Brush with the Law

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Brush with the Law.

Sheila files suit against her sister Elise.

Sheila would like to paint the shed at their parents' house, but Elise doesn't like the color scheme that Sheila picked out.

Sheila says that since it was her idea to paint in the first place, she should get to pick the colors.

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.

Sure, go ahead.

Start the podcast.

But I can't do anything anyways.

I'm sick.

You know, sometimes when you're sick, you don't feel like putting rubber bands on your rubber band ball.

You don't feel like doing anything at all.

I'm awfully sorry, Bailiff Jesse.

You see, sometimes when we're sick, we snap at people when we don't mean to.

Our emotions are awfully close to the surface.

You understand, don't you?

Sheila and Elise, 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.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that his coastal elitist lifestyle permits only enough room for a medium-sized barbecue smoker?

And certainly not a shed?

I do, most certainly.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

You understand, don't you, how

when we're sick at home and we're close together and we're stuck together, emotions are close to the surface, right, Jesse?

You didn't even answer me.

I couldn't tell whether it was rhetorical.

Well, it was part of the quote.

Also, sometimes I space out while you're talking.

I understand.

You know what?

It's hard when we're stuck together, even when we're a continent apart.

Yeah.

There's a lot of togetherness in the world right now.

It's nice to see you over there in Los Angeles.

Andy, Frank.

Sheila.

And Elise, you may be seated seated wherever you are.

It's nice to see you as well.

Oh, and hello, Jennifer Marmer.

Nice to see you.

It's just seeing, it's just, this is a podcast about seeing people and being seen now.

Sheila and Elise for an immediate summary judgment and one of yours favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the courtroom?

Sheila, let's start with you.

I was so hoping it would be Arthur 2 Sheds Jackson that I looked up what episode of Flying Circus it's in, but that's clearly not it.

I'm going to go with A Doll's House by Ainer Gibson.

Interesting guess.

Interesting guess.

I'll enter that into the guest book.

John, what happened to Monty Python nerds anyway?

Where are they?

I know Sheila.

Nobody ever talks about Monty Python nerd stuff anymore.

Like, I'm sitting here going, what's Sheila talking about?

What is Marty Two Sheds?

What was the name of this?

Arthur Touched.

Marty Two Sheds, Johnson.

Jackson.

Jackson.

Like, you know, I'm a fan of of the Python, but that's a deep cut.

I was lost.

I don't know if the kids are picking it up these days, Jesse Thorne.

I just don't think you're getting it on your PBS app.

It's a boring show.

If you try and watch the show, it is boring.

Whoa.

The good parts are the best things that have ever been created, but like all sketch comedy,

age has been hard on it.

How do you rank the...

What is it again, Sheila?

Arthur Stouched's Jackson?

Yes.

It's from the first episode of Flying Circus, Wither Canada.

Season one, episode one?

Season one, episode one.

All right, put a pin in that.

I'm more of a Doug and Dinsdale piranha guy myself.

We've been doing a lot of dockets lately, Jesse, so we're used to talking to each other.

We have to remember what it's like to have guests in the courtroom.

Yeah.

Elise,

what's your guess?

Um, I'm gonna go with the animated movie Monster House.

Monster House, written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab.

One summer when my son was little and he was in a summer camp situation and he was he was being lightly bullied.

Not bad bullying.

You know what I mean?

But like ignored, picked on a little bit, made to feel small.

He found a copy, a DVD copy, of Monster House, which I had never seen at the big chicken barn there in Ellsworth, Maine, and just

burned through it 19 times.

And it made him feel better.

So look, I don't want to brag, Sheila and Elise.

I used to have a career.

Do I have Dan Harmon's email address?

I do.

I wrote him and I said,

thanks for making this movie that made my son feel better.

What did Dan Harmon write back to me?

Something really moving.

Let me see if I can find it.

We're never going to hear your case, by the way.

Just forget this dumb thing about a shed.

Tell your son that kids practice being adults the way puppies practice being dogs.

The unexceptional have to practice what they'll employ as adults, traveling in packs, policing each other for weakness, biting, and barking.

When your son's having a hard time, he's just practicing being exceptional.

He should feel sorry for kids that have perfected the arts of singling out individuals and chanting things in unison.

Their function is designated.

His gets to be be discovered.

And then he goes on to say, or maybe don't tell him that.

You might turn him into Rafe Fiennes and Red Dragon.

Dan Harmon.

That guy knows a thing or two.

After that, it just says,

we will all be going home from work at 4 a.m.

Anyway, Elise, you're wrong.

Sheila, you're wrong.

I will give, Sheila, I will give you one more chance to walk away with this thing.

