Hearspray

Hello and welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm guest bailiff Gene Gray sitting in for Jesse Thorne.

This week, Hear Spray.

Kate and Richard bought their house a few years ago and have been spending a lot of time fixing it up.

Kate believes that a paint sprayer will solve a lot of her problems, but Richard is concerned about adding that tool to their collection.

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.

What I do usually, I will say, look at that almighty paint and look at that almighty brush.

And when I talk like that, automatically I boost my inside.

When you sign that almighty painting, you hear the thunder in the sky.

You hear the echo from mountain to mountain.

You become the almighty creator.

Next to God or whatever is you.

Have that in your mind.

Then it is easy, very easy to live.

Guest Bailiff Jean Gray, hello.

Please swear in the litigants.

Okay.

Kate and Richard, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth?

The whole truth?

And nothing but the truth?

Only the truth.

Nothing else but truth.

Just the truth.

The truth is it.

So help you, God, or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Okay.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling?

Despite the fact that it is the year 2024, and he's been lying to us the whole time.

I do.

I do.

All right.

It's your choice.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I never thought I would get caught.

Well, yes.

Shouldn't have asked me back.

I gave sleeping powder to the entire population of the world.

Everyone slept for two years, and they woke up like it was a regular day.

I'm refreshed.

And I said, guess what?

It's still 2022.

And they're like, why is my lawn so weedy?

2022, you know, that's what it's like.

Kate and Richard, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment.

You know what I was realizing?

Here's a good riddle.

Kate and Richard, do you have,

you're partners in life, right?

Cohabitants married, are you?

We are not married.

Okay, that's fine.

I don't care anymore.

Do whatever you want.

We don't either.

Right.

Are there any kids in your life?

Your children, nephews, nieces,

neighborhood kids?

Kids in our life, not in our home.

Okay.

Here's a little riddle for them.

What popular podcast

is always listed on Apple podcasts as not explicit, and yet there is swearing on every episode.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We swear, we swear you in.

Never thought about that.

Well played, sir.

All right, Kate and Richard.

For an immediate summary judgment of one of yours favors, can either of you name the person I quoted as I entered the fake internet courtroom?

I see Richard is you're making some gestures.

You're touching your finger to your lips, Jeff Goldblum style.

You've got some idea you want.

Please, what is your guess?

Was that Bob Ross?

Was that painter Bob Ross?

Putting Bob Ross into the guest book.

Bob, how do you spell?

B-O-B?

And

Kate,

now it is your turn to guess.

Well, I felt like it was like a motivational speaker, but I don't actually know a real-life motivational speaker.

So I'm going to say Matt Foley, motivational speaker.

Matt Foley.

Who's that?

He's a motivational speaker?

He's Chris Farley,

van down by the river.

Oh, oh, that's that character.

I live live in a van down by the river.

Down by the river.

That's a great one.

And you didn't want to guess Bob Ross, Kate?

No, you know, I'm not as

haven't heard a lot of his speeches.

No.

You didn't want to guess any other television painters?

Television painters?

Not people who paint televisions, people who paint on television.

Are there other painting people over there?

Oh, are there?

I don't know.

Are there?

Was Bob Ross the only person to ever paint on television using specifically the wet-on-wet oil technique?

It's in that documentary.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, right, Gene Gray?

I do.

Both guesses are wrong, by the way, Kate and Richard.

But Richard, yours is the wrongest.

He's the wrongest of the two because I was quoting Bill Alexander.

You know, Bill Alexander, Gene Gray.

He was the first one.

Yep.

The magic of oil painting.

Before Bob Ross, Bill Alexander was a German-born immigrant to the United States via Canada, I believe.

And he pioneered not only going on TV and doing a landscape in 30 minutes, but specifically using the wet-on-wet technique, which is using wet paint, mixing it on the canvas to create happy little trees.

And indeed, happy little trees, he claims, is something that he coined, that Bob Ross copied off of him.

Now, originally, you know, Bill Alexander has a very expansive, inclusive worldview, some wonderful inspirational quotes.

Initially, he was very happy that Bob Ross, he taught Bob Ross, literally taught him.

Bob Ross was his student.

He passed the paintbrush to Bob Ross on this, Bob Ross' first episode of The Joy of Painting.

But then shortly after that, Bill Alexander realized that Bob Ross was a phenomenon.

Bill Alexander continued to do his show, but basically...

you know, got relegated to the side sidelines and there was some bitterness there.

Kate and Richard, how are you?

Thank you for being here on Judge John Hodgman.

Thanks for your patience.

Who brings this case before me for justice, Kate or Richard?

I bring it to the court.

And you are Kate.

Yes.

You are Kate.

I'm Kate.

And tell me, what is it issue here?

So, as the bailiff described, we bought a fixer several years ago, and

I

have suggested that we get a paint sprayer for efficiency and because it's a useful tool and because I think I make reasonable decisions that make make our life more efficient.

Okay.

And

my wonderful, loving partner very strongly disagrees, feels that I am a danger to myself and others should I have a paint sprayer.

Okay, Richard, you live in Portland, Oregon, correct?

That's right.

And tell us about this house and its condition.

Well, now we're happy with it.

It's not quite a finished home, but we live comfortably in it.

When we bought it about four years ago, there were several serious problems with the house.

What kind of problems?

Well, to have a roof?

It did have a roof.

We've replaced the roof since we've moved in, but it did have a functional roof at the time we moved in, yes.

Okay.

What were the problems then?

Oh, no walls.

Did I get it right?

Well,

there were definitely walls, and it was a livable home.

It just had

a lot of cosmetic issues.

It needed a lot of updating.

It needed,

we replaced the windows.

We've replaced a lot of the floors.

We've done a lot of remodeling to it.

It did have a decommissioned pool in the backyard that was mostly full of trash with a deck built over it.

It had a detached garage that was, it wasn't falling over, but it was leaning.

It had several serious problems with it.

