Rashomom (RERUN)

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

With me is Judge John Hodgman.

Happy New Year to you.

I don't like to say Happy New Year.

I like to say Hopeful New Year.

Hopeful New Year to you.

In honor of this wonderful new year, hopefully wonderful new year, we're running one of our all-time favorite episodes of Judge John Hodgman.

It's one that we talk about all the time, but that you might not have heard.

It is from quite a while ago.

It's called Rasha Mom.

This is episode 58.

It originally ran almost a decade ago.

We often refer to it as the Greyhouse episode for reasons that you'll understand.

It is about a dispute within a family as to whether or not a house existed or not.

Yeah, amazing.

It was such an interesting exploration of ambiguity and its role in family lore that when the truth of the Greyhouse was finally revealed, I think it was on a Reddit board somewhere or whatever, I read the truth and honestly, I decided to forget the truth.

And I still don't remember what's true or what's not.

Yeah, you couldn't handle it.

I couldn't handle the truth.

We also mentioned David Reese in his book, How to Sharpen Pencils, in this episode,

which came out around that time, which is a great book about literally how to sharpen pencils.

I'd also like to direct your attention after this episode.

Go listen to the most recent episode of Election Profit Makers because David and John Kimball and Starley took the week off as well.

And they invited one of their listeners, Satchel of Satchel's Pizza down in Jacksonville, Florida, to create the podcast for them this week.

And Satchel did such an amazing job just telling his own story about starting a pizza place.

I practically was crying at the end of it.

It's such a hopeful story.

And this is a time when we need a lot of hope, and this is a time when we need to remind ourselves that we have to tolerate ambiguity and do the best we can in uncertain times.

So I hope you will enjoy this episode.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Rasha Mom.

Rebecca, her mother Denise, and grandmother Gloria have a case regarding memory.

Specifically, is the memory of a child or an adult more reliable?

Denise insists that a gray house stood next door to her childhood home.

Gloria says that's simply not true and that the house must be a figment of Denise's imagination.

Rebecca's been dragged in to adjudicate their dispute before, but she's got issues of her own with her mom's recollections of past events.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Who can even remember?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom.

To a dispute, then, I owe my first gleam of consciousness since the first creatures on earth to become aware of time were also the first creatures to judge.

Bailiff Jesse, please swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has no need for a memory since he purchased a 64-kilobit sharp personal organizer.

I do.

I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman?

Sharp.

Very sharp.

This is actually a dispute between

a mother and a grandmother with a daughter sort of falling in the middle.

Is that correct?

It is.

All right.

Now, who speaks right then?

I'm Rebecca.

I'm the granddaughter.

And

you are the granddaughter.

Judge Hodgman.

May we be seated

uh

for your impudence no

and now you may be seated only because thank you only only because

uh you are you are hard-working women who deserve a seat

thank you uh now rebecca you are the granddaughter i am your mother is denise may i hear your voice please yes i'm denise denise and then gloria you are the grandmother in this situation yes i am very well.

First of all, let me just point out that Gloria, the grandmother, has the best Skype connection of all.

So shame on both you, Denise and Rebecca.

Thank you.

Now,

for an immediate summary judgment in your favor, Rebecca, can you name the piece of culture that I paraphrased when I entered the courtroom?

I'm afraid I cannot, and I expected that question.

No, I can't.

Denise or Gloria, can either of you, for an immediate summary judgment in your favor?

No, and I knew you'd do this.

When I heard the princess bride one, I said, oh, I know that one, but no, I'm not familiar with this one.

It was a paraphrase of Vladimir Nabokov's speak memory.

Really?

Okay, it's been a long time since I've read that.

Well, I don't know.

I looked it up on the internet earlier.

I may have forgotten.

Rebecca, you are the mediating factor here.

This fight is actually between your mom and your grandmom, Denise, the mother.

What is it that you and your your mother, Gloria, disagree over?

Oh, let's see, eight, nine, ten years old, thereabouts for me.

We lived in a house on what was at that time a little two-lane road.

And east of us, probably less than a quarter of a mile, was a little creek where we used to play all the time.

My brother,

who was four or five at the time, my sister, who

was about a year behind me, and then me, the oldest.

And so we were running up and down that street to the creek creek all the time.

And so please tell me what state was this in?

Oregon.

Where in Oregon?

Not too far from Portland, a very rural area at the time.

It's very developed now, but it was a farming country then.