You will get special consideration in this court that can be pandered to

if you do as much of the Arthur Toucheds Jackson sketch as you can recall.

Because

this is something that I haven't had to endure since college.

People doing whole Monty Python sketches in the dining hall.

or the cafeteria in high school.

The kids in high school who used to play weird card games every day on that other table and speak in fake rogues and just recite Monty Python to each other.

Glad you're here, bringing back the old arts.

So, Sheila, let's hear it.

That was unabashedly me in high school.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You know what, Sheila?

You know what, Sheila?

Let's hear your case.

We'll hear your Monty Python at the end of the show.

Keep people listening.

That's right.

I'm learning about how to podcast.

Okay.

But Sheila, you do bring this.

Oh, all guesses are wrong.

Because this is a dispute about a shed,

right?

But it is also a dispute.

This shed is designated what?

The Playhouse.

Playhouse.

So where's the quote from?

Think of it.

Big rubber band ball.

Jesse Thornton, you know this.

Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Who said that?

I didn't see who said it.

Sheila or Elise?

It was Sheila.

That was Sheila.

That was Sheila.

Sheila's running away with us, Elise.

Justice is not going to be on your side today.

Pee-wee's Playhouse, episode four, season two.

Pee-wee catches a cold.

I thought that it both

tied into the theme playhouses, but also

the fact that we are all a little sick and tired of being sick and tired and living together in extreme circumstances.

Now, you two, Sheila and Elise, are sisters.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

And you are living together, correct?

Yes.

So where are you two and this playhouse located?

We are all in Carlsbad, California.

It's a suburb of San Diego.

It's known best for the German delicatessen and restaurant Tip Top Meats.

Correct.

They have very good bread.

I think most people would go to Legoland, but okay.

Yeah, Tip Top Meats is the Legoland of German delicatessen restaurants.

This reminds me, since we're talking about Pee Wee's Playhouse, we got to do a secret word.

And now I can't use tip-top meats.

I was trying to think of a secret word that I could tell you, Elise,

and Sheila, but not tell Jesse that he would inevitably say during the course of this thing.

And so we could all scream real loud.

And I was like, Coco, Sissy, Marinate the Stump, San Francisco, Giants.

Baseball, Pocket Square.

I went through all of them.

Then I came up with the perfect one.

So, Jesse, take off your headphones for a second.

And I can see, promise not to listen.

All right.

Hey, everybody.

The secret word today is courtroom.

Courtroom is the secret word.

If Jesse says, or anybody says that word from now on,

what do we do, Elise and Sheila?

That's right,

scream real loud.

Okay, put them back on, Jesse.

Okay, my headphones are back on.

Did you hear the secret word?

No, but I did see Sheila and Elise scream real loud.

Okay, so you're living together in Carlsbad, California, in this house that has a playhouse in it.

Is this your home?

This is our parents' home.

It is your parents' home.

You are adults living at home with your parents.

May I presume this is due to

society collapsing and the economy being bad and health being a concern?

That's about right.

It's a good time to have a backyard, and neither of us could afford that on our own.

Right.

Sheila, what do you do all day?

I work online from home, so that's good right now.

I was already doing that before.

Good.

And where would you normally live, Sheila?

I was actually in LA for a while, and I had just come back home for a few months because I was planning to

get my own place in Madison, Wisconsin.

Oh.

And then

everything

happened, and I'm still here.

Oh.

So you're not a resident of Wisconsin?

No.

You are going to be a fan.

You are going to be.

Yeah,

Badger State.

That's good.

You need to be a poll worker in Wisconsin.

You can be a poll worker there in Carlsbad.

They need poll workers.

And Elise, what do you do in normal life?

I actually started law school a couple of months ago.

So I was supposed to move to Michigan in August.

So we both got cheated out of voting in a swing state by this pandemic.

You could have been Battleground State Sisters.

I know.

Honestly, I picked University of Michigan partly because I was like, yes, I'll get to vote in a swing state, my dream.

Yeah, you've never had it before.

No, I've always been in California.

And it's so, well, there's some important props and people should still vote in California because voting is the cornerstone of our democracy.

But it's much more boring to vote in presidential elections in California than it is in other states.

Right.

Iwillvote.com

is a good website to go to, no matter what state you live in, to figure out how and when and where, why to vote.

Not why to vote.

It doesn't care about

how you're voting.

Telling you where to go.

All right.

So you both got cheated out of being Battleground State Voters, and now you're living back at home.

How does that feel?

This is genuinely.

This is not judgy, John Hodgman.

This is genuinely John Hodgman asking.

Got it.

