, it's a completely different, in many ways, more vibrant experience.

So, Sasha, you're a jerk.

Mark, this is not a message to Mark.

This is a message to Mark's partner in Branford, Ontario.

Hey, Mark's partner, don't punch Mark in his arm so hard when playing Punch Buggy.

We've heard Punch Buggy cases a number of times.

You're not out there to hurt anybody.

Just touch his shoulder, or better yet, don't touch him at all.

He's driving.

Your life is in Mark's hands.

Earth, Wind, and Fire spoke to the spirit of the boogie.

Here we speak to the spirit of the the boogie.

Ooh.

And finally, Andrew, I'm sorry.

This is more of

an apology, which is rare enough on this, but occasionally warranted.

Andrew, I'm sorry I made fun of your favorite high-tech sweat-wicking shirts, athletic shirts.

I appreciate that for someone like you, who, as you pointed out in your words, has a superpower of super sweating, These shirts make a lot of sense.

And also several others who wrote in to defend these shirts, especially as part of their fitness journeys.

I understand that that was upsetting for you that I called them jerk shirts.

These shirts are not jerk shirts, certainly not when worn for exercise, but I contend a lot of jerks wear them to brunch.

You know who I mean.

The guys who wear their jerk shirts with a smirk.

You know, that's not you.

That's not you.

You don't need to worry about my calling them jerk shirts.

If you're not a jerk who's wearing a jerk shirt with a smirk to brunch or some other public event,

you don't need to worry about it.

You know who I'm talking about.

But for all you smirky shirters out there wearing your jerk shirts at brunch, I hope you drop your eggs Benedict all over your shirt.

See how that wicking technology does with that Hollandaise.

Wick, wick, wick.

Or a no, stain, stain, stain.

Stain of shame.

Do you think those wicking shirts make the sound wicky, wicky, wicky?

That's where it came from.

Wiki, wiki, wicky.

They invented rap, just like the music man.

And William Shakespeare.

That's right.

I forgot.

When we come back, dispute about something called a Mayo Knife.

I'm Emily Fleming.

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Matt Lee.

We are real comedy writers.

Real friends.

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

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Find it at maximumfun.org.

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

Let's talk about what we have have going on right now.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing is the answer.

I personally have nothing going on.

Well, because I'm in the midst of not only continuing to record our podcast all summer long, but I'm working on a show, which has been announced.

I'm on a show called Up Here, which will debut on Hulu in the future.

It is a eight-episode musical romantic comedy that is co-created by our friends, friends of the show, Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez,

who may well be listening to this right now.

Thank you, Bobby and Kristen, for inviting me to have a small role on the show.

It's a singing role.

It's like I'm a music man, almost.

But I only kind of harmonize.

I don't have any solos, thank God or whatever.

And I've been working on it with some incredible actors.

It's Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdez, falling in love, Mae Whitman from Good Girls, Carlos Valdez from The Flash, Falling in Love in New York City in 1999 and singing about it.

I play the disembodied memory of Mae Whitman's dad.

Katie Finneran plays the disembodied memory of her mom, who was played my wife.

It's just, it's so much fun.

First couple of episodes directed by Tommy Kahle, who directed Hamilton.

Stephen Levinson, who wrote the book for Dear Evan Hansen, is the writer, or one of the main writers writers on the show, the showrunner.

It's an incredible thing.

They said, would you consider doing this?

And I said, yes, yes.

And again, yes.

It's been great.

So keep an ear out for it.

Up here, it's called.

And it will be coming out on Hulu soon.

But while I'm doing that, I'm not doing much else.

So let me just suggest a couple of things that you might want to look into.

You know, Tamara Shopson.

is not merely a Shopson who works at Shopson.

She is also an incredible graphic designer and illustrator and a novelist and a memoirist.

Her latest book is a novel called Laser Writer 2, which is a story about working in the 90s, another,

sends a theme, at the incredible pre-Apple store, independent Apple repair shop called TechServe.

LaserWriter 2 is a really, really wonderful book.

You'll read it in the afternoon.

It's terrific, especially if you remember what it was like to use those early Mac computers.

She also designed the book Eat Me by her father, Kenny Shopson.

Melinda Shopson is a producer, an Emmy and Sundance award-winning producer of documentaries and other projects and podcasts.

Her most recent project, she's produced a podcast called The Just Enough Family with host Ariel Levy from The New Yorker about the incredible success and strange personal experiences of maternity wear revolutionary Liz Lang in New York.

It's an incredible podcast that I really loved listening to.

And it's all true, and Melinda produced produced it.

It's amazing.

And speaking of incredible podcasts that I cannot stop listening to, Jesse, you and I were texting about our friend Karina Longworth's latest series on her incredible podcast about Hollywood history called You Must Remember This.

She's covering the erotic 80s,

sexy films from the 80s and 90s and the late 70s as well.