I see.

And you were sustainably raising organic chickens and giving each other tattoos?

No tattoos, but there were chickens and a big garden, yes.

And

without getting too deeply into personal matters, may I inquire as to the year more or less of

this happening?

Yes, it would have been 61, 62,

and into 63, because we lived in that house at the Kennedy assassination.

So that was 63.

All right.

And so some simple math tells me that that was about 100 years ago, is that correct?

Roughly.

It certainly feels like it, yes.

All right.

And you were the oldest of the three siblings.

And you were the youngest, excuse me?

I'm the oldest.

You're the oldest.

Okay.

And so what is it that you remember that your mother, Gloria, does not remember?

Between our house and the creek, there was another house.

It was a little gray house.

We did not know the people who lived in the house.

Our folks had a lot of respect for private property.

If you run to the creek, you stay on the road.

You don't go in the neighbor's property.

So we always circled around.

Mom does not remember the existence of that house.

So my sister and I, who do, have referred to it in conversation, and she says there was no gray house.

And we said, yes, there was.

So our family has evolved the device of the gray house universe, which is in the universe that I live in, which had a gray house in it, this is the way the world was.

But mom says in the universe that I live in, there is no gray house, and this is the way the universe works.

So

you were describing the theory,

the physics theory of many worlds.

Yeah, something along those lines.

You and your mother are now living in parallel dimensions.

Yes, precisely.

At the gray house, it diverged, and never, and as divergent lines are prone to do, they keep growing further and further apart.

Now, Grandmother Gloria,

you dispute the existence of this house?

Yes, I do.

Okay.

I can't ask you to describe an absence.

No.

But how do you explain it?

Oh, yes, there was a field of hay between us and the creek, and they didn't go in the street to go down to the creek.

They crossed the field.

So you're saying that, first of all, may I ask,

was the hay

gray and house-shaped by any chance?

No, it was green in the spring, and it was brown in the fall.

Green in spring, brown in the fall, nothing unusual or house-shaped there.

And even though your daughter, Denise, says that she would not pass through that field because it was private property,

you're saying she routinely passed through that field.

She

routinely passed through that field.

It was private property, but there were no houses there and nobody was in the area.

And they crossed the field to go to the creek.

They didn't go in the street to do it.

So it was private property, but your daughter was just a mischief-making trespasser.

Right.

All right.

Why do you think she remembers a house there when clearly none was there?

I have no idea.

She has a very vivid imagination.

She's very talented, and she's an artist and very creative.

But other than that.

Did she ever describe other things that

you do not believe existed or could be verified to not exist?

She works with clay a lot, and

the clay has to tell her what to make out of it before she can make it.

Okay.

I am personally neither drunk nor high at the moment, so I don't understand what you just said.

Could you explain what you mean?

she's a potter she works with clay she makes things out of clay makes ceramics and stuff and the clay tells her what to make yes and you're speaking metaphorically yes for the act of inspiration right

you believe simply that your daughter is a a trespasser but that she is not a mentally ill hallucinating person i don't i don't believe she's a trespasser and i don't believe she's mentally ill all right so you have affection for your daughter

Great deal.

Thank you.

It's a first here on the Judge Shamashi podcast.

Just remember, she's taking care of me.

I have a great deal of affection for her.

Ma'am, is there anything else you'd like to tell us?

Do you need help of any kind right now?

Are you

after today?

If you are being held against your will, would you just remain silent for the moment?

I say, we'll have someone come up.

Rebecca.

Yes.

You are the granddaughter.

You are the daughter of Denise and the daughter of Gloria.

I am.

Yes.

Please stop laughing or I'm going to make you stand up again.

I'm appreciating how well you're managing this conversation, Judge.

It's a lot of fun.

Do you have difficulty managing it?

I mean, why are you even here?

That's my question.

I am here, first of all, because I'm a loyal fan of the podcast, and I felt that because the Greyhouse Universe is a recurring theme of conversation, it didn't seem to me that anyone would be able to satisfactorily resolve this issue except for you.

You're the one with the necessary expertise.

You are clarified buttering me up.

That will get you only so far.

Explain to me how the Greyhouse Universe comes into play in your life, in your life, as well as the life of your family.

Firstly, if you spend any amount of time with my mother and my grandmother, which I do,

you will hear repeated reference to the Greyhouse Universe as the place where they

dispose of all of their disagreements.