And I am looking at photos that you sent in

that we will post on the show page at maximumfund.org, as well as our Instagram page at JudgeJohn Hodgman.

And I see the photo of the, what you call, decommissioned pool, what I would call the rubble pit that you had or maybe still have outside.

Thankfully, the rubble pit is no more.

It's,

yes, it is gone.

Why?

Why would you get rid of this rubble pit, especially this photo of the rubble pit with a nice little side chair and a bottle of wine on it?

That seems seems like a wonderful place to sit and relax of an evening.

What did you do?

Fill it in?

What did you fill it in with?

Mostly rubble, but we also removed about half of the rubble and then covered it with dirt.

And I'll be honest, just to have a dirt backyard was so refreshing after staring at that rubble pit for, I think, a couple years.

I think we had it for at least two years.

So who was doing the work on this house?

I think everyone.

I mean, certainly Kate and I did a lot of work early on.

We got a lot of help from family and friends.

And we have, over the past four years, I would say slowly lost gas.

Mostly

any work being done at this point is by paid professionals, I would say.

I don't think we do much work anymore.

But you're coming out of

four years of doing a lot of the work yourself, fixing upping on your own.

Kate, what kind of stuff did you do?

to this house?

Yeah, so that pool, for example, we tried to take apart ourselves.

So first we removed the deck to then make it a rubble pit that we could throw even more trash into.

So, there was a deck over a sunken pool, concrete pool.

That's right.

That's right.

To make it sellable.

And so, did you, how did you,

how did you, how do you get rid of a hole in the ground?

Yeah, so we started with a few work parties where our friends came over and we gave them alcohol and sledgehammers and said, go to it.

And so, we pulled about 16 tons of concrete out doing that so that we could wow

yeah wow

our friends are wonderful he said not 16 tons is that wrong to clarify I don't think it I don't think it was 16 tons I think it was maybe two and a half no what okay okay well regardless between two and 16 tons

at a classic Portland smash party yes yes correct oh boy um

so we did that there were bars on every single window So every single window, every single door had like steel bars over it.

So we cut those off.

How did you cut it?

What did you use to cut them off?

Drunk strength of friends.

Just rip them right off.

Yeah, exactly.

Recreational THC-fueled superpowers.

Yeah, it was like a tug-of-war, you know, field day.

No, but what kind of tool did you use, if I may ask?

We used a metal grinder.

So it's probably not what a professional would do, but it worked for us.

So

I have no idea

how I would start to do that.

Yeah.

But did you go out and buy a metal grinder?

We have a metal grinder.

Okay.

Hmm.

You went to the hardware store and you're like, we don't know what a professional will use to take off bars from windows, and we don't want your advice either.

Just give me a metal grinder.

I'd like there to be mystery.

Yeah, yeah.

We tried a Salzal to start, actually, which did sort of work for some of them.

But once we got to the ones that covered like sliding doors,

we needed something more serious.

And yeah, and right, who needs advice?

Let the record show that Kate is smiling very happily and Richard looks very uncomfortable.

This may be part of the dynamic.

I just want to back up for a second.

You had a party in your garbage pool where you gave your friends a bunch of beer and sledgehammers.

Yeah, and somebody brought a jackhammer, like a bush, a handheld jackhammer.

That was Richard's brother.

Yeah.

Of course.

That's just something you have around.

how how did someone not die at this party let me ask you the question did you provide uh eye eye covering yeah so we have complementary personality traits so i provided the hammers and rich provided the safety goggles okay that is true so some safety goggles at least yeah

that's

that's incredible but i have to say a demolition party would be a lot of fun

it would be a lot of fun and uh and everyone's nodding very vigorously people pay to go to rooms to do that, to let off steam, to smash things and break things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so you did a lot of demo.

Any other big projects?

Yeah, so right before the pandemic started in the States, so like early March, we demoed our whole dining room in order to finish our attic space.

So that was probably the biggest project that we hired somebody else to do.

I guess I should say we couldn't quite finish the pool.

Well, you didn't just have your friends come by and give them a bunch of tequilas?

Yeah, that one takes hard liquor, right?

Yeah.

Get this dining room out of here.

Have fun.

We'll be back.

We're going to go to the movies or the theater or a restaurant because there's no pandemic yet.

Yeah, so our house was in shambles right when we needed to stay home from work, when we were asked to stay home from work.

Anyhow.

Got it.

Oh, so your house was a work site as of the pandemic.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what kind of trauma Richard may have gone through in order to be so anti-paint sprayer that you would take it to a podcast.

Kate, why do you want a paint sprayer?

Well, we're coming down the home stretch on a lot of things.

And I have done a lot of the painting, for example, in that attic space that we finished.

And I think it would be far more efficient if we had a paint sprayer.

I also feel like I would be able to do it better, so faster, and then I would have more patience and gumption to do the like cutting in that takes more precision that I often run out of steam on.

And then I will also say the attic space, well, where Richard is sitting, as you can see, nobody has cut in there around him, so it's not finished paint.

Okay.

What does cutting in mean, Jean?

I don't know.

It's all of these corners.

Like getting those corners correctly.

As a person who painted

a four-story house and who made sure that everything was done with extreme precision,

it is really the part where you kind of start to lose it.

But, you know, if it's not done, you're going to see it across and stare at and it's going to drive you crazy.

But it does take a hand.

I have an opportunity using this teleconferencing tool that we use here for the Judge John Hodgman podcast, our proprietary teleconferencing program to pin what we call stick pin Richard so I can make him really big so I can really get into those corners.

Kate, how are you feeling about those corners right now?

Oh, not great.

Yeah.

So embarrassed.

I know you are because I have a lot of feelings.

I thought that you were using a virtual background, Richard.

Like, you know how you can use a virtual background?

I thought you were using a virtual background.

It's like, hey, look at me, I'm in a murder house.

Hey, look at me.

I'm in an abandoned house.

Because those corners are sketchy.

