Potable Cause

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, Potable Cause, Sarah brings the case against her sister Amy.

Amy says she can taste the difference between water that's come from the bathroom tap and water that's come from the kitchen tap. Sarah doesn't believe there's any way this can be true.
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.

Nothing is worse than water. Water has an insidious nature to it.
It's a conniving, slow, entropic, mildewy menace. Wind is all like, hey, everybody, look at me.

Ho, ho, ho, I'm the big bad wolf blowing you down. Who cares? There's nothing metaphysical about wind.

Yeah, they say in a hurricane, you hide from the wind, but you run from the water because you cannot hide from water. Water will find you.
Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Sarah and Amy, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God, or whatever.
Yes, why not?

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he drinks only gin? Absolutely. Yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. Sarah and Amy, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your affairs.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I quoted as I entered the courtroom? Water will find you.

Sarah, you go first. You come to this court seeking justice.
What's your guess? Oh, man. I mean, I was all prepared for a sick Dune reference.
I was going to say it was like, I was going to go.

I was going to go, Dune. How do you thanks, John? You screwed me over.
I know. I was going to do bless the kitchen sink and its water.

You know what? I think you're just double bluffing me. I'm going to double down.
I'm going to say it's from Dune Messiah. It's the opening prologue.

I was going to do bless the kitchen sink and its water. Bless the coming and going of it.
May its passage cleanse the world. May it keep the world for its people.

The kitchen sink water being the best water. Childhood.

No, it is not a quote from Dune. I'm putting your guess down as wrong.
Amy, what is your guess? If it's not Dune, I got nothing. It's not Dune.
I got nothing. That's a t-shirt right there.

Put that on a shirt. No, all guesses are wrong.
I was quoting, of course,

from the great Election Profit Makers podcast, episode number number 132, titled You Sheltered Me with Abundance.

I was quoting from the conversation between co-hosts David Rees and John Kimball, who have a longgoing dispute over which is worse in a storm, wind or water. This just came out.

I can't believe you didn't listen to this episode. It was great.
Now, David Reese, as you may know, and I have been working for a long time on a secret project.

We've finally been allowed to announce the secret project. And if you, the listener, or you, Amy, or Sarah, don't know the answer already, stay tuned because I'm going to reveal it later.

That's what we call a tease. But now we're going to hear this case.
Sarah, what is the nature of your complaint? So I'll try and make this brief, Judge. So I am the youngest of five siblings.

Amy is the oldest. I want you to try really hard.

I will tell you.

I can already tell. This is a long-seated.
sibling debate, your adult sisters. It's going to be hard.
Yeah, it's long and bitter, but I'll try and make it short and sweet.

I won't interrupt you.

My sister is the oldest. I am the youngest.
And for as long as I can remember, I've looked up to my sister. She holds a lot of sway in her family.

And in Salt Lake City in general, I like to know. I run into random people when I visit back home who know Amy and look up to her.

She's one of those charismatic, influential type of people that people look up to. She's got the sway in SLC.
Yeah, she's got the sway in SLC exactly. She knows where all the good brunch places are.

She's got the trampoline in her backyard. She's cool, right?

And she's always been the sway. Backyard.
Yeah, she's got a trampoline in the backyard. It's pretty sweet.

And ever since we were kids, she's A, claimed the bathroom water is tainted and she won't drink it. And also influenced other people to believe the same.

And when we were kids, I have distinct memories of her saying to me in our, in our basement of our home, I'm thirsty, get me some water.

And being her youngest sister, wanting to impress her, curry her favor, I would do this. Right.
But I was not allowed to go down the hallway to the... to the bathroom to get her water.

I had to go up the two flights of stairs to get kitchen water because she would not accept the bathroom water. And I was willing to move on as this being just, you know, some trauma of my youth.

I no longer live with Amy. I drink bathroom water out of spite now.
But,

you know, she holds so much influence over the rest of our family, over my 14 nieces and nephews. She's teaching them her bathroom water tainted ways.
And I just can't stand for it. So wait a minute.

Amy, you believe that the bathroom water tastes different from the kitchen water in your childhood home or in all kitchens and bathrooms? In all situations.

It's more pronounced in certain situations, like hotels,

in our grandmother's home.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well,

before we get into the mystery of accounting for

why it follows you around to hotels in your grandmother's home like a vengeful spirit, tell me about growing up.

Did you grow up in Salt Lake City? Yes. Right.
So in this childhood home that Sarah is describing in Salt Lake City, how did it taste different to you?

The bathroom sink water versus the the kitchen sink water?

Bathroom sink water can best be described as muddy tasting.

So in our home, we have soft water. Do you remember this, Sarah? We had soft water.
Yes. And my understanding is that the soft water was not limited to certain places, right? It was soft everywhere.

Yes. Because we've tried to control for the hard water, soft water situation.
The water here is very hard. A lot of minerals.
So bathroom water.

For those of you who are listening who don't know, hard water means it's not literally hard. That would be nice.

Typically, most water is soft to the touch, but hard water means it has a lot of minerals dissolved in it. And soft water means it has fewer minerals dissolved in it, correct? Right.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay.

We had hard water in Western Massachusetts, and I didn't like it. I felt like I was, I felt like I was gargling with copper.
Oh, see, that was the issue at grandma's house, the copper issue.

All right. But that was not what was happening here.
Okay. I don't want to, look,

I feel like you're taking me down a million secret holes,

a million secret passages in this basement. I asked you a simple question.
I've not gotten a simple answer. When you were growing up, what did the bathroom water taste like?

What did the sink water taste like? You said the bathroom water tasted like, was muddy. That was a start.
Yes. Let's continue.

So kitchen water was colder and bathroom water was not as cold, which I didn't like. And it had more of a, I'm going to say greasy.
texture. Greasy.
Yeah.

That's the best way I could describe it.

Where the kitchen water is crisper,

colder. Right.
Just more refreshing. It was better.
A brighter nose, a fresher bouquet. There you go.
Okay. I believe you.
And the water source was the same for both faucets.

Okay. But Sarah, you mentioned you were in the basement.
Did you share a basement bedroom or something?

It was a small home, so pretty much there were just people everywhere all the time. So I was in various bedrooms at various times.

Amy, again, being the charismatic individual that she was, had one of the prime upstairs bedrooms

next to a bathroom down the hall from the kitchen. And you said that you had to go up two flights to the kitchen to get

a split-level situation. So I understand that.
Like 12 stairs. Yeah, gotcha.
12 stairs. Now, you believe that Amy, you are suggesting that Amy was making this up all along and is still making it up.