Yeah, for me, it's so I was since I graduated college, I've been living at home just because student debt was already destroying the world.

So it was nice to be able to like pay some of that off before getting different student debt.

But it's definitely disappointing, like to, since some of my classmates did move to Ann Arbor and are like doing

in some responsible ways socializing and maybe in some less than responsible ways socializing.

So I'm definitely glad I have the opportunity to be in a place with like other responsible people.

But it's also like a little disappointing to have to stay in the same place so long.

Also, you're young people.

You're in your 20s.

Lots of people in their 20s live with their moms and dads now because of the student deathing long before this.

Although, now Elise says here that you're 23.

Sheila, you're 26.

Yes.

Yeah, you got to get your act together.

Move out of the house.

Come on.

26.

Just kidding.

You're doing the right and smart and responsible thing.

But you got this shed, this playhouse that is in the backyard there in Carlsbad, correct?

Yes.

All right.

And Sheila, you want to paint the shed a certain way.

I do.

Let's not talk about that for a second.

What are your respective relationships to this playhouse, this play shed?

Did you play in it as youths?

Yes, we it started out with a very tiny table and chairs and some fake food in there

and various decorations.

And then

we had rabbits for almost a decade as pets who it then became the rabbitat

for a period of time.

Did you say rabbitat?

Yes.

You best get a patent right now.

That's not a term I've ever heard before.

TMTM TM.

And

then the rabbits passed away a a few years ago, and we stuck some bikes and garden equipment in there, and now it mostly gets ignored.

So it's had many lives.

Would that be fair to say,

Sheila?

That would be fair to say.

And neither one of you has a particular emotional,

more of an emotional connection to it than the other, because, you know, there was playing that was happening, but then it was a rabbit hat, and then it was a bike shed.

Would that be fair to say, Elise?

Yeah, I would say we have about the same relationship to it.

Right.

And how would you describe that relationship to it?

I would say we definitely have, like, we're both fairly sentimental people.

So I would say we're both, like, there's still drawings inside of it that, like, we just did on the walls when we were little.

Right.

So there's definitely, like, signs of our childhood in there.

But I also don't think either of us are hugely like, oh, if this shed were to look different, I would die.

Right.

And Sheila, you want to paint over all those drawings.

You want the past to be the past.

You want to paint it.

To be fair, I probably don't have the ambition to do the inside as well, but the it's a pure exterior job?

Yeah.

You're going to do a slapdash job and then flip it?

I got you.

I got your number.

Increased curb appeal.

Who cares about the inside?

I got some questions about the shed before we figure out how we're going to destroy it.

Question one, Elise.

You brought up the pictures drawn on the walls.

What are the pictures of?

The ones I can most distinctly remember are us attempting to draw people that are extremely misshapen and in weird-colored outfits.

Oh.

Creepy.

As seen in the evidence,

I probably drew some of them and I never really developed as an artist.

I understand.

The world needs lawyers too.

That's what I like to think.

Yeah.

Most lawyers do like to think that way.

All right, you got creepy deformed human paintings on there.

Sheila, how many rabbits did you have?

Two.

Two rabbits and they lived in there for 10 years?

There was a hutch outside and then we moved them to the inside at night so that the coyotes couldn't get them.

I don't want to know the specifics.

I just mean this is a long life for rabbits, I think.

Oh, yes.

What were their names, these rabbits?

Zoomsy and Hopsy.

I would like to state for the record that Hopsy's full name was Mrs.

Hoppy Pants.

Sheila tries to deny that she named a rabbit Mrs.

Hoppy Pants.

I could see why she would.

Hopsy is a much cooler name.

Zoomsy and Hopsey?

Mm-hmm.

Hopsey sounds like a British rapper.

Grime beats and so forth.

Let's take a quick break and hear about another wonderful show provided to your ears by MaximumFun.org.

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

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

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

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Welcome back.

Court is back in session.

Okay, so we got this shed shed now that's full of weird Blair Witchy drawings and the ghosts of two rabbits.

And so, Sheila, if I understand correctly, you want to paint it spooky.

That is absolutely correct.

Let's go to the evidence.

This is submitted by Elise.

We'll call this exhibit A.

Two different visions.

for how the playhouse should look.

And you say you never developed as an artist.

I'm going to say,

drawn by a charming, naive hand.

This is a wonderful example of what we call outsider art.

Who drew these, Elise or Sheila?

We each drew one.

You each drew your own.

Yes.

Well, it's, I mean, look, neither one of you is a better artist than the other, so you have that.

Elise,

you

wish to paint the play shed red, correct?

Correct.

Tell me your vision.