Let's talk about the paints.

These rooms that we're seeing you in,

I love the sea blue and I love the sea green.

Nice, uh, nice colors.

Seems to be well painted, at least in one of the rooms.

These were not painted with a paint sprayer, correct?

That's right.

All right.

Kate, I have another question for you about a paint sprayer.

Understand what this thing is, right?

It's a paint sprayer.

You spray the paint, right?

It's a thing that attaches to a hose.

Yeah.

And you just go

like that.

Yeah.

I've seen videos of these and

you have too, obviously.

I mean, not only are you smiling and beaming, your smile just got a city block wide.

And you started batting your eyes at the idea of a paint sprayer because it seems very satisfying, doesn't it?

Yeah.

TikTok makes it look so easy.

It takes like three seconds.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy, right?

Just

so satisfying.

I think part of the concern here is that once we have a sprayer, who knows what Kate will do with it.

Yes.

So, but at this point, we don't have any plans of painting furniture.

What else can she do except paint?

My view, my view is that.

Richard, Richard, Richard.

Yes, Richard.

Yes.

It goes like this.

Isn't that cool?

With the paint goes so fast.

You understand what we're talking about here.

What could be wrong with...

What could go wrong?

Please tell me.

If something could go horribly wrong, Kate will find out.

I think there's a little bit more more context to this dispute than I think Kate is letting on.

I say this about my partner.

She has excitability.

She's spontaneous.

She's adventurous.

These are wonderful qualities, but I think everyone has

qualities that make me very nervous and are not mine.

Yeah, and

some blind spots.

And I'm the more cautious one in the relationship.

And there is absolutely a pattern, a history here of some very rash behavior.

Establish the pattern.

Establish the history.

Be specific.

Tell the story.

This is your time.

There are really so many examples.

So let me start with just the painting examples.

And this is probably, I would say, like five or six years ago, I think was the first painting ordeal.

My recollection is there was a small

chip on the paint of our vehicle.

Kate Wisely, she got some touch-up paint and got herself in a situation where she was trying to blend the touch-up.

Since you're in Portland by vehicle, you mean your Penny Farley bicycle?

I would never let Kate touch-up paint our bikes.

We get our bikes professionally painted.

Okay, I got you.

So anyway, there was a chip on your car paint and Kate got touch-up paint.

Yeah, and it started out the size of maybe a dime, probably smaller than that.

And her idea was to blend the paint.

And, you know, if you've got the touch-up paint, it's never going to blend.

And pretty soon, it's a softball size touch-up paint spot that she's got going on the car

it's like that person who came in to touch up that painting of jesus in that italian chapel and it it turned into cookie monsters but i mean what a what a what a what a gift what a gift it was

it was an incredible thing the for the world to have that i mean we're richer for it you know so kate wisely actually did she did solve this problem actually she um she has this notion that nail polish remover solves everything.

And actually, to her credit, it actually immediately removed the touch-up paint.

So she poured it all over the car, which, as you can imagine, is a nerve-wracking experience in itself.

But that actually solved the problem.

No harm there.

But an indicator of this proclivity that she has of maybe being a bit too rash with...

And these are just paint stories.

There are a whole different set of stories involving any sort of power tool.

But this is not the only paint story.

There was another situation.

This was the house that we lived in right before we purchased this house.

It was a rental.

and she was in the kitchen with um fabric spray paint and i believe she was spray painting t-shirts and i believe she put them on the counter she may have put them on some cardboard there was certainly no like protective material around this project i think it was just shirts on cardboard and sure enough um a hefty quantity of this uh paint gets on our linoleum floor And I didn't really see how this unfolded.

This was told to me after the fact.

What I remember is walking into our kitchen and seeing Kate on the floor with a huge spot of paint.

And she had figured that nail polish remover has solved the problem in the past.

Surely that was the solution here.

And she had spread nail polish remover all over the floor, huge black spots everywhere of this fabric paint.

And that one I did solve.

We just like poured soap on it and it came off.

But in my view, second crisis averted, but clearly a pattern.

Those Those are the only paint stories that come to mind, but there are definitely other scenarios.

I'll take one non-paint story, but house repair-related, if you don't mind.

Yeah, so multiple house repair

stories, and certainly situations where life and limb were in jeopardy.

But the one that comes to mind, we had

a power washer for our driveway, which is great.

I mean, that's, and I will say that's another tool that we have had a dispute over.

My view is, given your nature, given our lack of need for it, we don't need to purchase a power washer.

But we rented a power washer.

We did clean the driveway.

And Kate did not stop with the driveway.

She went, there is a portion of our house that has brick on the side of it.

She started washing the brick, which sounds like a good idea, but not when there's like little mortar pieces flying out, which she realized after the fact.

She then went to the porch and removed like a layer of the porch, which is still gone.

We still have, there's a huge spot.

A layer of the porch was power washed away.

Yes,

very strong power washer or a very weak porch.

Probably both.

Why do you have such a weak porch, you guys?

Well, I mean, it was, I mean, you know, we're living in a house that, you know, is potentially, you know, sensitive.

Are you living in a candy house?

Is your porch made of meringue?

Not a sensitive meringue porch.

Don't power wash though.

This camp.

It's coming up on HGTV, the new show.

Sensitive meringue porch.

You know what I like about a power washer, Richard?

What's that?

It goes

like stronger.

You know what I like about a power washer?

Everything.

No.

It's great.

It sounds satisfying.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Kate, I see you nodding happily along to all of this.

Do you acknowledge that you perhaps went a little far with the power washers, sort of what Richard is saying, that you kind of leapt in to some DIY projects that got a little out of hand, couldn't be cleaned entirely up with nail polish remover?

And also, is the way you get your friends to do all these chores, because I hear nail polish solves everything.

Do you get them to huff acetone before they

start working?

Is that

part of the deal?

Like, yeah, buy a pizza and just smell this bag and get to work.

Psilocybin is legal in Oregon now.