Is that correct, Sarah? You're accusing her of lying? No, no, I don't think Amy's lying. I think that she suffers from sort of a false belief about this.

You know, I think that at some point she decided the bathroom water was tainted and it's sort of snowballed into a thing. And I believe that she herself is convinced of this.

It's a self-reinforcing delusion. Yeah, a self-reinforcing thing.

And that's one of the reasons I brought this case is I want to free her of this and have her demonstrate to others in the family that people can hold beliefs, but when confronted with evidence, they can change those beliefs.

But you obviously have no standing here. This doesn't hurt you in any way.

Amy is living her life fabulously in Salt Lake City. She's got all the sway.
You've got none of the sway.

How can I not conclude that this is just a nuisance lawsuit designed to steal a little sway from your sister?

Well, I think it's like, you know, how when some schmo on the street does something, it doesn't really matter.

But if a public figure does something, we have to hold them to a higher standard because of the influence we have in society. I think this is sort of a situation like that.

Amy holds a massive amount of influence over our entire family.

You know, people listen to Aunt Amy. They're not listening to weirdo Aunt Sarah in,

you know, Santa Clara, California. They're listening to her.

You left Salt Lake City. You went out to California.
Yeah. Yeah.
So nobody's listening to me. No one listens to you.
Exactly. They're listening to her.

And maybe the statue of limitations is passed on my suffering, but people are still suffering today. What was the suffering?

The suffering was you had to climb the 12 stairs.

It's not your opinion, needlessly. It's not.
I mean, that's standing. That's standing.
That's suffering. Yeah, it is suffering.

I'll admit that's minor, you know, walking upstairs, not the worst thing. Well, it's extra, it's extra work and mental load for you.
Because you just want to get your sister a nice glass of water.

Yeah. And she tells you you're wrong and you're dumb.

Exactly. Weak and lazy, and she's got to climb.
You got to climb all the way up. All right.
Now I see what your standing is. Yeah.
And a little bit of slander against me as a bathroom water drinker.

You know, I'm indiscriminate about my water. I'll drink any water that isn't tainted.
You know, I've got one of those like life straw things I use when I'm traveling, something like that.

I think as long as it's clean and potable and safe, we should be grateful to have that water, especially living in two drought-prone areas as we do. Amy, what is your ideal glass of water?

First of all, a tall glass of water, right? Oh, of course, of course. I feel like maybe you've met my husband.
So, a steel tumbler insulated with pebble ice,

like filled to the top, and then you just fill in all the holes of the pebble ice with like highly filtered kitchen water. Highly filtered.
Oh, yeah.

Like not even from the tap, like the, the, I have it in the fridge door with the filter. That's ideal.
Boy, oh boy, what a, what a slushy delight that must be. Absolutely.
Pebble ice. Monarch of ice.

Yes. Amy, did you participate in shaming Sarah for drinking from the bathroom faucet as a child? The way I remember it.
is that I never shamed or judged anyone for their choice of water.

That's how the shamers and the judges always just expressed my personal preference. Sarah, do you have evidence that you were shamed for enjoying bathroom water?

That greasy junk water that oozes out of the bath, the basement bathroom sink.

I got to tell you, Sarah, I don't, I'll drink bathroom sink water all the time, but I'm not sure about basement sink water. That's maybe where I draw a line.
Oh, man.

So the elevation of that tap matters. I mean, that's even worse.
Everything in context. So I don't have any evidence because I didn't carry around a tape recorder with my 10-year-old self.

Well, then you're not named John Hodgman.

Yeah, I was just too busy rereading Jurassic Park for the fifth time. Yeah.

So I have distinct childhood memories of sitting upstairs in the kitchen with my siblings, my brother, you know, like 2 a.m., him making omelets for everybody.

It was sort of a normal occurrence for us. Amy's nodding her head.
She knows the veracity, at least the omelette part.

And us just, you know, giving each other endless piles of crap for various things that we did, various slits, of which there are many in a large family.

And the bathroom water thing came up and Amy was giving me cred for drinking tainted water and like saying, when I was older, I would come to understand.

I remember that being a big part of it is her saying, well, you're a kid, you don't understand. The water is tainted.
You just can't taste it because you're a kid, that kind of thing. Wow.

That sounds like shaming to me. Yeah.
Yeah, right. Heavy to be shaming.
And it was a teacher. And in front of your other siblings, in front of your other siblings?

I think it was all five of us. And you're the youngest.
Yes. Yeah.
Amy, how do you defend that? Well, if it was 2 a.m. omelettes, we were fully grown.
There were no 2 a.m. omelettes when you were 10.

I know. Well, yeah, I was older than 10.

Yeah, but so

the technicality you're using to get off is that you didn't shame her as a child, just as a vulnerable adult.

Just as a vulnerable teenager who is already looking up to her impossibly cool sister, wanting to impress her, gain her approval, but instead get shame.

This is the first I'm hearing of any sway or admiration that I ever had. This is the first classic, classic.

I'm an only child, but I know that the older children never know, never know, and they never care to know the influence they have over their younger siblings.

To the older child, the younger siblings, they're all bathroom water.

Disgusting. Tainted.
Barely potable.

A barely potable daughter.

That's going to be my biography daughter.

Amy, do your siblings or anyone else agree with you on this issue is sarah an outlier or are you the outlier in your world you know what it's it's split i don't think anyone feels as strongly as i feel about it but they don't disagree with me um yeah they're scared they're scared to disagree with you they saw what you did at 2 a.m omelettes i'm finding this out today oh you crushed sarah and and amy's feisty people don't want to yeah they know they'll lose that fight see my this is the first i'm hearing of the sway and the feisty well maybe not the feisty, the sway.

My understanding is that our brother holds all the sway and is the scariest, and you don't get in a fight with him. So I always just figured, I mean, well, for the record, Brandon agrees with me.

He does not. He super does because we talked about the whole issue of being grateful for the water that you have.

Our brother lived in Brazil for a number of years. I've traveled as much as I can, and we sort of talked about the idea of like,

if you have potable water, you shouldn't turn your nose up out. You should be grateful for it.

And we both agree that it's not a good habit to treat some water as if it's not good enough to drink when really it's safe and it's good and we should be grateful for it. That is absolutely true.

And water security is an issue that we need to address on a global level, for sure. Brandon is the brother that Amy was just saying had more sway than she.
So

he's our only brother. And yes,

I don't know if Brandon has sway exactly.