So there'll be a conversation where they'll say,

I think that's on the north side of the street, and the other one will say it's on the south side of the street.

And the first one will say, well, in the greyhouse universe, it's on the north side of the street.

Or you like this kind of food.

No, I don't like this kind of food.

Well, in the greyhouse universe, you do like this kind of food.

And how many disagreements are they having about objectifiably verifiable facts?

More than you

kind of a lot, yes.

Yes.

So I would say if you spend roughly three hours with them, you'll hear at least one reference to the Greyhouse universe.

And

how do you get implicated in this aside from having to hear you all live together?

Where are you all located now, if I may ask?

I live in Portland, Oregon.

Portland, Oregon, all right.

By which I mean I live in the urban part of the city and they live out in suburbia.

Yeah.

And I presume in Portland there you run a little organic vinyl record shop or something?

I'll never stop.

I'll never stop Portland.

On a side note, I read an article today about an artisanal pencil sharpener, which seemed very important to me.

Tell me more about that.

He's a gentleman who charges $15 for sharpening a pencil.

It takes him about a half an hour.

He issues a certificate of sharpness.

Yes.

Apparently he's from New York, but he will be here on the 26th.

And I know some people who are very eager to have their podcasts.

I don't know exactly when this podcast will come out, but can you remember the name of the artisanal pencil sharpener?

I could know it within moments.

I actually just tweeted.

Let me tell you what it is.

It is David Reese.

Ah, thank you.

And does he have a book that is out now?

I don't know.

It is called How to Sharpen Pencils.

He's probably speaking at Powell's.

I love it.

And is there a foreword to this book?

The answer is yes.

Oh my gosh, is it written by you?

And is it written by me?

Of course it is.

Yay!

Did you seriously bring up artisanal pencil sharpening not knowing that I am at the center, the white-hot center of the white-hot graphite center of the artisanal pencil sharpening movement and that David Reese is my friend?

I had no idea.

I had no idea.

The best piece of buzz marketing I've ever had

in this courtroom, and I appreciate it.

I had a long conversation at work yesterday about pencil sharpening, and then I stumbled across the link today,

which is becoming quite popular.

Well,

I appreciate it very much.

And if you had anything at all to do with this case, I would find in your favor.

But

I do not apparently

talking at this point.

So I'm going to talk to the people who are actually having a fight.

Denise, mother of Rebecca, daughter of Gloria, describe to me in as much detail as possible the gray house.

The gray house was,

let's see, small,

single-story, maybe 900 to 1,000 square feet, just guessing because I was never in it.

Had a little cement front.

You didn't have your Oregonian hemp tape measure with you at all times?

No, I'm afraid not.

Darn it.

When I was that young, I didn't know about Oregonian hemp.

Oregon, no, I didn't.

Anyway, no, I did not measure the house and I didn't ever approach it.

My sister, who remembers it but is not present today, she did approach it once.

Is she still living?

Is she alive?

Oh, yeah, she lives in Seattle.

I just couldn't get her to

she lives in that alternate dimension.

Yes, it is too.

I could not get her to submit a written statement of her memory of the house.

She's one busy girl, that girl.

So she's not disputing.

She's not saying...

Nope.

No, she's not saying I can't put it down in writing.

No, she's just preoccupied with her family business and things.

And I think she did not really understand the implications of of

being

guests on the podcast yeah you you think maybe not everyone in the world has time to sit and talk about childhood memories on a podcast that's the difference

that's the difference right there between Seattle and Portland

well I have a brother who lives in San Diego and a sister who lives in in Seattle

and just about as far old from here

my brother agrees with my mom because he says he was too young to retain any memory of it, so whatever mom says is right.

My sister and I both agree on the existence of the Gray House.

Let's take a quick break from Rasha Mom to hear about this week's sponsor.

When we come back, we'll hear a description of the Gray House.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

Thank you so much for for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at maximumfun.org, and they are all your favorites.

If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic.

Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made made in pots and pans.

It's true.

The braised short ribs, made in, made in.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But made-in isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks, too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable

than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

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

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookwear.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N Cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

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

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

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

And I agree with them.

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

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

Quince has the good stuff.

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

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

John, you know what I got from Quince?

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

And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

Oh.

It's like a mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling, because with merino wool,

it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

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

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

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

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

They have travel stuff.

They have gifts.

They have quilts and bedspreads.

They've got everything.