And as usual, this is the best book I will read this summer.

And I'm not even reading it.

I'm listening to it.

It's a podcast called You Must Remember This.

And I remember when the person who recommended it to me told me that, I said, I will never forget until I did.

And then I got to text him and say, what was the name of that podcast again?

He said, you must remember this.

It was funny.

I really enjoyed it.

It's like one of those

gripping nonfiction podcasts.

Beyond that, Karina is a really insightful critic.

And I think that she brings a lot of her critical insight to these stories about film and filmmaking.

And that's something that I am really excited about hearing about.

And, you know, every episode I find myself writing down a film that I would like to watch.

Jesse, you're one of the delightful people in my life and one of the great connectors in my life.

You've introduced me to so much incredible culture and creative people via your NPR interview show, Bullseye, which is available on maximumfund.org every week as well.

If you're not subscribed and listened to it already, you must do so.

That's right.

It's a must.

What have you got going on on Bullseye or the Put This On Shop or whatever else is going on in your life?

I just added a whole bunch of new brass belt buckles to the Put This On Shop, including

two different judo buckles,

one that says four-wheeling,

some great football and baseball players, players, two pigs that are friends,

lots of great belt buckles.

But I also, pursuant to the interests of probably some people in the audience, just launched a whole bunch of vintage and antique board games

ranging from how Silas popped the question

to Jingo

to Quizme, the game of riddles.

Lots of cool vintage and antique board games.

I mean, I'm talking about games that are 100 years old.

You're talking about Jingo, Society's latest game, A Game for a Roomful, from Parker Brothers Incorporated?

I also have these, you know, those kind of folders that you keep your notes in at, you know, eighth grade?

Like a peachy kind of folder.

Uh-huh.

In 1989, the Top Spaceball Card Company produced a bunch of them that are top spaceball cards.

So it's the front of the card on the front and the back of the card on the back and a folder inside.

And I have Frank Sweet Music Viola, Andres Galarraga, the big cat, Elgato Grande, Ozzie Smith, Mike Greenwell, Dave Winfield, Alan Trammell, Andre the Hawk, Dawson, Mike Scott, the fireballer for the Astros, Big Mac, Mark Maguire, Danny Jackson, left-handed starter for the Reds.

They're all there.

They're all available to you at putthisonshop.com.

Use the code VintageJustice and all but the largest things ship for free.

PutTisonshop.com and of course, listen to Bullseye, everybody.

Let's get back to the docket.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Here's a case from Gillian in Montreal.

Montreal.

I bought an item at Saint Vitieu bagels that was labeled a cream cheese.

Nut spreader.

Comment on your pronunciation of that.

It's fine.

I got nothing in France.

Es bueno, I say.

I use it to spread cream cheese.

Then I put it back in the drawer with the other spreaders and spatulas.

My husband Fabian, the engineer, argues that because there's a small serrated section, it's actually a knife.

He makes a big show of laboriously sawing through the bagel to make his point.

And what's worse, he stores it on the magnetic knife strip.

What is this thing?

And where should it live?

And of course, we have a photo of this French-Canadian cream cheese spreader/slash serrated bagel knife, whatever it may be, up on our Instagram at judge John Hodgman and on our show page at maximumfun.org.

And we have a photo of it on a counter and we have a photo of it on the magnetic knife strip.

Before we talk about where it should be stored and what it is, let's just say

Montreal bagels are really, really good.

They're different from New York bagels.

But just like an audio book is equivalent to a printed book, the Montreal bagel and the New York bagel are each equally valid bagel foodways, each with rather similar but distinct histories that are very storied and very deep in

the Jewish heritage of both cities.

So all you New York bagel chauvinists out there, eat it.

And by eat it, I mean one of these delicious Montreal bagels that are a little sweeter.

They got a bigger hole.

I like Fairmount bagels.

But Saint-Viateau is one of the famous bagel chains up there.

They're all really, really good.

You can probably order them online.

I like them.

And they're better than any bagel-shaped bread you're going to get in, I hate to say it, Jesse, Missouri.

I bet there's some artisanal bagel places in Missouri, but if there are, show me.

All right?

Show me.

Okay, enough of that.

I just like talking about those bagels.

I love them.

Jesse,

is this a cream cheese spreader or a bagel knife?

What is your take?

This is

100%

a cream cheese spreader.

Right.

That serration

would be absurd to use to slice a bagel in half.

I would delight in seeing the comical scene of this man, Fabian, Fabian, attempting to slice a bagel with this tiny rounded knife.

I would say it's not merely absurd.

It would be dangerous to slice a bagel.

Agreed.

with this serrated knife

because it's not long enough and it's not well serrated enough, and you are going to cut your finger off.

You're going to, one of these days, Fabian, you're going to cut your finger off with this thing.