Describe your vision here to me.

There are two main reasons I have this vision.

First off,

I think that if we painted it red, it would look like a cute little like mini farmyard barn, which would be like a fun aesthetic for the backyard and something that Sheila wanted to make it spooky around Halloween.

Like, there's definitely ways to get the haunted barn aesthetic.

How do you, yeah, how do you make an old barn spooky?

Precisely.

She's got a lot to work with, with, but it doesn't have to be like specifically spooky year-round.

Also, when we initially painted the playhouse, most of it was done yellow, and only the door was red because yellow was Sheila's favorite color and red was my favorite color.

So her choice of color got to dominate last time.

So I also see this as a tribute to my past self of finally getting to win what color it is in red.

Speaking of spooky, have either of you ever seen the horror movie The Grudge?

No.

No.

It's this movie about one sister having a lifelong grudge over the other for splashing yellow all over the playhouse and only getting to paint the door red.

There is a photo.

Her honor, red is not her favorite color anymore.

Look, that doesn't matter the grudge.

The debt must be paid.

It doesn't matter what her favorite color is anymore, right, Elise?

Correct.

Lawyer in training.

Right?

The taste is immaterial.

It is punishment for past crimes.

Exactly.

Justice has to be served somehow.

All of these photos are available, of course, at the showpage at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman, where you will see, and I will describe for the listeners so they do not immediately go to their phones and drive off the road, the shed in the backyard that is in its current incarnation,

a wide, squat, yellow shed with white sort of beam accents and a red door.

And it looks

based on these two ridiculous-looking dogs that you've put in for scale.

Who are those dogs?

The dog in the front is named Willow, and the dog in the back is Maverick.

Willow and Maverick?

Are those their names or their secret security code names?

It works either way.

All right.

They're named after legendary sort of nerd icons.

So Willow is named after Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Maverick is named after the character Maverick from the movie Maverick.

Willow is actually named after the character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Justin got it.

Maverick, we just adopted earlier this week, and he came with that name.

We didn't want to confuse him.

Yeah, sure, of course.

How are Willow and Maverick getting along?

They were a little icy toward each other at first, but now they are playing very well and laying down near each other on purpose.

So we're pretty sure they're best friends at this point.

And this human in this photo is Sheila.

Is that you, Sheila?

Yes, we could not get Maverick to stand still for the camera otherwise.

I'm not blaming you.

I'm just trying to get a sense of the height of this shed is not terrific.

It is

a short shed.

Yes.

Right?

So you would have to crouch down to go through that little door.

Yes.

So it really was a thing for children at some point.

Yes.

It's an abandoned child's playhouse with weird drawings on the wall, haunted by rabbit ghosts, correct?

Absolutely, yes.

Pretty much sums it up.

Probably still a lot of rabbit poop in there, right?

There's only so much sweeping you can do.

Yeah, that's right.

Some old newspapers.

Some old newspapers

and a Devendra Banhart cassette tape on the floor.

That's probably what's in there.

All right.

So, what Elise has proposed is to paint the yellow part red and keeping the accents white, and it would have a real barnyard look to it.

And in

Sheila's rustic, scary drawing,

it is a very different look indeed.

Will you describe it to me, Sheila?

Oh, no, I would like, you know what?

I would like Elise to describe it.

And feel free to editorialize.

Okay, so Sheila in the middle of our bright, happy backyard wants to paint

the part that's currently a bright yellow color into a darker gray.

She wants to do a dark purple on the door, make all of the accents black, so just like suck all the color out of it, and then even paint spider webs on the top in between some of the top beams to make it look even dirtier than it already is.

And on the roof, on the peaked roof, what's this?

I believe it's a small bat that she wants to put on the top, even though we have neighborhood birds who love to perch there and stare at us.

And may I presume, Sheila, that to get this bat to stay there, you're going to nail it to the roof through its little hands?

I was more thinking of making some kind of bat gargoyle and having kind of weighted feet on the right angle that it could just sit there.

Right.

And then there's a guggaghost in the window.

That's just figurative, right?

That's more for flavor.

Okay, I got you.

You have some Halloween decorations behind you.

We were recording this in early October.

It is the Halloweening season, but Sheila, you want Halloweening all year long in the form of a spooky shed.

Now, listen, we were talking before.

I was trying to remember which one of you was the spookier one.

And Sheila said, it's me, Sheila.

I'm like, right, spooky Sheila.

Now I got it.

Elise is like barnyard normal.

Everyday Elise.

That's my nickname for Elise.

Everyday Norm.

Norming Elise.

But I also know that you're sporting a hatbox ghost t-shirt from the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland.