Go over there and find out for yourself.

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

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

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

Quince.com slash JJ Ho.

So it was a one-story house.

Story Little House had a sort of a gravel path-like driveway leading back to it.

It was set a little further back from the street than our house was.

And

we would come along the road, cross that driveway, and go into the shrubbery down to the creek.

And was it what you say that no one was living there, but it was a home in which someone would live.

It could not be, say, a shed or a shack.

No, as I remember it, it was lived in.

It was inhabited.

Oh, I thought you said no one was living there.

Oh,

maybe I misspoke.

I never went there, but I never had the impression that it was vacant.

So your impression was that humans were inside of it sometimes.

Did they have a television antenna or not?

I don't remember a television antenna.

Did it have a porch?

It did have a porch, a cement front porch with about three steps going up to it.

Okay, and

was there there anything on the porch?

Is there a swing or any plants or potted plants?

No, the front door was a little bit recessed, so

you would

step into

a little alcove before you knocked on the door, which was set back a little bit.

But I don't recall anything being on the porch.

It wasn't a very large space.

What color was the door?

Dark colored.

I don't know if it was brown or black.

It didn't stand out from the house, and it was a little bit in the

shaded, you you know.

Yes,

how many windows would you say it had?

Well, on the side that we saw going to the creek, it had one large window on either side of that front door.

I don't know about the other sides of the house because I don't recall ever going around that.

Was it a clabbard house, or was it a stucco exterior?

Um, shingle, what do you call that?

Um,

like wooden shingles, wooden um

clabbards, clapboard, clapboard.

Is that it?

Okay, clapboard.

Yeah,

your mother and I agree.

At least that.

Was it a pitched roof or was it a flat roof?

Was it a pitched roof or a flat roof?

It was slightly pitched.

It wasn't a very steep.

And maybe that's part of the reason why I remember it is because I was used to houses with steeply pitched roofs, you know, along the roof.

Well, you lived in a normal family.

A normal family.

This house had a...

You were a steeply pitched roof, people.

Yes, well, and our houses had, well, not in that house.

Usually there'd be an attic or some space up there.

This place maybe did have that but it was not um as steeply pitched a roof as i was used to thinking of did it have a chimney i remember a chimney yes a brick chimney or a stovepipe chimney brick chimney okay

and uh were there was there anything in the yard

The grass was tall.

Maybe that's what mom's referring to about the hayfield.

There was tall grass most of the front, so you really only saw the house as you crossed

the drive area.

Look,

I don't want you putting words in your mom's mouth.

I don't want you painting your mother as saying, like, oh, yeah, there was a house there, but it had tall grass.

Oh, yeah, that's just a hayfield.

Well, no, but

the yard was sort of obscured

by the tall grass down near the front of the road.

So I don't recall very much about the yard.

I actually don't recall anything about the yard.

Now, I'm going to ask you this question.

I want you to think very seriously before you answer.

Could it be that it was a TARDIS?

Oh,

no, I never thought about that, but I suppose if that was the case, it would be there sometimes and not other times, right?

Yes, it would be, yeah, it would all be relative.

Yeah, Grandmother Gloria.

Yes.

You've heard a very distinct description of this house.

Do you believe that this is all from your daughter's imagination?

Oh, no.

We lived in a house very similar to the one she describes.

Aha.

So, like the police artist,

so like the classic police artist fallacy, she is describing as her attacker the very person who is making the sketch, the very thing that is right in front of her.

Right.

That's very compelling.

And do you believe that your other daughter is suffering the same,

let's say, not mass hysteria, but dual hysteria?

No, I don't think so.

I think she's just agreeing with her older sister because the older sister sister was always in charge.

And so, whatever the older sister says is true.

I see.

Really?

Okay, easy, Denise, because

if you want to make a case for yourself

that

you're not an incredibly delusional, controlling person who is keeping your mother hostage and forcing your sister to agree with you, if indeed there is a sister at this point, I have to question even that.

There is no question.

Then I would not jump in at this point.

This is me not jumping.

Go ahead, Gloria.

You were about to say something else.

No, no, other than

in the same general areas as

the place we're speaking of, there was another house where we lived for a while, and it was a gray house, and it was about just almost identical to what she described.

But we lived in that house, and it was up the roadways and across the street.

So she might be confusing it with

house.

It's possible in a child's imagination.

I don't like to destroy a child's imagination because there's nothing better than that.