He's a lawyer. He loves to argue.
He's a very convincing sort of person. But I would argue that the tastemaker in our family is Amy.
Well, she's not the tastemaker. She's the taste-haver.

The very specific taste-haver.

Yes. But when you tried to reverse shame Amy, your natural ally was Brandon.
Oh, of course. He's my natural ally, full stop.
Yeah.

And Amy, had you ever heard this argument from Brandon and Sarah before that you should acknowledge your

water privilege and that you shouldn't turn your nose up at any water, even basement water? No, the gratitude argument has, I have never been aware of this. It makes me sad, actually.

It's a good point. It's a really good point.
And I wouldn't, I mean, given the choice, and I'm fortunate to have the choice of the two kinds of water, why not take the one you prefer? But no,

the gratitude argument is a good argument. This is the first I'm hearing of it today.
It is a pretty good argument, which leads me to wonder why, Sarah, you've never made this argument to Amy.

This is just you and Brandon on a side chat?

No, because it's an argument I didn't really think about until I was into adulthood and was able to travel to other places and acknowledge that this was an issue.

We were both raised in a desert where you were told to conserve water and not waste water. That's a part of our culture.
And it probably is, Jesse, yours too.

In Massachusetts, where you're trying to get rid of water, you probably don't feel that way.

We just let it run. Just let it run.

Everybody has a rain faucet. But for us, that's definitely a part of it.
Let's take a quick recess. We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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So look, we've given you this opportunity.

Brandon isn't even here. You and I, Sarah, have successfully shamed Amy.
This would seem to clear the books, unless do you have any other claim that bothers you?

Yeah. Can we talk about the whole diet soda thing? So

I'll be brief, but so Amy is a migraine sufferer like Jesse.

And I don't know if Jesse makes claims like Amy does, but Amy has sort of like migraine powers to be able to like smell and sense things that have like a heightened sensory ability.

And

one of those claims is that she can tell the difference between diet soda and regular soda without drinking it.

And also that she can smell, and this is a claim that not just Amy makes in my family, but I certainly don't make this claim because it's patently ridiculous that she can smell a lit match from three or four rooms away i'm going to say three i'll be generous three rooms away just general general migraine powers to smell and sense things beyond normal human capacity that she's the cuisat hotarak and can see through time and space and sense things that others cannot right migraine powers are absolutely real what when i get a migraine i have the power of magnetism i can manipulate any metal oh like the marvel villain magneto No, like me when I have a migraine.

Oh, excuse me.

But, I mean, aside from your powers of magnetism, Jesse, do you believe that your senses are affected by migraines that might explain Amy's experience? Yes, absolutely. There's no question about it.

Not only, I mean, migraines are a neurological phenomenon, and sensory sensitivity is a major axis on which they operate. Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

There's a reason that people sit sit in darkened rooms when they have migraines often.

There's a reason that people can't bear loud noises when they have migraines often. And

besides that, taste and smell, particularly,

travel along one of the primary nerve paths that is irritated when migraines happen, the one that connects your tongue and your nose and your brain.

And so it's pretty typical for odors to either be a migraine trigger or as they're learning now because they can observe the brain more carefully, a misattributed migraine trigger that is actually about the fact that you are in prodrome, which is the time before the pain starts of a migraine.

And in prodrome, we get certain sensitivities

and certain other neurological differences. Some people crave sweets, for example.
Some people are sensitive to fluorescent lightings flickering during ProDrome.

So some things that we've attributed as a trigger are actually sensitivities during the part of the migraine where we don't even yet realize we have a migraine.

But when that happens, can you sense, taste, smell, hear, whatever? Yeah, I can defeat heroes.

I mean, it depends on whether the heroes are standing between me and my objectives and how many I-beams are around.

Sarah, let me just say, I know that canonically, speaking of I-beams, the Cyclops' I-beams are force beams, not laser beams that are burning, but you got burned there. You got burned.

You brought up exactly the wrong topic. The shame is now flowing directly back to you.
I know, I'm definitely in trouble. I want to ask Jesse a clarifying question, though, as a migraine expert.

Can you sense or smell, any sense you like, things when you have a migraine that you cannot otherwise? I agree with the heightened sense, like I can see a light if I had a migraine.

It makes sense that I would sense it more intensely.

but can you smell or hear or taste things smell the difference between coke and diet coke yeah yeah is there do you experience new senses when you have a migraine not intensified existing ones Sarah I'm not a neurologist and I'm not a neuroscientist obviously but our brains are filtering our senses all the time it's the reason that for example people who are hard of hearing have a hard time understanding a conversation in a loud room uh it's because we require a lot of information to pick the signal from the noise, and our brains do that in a way that is transparent to us.

We don't understand that we are shifting our focuses,

but our brains are doing that automatically. And I would imagine that Amy's nose is smelling that burnt match from across the room,

but when she isn't extraordinarily sensorily sensitive, as she is when she has a migraine,

her brain is essentially filtering it out as background noise.

And when she is exceptionally sensitive, her brain is identifying it and freaking out.

Now it's a third-degree burn.

Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, I-beam laser burn. No, I programmed lasers for a living, and I've never gotten a burn this bad.

Well, as we know, senses are enigmatic and often very subjective. Taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing.

And since this case deals with those senses, we thought it would be smart to bring in a scientist, an expert witness, a sensory scientist named Lindsay Barr.

Lindsay is a co-founder of Draft Lab, a company that helps food and beverage companies use software and sensory info to guide product development and quality control.

She studied biochemistry and food science at UC Davis, then worked for 10 years as a sensory and consumer research specialist for New Belgium Brewing Company.

And as a UC Davis alum, if I say UC Davis enough times, maybe as happened one other time on Judge John Hodgman, someone from UC Davis will hear it and send me cheese and sausages from their on-campus cheese and sausage store.

Lindsay, welcome to the court of Judge John Hodgman. Thank you for having me.
Lindsay, you're not on trial here. Thank you very much for being here, but you're not on trial.

Still, I did do some digging around into your LinkedIn page, trying to understand what a sensory scientist does.

And I learned that while you were working with New Belgium, the brewing company, you initiated and developed a robust in-process tasting program that resulted in two consecutive years with zero finished product dumps.

That's pretty impressive.

But I don't understand what it means.

Well, it was a lot of jargon, and I apologize for that. No, look,

I love the word zero-finished product dumps. That's fantastic.