And I'm all about the Hatbox Ghost.

Look it up online.

You were saying that that's what makes the Haunted mansion better at Disneyland than Walt Disney World, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Tell me more about your aesthetic, why you want to paint this shed this way, why you love the haunted mansion, what this is doing for you, that you would want to inflict this permanently upon

your sister for the time that you're living there, and then your parents after you move away, which I hope happens someday, so you can resume your normal lives.

I hope so too, so I can spook up a whole real-sized house.

Oh!

Well, the purple and gray color scheme is definitely inspired by the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, kind of the

wallpaper aesthetic.

But I think that the gray with a touch of purple is

a nice look that...

While it certainly says Haunted Mansion to me.

It only says Haunted Mansion.

You're putting a bat on top of this thing.

This is a specific look.

Well, listen to what I'm saying.

John, I feel like painting spider webs onto your building could mean anything.

Yeah,

don't come into this fake meeting of justice

chamber

and try to tell me that this is a normal look.

This is a very specific look.

and one that you love.

That's fair.

Elise, how long has Sheila been into this kind of stuff?

Is this a long-term thing or sh or like a recent affectation?

Oh, it's definitely been a while.

I feel like it really started to pick up in high school when during her freshman year they did Sweeney Todd for the school musical.

Yeah, there you go.

So, how long have there been that pumpkin and other Halloween decorations up on that wall behind you?

On the wall behind me since only September

1st.

Dropped the first in there.

Sato Vace.

If you had it your way, you would have perpetual Halloween in your house.

That's what you're looking for?

No,

I do like making things special by bringing them out once a year, but there would maybe be certain haunted mansion aspects.

Cozy goth elements.

Exactly.

Yeah, Cozy Goth.

Shout out to Cozy Goth.

So,

whose idea was it to paint?

Sheila's?

Yes, it was my idea.

Got it.

And now, Elise,

aside from it being not to your taste,

are there any other reasons that you are opposed to Sheila's idea?

Not that your taste shouldn't matter, even though that's what Sheila says.

Your taste does matter to me, but I'm wondering if there are other arguments that I need to be hearing.

The main thing for me is just it's not to my taste.

And though they do perpetually claim neutrality I am convinced that the spooky aesthetic isn't as much my parents aesthetic and since this is their house that they plan to live on in after we leave I think we should be trying to account for like their normal tastes when deciding how to paint it

now uh Sheila you sent in a piece of evidence as well because this is an important point which is that this is not a permanent arrangement for either of you.

You wish to go forth into your lives and leave your parents behind.

Maybe even leave them locked up in that shed.

I don't know what your plans are.

So their taste must be taken into consideration.

But Sheila, you submitted Exhibit B, an affidavit from Sheila and Elise's parents.

It's short, and I'll read it here.

To the honorable Judge John Hodgman, as is evidenced by this case

being in your hands, we have been unable to pick a side.

We are aware of your reputation for having harsh but fair judgment in your law chamber.

Therefore, we give you explicit parental permission to crush the spirit or soul of either or both of our daughters as you see fit.

Sincerely, the parents of Sheila and Elise, I guess they have no other identity than that.

They miss not even their names.

Sheila,

who wrote this note?

Did you draft it and have them sign it?

No.

We told them that they could submit an affidavit.

They talked it over amongst themselves.

All I did was say there's no Ian Hodgman.

Then they took a quick break from watching Monty Python on PBS in the 70s,

dashed out that note, got back to their sets.

Elise,

this feels like a note written under duress.

Do you believe for a second that

your parents, who shall remain nameless,

don't have an opinion about this?

I can definitely attest that this was not written under duress.

It is something that they specifically wanted to do, especially our very own weird dad decided he needed to be a part of the thing we were doing, and he insisted on the Crushing the Souls line.

All right.

I have tried to push my parents to have a strong opinion on this multiple times, and they do keep claiming to be neutral.

So I think,

I will admit, I don't think they have a strong opinion opinion one way or the other.

I think they're like, it's a thing in the backyard.

If you two want to paint it, go for it.

But I still think we should be thinking about their taste and the aesthetic of the whole backyard when making a decision how to paint it.

Do you think that your taste reflects more accurately their taste?

I do, since they are the ones who ultimately decided the original color scheme of

the playhouse and how it was painted.

I think mine reflects that and the way that they normally design things better than Sheila's vision does.

Well, no, it's not exactly a reflection of that because when they made the decision early on, they're like, let's paint most of this Sheila yellow and just a little bit Elise red.

That way they can never play in there without knowing exactly how our love is apportioned.

You make a fair point.