That's where you and I differ.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Child's imagination is a wonderful thing.

I feel children should start growing up and stop seeing houses.

This is another one of those Portland.

That's the way I was raised, and it's wrong.

All right.

And Gloria can you give me some examples of of where you and Denise disagree such that you have to invoke the Greyhouse Universe rule cooking gardening

tomato plants are there any areas where you actually agree on something

yes her cooking is wonderful

she takes very good care of me most of the time

and I wish she could retire so we could both enjoy retirement Raymond was the kindest sweetest most important leader I ever had in Korea.

For a summary judgment, can any of you name the piece of culture I'm very badly paraphrasing at that very moment?

No, I don't know that one.

It is Frank Sinatra after he has been brainwashed in the Manchurian candidate.

Oh, really?

I never saw the Manchurian candidate.

Well, I think you should both look into it because it is a movie about conflicting and confused memories.

It may be that one of you thought you were playing near a gray house when it turns out you were actually being brainwashed in Korean.

That may be.

Rebecca, why haven't you,

an able-bodied young person living in Portland,

ridden your penny-farthing bicycle

out to where your mom grew up to do some detective work.

My understanding, well,

the answer is twofold, actually, Judge Hodgman.

My understanding is that the part of town in which this all took place is significantly different now than it was at the time and has been much more developed and doesn't resemble what it did at the time.

And the other reason is that I am not sure,

given the situation of the Grey House Universe, I'm not sure that appealing to empiricism is actually going to resolve this.

Again, because they argue about things that are, in fact, verifiable.

Well,

so, but clearly, a choice has been made to not verify.

Because it could be easily verified one way or another.

Could it not?

My thought was to go to the county and get a plat map for that period that would have been accurate at about that period.

But I didn't want to destroy the discussion with mere fact.

And I thought it would be nice.

I didn't want to come to mom and say, see, you were wrong.

So I was pretty sure I would be right.

You are an extremely unusual daughter.

I am that.

She could prove I was wrong.

She'd do it.

Really?

Okay, I'm going to the county, man.

Gloria, is the house that you raised your children in, that is either next to or not next to a gray house or was next to or not next to a gray house, does that house still exist?

No, heavens, no.

I raised my three children in about 20 different different houses because we moved at least

100 times.

Do you feel that the existence or non-existence of the Grey House could be verified in that neighborhood now?

No.

Like Denise says, I think we'd have to go see if we could find some maps of that era and see if there were houses there.

There were very few houses out there then, and now it's,

you know, it's a solid mass of houses and apartments.

If I may chime in also.

Who is speaking now?

Sorry, this is Rebecca.

Okay.

A couple of weeks ago, my mother was also describing to me a memory of there being construction in that neighborhood and playing in a pile of dirt.

And my grandmother likewise does not remember any of that taking.

That's very true

along that same stretch of road.

The road used to have a curve, and there were, this is Denise again, there were several car accidents along there, and so the towers that be decided to straighten it out.

And during the construction process, we did go down there

my mom and dad and my brother and sister and I all

and played in the construction you know ran around in the construction site and jumped off this high hill and rolled down the hill and came back up and mom didn't have any memory of that whole business of road being straightened or of us going down there and playing during the after hours of the construction process so yeah there are numerous instances where one of us kids will remember something and mom will say that didn't happen or vice versa.

But then that's happened to me as a mom too with Rebecca.

Well, right.

So

I think it's an occupational hazard of parenting.

Well, so you're suggesting your mom is being pretty reasonable.

She's saying, I don't believe that

my daughter hallucinated things.

I think she's just confused.

And that a child's memory is imperfect.

And you're saying your mom is what?

Willfully denying

the truth, willfully denying the truth or or is herself incompetent when it comes to remembering this particular place?

No, there.

I think that there's probably I was having when we were going down to that construction site, I was having a fabulous time, so it stood out in my memory.

For her, she was probably thinking about 400 different things,

and it wasn't memorable for her, so it just didn't register.

Because children are dumb.

You understand that, right?

As a mother, yes.

When I was a child, I thought we were brilliant.

But when I became a mother, I thought, oh, these are dumb people.

Because here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

I am myself a parent.

And the young people that are in my life have incredibly sharp memories for very small details, right?

Because they don't have a lot to remember.

So there's that in your favor.

At the same time,

the six-year-old in my life, a male child, who has an incredible memory for those little things, routinely wakes up every day asking, is this, what day is this?