I should really wordsmith that. Yeah, basically what I'm saying there is we initiated a quality control process using tasting

that was

good at finding problems before we had to

have the hard decision of maybe dumping finished product down the drain due to bad flavor. Yeah, and how does bad flavor happen and

how do you measure it? Well, fermentations are pretty complicated and a lot of things can go awry.

Yeast can be somewhat finicky, and you know, the raw materials are subject to a lot of different seasonal variation and such.

And so, you can generate off-flavors throughout fermentation that might go unnoticed, or you might have some packaging problems that introduce oxygen into the product that could be a problem as well.

And so, you just get kind of weird taste.

And you catch this by actually tasting the product and having a group of trained people that are good at tasting beer or tasting anything that you're making to identify those product characteristics that you're looking for and those that you don't want to see in your finished product.

Is there a way to like quantify or create a like a rubric for what this thing is supposed to taste like that you can somehow check?

To me, taste seems so subjective. Right.
I mean, you know, but you are literally accounting for taste. Yeah, exactly.
Flavor can be measured. And it can be measured really objectively.

You know, there's, of course, the subjective side of what do consumers like, but all those flavor characteristics that consumers like can be measured.

And we can create these kind of target descriptions based off of flavors that we're looking for for our products that we can actually measure our batches against.

And that's what we're kind of in the business of doing with Draft Lab. Lindsay, as you know, this is a dispute between two different tasters.
Amy is the older sister. Sarah is the younger sister.

They are both adults, but they have this childish fight that has gone on forever regarding the difference in flavor between the kitchen sink water and the bathroom sink water.

Amy, the older sister, claims that the kitchen sink water tastes better. In the same house, this originated in their house they shared in Salt Lake City.
And Sarah says that Amy is full of poop.

Sorry about that, Amy, but that's just what Sarah says. So Lindsay Barr, let's just start with the basics.
Does water have a taste?

Well, the molecule H2O doesn't have a taste, but the minerals that water picks up in the environment can influence the taste of water.

So water can be a little salty, it can be a little sweet, it can be a little bitter, it can be a little sour just due to those minerals. So yes, water can definitely have different tastes.

Now, to this idea that this water from the kitchen sink in a single home versus the basement bathroom sink in a single home, could those conceivably taste different, Lindsay?

Well, you're getting the water from the same source. So the sources of difference is going to be basically due to the pathway that the water takes to the sink and the bathroom.
So the plumbing.

And I don't know sensory scientists, but those would be called pipes, right? Yes, yeah. Right, okay.

The plumbing itself itself might have an influence. So you might pick up some plasticky flavors from gaskets or some salt buildup from different areas of the plumbing, metals, even.

So, based off of the amount of time that the water is sitting in the pipes, as well, you might be picking up more or less of those minerals or flavors that you're getting from just the plumbing.

I just imagined Lindsay at a fancy restaurant taking a sip of water and going,

oh, gaskety.

Yes.

I believe that Amy did suggest that the basement bathroom sink water had

a mouthfeel of greasiness to it. Wasn't that right, Amy? Yes.
Yes. Everything that you're claiming seems to be holding up is highly plausible right now.

Sarah, you should be really worried about your case. Lindsay, is this a phenomenon that you've personally

experienced? Have you ever lived somewhere where water tasted different coming out of different taps? Yes. And if you think of the brewery that I used to work for,

we got the water from the same source, but because it took different pathways, they picked up different flavors, different kind of metallic flavors or

sweetness even throughout the process just due to the pathway that it took to get to the faucets. A lot of people like hoppy IPAs.
My preference is a gaskety pale ale.

Nothing like that plastic aroma.

What's the best kind of pipe for beer? Stainless steel. Stainless steel.
Yeah, you're going to want good stainless steel.

Lindsay, we have another issue on the table, which is that Amy also claims you don't just deal in sensory science with taste.

My understanding is there's also sight, smell, hearing, touch, and umami, right? Well, umami is actually a taste.

That's what I said. Yes.
Yeah.

And then you have ticklish, ticklish,

Hairy. Extrasensory perception.
Magnetism. Tall.
Right. Magnetism.
Lindsay, am I correct in remembering that

in the field of bottled water, you know, where water is being sold as a convenience product,

there was originally, you know, a lot of

spring waters that had specific sources for specific flavor profiles. But as some like

big brands with local bottlers got into the business.

They started using filtered municipal water and then adding minerals to get a specific taste profile. Yeah, absolutely.
And that's done in beer as well.

Some of the classic beer styles were really built around the water chemistry. So Burton ales, Pilsner's, that kind of thing.

And so if you want to make a good Pilsner, then you need to mimic mimic the water quality,

you know, in the Czech Republic. And so you would want to bring down water basically to H2O and add minerals back.
And so you can mimic different locations based off of their mineral profile.

In other words, if you're making a pilsner, you have to check yourself before you recognize it.

There it is.

F minus. That's the grade I give myself.

And also in the big companies that, and I think we know who we're talking about, that put out bottled water, they will also add glycerin to it, right, to give it a certain mouthfeel.

Oh, that's interesting. I've not heard that, but you can actually, you can get mouthfeel

characteristics just from salts.

So even like sodium salts will kind of make the water feel more slick and coating. So you can get that through salts.
I want some of that good, greasy basement water. That's what I'm saying.

Bottle it to sell. But we do have one other thing.

We do have one other case on the table, which is that Amy also claims to be able to determine the difference between Diet Coke and Coke without tasting it. Do I have that right, Amy?

You can smell the difference, and can you see the difference? You can absolutely see the difference.

How would you describe the difference visually between Diet Coke and Coke? So if you're... One has a lemon on it.
Well, yeah.

The little pop-top thing on the top of the calf. Yeah, right.

So if it's in a glass, like a a clear glass, a lid or anything, the Diet Coke has a little bit of a thinner look. It's like the difference between looking at like skim milk and whole milk kind of.

But if you get a fountain drink, which is really, I mean, the best way, you can see

when

the drink brushes up against the lid, the way it behaves when it touches the lid is different.

If it's a sugar coke, it's more foamy and sticks a little to the lid, and the Diet Coke just kind of falls off. Yeah, I was thinking you had some kind of superpower, but that all makes sense to me.

What do you think, Lindsay Barr? I might be biased because I am a sensory scientist, so I observe these things and I'm pretty aware of them. And I think that this has a lot of merit.

Diet Coke and Coke are going to have different viscosities.

The Coke is going to be a little bit thicker, and so how it looks in the glass is going to be thicker.

It's going to look a little bit more dense.