Do you feel

the fact that your parents are not immediately putting their foot down and say, no, save your kooky haunted mansion stuff for when you get to Madison.

This is our house, and Elise doesn't like it.

Do you take that as

hurtful?

That they're perhaps not taking your feelings into consideration?

Honestly, not really.

Well, you should.

Okay, that's good to know.

I'll definitely be sure to write this down and things to talk to a therapist about.

Tell them they can call me.

I'll tell them.

All right, some practical questions before I get to my verdict.

Whatever the design decision is,

will you be working on it together?

Will you be painting it together?

I think likely I would be the one doing most of the work, either way.

Why is that?

Do you have experience in painting sheds?

Well, I went to every set building day for my high school theater shows.

Be honest with me, Sheila.

How would you rate Elise's shed painting game?

10 for best shed painting, 0 for

keep her away from sheds.

She is perhaps a

four

in

crafts involving fine motor skills, and shed painting is not as much that as

drawing or cutting or other things.

I don't think she would be unable or unwilling to help, but I think generally between the two of us, I'm the one who does this type of thing.

Elise, do you feel slighted by Sheila's assessment of your fine motor skills?

Or is that about, is she about writing?

No, that's pretty accurate.

Harsh but fair.

Harsh but fair.

Elise, do you have any interest in painting this thing at all?

Yeah, I think it would be a fun project, especially given the times and how few entertainment sources there are.

I think it could be a fun thing for us to do together, but I will admit, especially since law school started up, Sheila has a lot more hours in the day to do a project like this than I do.

Is this really about painting the shed or just having a project, would you say?

I would say it's a little of each.

It's nice to have a project and have something that when you look at it afterwards, I really, you really feel proud of.

And I think I could really make this look good and kind of be eating outside and looking at it and going, yeah, that looks great.

I immediately pictured like maybe an Instagram selfie with the shed that says, I make this look good.

And obviously, Sheila, if I were to rule in your favor, you would want me to rule in your favor.

Bamb this thing scary.

Scare it up.

Jokey scary.

Yes.

Munsters style.

If I refer to it as Munsters Modern,

would that turn you off the scheme?

Mid-century Munsters Modern?

I'm more of an Adams, personally,

but I accept Munster's Modern.

The alliteration really sells it.

It's not modern, though.

I mean, it's more of a spooky cottage core.

Yeah.

Can you get into this thing?

Can you fit in this thing?

Can you sit in there?

We can fit in, like, to get items out of it.

It's not too hard.

So there's some gardening tools in there.

Yeah.

You can duck in and grab a shovel easy enough.

Okay.

Is it being used for any other legit purpose?

Scarecrow storage.

Yeah, it's primarily being used for storage right now, just of like a bunch of random stuff, especially since we got the puppy.

Really, everything that he could eat in the backyard that's not a dog toy has been stuffed inside the shed.

All right.

Speaking of the puppy, we'll just take a look at these dogs for a second.

Jesse, can you take a look at these dogs for me?

Yeah.

So there's a picture here of Willow enjoying Halloween.

Willow has a sweet gray face and she's eating some zombies' brains.

And then

this other one is a dog wearing eyeglasses.

Looks like those might be your eyeglasses, Elise.

Correct.

Well, the dog can't see out of the eyeglasses, Elise.

Well, they're computer glasses, so they're non-prescription.

Oh.

They cancel out blue light the same way.

So you're helping the dog go to sleep on time.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And avoid eye strain.

Dogs don't see the color blue, so they don't need those glasses.

No, look at these sweet paws.

Speaking of things to eat, I'd eat these paw pads.

Num, nom, num.

Elise, if I were to rule in your favor,

you want it to be red and white, or are you willing to go back to the drawing board for a compromise?

I'd be willing to go back to the drawing board for a compromise.

I think that there is a middle ground that could exist.

Like, I know that, again, being spooky is like a big part of who Sheila is.

She's working on like a Halloween music podcast.

This is just something she's really passionate about.

So, I would be willing to look into it a little more.

Like, maybe we could find a nice shade of orange or do it, like, some sort of purple, but not do the black and gray.

So, I think that there is a middle ground that exists.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

All right.

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

So now it's time for me to go into my own spooky shed.

And

I will consider my verdict, and I'll be back in a moment.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

He's so, so dumb.

Jesse, you said the secret word.

You know the secret word is one of the greatest things ever.

No, it's actually courtroom.

Sheila, I have to ask you, do you believe in your heart that you could execute the design that you've laid out here with the...

I'm just asking because

The picture looks a little bit like something my six-year-old would bring home from summer camp.

If there was a spooky summer camp.