Wow, okay.

No, I don't.

You know what?

I'm signing up for this party.

I want to come to the party.

Yeah, everyone does.

No, I don't deny that I am.

I think Richard described me as excitable.

I don't, I, and rash.

I, I don't, I don't deny that.

I would argue I have not made any catastrophic

mistakes.

We're all still here and healthy.

That's a pretty low bar.

I know.

Do you know what I mean?

That's such a low bar.

I don't know.

When it comes to house fixing up and DIYs and doing things, I pretty much like failure is not a, it's going to happen.

And I think it's the only way you learn.

But I also think if no one gets hurt, like if the acetone hasn't burnt off an eye or such, like you're doing okay.

You can get another porch if your porch is made out of meringue.

You know,

no one getting hurt is a very big deal.

And,

and failing.

I do feel like we've failed.

I mean, there's, I don't know,

but she's not saying like

no one got hurt or no one was permanently disfigured.

She's saying, Neither of us died.

Like,

neither of us are dead.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would make that part of the mission, definitely a top part of the mission of renovation.

Yeah.

Like, let's not kill each other.

But go on.

Well, I guess to Gene's point, I do feel like we've learned a lot.

So I learned about the power washing thing and without ruining our house completely.

Though I will admit, you know, I didn't think about that porch one.

The porch one is a very good example of like it is still there looking at us and it looks terrible.

It looks genuinely wretched.

But I will say, I we painted over it and it would have gone a lot faster if I had a paint sprayer.

So.

Yeah, how did you paint over it like this?

Yeah, like a dumb-dome, you know, just with a roller.

Walk, walk, walk.

Judge, can I make a point of clarification?

I'll allow it.

A point of clarification.

Actually, professionals painted over the paint.

We did hire professionals.

Wow.

And they probably did use a paint sprayer, but that was

not a problem solved by Kate or myself.

I thought we all agreed to tell the truth in this podcast, Kate.

I forgot.

That's right.

We all agreed to tell the truth.

How come your recollection is a little hazy?

A little bit too much nail polishing?

Well, I'm doing so many projects, Judge.

You know, I mean, I'm the one who's, I'm the engine behind all of this work at the house.

And so is that true?

Is that true, Richard?

Is Kate the engine?

I strongly dispute that.

I think that's

a larger dispute than perhaps we have to.

I'll will allow it, however.

I will allow it.

No, I mean,

we've both done a tremendous amount of work on this on the house.

I mean, I would say at this point, neither one of us is the engine.

It's all folks who were hiring to do the work at this point.

I wouldn't say either.

The person doing the work is not necessarily the engine.

Fair.

You know.

Person doing the work is not necessarily the engine.

The engine is the person who

makes all the other parts go and makes it happen.

And then the person who is not the engine might be the person who's like, I really wish nothing would happen

because it's disruptive and loud and nervous-making.

So that would be in this situation the Richard.

I would say.

There's the engine and there's the Richard.

I mean,

there's in my

relationship,

there is the engine and then there's the John Hodgman.

Things get done.

Things transition from

nothing happening to something happening, particularly when it comes to changes to the physical place we're living because of someone else in our house who is not me.

Would you say that that is accurate, Richard, or am I mischaracterizing you?

I don't think that's right, quite right.

I mean, I think I'm definitely the more conservative and cautious one.

And I don't want to discredit.

I mean, Kate has Kate has absolutely been the engine at various points and definitely has a lot of energy to get things moving.

That's a change of tune right there.

Boy, oh boy.

I thought we'd all agree to not lie.

You said she's not the engine, and now you say she is the engine.

Interesting.

Which is true, sir.

Which is true, I ask you, which is true.

My view is that at this point, we are both pretty weak engines when it comes to the house.

We're still getting things moving, but neither one of us has a lot of energy.

The engine is run down.

That's probably true.

Do you, Richard?

Do you or do you not, as a couple, own a nail nail gun?

We do.

And I, so I should say, originally that it was a trifecta.

It was the power washer.

It was the nail gun.

It was the paint sprayer.

Those were the three that concerned me most, and they were off limits.

And I did relent.

I got the nail gun.

And we do own a nail gun.

That is true.

I'm going to ask the question that never needs to be asked.

What made you nervous about a nail gun?

What could go wrong with a nail gun, Richard, from your point of view?

Is that rhetorical or is that a genuine question?

I'm helping you out.

I mean,

that's very different than the dunk, chunk, chunk with nails.

Well, and I will say the readiness with which she was willing to purchase this nail gun and the solutions that she believed a nail gun would provide us definitely added to my concern.

Because my reaction was, yeah, nail gun is super useful for these sorts of projects, but it's shooting you know, metal projectiles that could injure people

and could be used for a lot of purposes, probably beyond what it was designed for.

So, Kate was, Kate did not have a second thought about that, is absolutely something we should have in our home and I should be using it regularly.

I got to be honest, Kate, what did you want that nail gun for?

Because that's for construction.

That's not for cleaning up.

That's not for, you know what I mean?

Like, that's for putting up drywall and stuff.

I think all things that we are doing, you know, putting up drywall and like putting in baseboard.

And

yeah.

I think I'm both a combination of Kate's want to do things efficiently and Richard's trepidation at high-powered tools.

So I want things to be done quickly and efficiently.

But I know that my fear of anything can happen with a nail gun, anything, or I'm just like, what happened?

This is just how I pictured it.

And I'm being like, what?

What?

What in my hand?

Any, just

anything could happen.

But the amount of time that it took to build things without said nail gun or take out baseboards and put in new baseboard, it was just horrific.

And I wish that I could have seen past my own fears and just had more time to spend with my loved ones.

Is this time saving for you, Kate?

Or is this like, I just want to use that nail gun and that paint sprayer so bad?

I mean, it can be all, it can be all the things, I think.

But no, I mean, I think part of it, too, is I work from home.

I have worked from home for a long time.

I will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future.