Is this Saturday?

Well, I do that, and I'm not a six-year-old.

Well, yes,

ma'am, you've earned it.

You're not a dum-dum like my son.

Oh, no, no, you shouldn't say that about yourself.

You know that that's not what I actually believe, man.

I know.

You sounded serious.

Well, that's part of my charm.

Oh,

I hope your son thinks you're charming, too.

Well,

I have every confidence that 20 years from now, we'll work it out on a podcast.

But for now, we're getting along fine.

Now, here's the thing.

First of all, Denise, yes do you want to know the answer to this

um

i'm pretty convinced that i'm right and i didn't want to destroy a kind of a youthful family tool for disposing of these kinds of discrepancies in in memory but i do think if i went down to the county and got a plat map from 1965 i would find that there was a house there and grandmother gloria how will you feel if you are wrong?

I would accept it, but I think it's more fun to have this as

a place to end a dispute

between us about something else that might happen, and we can always file everything under the Greyhouse illusion.

And how will you feel if you are right?

I wouldn't want Denise to know that I was right because I wouldn't want to destroy her memories.

And Denise, why are you laughing uproariously at a very sweet sentiment that your mom said?

I think that's very sweet of her.

But are you planning some punishment for her later?

No,

probably not.

Let me assure you that LaCourt takes elder abuse very seriously.

You're not going to make her watch Dancing with the Stars or something, are you?

No, are you kidding?

No, she'd probably want to watch a Cubs game.

Oh, boy, sports.

Well, with that, I will retire to my chambers and make my decision.

I'll be back soon.

Great.

Thank you.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Denise, I have a question for you.

Have you and your mother ever had to consign to this house dimension a dispute over a person rather than a thing?

Well,

there was a recent discussion about the first time that we met our stepfather.

And so that would be a person.

And I remembered it being when we were living on that street.

And she remembers it being as sometime later.

Here's my concern, Denise.

If we destroy this dimension, will that make you a murderer?

Well, I guess it depends on who's in the dimension at the time.

If it's...

Hmm.

You're ready to kill.

Not a murderer.

I would say no, not a murderer.

You're sharpening your knives right now.

No, never, never, never.

Gloria, it sounds like you have reservations about both ways that this case could turn out.

Yeah, I do.

I kind of hope it stays in limbo because I don't want to destroy her memories, but I just know I'm right.

So

it doesn't bother me, you know.

We're both in the same boat.

We're both convinced that we're right, but neither one of us wants the other other one to be

injured or offended or have hurt feelings.

Rebecca, how are you feeling?

You're hoping to get out from under the weight of this thing.

Well, you know,

that's the challenge.

I think the philosophical implications are interesting.

And at the same time, I agree that the Greyhouse Universe is a convenient place to dispose of disagreements that might otherwise

need to be resolved, given the strong personalities of the people who are utterly convinced that they are right.

We'll be back in just a moment with Judge Sean Hodgman's verdict.

But first, let's hear about some of the other great shows here at MaximumFund.org.

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

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show, Let's Learn Everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

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

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

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.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

I don't know if this house exists.

I mean, you asked me to rule on it, but I think really what this is, is a ruling on whether or not I'm going to compel someone to go and verify the existence of this house.

It is clearly verifiable, and I could verify it, but that would require resources, time, discipline, and work that I simply do not feel like deploying.

Because really, it's none of my business, and I won't care.

And in many ways, the idea of the house being proved to exist is much more disappointing than the question of whether or not it does exist.

And the memory that you have of it, Denise, is so incredibly creepy and Ringu-like

that

I really would not want to ruin that for the world because we all do have memories from childhood of those weird, incongruous places.

They're like, was that really there?

I mean, I have memories of breaking into

the tan stucco service building for the huge playground

abutting my elementary school with my older friend, Peter Rosenmeier, who was the sort of person who would walk through doors that are marked grown-ups only, and playing pool with him sort of

on the makeshift pool, well, not makeshift, but the rundown pool table that the caretakers of the playground had there.

And I, I, it, in, like, in only the light from the windows because the electricity didn't work, so much of that is strange

that I almost don't want to even verify that that thing is there because it's so creepy to remember us doing that,

especially when you consider that we were surrounded at all times by 75 owls with glowing eyes.

Was that true?

I don't remember.

It's hard.

I don't know if I want to know the truth.