I know it's a poor craftsman who blames their tools, but these markers have seen better days.

This was sort of slapdash concept art.

I mean, you have a very ambitious plan to create a bat sculpture gargoyle that has feet at the correct angle and weight balanced such that it would attach itself to the roof pitch.

Well,

I've made some sculpture things before.

I made a sand's the skeleton head for a cosplay once, and I think

I could make this out of plaster and get the measurements right and measure twice, cut once, and do this thing.

I can attest to that Sheila Ten is very crafty and has made some really cool stuff with her little hands.

Elise, what's the appeal for you of just having a barn in your backyard, like a tiny barn?

I just think it'd be really really cute if it's like, oh, it's a little mini barn, but it's in our backyard and it's filled with all of our tools.

You should probably get a donk, though, right?

It's a miniature donkey.

That'd be good.

Donkey Hody.

It could be called Donkey Hody.

I mean, I think we pretty much solved it right there.

I don't really care what the judge has to say now.

Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer character is that?

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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

and presents his verdict.

I just want to do this every time.

All right.

So, look, I am empty nested as a parent.

Until very recently, we had two human children who lived with us.

Now one of them has moved away.

And I enjoy very much the company of our younger human child and am really, really glad that he gets to spend some time in the fullness of our company without the competition and, frankly, dominance that an older sibling sometimes brings to the table.

Sheila.

That our younger human child can feel wholly and completely loved and not feel like he only occupies one small red door in our hearts,

but has the whole shed to himself, as it were.

But he will move on in his life too, eventually, and leave and move to a swing state, if he follows my instructions establish residence in a swing state

and that will be a very sad for me and while this has been a very very

hard and challenging time uh for many many reasons and only um

reiterates how hard we have to work together to build a new and better normal rather than bounce back to what was normal before.

I will say this.

If I were a parent and my kids wanted to come and live back home with me in their 20s, I would be so happy.

I would be so happy to have you adorable siblings living in my Carl's bad ranch house or whatever it is.

I would be so happy to have my human children fighting over what to paint the shed in the backyard.

I'd be so delighted.

I'd be sad for you because your lives are on pause in a way that is not consistent with your dreams.

Elise, to move to Ann Arbor and become a lawyer.

And

Sheila, to move to Wisconsin and buy Neil Gaiman's old house and turn it into a new headquarters for the Church of Satan.

But I would be so happy to have you guys hanging around.

And yet, I have to think how I would feel if after the period of time of we all getting to live together and reenact our early parental childhood living arrangements, Should you leave and there was a haunted mansion in my backyard, I'm not sure how I'd feel about that.

I feel very suspicious

that either one or both of your parents is not being honest with you or they're not being honest with themselves about what it's going to be like to have this monster's house.

in their backyard for the foreseeable future.

And it is a Munster's house, Sheila.

I'm an Adams family person as well.

This is Munster's.

It's not Adams spooky.

Forgive me.

It's Munster's garish.

There, I said it.

And it is not properly a difference in style, right?

Because these two things, the barn, is definitely leans towards barnyard, right?

But it's very, very neutral and kind of run of the mill.

Not that you are, Elise.

This spooky shed aesthetic is not neutral at all.

This is a very big, strong statement that says one word to actually, spooky Sheila.

Boom.

No Elise.

Boom.

Now,

Sheila, if it were the case that Elise were

to, you you know, move out before you and you were there alone,

I'd say, go for it.

Turn that shed into perpetual Halloween.

Turn your whole house into an ode to Halloween.

And who cares about your parents?

Let them suffer.

I don't care about them.

It's your time now.

You're young.

But you're there with your sister,

proposing a project that she has an investment in,

and to leave behind this monument to Sheila-ness

is only to compound the earlier tragedy of Sheila's diminishment in the original paint scheme.

Red door,

yellow house,

red door, door.

Not even that.

Miniature door.

One you can't even walk through as a full human being.

Red door.

That's the bone we're going to throw Elise.

Sheila, you get it all.

At least you get a door.

But then I thought to myself, wait a minute.

What's spookier than a red door?

Annieville Horror House had a red door in it.

It led to a secret red room.

Scariest thing of all.

That's scary.

Yeah, the classic catchphrase, red room, red room.

Red room, red room.

I think a blood red door is pretty spooky.

And then I started to think, wait a minute, these illustrations look bad.

But my favorite color is gray.

And I've spoken in the past in the podcast that our front door in our home is painted a deep, glossy black.

A la many of the house doors in Holland, a very specific deep Dutch.

glossy black color that graces the front doors of many city homes in Holland.

And I'm going to go ahead and buzz market this company.

It all comes from fine paints of Europe.