Should it therefore be in the spreader drawer, Jesse, or on the knife magnet holder, magnetized knife holder?

If they use it so much that they want to keep it on the knife holder, I would be fine with that.

But functionally speaking, it belongs with the spreaders or at the very least with the funny little knives, such as those funny little right-angle butter knives or whatever.

Right.

Tiny fork area.

And the funny little knife drawer.

Exactly.

You see, Jillian is not merely correct in that this is a cream cheese spreader.

I don't know what those serrations are for.

Honestly, I don't know what you would use them for.

Maybe to put a little pattern on top of the cream cheese after you've spread it?

I don't know.

If you know the reason, sans viiteur or wherever, send it in.

But in the meantime, Jillian is not merely angry that he tries to cut bagels with it, but believes that that magnetized knife holder is a place of pride where that stumpy little spreader does not belong.

And I know this because Jillian, you know, before I could even answer, I got another letter from Jillian talking about their mayo knife.

Now, obviously they had my attention

because I like mayonnaise a lot and I don't eat it with a knife.

I eat it with a spoon.

sometimes wrongly at 2 a.m.

But apparently there's some kind of knife.

And she wrote, after I told Fabian that I'd written to you, Judge John Hodgman, I woke up the next day to find that he'd escalated the situation.

He used a strip of magnetic tape to make his Mayo knife capable of being affixed to the magnetic knife bar.

In the hierarchy of cooking tools, knives are tops.

And he keeps wedging his ridiculous knot knives into and onto the spaces for the actual knives we use.

And she sent in a photo of this Mayo knife, which is this oddly shaped knife.

And it says on it mayo knife, does it not?

Yeah, it says so right there.

I don't know if this is something they only have in Canada or something I can get here in the United States, but it is a appropriately mayonnaise-colored plastic spreader that is shaped so that it can scoop out.

It's it's the curve of its blade is perfectly molded to fit the inside of what I can only believe is a delicious jar of no-name brand mayonnaise from Canada.

It's an ingenious device that I want one.

And

again, this is not a knife.

This is a spreader.

You cannot cut anything with this.

Try to cut a bagel with this.

You're going to have a bagel fly up into your eye and then you're going to go to the hospital because your eye is infected with everything seasoning.

This is only for getting that last bit of mayo out of the jar and spreading it on whatever.

sandwich you're going to spread it onto.

It's a delightful thing.

Despite its name, it is not a knife.

Would you agree, Jesse Thorne?

That's correct.

Jennifer Marma, you looking at this thing?

Yeah, that's not a knife.

Not a knife, right?

Spreader.

Definitely a spreader.

It's mislabeled.

And yet, it belongs on that knife bar because this thing is tops.

Put that cream cheese spreader in the drawer, but I love the pride of place that this mayo knife is enjoying.

And Fabian, you're absolutely wrong about the cream cheese spreader.

That is a spreader, not a knife.

But I got to honor the Quebecois ingenuity that went into putting magnetic strip onto your Mayo knife so you could not only store it in a place where you or I, if I ever come into your house, can handily grab it, but also, frankly, annoy Jillian in a very, very creative way.

I love that Mayo knife.

I love where it is.

This is a split decision, Jillian, but I call them as I spread them.

The docket's clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producers, Jennifer Marmer, our editor, Valerie Moffat.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

That's maximumfund.reddit.com.

A lot of friendly people there are the max fun reddit.

I always appreciate it.

Yeah, I love going over there to that Reddit and checking it out and saying hi to people.

Also, as you can tell from this episode, we have a lot of expert friends of this court, many of whom have been on the show before, many of whom haven't.

And they're not all named Shopson.

If you have a dispute that can only be settled by someone you think that I or Jesse or Jennifer might know, send it in.

Say, I have a dispute for XYZ person.

I can't promise that I'm going to be able to get Bruce Campbell, for example, to record a voice memo resolving your dispute with your college roommate over the best Bruce Campbell movie or TV role, but I will try.

If you think that I can reach out to these people,

maybe I can get a voice memo from them, put them on the show.

Just make sure you go to maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho and send in your dispute.

You know, when we first became friends, you got Bruce Campbell to come on the sound of Young America, the predecessor to Bullseye.

I did that, yeah, you did, and he was so wonderful.

He's such a delight, such a delight.

Pizza Papa always gets paid.

Whatever your dispute with Bruce Campbell is,

we want to hear about it.

And if you have a dispute, there are disputes with Bruce Campbell.

No, no, no, no, it's got to be be a dispute between you and your friend over something that only Bruce Campbell knows the answer to.

Okay.

So if you have a dispute with Sam Raimi, if you're friends with Sam Raimi and you have a dispute that only Bruce Campbell can settle, or any other dispute, no case too small, submit them to us, maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O.

That's maximumfund.org slash JJ H O.

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

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