And when I have the gumption to do something and could do it quickly and have the right tools, I do just want to pause and harken back to that like me using fabric paint thing was because I didn't have the right thing that I needed in that moment, and so it resulted in this hot mess.

But if you have the paint sprayer or you have the nail gun, you can efficiently and effectively do the work, you have the right tool.

So, I think it's both, yes, of course, it's very fun to have a nail gun and very fun to have a paint sprayer.

And

I do want to be able to do things quickly when I am struck by the gumption to do them.

So, obviously, you've not put a nail through your hand or any of your loved ones or anything so far.

You have the nail gun.

You rented the power washer.

Richard, why are you holding out on the paint sprayer at this point?

Aside from

getting paint places where it shouldn't be, are you concerned that Kate's going to accidentally turn the paint sprayer into her own eyes or something?

Into your eyes?

What's the worst thing that could happen with the paint sprayer?

Oh,

I can foresee many injuries potentially coming from it.

Tell me one of them, Richard.

Tell me one of them.

So I don't mean to get dark.

I actually, I've done some research, and people have had amputations from paint sprayers.

Do you mean an explosion?

Well, that actually, that's one I did not think of.

That absolutely is possible, I think, an explosion.

But no, they,

if it's, I mean, I don't know how high-powered of a paint sprayer Kate is interested in.

I suspect the most powerful one.

And I, you know, Judge, if you do ultimately grant her wish, I hope you put some parameters that limit the capacity of her paint sparks.

No, it would be the most powerful.

What would be the point of getting anything else?

No,

I believe that people get,

unfortunately, like paint

essentially injected into them and it can lead to amputations of fingers.

I'm not making this up.

Richard, do you drive a car?

Yeah.

That's all.

Effective.

Conceited.

Kate, what do you got to paint?

It sounds like the painting's done.

I don't get it.

Yeah,

the painting is not done.

So actually, that room that Richard is sitting in,

ideally, the other side of that room would just be all white.

So it's like got the arched ceilings, it would be all white.

There's a whole rigmarole with that where we had to compromise.

He wanted to paint that room brown.

He wanted to paint a room brown.

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

Richard, Richard.

Not the poo room.

Not the poo room.

Not the poo room.

Going to my unfinished rect room.

I'll be back and I'm going to run my verdict.

Your rectal room.

Richard, turn your computer around, your camera around, so I can see the other side of this room.

Oh,

well, now it's all white because I painted it brown.

We compromised on this brown color, and so it was horrible.

Compromise brown is worse than just...

the first pick brown.

So then I had to like paint.

Hang on, hang on.

I need to remember these words because they're very true.

Compromise Brown is always worse than first pick Brown.

It's true.

That's true.

Next on Compromise Brown, Encyclopedia Brown's cousin.

He just wants to make it okay.

That's right.

Hey, Bugs Meanie, why don't you split the,

I don't know what, the school Taekwondo trophy in half.

Then everyone can win.

Okay, let's all win.

Compromise Brown.

saturdays at nine

always be pitching shows you never know you never know

so

your story's all over the place cato

it's gonna get there i promise

but you've already said that you wanted to paint it brown and then you did paint it brown but then it's been painted white but you want to paint it white again Well, so because I had to use the roller and then we were doing this.

There was a lot of brownie thing there.

You would have to go back in with a whole primer.

I reprimed it.

You got to reprime the whole thing.

And so now that's probably not even white.

It's just primer.

Because who wants to go back and do...

I'm sorry.

I've had a lot of experience painting this house and it is horrendous.

She sees a brown wall and she wants it painted white.

I get it.

Is that the project that you want the paint sprayer for?

What do you want the paint sprayer for?

Well, so that room is unfinished white.

So there are splotches.

It needs to be refined.

Finish that room.

Finish that room.

Okay, what else?

I guess I didn't relay this to Richard.

I would like to paint some furniture.

I know that is.

Yeah.

Kate, listen.

I know.

I get it.

I see it.

I understand it.

Can I, Richard?

Do you think it might be a thing where maybe you guys, if there's like some sort of Goodwill or Thrift Store, are there pieces that you would so Kate can become more of a professional and less rash user of a paint sprayer?

Some small flipped pieces to practice on?

If absolutely, absolutely.

But I guarantee if we had a paint sprayer, Kate is not interested in practicing.

She will go, she will follow her whim.

Good for her.

There will be no practicing.

Kate, why not rent a paint sprayer?

Why do you want to own one?

Because I want to own one now.

I understand, but I need you to articulate it.

If you do the paint sprayer for the majority of the room that you paint, then you have more energy left like my will my gumption is a finite amount sometimes and so then you have a project why don't you rent a paint sprayer why do you want to buy one i think people i think we could be the people that repaint our home with some relative frequency i also understand now why richard is concerned

i mean not like every year but they don't go bad you know and they're just sitting there sometimes you need to change the space you got to change and sometimes like you move a piece of furniture and you bump the thing and then you gotta fix it well that wasn't a very good argument that's a paintbrush kate so let's see

don't take that one out because i'm i'm on your side but take that one out take that one out okay okay richard it seems that your argument is that the paint sprayer will create more opportunities for paint to be sprayed by Kate.

That it will not be project oriented.

And once it is in the home, she will not be able to help herself.

But it will create more and more opportunities to use the paint sprayer, more and more projects that are disruptive and nervous-making to you.

Would that be

kind of your argument there?

That's definitely one aspect of it.

Yeah, because Kate has certainly proved that argument for you.

I absolutely agree that that's what's going to happen.

Richard, when you hear Kate talk about how she's going to repaint the house any old day of the week with this new paint sprayer, what is that?

How does it make you feel physically

Or mentally.

Yeah.

You know, the nervousness does

manifest in some physical ways.

I feel my stomach tighten.

You know,

there's some uneasiness about it.

Yeah, I think,

you know, there are so many unknowns.

And I think

Kate's giving a hint of her proclivity to some rash behavior.