The carbonation is probably going to be the same levels, but how the carbonation acts in a Diet Coke versus a sugar Coke is also going to be different because of Coke's higher viscosity, higher surface tension, because of the sugar.

nucleation sites for carbonation is going to be different between the two. Jesse, that's what I was talking to you about before, nucleation sites.
It all comes down to nucleation sites.

You're constantly talking about you.

I can't get you to can it when nucleation sites come up. I mean, I just knew that it was going to come up.
I'm sorry, Lindsay Barr. Yeah.

Well, nucleation sites, if you've ever had

a beer or something in a glass that was scratched, you can actually see bubbles coming out of the scratch.

Those are nucleation sites, and it's just microscopic little divots in the glass, or in this case, with the dissolved solids in the liquid can make the foam come out of solution differently between the two products.

Well, sounds like, Amy, you are 100% on both your claims of being able to taste the difference between tap water from the kitchen versus the bathroom. It's plausible.

And 100% on your claim to be able to tell the difference between Coke and Diet Coke based on visual inspection.

It's all plausible. It's all possible.

Sarah, before we let Lindsay Barr go, do you have any other specious accusations you want to make for our sensory science expert to swat down?

So Lindsay makes all these good points, but I think it's not relevant to the case I have with Amy though, because Amy's issue with the water isn't that she doesn't like water out of a PVC pipe or a copper pipe.

If that's what she said, I'd be like, sure, fine. Like, I get that water can get flavors from the medium through which it passes.
I agree with that. That's just science.

But Amy's saying, no matter what, it's that it's from a bathroom or a hotel. All right.

So there is a universalist aspect to this, Lindsay Barr, which is that Amy also claims that any water from a hotel bathroom plus any water from either at all from their grandmother's house tastes as bad as bathroom kitchen water.

Is that correct, Amy? Grandmother's bathroom, not just grandma's house. Oh.
All of grandma's house? Well, Nano's house. Remember how it tasted like a penny out of those little paper cups?

All her water tasted like a penny, but her bathroom water tasted like a dirty penny. Lindsay, is it possible that

the pipes could be the same in the kitchen and in the bathroom, in the basement, but because the kitchen faucet is used, say, 10 times as often as the faucet in the bathroom, that that might cause over time a taste difference?

Yeah, absolutely.

The resonance time,

how long the water is sitting in the pipes is going to influence what it's able to pick up. And it also influences, importantly, the temperature.

And the temperature can have a real impact on taste perception. So colder, even colder water, there are some people that experience higher sweetness levels when the water is colder.

Resonance time, you say.

The water is sitting around in the pipes in the basement bathroom for a longer time. It's going to take, it's probably going to be warmer, right?

I would assume, I think depending on where you live and time of year. Yeah, right.
Okay.

Lindsay, one final question from me, if you don't mind. Let's do it.
What's the best form of ice when you're having a ice water? Oh, that's just for water.

You know,

I like,

I'm partial to room temperature water myself.

Okay.

But if I had to choose, it would probably be that crushed ice.

Like crushed ice or like more like a more like a pebble.

I like the pebbles, but I like the pebbles in soda, especially.

But yeah, any kind of

smaller ice. I'm not going to go for the big orb,

but just

maybe. I have to say, we put you on the spot and you gave the correct answer.
Great.

I mean,

I truly was on the edge of my seat wondering if you were going to say crushed ice is close enough as far as I'm concerned. We're big pebble ice people here on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And thank you so much. This has been extremely illuminating and very fun to talk to you.
I hope you'll come back sometime. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me. It was fun.

So that was Lindsay Barr, co-founder of Draft Lab, basically hopping in the Zoom to say,

Amy's right, Sarah's wrong. Hmm.
Sarah, I have here that if I were to rule in your favor, you would like me to make this ruling.

For Amy to drink a full glass of bathroom water and say it's tasty and refreshing. Mostly it's about Amy admitting she's wrong.

Restitution can also be made by Amy making you, Sarah, chicken cabbage salad next time she is in town.

That's right. Tell me about this chicken cabbage salad, because that does not sound like it tastes good.
I mean, it's proof that I'm an excellent taster.

And Amy can attest that I'm an excellent taste. Maybe it's proof you don't have any taste at all.

Oh, no, no, you've got it. You would love this.
It's chicken cabbage crunch salad specifically. So it's like crunchy chicken and like wonton noodles and like a sesame dressing.

It's like a light, refreshing, crisp salad, perfect for summer. And my sister Amy makes very good salads in general, but this is the one that she's made a few times that I really like.

Look, I like you. You like Dune.
We're all friends.

I want you to be happy. I want you to enjoy this scrunchie chicken salad.
But the evidence is stacked pretty heavily against you here. If you could make one last plea

to Amy and to this court that draws not upon evidence, because you have none and

all scientific evidence suggests that Amy's probably correct, that

she's experiencing the world through her senses exactly the way she says she is, and she can discern differences between the various faucets in her life, and that you cannot erase her lived experience by gaslighting her on a podcast.

Instead,

talk about

why it has been hurtful to you or how it has made you feel to have your own experience trampled over by her, being forced to go up and get her water.

Whatever it is, give me a shot of pure emotion here. It's your last appeal.
My last hurrah. So,

you know, I'm a tough person and Amy can try and shame me, but here I am, a whole woman, happy with myself, comfortable in my own skin, despite never living up to the coolness and the influence of my sister.

So I'm not going to make an argument based on that because I'm truly fine and the past is the past. I love my sister.
I argue argue for the future.

You know, will someone please think of the children and water scarcity? We shouldn't be discriminating against water that's perfectly fine.

And well, yeah, I personally still don't necessarily buy because I think the pipes are the same. I think that's not even relevant.
This is about we shouldn't be calling some water tainted.

And that's a word that Amy uses in real life that she's specifically not saying in front of you. But she calls it tainted.

And I think that's just not a good way to talk about a scarce resource where all we all should be deeply grateful to have.

and we shouldn't teach the next generation that the water that's perfectly good that we shower with is somehow not worthy of our mouths this isn't a grudge this isn't uh it's between the sisters k

this isn't i feel bad and bullied by my older sister and i want to get back at her this is truly i want everyone to think about water as a precious resource and not to turn their noses up at it no matter what faucet it comes from can't it be both

i'm glad you can acknowledge that there's a grudge at work a little bit of grudge yes or or no? I mean, we are sisters, so. Right.
Okay. I got you.

Tainted. Right.
Okay.

Amy, if I were to rule in your favor, it says here that I should rule for your sisters to let you have this.