I also remember vaguely

the creature double feature that would play on Channel 56 in Boston.

In the afternoon, they would usually show Godzilla movies, but every now and then they would show really weird, scary movies from the 70s, like Race with the Devil, a lot of Satan worship movies and Demon Dog, The Beast from Hell, like all these weird movies.

And there was one movie that for literally 25 years I wasn't sure if I had actually seen it because it was it was such a strange movie and there was a woman taking a shower and three little creatures emerging from a cupboard with a straight razor and then

yeah yeah no kidding right

and let me tell you something when you go when you finally discover after 25 years of nightly brain searching and then IMDB searching, you finally discover that it was the TV movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and You See It, it's not as scary.

It's not as scary as thinking that maybe that was a product of your own imagination.

So in many ways, I do feel that, and obviously the not knowing about the mysterious gray house,

even the name of the thing is ambiguous, Neither white nor black

is so functional

within your obviously contentious relationship.

It provides such a suitable function, and not only

does it help you to resolve disputes of

both fact and opinion on politics and religion, which frankly, let's face it, no one wants to talk about, right?

Amen.

Yeah.

That I hesitate to get rid of it Especially since the alternative would be for one of you to say to the other Let's agree to disagree at which point you should both shoot each other with crossbows because that's the stupidest thing anyone can ever say I mean now you've got a chance to put all that stuff away with a science fiction theme.

You're putting it in an alternate universe that you acknowledge exists but is not a part of your world.

So I think it's beautiful.

So I was, you know, my inclination is to maintain this mystery for both of you.

Yay.

And yes, I have...

Thank you.

That's the best decision ever.

Yes.

And yet I have Rebecca here.

The troublemaker.

Right, who has nothing to do with either of,

who has nothing to do with this entire dispute and just lives in Portland listening to podcasts and trying to gin up stuff to talk about on the air.

And Rebecca, you seem very nice, and I was going to leave you out of this.

But then as I was coming back from Chambers and you started talking about the philosophical implications, I could not allow that to go unpunished.

When you used the words philosophical implications, I'm like, no, we got to come up with some busy work for her.

So I think.

Oh, my goodness.

I think this is going to be a little bit, this is going to be a contentious decision, I can tell.

I think for the interest of

history and for the interest of punishing you and giving and reminding you that there is more to life than listening to podcasts.

I now leave it to you to verify the existence or non-existence of this

and to keep the answer a secret.

Oh.

Woohoo.

I like that.

You may call upon the small army of Judge John Hodgman listeners.

who will crowdsource some of your research.

And maybe you can figure out a way to translate the scatter graphs of data that they give to you into some kind of bizarre crocheting project so you can still save some face in Portland.

But

I want you to go and find out the truth and then put that truth in an envelope and seal it

so that at all times, if anything gets too heated between your mom and your grandmom, you can threaten to open that thing and settle it once and for all.

This is a the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Gloria, I think you are in the most difficult position here.

How are you feeling?

I feel wonderful.

I just had a great time.

I just feel sorry for Rebecca because it's not her fault.

By difficult position, do you you mean that she's tied to a rocking chair in a room

in a room that has the lights on all the time, all night long?

Sorry.

Sorry, go ahead, Jesse.

I apologize.

I'll go back to chambers.

I mean only that her granddaughter has elder abused her by means of podcast.

I think she gives as good as she gets.

Denise, how are you feeling?

I'm doing fine.

I think that that's a very good idea to put it on Rebecca to sort it out.

And then she can just hold it over both of us.

She can say, you be quiet or I will tell you the truth.

And we'll both shut up.

Rebecca, are you ready to head to the county clerk?

I think this is a brilliant, elegant solution.

And I like being the one who knows who is right.

Yes, she does.

Are you prepared to take the time out of your ironic canon schedule?

Yes, absolutely.

Well,

Rebecca, Denise, Gloria, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

That was Rasha Mom from Deep in the Archives of the Judge John Hodgman Court.

It was originally produced by Julia Smith and edited by Mark McConville.

Thanks to Julia and Mark.

Yeah, old pals.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJHO.

Go to the maximum fund subreddit to talk about the Gray House at maximumfund.reddit.com.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho

or by email at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Go ahead, say your thing.

I don't know what the I don't know the lyrics of the song or what they mean.

I don't understand what it's about.

I think it's about old friends.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge Shen Hodphin podcast.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned, audience-supported.