I think it could be so much more than you realize.

I really do think that.

What do you think?

I mean again

finger amputation?

Your worst case scenarios, you have a hard time articulating them and you seem afraid to articulate them because they were too dark.

But I am ordering you to articulate what your worst case scenario is.

That you're trying to say to Kate, this is not what you're not thinking about

and you should think about it.

Give me an example.

I could see, I mean, I think an explosion was mentioned.

I definitely think that's a potential.

She

gave you that idea just now.

Fair.

Fair.

I gave it to him because I understood what he was thinking.

Because I think this is the one time I've been on here where I'm like, I see myself in both of these people.

I wanted to get a paint spray and the explosion was a big deal to me.

It stays in my head all the time.

I would also, I mean, you know, this is not, you know, this is not life or limb threatening, but I could see a scenario where I come home and half the house is painted purple and

Kate changed her mind and will paint it a different color the next day.

I could I could genuinely see that scenario.

I mean, I could also, you know, Kate, maybe you want to tell the story of how you almost electrocuted yourself on, I mean, there have been two occasions.

Oh my God, Richard.

I think there have been two occasions, but how about the,

I think it was the washer plug or the dryer plug one.

Yeah, when you have two near electrocution stories, it's hard to pick which one to tell.

But answer the question, please.

Oh, I'm so embarrassed.

I don't do electrical work any longer.

I mean, outside of like changing

light switches or things like that.

It was very late.

We had moved into this home and it needed a lot of work.

We haven't even, I mean, we didn't even scratch the surface on how much work was needed.

We got a washer and dryer delivered.

And when they delivered it,

I grew up in the Midwest, and I should have just, they offered, they were like, we can, we can put this plug on to your washing machine for you.

And they'd already lugged it down this basement.

It was like a whole mess of a thing.

And I was like, no, no, no, don't worry about it.

Because that's a Midwestern thing to do.

Well, just because they had gone to so much trouble.

They had gone to so much trouble.

I'm not questioning you.

I'm like, let's, I get it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, no, let me make you you a hot dish.

And here's this exorbitant tip.

And yeah, a hot dish.

And also, do you, well, yeah.

But then the plug was the wrong plug.

And so then I was like searching for the right plug and ordering different plugs.

And then I had ordered like three of the wrong plugs, which again, granted, I will say if it were Richard, he would have probably researched and gotten the right plug the first or second time.

So then by this time, I'm frustrated.

It's like 11 o'clock at night.

We both had been working.

And I was like, we need to have a working washing machine in this, in this home.

Right.

And

I

had the thing that I thought was the right one.

And so I wasn't going to put it onto the washing machine that night.

Just wanted to make sure that tomorrow, when I had the gumption, I had the right thing.

Putting the plug onto the cable coming out of the.

Yeah, so the cable was not connected because we had a weird outlet at our house.

And so a new cable needed to be connected to the washing machine which i knew how to do but it was that i kept having

i kept ordering the wrong one like for the plug got it for the outlet for the outlet right so you got a new power cable to attach to the washing machine that would fit your outlet and when did you almost get electrocuted yeah so after the third or fourth one,

I just wanted to hold it up and see like, okay, this is the right plug.

Because clearly I keep making a mistake.

Yeah, so you don't do that because it's wrapped in plastic and the two ends were touching each other.

And then, as you know, how electricity works, if you get the plug too close to the thing, it will arc and

explosion.

So I'm holding this thing.

It arcs.

And it, I do, I did stumble backward.

It did like pop and spark.

It was an electrocution.

You yes.

That that's that's the end of the story.

That's all.

It was a 220, right?

It was a more

powerful.

And my recollection is you went to plug in the...

No, I wasn't ever going to plug it in.

It was just late at night, and I just wanted to like physically, I'm a visual person.

I just wanted to physically see that it was right.

And I made a mistake that has that this story has been told or requested to be told a lot.

It was late at night after a beer and tequila pool destruction party, and I just wanted to plug in a plug.

Judge, I have one last question.

Richard,

as a safety enthusiast,

I assume that like before you purchase anything, you do some research and some comparative like, hey, this might be the safest thing to get.

Is that true?

That's generally true.

Yeah.

Do you guys

combine your powers of, hey, I would like this thing.

Hey, let me see what the safest version of that might be.

Or is it normally sort of a split-up decision?

Oh,

I think we definitely combine our powers.

And I think there's just always a tension there.

I'm going for the more practical, conservative, safer version.

Kate just wants power.

Have you heard of the show called Compromise Brown, which is on Saturdays at nine?

It's of no relevance.

That's all.

That's all.

Is your point of view, Richard, that there is no paint sprayer safe enough to have in your home?

The one that I think is safe enough, I mean, there are many versions that I think would be safe.

I'm sure Kate would be dissatisfied with all of those.

Why would she be dissatisfied?

Tell me if I'm wrong, Kate.

She wants professional grade.

She wants to cover a lot of surface area quickly.

I don't think

she would go through the process of buying a paint sprayer if it wasn't serious.

Oh, I feel like we bought a nail gun that's not serious.

Like, it's not a compressor-connected nail gun.

It's just like a battery operation.

Oh, it's a battery gun.

It's not a compressor.

You didn't buy one.

It's not a compressor.

Ah.

Yes, that one is too dangerous.

I agree, Richard.

Okay.

All right.

So I think we could find, it doesn't have to be the most powerful.

What I don't want is it to like clog and be janky all the time, but it doesn't have to be like,

I don't even know how they work.

I obviously haven't done the research, but like, you know, I don't want it to spray like from 10 feet away.

I just want to be able to, as the judge has so clearly said,

yeah.

All right.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to render my judgment.

I am going to go into my

unfinished solarium.

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

Please rise as Judge John Hotchman exits the courtroom and goes to his meringue porch.

All right, Kate and Richard.

How are you both feeling about the case?

Kate?

Well, I feel a lot less confident after that really terrible washing machine story with the electricity.