Yeah.

Which is cool.

I feel like that is a concise and simple request.

Admit that she can feel this and order that they no longer trick her into eating slash drinking things. They have been tricking me.
What are the tricks?

I don't know where to start, but I'll keep it as brief as I can. Please.
So this is, as she said, an ongoing thing since we were young.

So they would set up taste tests for me, my little sisters, and they would get water from sources all around the house. I mean, maybe even the hose.

We drank out of hose when we were kids, which front and back hose.

And they would line up all these cups of water. And Amy, you come in and you tell us which one's the bathroom water.
And I walked right in and immediately went, they're all bathroom water.

And everybody busts out laughing because they were. They were all bathroom water.

And their only goal in their whole fake experiment was to get me through the multiple sips to drink the equivalent of a cup of bathroom water. It's mean.

Did you know that there was bathroom water because

of your super smelling or because you just knew your siblings and knew that they were tricking you? So I would love to say that it's because of my superpowers.

But honestly, no, it's because my siblings are jerks to me. So no, it was just their, because they have been pranking me around food and drink my entire life.

So it was just, you know, based on my history with them. Why would they, why would they do this? Name one other prank.

Okay.

So I took the last twinkie. As the oldest and apparently child with most sway, I should have gotten the last twinkie.
I make no apologies. I took the last twinkie.

My My little sister was upset about this. This is Sarah we're talking about.
No, another sister. All right.
It was a kid. Arguably the best sister, the middle sister.

Ollie, yeah, Ollie's the good one. Ollie, which is why she never got busted because it doesn't do much wrong.

So I took one bite out of it to ensure that no one would mess with my Twinkie because once I'd taken a bite out of it, that's it. It was claimed, right? I went and got in the shower.

And while I was in the shower, I held my nose closed. I held my mouth shut.
I did not allow any of that disgusting shower water to seep into my esophagus. Right.
Just closed up.

While I'm in the shower, my sister sneaks in, puts,

like, scoops the cream filling out of my Twinkie, fills it with toilet paper. Classic Kelly move.
Disgusting. Disgusting.
And they know all of me.

That has nothing to do with

your taste sensitivities. That's just a prank.
It's a trick. It all lives together.
Are you sure that was Holly and not Kelly or Brandon?

I verified this on Sunday and Holly said the reason we don't, we think it's one of the other kids is because they're bad kids and she was a good kid.

And that's the reason that for the last 30 years, she's never been held accountable, but she confirmed it was her. Well, now it's public knowledge.

I think the Twinkie pranks speak to a different pathology within the five or 25 of you that we don't have time to get into here.

I do think that I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision. So I am going to go into my

Fremen Siech and drink from the bile of the baby sandworm and drink from the water of life,

which, by the way, has a delightful, greasy mouthfeel to it. And it is going to send me into a deep benegesserate

fugue state, psychedelic fugue state. And if I survive, I will see the truth that none of you can see across space and generations.
I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Sarah, how are you feeling about your chances? Oh man, I mean, I know I'm right. Like I'm going to walk out of this courtroom and I'm going to lose, but I know I'm still right.

And now it's just up to me to set a good example as an aunt to my nieces and nephews of appreciating water of any source, regardless of my loss here today. Amy, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling a lot better than when I came into this.

Coming into this, I felt like I didn't have much of a case because it feels silly and it feels petty. And Sarah is really one of the best, smartest people I know.

So if she tells me I'm wrong, I think I probably am. So now, after talking with the expert, I'm feeling great about my case.

And I feel like I'm going to get my judgment, which is for my sisters to let me have this.

Amy, we've been talking a lot about alcoholic beverages on this show, but you live in the world's capital of non-alcoholic beverages, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Have you ever been to one of these stores that just sell

different sodas mixed together in a giant cup? So I go every day.

And

I feel like my sister has told you this to further shame me. No, no.
No.

No.

I'm just curious about those stores. They sound crazy.
He just picked up on it with his migraine powers. They are a delight.
They're gross, but they're a delight.

So I strictly stick to sparkling waters with a lime in them, a Diet Coke, that kind of thing. My kids, however, drink horrific concoctions, but they're a delight.
You get a nice insulated cup.

You get pebble ice. They'll make you anything, anyway.

And all the drinks have clever names. It's great.
I go every day. I have a little punch card.
I buy a fundraiser, a little card, and they...

We roll through that every morning, like with every other basic mom in town.

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this and what sodas he likes to mix together from the soda fountain when we come back in just a second.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long. I don't know what a Josie Long is.

And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.
She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.

She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones. I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I?

Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast, Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother. This is a musical theater, not a Parisian bordello.
Simply go to maximum fun.org.

I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Judge Hodgman, you promised at the beginning of this episode to finally reveal the secret of the secret project.

That's right. I've been talking for quite a while now.
Well, I can tell you almost exactly.

One year ago, David Reese and I received a very unexpected call asking us to begin a secret project as quickly as possible. And one year later, I can now tell you what it is.

If you have not already learned from our social media announcement earlier this month, I can tell you. It is indeed season two of Dick Town.

And, you know, I have to say, we really did not expect that call. People who found Dick Town loved it, but Dick Town was a little hard to find.

Now that season two is here, I can tell you it's going to be a lot easier to find because one, yes, we named our TV show Dick Town.

Two, it is going to air premiering March the 3rd on Thursdays at 10 p.m.

on FXX, which is, of course, a premium cable channel. It is going to be a television show.

It is not going to be part of the cake Anthology Show, which is how Dick Town Season 1 premiered, which was a wonderful incubator, but an astonishing show full of strange and interesting talents.

You should check out Cake on Hulu. It's really, really good.
We are premiering on our own and carrying our own weight this time. And if you don't have FXX,

do not be alarmed. Each episode will air the next day on Hulu.
If you have Hulu, you're all set to go. If you have FXX, you're all set to go.

If you don't have those things or don't know what I'm talking about, go to bit.ly slash Dicktown where you can check out the first season, which is 10 episodes of about 11 minutes each of a cartoon in which I play a former boy detective who's now in his middle age, still solving mysteries for teenagers, and David Reese plays my former high school bully and arch nemesis, who is now my hired muscle driver and only friend in a town called Richardsville, North Carolina, known to locals as Dicktown.

Season two, Jesse, is wilder, stranger, I dare say funnier, more psychedelic, with much more pimento cheese content than any other show on television, and featuring a wide array of special guest voices, including some that I've hinted at over the past year: Kristen Schaul, Paul F.