It's almost mesmerizing how deep and glossy and black this is.

I think that there is a compromise here.

I think that, frankly, as much as the only child in me wants to see you, Sheila, embrace your inner, selfish, only child and just haunted mansion this thing up with abandon.

I think that's a great project.

I love it, but that's a project for your future when you are alone, when you are in Madison.

There's some spooky places in Madison that you can make very, very scary.

But you're not an only child.

Sorry, not all of us can enjoy it.

You've got Elise hanging around.

And I think because of my fondness for this project, but also my fondness for Elise,

I think you could find a common ground here.

And this is what I would propose.

I think a gray shed with black accents, particularly with high-quality paints, of the kind you might find in the catalog of fine paints of Europe, would actually look pretty stately and good.

It would not look bad.

I do not think that there should be any painted spider webs on it.

That is too Sheila a signifier.

And as for a gargoyle or a bat, that is not something that needs to be permanent.

Indeed, as Elise has already pointed out, she would be comfortable with you

dressing the shed

spookier than it is,

but not a permanent spookiness.

Something that is neutral.

What is more neutral than gray?

Gray with deep, glossy black accents.

You get rid of that purple door because that's gross.

Sorry.

Sorry, Sheila.

Got to honor Elise's traditional role as supporter and enabler.

I see a purple door.

I want it painted red.

Paint that door a deep, and Elise you can pick out the red in honor of her barn, in honor of the small fraction of her parents' love that was given to her, in honor of Elise.

So that's my order.

And I'm finding in favor of Elise.

I am making this recommendation of a color palette, but it does not necessarily have to be these colors.

Elise gets a red door no matter what.

That is her legacy.

That is the scraps that her parents left her.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Now, Sheila, please do some Monty Python for us.

Now, we have here in studio with us today, Mr.

Arthur Two Sheds, Jackson.

Now, that is an interesting nickname.

How did you come across it?

Oh, yes.

Well, you see, I have one shed in my yard, and I said one day, well, I was thinking of getting a second shed, and well, it sort of just took off from there.

So, so you never did get the second shed?

No, no, it's just the one shed.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Rise!

Sheila, how do you feel about the verdict?

I think I'm okay with

the color scheme the judge proposed.

I think deep gray with a glossy black.

I like the idea of like a very glossy black as the accents.

I think that would look good.

I think I could spook that up and temporarily.

just during October and September and be very happy.

How are you feeling, Elise?

Yeah, I feel pretty good.

I like that I won.

That doesn't always happen, so that's good.

And I'm glad that I'll keep my red door legacy.

Even though your favorite color is now purple.

True.

Well, Sheila, Elise, thanks for joining us in the Judge John Hodgman courtroom.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, our thanks to Luke Seaman for naming this week's episode Brush with the Law, and our thanks to whatever immigration official or

like middle centuries priest named the Seaman family after the best Sega Dreamcast game.

John, it's a game where this fish with a human face lives inside your TV and you have to talk to it through a microphone.

And every so often Leonard Nimoy tells you how it's developing.

Oh, wow.

It's really great.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we regularly put out our calls for submissions there.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ Ho.

And visit us on the Maximum Fund subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com to chat about this week's episode.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to follow us there for evidence and other fun stuff.

Judge Sean Hodgman is produced by Jennifer Marmer with help this week from her dog, George.

Thanks, George.

And his cone.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

James says, my wife says we should chide our child for saying the word crap.

because eventually teachers won't tolerate it.

I think it's no big deal as long as he uses such words correctly.

What do you say, Judge Hodgman?

There's an important piece of information left out here, which is the age of the child.

I presume it's a pre-teacher age, right?

Right, so this is before kindergarten even?

Yeah, maybe nursery school age.

Well,

crap.

I think that if my nursery school age child was walking around the house saying crap this and crap that, I would feel like I was in the exorcist.

I don't like that at all.

That feels too Halloween-y to me.

To me, it's almost worse than an actual swear word.

Yeah.

I don't know that chiding is what's required here.

I think, you know, there is

a necessity to encourage children to understand the power that words have and to use words that make other people

comfortable and to avoid using words that make other people uncomfortable.

And frankly, a little kid,

even using as innocuous a curse word as crap,

I think would make me think

your child was possessed by an evil demon.

But that's me.

I won't even say dick town on my own podcast, so I don't know.

But I would say there's no reason for a little kid to be a potty mouth.

That's something you should take up in, I don't know,

fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh, middle school.

That's when you start dropping some C-bombs, as far as I'm concerned.

That's it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ HO or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

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

If people don't know, the common word for Hades is courtroom.

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