Yeah.

And electrocution does tend to darken things.

Yeah.

Yeah, so not as confident as I was coming in.

Richard, how are are you feeling?

I'm concerned.

I'm concerned.

I think that uh

I'm just looking at the possibility of of

Kate having another power tool, and I have some concern.

Yeah.

And how did you guys feel about

season four, episode five of Compromise Brown that just came on yesterday?

Did you, did everyone watch it?

I mean, season three was so much better.

It's true.

It's true.

It was just a classic, classic episode.

um i guess we'll see what the judge has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment

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

maybe you stopped listening for a while maybe you never listened and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years i know where this has ended up but no

no you would be wrong we're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lollum.

I'm Caroline Roper.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Hey, Gene, let's take a quick break from the case and talk about what we have coming up.

In fact, right now, if you are listening to this on June 29th, the day this podcast comes out, 2022, then that means it's not too late.

for you to come see not merely me, not merely Jesse, not merely Jennifer Marmor, but also the great Gene Gray at Lincoln Center for free under the stars at Damrosh Park, June 29th, 2022.

Look, I don't know when you download this podcast.

I don't know when you listen to it.

Look at

your favorite map and guidance app.

Put in Lincoln Center.

Put in your destination.

I bet you could make it.

I bet you could take some public transportation, bring some friends, and come see a wonderful free show.

It's going to be a delight.

And by the way, if you're listening to this the next day, you're too late.

You missed it.

Don't be the person for whom it's too late you missed it.

That's a terrible feeling.

Be the person who knows they're just in the nick of time.

Come see us at Lincoln Center.

And

it's going to be great.

Gene, what do you have going on in this world that you might want the listeners to know about?

Well, most of my projects are me having to finish stuff and edit stuff and

work on things.

I'm in the middle of my book, which will be out next week.

I'm writing a book.

I'm composing

that Steve Urkel musical that'll be out at the end of the year in December.

So we're almost there.

Let's just stop so everyone can process what you said.

That Steve Urkel musical.

It's not merely that.

Yeah, it's a holiday.

It's a holiday.

It's called Did I Do That to the Holidays?

It's an animated feature from Warner Brothers, and it'll be out in December.

Yes, Jalil White is back playing Steve Urkel.

And also, shout outs to Jalil White and his role in The Hustle, which is just on Netflix.

He was fantastic in it.

Yeah, fantastic.

And you're doing all the music for that.

That's not how you do that, which should be out before the end of the year.

So Google Jean Gray, G-R-A-E, to keep abreast of all of these projects as they come to incredible fruition.

You don't want to miss a single one of them.

And Jean, you are still on the social media known as Instagram.

I am.

And you are Jeannie Grigio on Instagram, right?

I am Jeannie Gregio.

I am on Twitter, but you can't find me.

I'm just there to make sure that when the revolution happens, I know.

And I mean any of the revolutions.

Any of the revolutions.

And Happy Pride still.

Happy Pride still.

Okay, let's get back to the case.

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

Airless sprayers are mechanical devices that compress a fluid coating like paint to force it through a small opening or spray tip at very high fluid pressure, some reaching 5,000 pounds per square inch.

Spray from the gun leaks or ruptured components can inject fluid through the skin and into your body, causing serious injury, including the need for amputation.

I think that I found the exact public safety PDF put forward by WorkSafe New Brunswick in Canada, the provincial OSHA of New Brunswick, Canada, that Richard found.

An employee using a high-pressure airless spray gun injected himself when he inadvertently put his finger in front of the spray tip.

Extensive surgery and rehabilitation helped save his finger, but the incident could easily have resulted in the loss of his finger, hand, or

arm.

You could have come armed, as it were, Richard, to this courtroom with this kind of graphic Canadian documentation.

I took a chainsaw class

in Maine.

We got a chainsaw because we wanted to clear some small trees on our property.

But only neither of us were going to touch that chainsaw until we went to chainsaw school at our neighbor's place.

He is a local forester.

And

we got all of the safety equipment, including bulletproof chaps and a really cool helmet.

And I thought we were going to have a really fun time cutting up logs.

The stories that were told about what can go wrong with a chainsaw to you or to, for example, the toddler that comes up behind you and surprises you.

They would

curl your toes if you had any left after using a chainsaw for five minutes.

Some scary stuff, power tools.

Never touch that chainsaw again.

That was the one time we used it.

We bought it.

It still sits in our garage.

Mostly because I'm not sure I know how to turn it on.

Too scared.

Too scared.

Then I learned from a neighbor about battery-powered chainsaws that are very easy to turn on.

You put in the battery.

They don't go,

which is a scary noise.

They basically go,

it's so easy.

They're very powerful.

They will can easily kill you.

But after about three years of being terrified of the chainsaw, once we got the, for some reason, the battery-powered one,

which not only makes less noise, which makes less scary noise, but also stops on a dime, unlike the gasoline-powered one.

I started using it, and of course, the more I used it,

the more proficient I became.

I'm not an expert now, but I am not terrified of it.

We live amidst a lot of dangerous tools,

and

one of the most dangerous tools is...

the house that you inhabit, full of dangers, lurking behind every electrical panel.

And another dangerous tool is either marriage or non-married cohabitation.

That is a tool that when it functions well, it goes very smoothly.

A lot more gets done more efficiently and pleasantly with two.

But when it goes wrong, it can cause enormous damage.

And in a lot of couplings, partnerships, the kind we're talking, cohabitating partnerships, that also involve hugging and kissing and sleeping in the same room, so forth, there is usually

this tool has an engine that is making it go in one direction.

And then there is often a part of the tool that is the,

we'll call it the inhibitor, the part of the chainsaw

that automatically shuts the chainsaw down.

when it bucks back up at you

so that it doesn't cut your head off.

And you need both parts of the tool for it to function.

You need an engine to make it go, and you need some safety mechanisms to make sure it doesn't cut your head off or electrocute.