Tompkins, Amy Sederis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Weird Al Yankovic, Gene Gray,

a favorite guest bailiff on this program, Mike Mitchell from The Doughboys. Sarah Vowell.

It's just an incredible array of vocal talents that you know and an incredible array of vocal talents and performers that you don't know of, but you should.

Ronald Pete as Tucker is, as always, incredible.

There are just so many talented people in this episode, including David Reese doing a number of different character voices.

I can't tell you how much pleasure we've had making this show, how unlikely it seemed that we would get to do it again.

But I have no doubt that it is thanks to you, the Judge John Odgman listeners, checking out Dicktown at bit.ly slash D-I C-K-T-O-W-N since it came out at the end of 2020.

I have no doubt that it is because of you going and checking out that link and telling people about it on social media and to your friends and family and so forth.

You are the reason that we got to make a second season.

I think that when you watch the second season, I hope that you'll agree that not only would we be excited to make a third season, but we would be good at it.

But mostly, I just hope that you enjoy the work that we made because we really did make it very consciously in thanks and gratitude to you, the folks who watched the first season.

So if you don't mind, go to your calendar, set a reminder for yourself, figure out a way to access the internet. I'm talking about U.S.
only here for the moment.

I don't know if it's ever going to filter through to Canada or the UK, but

even if it never does, even if you live in those places, circle the 3rd of March, 3322. We just would really love for as many people to get to see it as possible.
Let's get back to the case.

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

Well, I'll give you the verdict in just a second. I'm just sorting through these 200 emails that I got somehow in the middle of the episode.

telling me that I was wrong about my water of life reference in Dune, that it is not extracted from the the bile of the of the baby sandworm but it is rather the liquid exhalation of a sandworm produced at the moment of its death from drowning to become uh an illuminating poison

but anyway i got through it y'all thanks for your letters sarah what am i going to tell you what am i going to tell you you're going to tell me to let her have this

Do you, I mean, I, like, I could draw this out. You know what I mean?

Well, here, I'll draw it out for a second. Amy, how much crime are you fighting with your superpowers? I mean, I'm fighting the crime of wrong sodas

and bathroom water. My powers for sniffing out matches have saved countless lives.

You know, with children and a husband who has a passion for fireworks, I have saved countless lives just with my match sniffing powers.

I was asking facetiously, because of course, if this were the Marvel universe, if you had the power of super smelling, you would be forced to give up every night to patrol hell's kitchen and sniff out crime like Daredevil does.

But I actually genuinely believe that you probably have saved lives with your match sniffing powers. All right, I dragged it out.
Sarah, I have this question for you. One,

the childhood home,

who owns that home now? My parents. Well, my parents just moved out of it, but yes.
Okay, but is it now owned by a third party not connected with your family? Yes, a cousin.

Okay, so it's still family. Yeah.

Okay, because I was going to say, if I read the news about you after this podcast airs, getting arrested by the police for trying to break into this house to test, to steal the pipes and prove that they're the same, I'd be very upset.

But now I know that you can just ask. Didn't it ever occur to you to do a literal blind taste test? Well, we tried.
You heard what Amy said. We tried to test it.

We filled it all with, we filled it all.

Filled it all with bathroom water.

This is one of those things where, as an only child, I can't claim to really understand what's going on here. Normally, I'm able to pick up on the crux or whatever.

I tried to throw you a bone with suggesting that

this whole argument that you were bullied and under Amy's sway and forced to do her bidding was a burden that you had to process in your life.

And that maybe Amy would say, I'm sorry that I made you into my servant. You literally carry her water.
And I mean, Amy, you are a tyrant.

I mean, you can't just take that last Twinkie Twinkie and not, I mean, take it, sure, but finish it.

You wouldn't have finished it if it weren't full of toilet paper. Yeah, you took a bite of that Twinkie.
I know what you were up to.

It was a power move. Kind of was.
Biting that Twinkie, leaving it behind, because you believed that you, because you're the swayest of sways,

can like who stops in the middle of a Twinkie to take a shower? That's implausible on its face. A teen with ADD.
That's who does this. Sarah, would you agree this is typical behavior for me?

It's typical behavior for all of us.

Fair enough. Fair enough.
But yeah, you deserve to have that. That was a good trick that Holly played on you.
It was solid.

You were bragging that that was your Twinkie forever. You thought no one was going to mess with that Twinkie.

Got messed with in a way. You know what? It should have been shaving cream.
Pass that on to the future generations.

Here's the thing that I got to say to you, Sarah.

You are right. Water is a precious resource.
No, I'm not ruling in your favorite. Don't look happy.

But you're all right. You and Brandon got together.
You were right. You were right.
Water is a precious resource. You are right that we should not be

too snobby about our water.

I mean, obviously, if you live in a home and one tap tastes better to you than the other, even if it's a mere illusion, which I think it probably isn't at this point, because I'm going to tell you right now.

Best water, kitchen sink water. I'll drink the bathroom water.
It does taste different.

Tops water,

hose after it's been running for a long time. That deep well water coming out of the hose.

I don't know why that tastes better. But now, thanks to our guest Lindsay Barr, I understand that a little bit better.
There is no reason not to have a preference if you discern something.

And yet, there's also a reason to remember each time you have water and pull it out of the tap, that it is a kind of miracle of civilization that you can drink clean drinking water.

And by miracle of civilization, remember that there are supposedly civilized cities in this country where you can't. So it is right to bear that in mind.

I would even go so far as to say that it was right for you to team up with your brother, Brandon, and come up with a scheme to shame Amy for this because it was not right for Amy to shame you.

Amy, you don't understand. Sarah can't taste things the way way you do.

I believe in your lived experience, but you have to help Sarah slowly come awake to her own lived experience, which is she can't taste the difference between that delicious sink water, that delicious kitchen water, and that disgusting bathroom water.

That's not, that should not be shaming her for that. At any, no matter what time you're eating your omelets, 2 a.m., 3 a.m., it doesn't matter.
Phase of life, accept her.

Don't bully your younger sister.

And don't, and, you know, and now that you've been reshamed by Brandon and Sarah via this the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast because that was your mistake Sarah you didn't actually go through with your reshaming you made me do it on your behalf

now that's quits even Stevens let there be no more it's no more fighting between the siblings over this

I will say Sarah unburden yourself of this

this grudge that you're holding. You know, David Reese and I have this secret project that we were just able to announce, but we're also working on a secret secret project.

And I don't know if it'll ever come out, but one of the things we're talking about is this one character.