Kate to me seems like a wonderful engine.

And Richard, you seem to me like a wonderful inhibitor.

You're both doing your jobs.

But I absolutely,

very strongly,

just by, and this is unfortunate to the podcast listening audience, simply by seeing the glee and gleam in Kate's eyes

whenever she considers power tools, I absolutely believe, Richard, that she is going to take it further than you are comfortable with.

No.

No, that's good.

That's what the engine does.

That's what the engine does because the more you use the tool, the further you take it, the more competent and careful you become.

Once you are almost electrocuted once, you don't let it happen again, except you did it.

You electrocute me once.

Shame on me.

Once you're electrocuted once, you don't get electrocuted again, but you did, didn't you, Kate?

Didn't you?

Yes.

Which one was the clotheswasher plug?

That was the first institution.

Yeah.

Right.

So there was one after that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that Richard's inhibitor instinct is correct.

That, you know, the engine's job is to leap in and go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

But I think that with these tools,

a little inhibition on your own part is probably recommended.

And I really wish you still had a big concrete hole of rubble in your backyard

because I think you got rid of it too quick.

I think that that would have been a great place

for Kate to power wash and paint spray and nail gun,

all kinds of things that shouldn't be washed, sprayed, or nailed to figure out how it works in wearing the proper safety equipment in an area where no one would get hurt.

That would be a great place to get a bunch of junkie furniture and put it in the in the rubble pit and then paint spray it up.

and get a feel for the thing that you're working on and how the tool works.

There's so much I really admire you because I've only just begun to figure out how to plug a plug into a plug, to quote Kasperhauser.

Like so much that I've had to learn from,

you know,

working on this house that I cohabitate in with my partner.

And also like I had to learn how to relight a pilot light for a hot water heater, which is a thing that can explode.

That's gas.

And yet these things get done mostly without people dying.

That's the astonishing thing.

People use chainsaws all the time without dying, proportionately more than they end up cutting off their own legs.

And there is value, I think, in coming to appreciate that that happens because

it makes you less fearful in this world.

But what's part of the deal, Kate, is you got to learn how to use these tools.

You got to go to chainsaw class, as it were.

before you pick up a chainsaw.

And there's got to be a lot of paint sprayer class online.

And I think that you have to be on exact same page.

Well, you're never going to be on the exact same page because you're two different people, but closer.

You got to, the pages of the tool manual that is your relationship have to be a little bit closer together before you just go out and get another thing.

Because here's the deal.

You overruled Richard on the brown.

I agree with you.

But he's warm colors.

He's not neutral colors.

He's not cold colors.

He's warm colors rich.

That's what I call him.

Rich, warm browns.

Right?

You painted over that.

He didn't want the nail gun.

You got the nail gun.

He didn't want the power washer.

You power washed him out of your life and got one.

Your partner is being painted, feels painted over.

I don't know whether you really feel this way, Richard, but I think it's a fair warning.

Just because you're the engine doesn't mean you can paint over the inhibitor.

He also lives in this home.

I would dare say he deserves a brown room of of his own.

To paraphrase Virginia Woolf.

Except,

brown is terrible and he shouldn't have it.

Here's an unknown rule.

You cannot buy a paint sprayer.

Yet

you can rent one

for fun

and paint some furniture with a drop cloth in the backyard.

Rent one.

Enjoy it.

Have fun with it.

The more you use it, the more competent you'll be with it.

The more competent you are with it, the more comfortable Richard will be in it.

And then

down the line, maybe a holiday will come, a birthday.

Maybe Richard will get you a beautiful paint sprayer.

In the meantime, rent one, get it out of your system, and be careful that you as the engine aren't completely overruling the inhibitor and your in the machine that is your relationship.

This is a sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

All right, Richard, Kate,

as the

child of both of your fears and desires, I would like to now ask you how you feel about the decision.

I feel tremendously relieved and I think it's fair.

I mean, clearly a very thoughtful, wise judge.

He already ruled.

You don't have to.

It's all right.

You can lay back on it, Richard.

It already happened.

Kate, how are you feeling?

You get to rent, but not exactly buy yet.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm happy for Richard that he prevailed.

I think he probably feels like he prevailed.

So I'm happy about that.

I'm not a patient human, so it will be hard, but

good compromise.

And Compromise Brown to everyone again, Saturdays at nine.

It is also in syndication now.

You can catch it on all channels just around the clock because it's got 25 seasons of compromising.

Well, Kate and Warm Rich, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

A joy.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

All right.

That's another case in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Twitter user at nyc underscore Maramar for naming this week's episode Hearspray.

What a pun.

Congratulations.

I'm very proud of you.

That's not sarcasm.

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

So make sure to follow us.

Our producer is the fabulous Jennifer Marmer, and our editor is the beautiful Valerie Moffat.

Now let's get to some swift justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Maria says, My mother likes to save the used paper napkins after dinner.

She keeps a stack of them, oh no, in the kitchen to mop up spills or get gunk out of the sink.

Oh no.

I think it's gross because people have been wiping their mouths on them.

She thinks it's environmentally friendly.

Who's right?

Yeah, don't.

Don't.

Oh, no.

That's what I say.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Mom, no.

No.

Get gunk out of the sink is maybe the only thing that I could see using a used napkin for.

But I don't know that that's right.

Anywhere.

Yeah, no, you're contaminating everything with everybody's salivas and snots.

No, sorry.

In this economy?

Sorry, Maria's mom.

Maria, I side with you against your mom.

Maria's mom?

Stop.

Come on.

Stop.

Stop.

Oh, no.

Stop it.

Hey, please remember to submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ H.O.

No case is too big and no case is too small.

Are there cases that are too medium?

Yes.

Big and small.

We'll hear them all.

Gene Gray, thank you so much again for being here.

I know we're going to hear from you again next week.

Very exciting.

So stay tuned, everyone.

Judge John Hodgman will return as we do every Wednesday.

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

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