This is like the siblings in this family, and each of them have this like call to call to adventure, a mission in life, a calling in life. One of them wants to be an astronaut.

One of them wants to be a politician. One of them wants to be a skin diver or whatever.
And then one of them realizes that they don't have a calling.

Their calling has always been to try to get attention from all the other ones. That's no way to live your life.
Unburden.

I don't know if that's you exactly, Sarah, because look, you're out there in California. You're a strong, independent woman.
I believe you when you say it.

But insofar as you needed to get some shame revenge, I'm behind you.

Now,

you must let Amy have this and unburden yourself. Don't deny her lived experience.
She tastes water funny.

You don't taste water so good.

You can, it's between the brothers, Kay. It's fine.
Leave it alone. Don't probe further.
I rule in Amy's favor. This is the sound of a gavel.
We're going to get the water from your house, your house.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Sarah, how do you feel? Oh,

I mean,

I know, because all this morning, my husband is telling me there's no way you're going to win this. He's going to say, this is harmless.
She can have it.

And for heaven's sakes, will you please stop talking about bathroom water?

you know i i'm glad you say it the directive is i should unburden myself because that means i can continue to harass my sister and my other two sisters and my brother as long as i do so without having shame or guilt in my heart that's sort of how i hear this

that's not what i was saying but okay

without the the natural shame and guilt of the harassing youngest siblings yeah i can just do so

youngest siblings are always

so hesitant to harass their older siblings. Well, I've spent the first few decades just trying to impress her, and now I can just let go of that and be my true self.

Amy, how are you feeling? Your true self, who's she been being so far?

As the youngest of five kids and the child who grew up with, I'm going to say the most exhausted parents, she had a pretty great experience.

And if anything, I think the older kids were held hostage by her demands as the youngest. I mean, I feel like we're starting new fights.
I'm just trying to get reactions and end the fight.

So, here's my reaction. I love my sister fiercely, and I didn't know she felt burdened by this.
So,

in that regard, I am truly sorry for whatever burden she's born about this water thing that to me is you are starting to sound sarcastic. Go ahead.
No, but I truly am because I love my sister.

Like, I don't have the words. I do feel terrible about that.

So, but you might argue that my, I don't know, bothering you is what made you so great because you're like the literal best person.

But my commitment to her.

Oh, keep digging, Amy. Keep digging.
No, truly, I feel bad about that part of it. That said, I think she.

Makes a good point. I'm bad at apologies.

This is the sway. I love you too, Amy.

This is what I will give her. I will not pass this on to the future generation.
My concession will be: I will not give this to her nieces and nephews. So loves.

You're going to deny your own lived reality in order to finally make her happy so she'll stop harassing you? Yeah, that sums it up. All right.

I got to step in here. I got to clarify my ruling.
Look, what I said about Sarah being burdened, that was between me and Sarah.

Okay? That was between Sarah and Sarah's judge. And I don't even know that it's true.

I was just saying that Sarah came in hot with a lot of, I lived my life trying to impress Amy and get her attention, including roping her into being on a podcast.

And I am saying to Sarah, you can interrogate for yourself whether or not it's time to let go of some of that, because I think you can tell Sarah from what Amy says, you impress her a lot.

But what you should be apologizing for is shaming Sarah in front of your other siblings at 2 a.m. over omelets.
I don't remember that.

What you should be apologizing for is shaming Sarah because Sarah has finally come to acknowledge your lived reality and memories and senses.

I've already ruled in your favor, and I think you should go ahead and tell the nieces and nephews about your strange and special powers. There's nothing wrong with it.

But I do think you owe Sarah an apology for shaming her for her water indiscriminacy in front of your siblings over omelets at 2 a.m., whether you remember it or not.

Sarah, I genuinely apologize for shaming you about the water over 2 a.m. omelets.
I am so sorry. I was not a good big sister in that moment, and you deserved better.

That was a great apology. I accept it on behalf of Sarah, but that's not my place to do.
Sarah, do you accept that apology? I accept. And I know Amy will make me a salad anyway because she's amazing.

Yeah, good. All right.
Let's Let's all get a salad, get out of here, and have some delicious pebble ice and cabbage chicken salad. Sarah, Amy, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We'll have swift justice in just a second.
First, our thanks to Twitter user at Megan Lamouth for naming this week's episode Potable Cause.

If you want to name a future episode, make sure you're following us on Twitter. John is is at Hodgman.
I am at Jesse Thorne. You can also hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.
O.

If you want to chat about this week's episode, you can do so on Reddit at maximumfund.reddit.com.

Evidence and photos from our show are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marmor.
Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Now, Judge Hodgman, we've got Kenji Lopez-Alt coming on the show to talk about food. Yeah, Jesse, Kenji Lopez-Alt is coming.

We can't wait to have him back on the podcast to resolve some disputes around food in the kitchen. We've got quite a few in the hopper, but we can always use a few more.

If you have a dispute related to food, cooking, baking, kitchen storage,

kitchen hacks,

anything. We want to hear from you.
Submit your case at maximumfund.org or email me at hodgman at maximumfund.org. Yeah, any, we'll take kitchen cases.
We'll take other cases too.

Maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho is where you can submit them on the web or just email hodgman at maximumfund.org. Include some contact information in there.

You know what I might have? No. Rangehood dispute.
Ooh, a rangehood dispute.

I can't wait to hear rangehood because the ducting is roughly installed. Didn't like how they installed it.
You got some of those rough ducts?

Rough duct.

Anyway, here's some swift justice, John. Mayley asks, does my partner have a moral obligation to scrape the excess peanut butter on the knife back into the jar?

Well, it's got to go somewhere. Where else is it going to go? You have extra peanut butter on that knife.

If you put that knife into the dishwasher, unless you're washing it by hand, you can get that stuff off and then it goes down the drain. Yeah, it seems thrifty.
That's what I would do.

Is there any reason not to, Jesse? There's a lot of problems in our sewers of huge accumulated globs of peanut butter. That's what I've heard.
I think that's probably right.

Because what I was going to say is, if you put that peanut butter encrusted knife into the dishwasher, if you have one, that dishwasher isn't going to clean it.

That is tough stuff, that peanut butter, and it will glob up. I have no doubt.
So, yeah, scrape it into the jar for later use.

That's it for this week's episode. Remember to submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or email us at hodgman at maximumfund.org.
No cases too small.

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

Oh, before we go, Lindsay Barr, as a scientist, how many dinks does a body need? A body needs two dinks at science.

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