Corn Husk Dolls and Pumpkinheads

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

With me, as always, is clear-breathing East Coaster, Judge John Hodgman.

Oh, how are you doing out there?

I mean, on top of everything else, there's a dense layer of smoky, apocalyptic fog and fear and anxiety.

How are you holding up, Jesse?

Are you okay or okay minus?

Well, I'm definitely okay minus overall, but in the context of the smogulus smoke that's outside of my home,

it's going okay.

I somehow ordered two air purifiers two days before the air got bad here in Los Angeles.

One for the upstairs of my home and one for the downstairs of my home.

I don't know why I did it.

I think I was just looking for some way to fill the hole in my heart left by the nightmare that is 2020.

And I thought,

maybe this will get rid of my persistent anxiety throatache.

It hasn't, but

it has kept my family healthy to the extent that we've stayed indoors.

I'm very glad to hear that.

I also have been indulging in some self-care.

You know, I try to watch a little bit of a movie every night because what else is there to do?

Sure.

And on top of all of this, this is a a minor thing, but there is some justice that needs to be served to a particular actor.

In my self-care routine,

I know nostalgia is a toxic impulse, but it's less toxic than everything else this year.

And I decided to go back and revisit Superman the Movie directed by Richard Donner in 1978, starring Christopher Reeve,

which is a delight.

You've seen it, surely.

I've seen Superman the movie, yeah.

And I've seen the one where he ends nuclear weapons.

That's like Superman 4 or 5 or something.

The War for Peace.

Superman 4.

The War for Peace.

So look, Richard Donner is an amazing director.

This thing has a look and feel that veers between pure fun and pure reverence.

It's playful.

It's lyrical.

It's wonderful.

Margot Kidder recites a poem.

Christopher Reeve is the greatest.

of all Supermans.

But here's the thing, Jesse.

When was the last time you saw it?

Oh, 25 years ago.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been the years for me.

And I did not notice until now I am a grown man.

I did not notice that the person that they cast as young Clark Kent is also a grown man.

And I know in the 70s, like, I figured, like, he's mostly in high school, and he's clearly a grown man.

The actor is named Jeff East,

and he was either 20 or 21 years old when they filmed it.

But because it was the 70s,

all male actors looked like they were 38 anyway.

With the exception of Christopher Reeve, who kind of looked like he was 21 years old, even though he was older.

His entire nation was afflicted with a case of Burt Reynoldsitis.

Yeah.

Who was offered the role, by the way, of Superman?

Wow.

Turned it down.

James Connor.

I knew that Superman loved chewing gum so much.

And smirking.

And smirking in a rap scallion-y way.

They didn't want to give the role to Christopher Reeve because he looked too young and skinny.

But then when they're casting Clark Kent as a young man, they get a skinny grown-up.

Now,

that's okay.

That's just how it goes.

When I was a kid, I never noticed.

I never noticed that this grown-up looked like a grown-up because I thought all teenagers were grown-ups.

They had their children actors could have been hired, but they didn't.

Now I understand.

Now I see it.

But what I remembered of Jeff East's performance as a young Clark Kent is: this is a terrific performance, and it is.

He's really, really good at it.

And

we're lucky to have seen him running fast by that train.

What I didn't know until I looked him up, because I was like, whatever happened to that guy.

First of all, this guy, the indignities they heaped upon this grown man.

Not only did they redub all of his dialogue, Christopher Reeve

is speaking every line that that guy speaks.

I never knew that.

They redubbed Jeffy's dialogue with Christopher Reeves'

voice

and

they applied prosthetic makeup to this guy to make him look more like Christopher Reeve.

They could have just hired Christopher Reeve and made him wear like a college sweater or something.

Just given him a jug head hat.

Exactly.

Exactly.

A fur coat and a little rah-rah banner or something.

And had him sit on a telephone pole.

Yeah, exactly.

I guess that would be college.

That would be appropriate for a 20-year-old man.

Yeah.

21-year-old man, maybe, depending on when they filmed it.

Anyway, Jeff East, though, given all of this hassle and indignity, like when Pa Kent succumbs to the heart attack, spoiler alert.

Jeff East is so good when he finds that little green, glowy crystal that becomes a fortress of solitude when he says goodbye to his mom.

He's He's amazing.

Why didn't he work more?

And he didn't.

Perhaps because people saw him in Superman and like, that's not a teenager.

That's a grown man with lumps on his head to make him look like Christopher Reeve.

He was only in a very few movies other than that,

including Up the Creek with Tim Matheson, Animal House Ripoff, which I did not see.

and a West Craven movie and Pumpkinhead, the horror movie directed by Stan Winston creature affects master Stan Winston, which I also never saw.

Well, I'll tell you this.

In college, my friend Noah,

I'll leave his last name out because he now works as a political consultant.

I don't want to embarrass him.

But my friend Noah was convinced that

the DMX song up in here went,

y'all gonna make me lose my mind, pumpkin head, pumpkin head.

Not the strongest DMX impression from me, by the way.

Well, obviously I couldn't tell.

Sorry.

Sounded a little bit like a southern cookie monster.

DMX is from New York.

Plus, I should have thrown in a few dog barks at the end just to make it clear that I was doing DMX.

I forgive you.

You did a good job, just like Jeff East did.

You know what?

You didn't do as good a job as Jeff East, given thankless circumstances.

He is now retired from acting.

He's living, I gather, in Nice, France with his second wife.

I hope he's very happy.

And in his honor, I'm going to watch Pumpkinhead Tonight, directed by Stan Winston.

I've been looking at this pumpkin head since I worked at Film Fest Video in New Haven and came out on video.

Never watched it.

I'm going to watch it tonight in your honor, Jeff East, because you deserved better.

And this is the sound of a gabble on that.

Let's serve some more justice.

Here's something from Ryan.

My beautiful fiancé, Sam, and I love to play rummy together.

Sometimes we get a little loose, and when we're sitting on the same side of the bar or table, she looks at my cards.

She says I should hide them better.

I think she just shouldn't look at my cards.

All I ask is she keeps her eyes on her hand.

I'm troubled by this.

Obviously, this goes back to a time when, unless they have a bar in their house,

time reminds me of a time when you could go out to a bar and play a game of cards with your beloved.

You and all your friends could cram into a phone booth,

could have a Lindy Hop Hop contest.

Charleston contest, Charlie.

Charleston contest.

Thank you.

Thank you for, I was already getting angry letters from Lindy Hop enthusiasts.

The Lindy Hop began in the late 1930s.

Yeah, I know.

We're going to get a lot of letters for this one.

Charleston contest, of course, featured prominently in It's a Wonderful Life, where Jimmy Stewart played himself as a teenager.

There was precedent.

Why did you put poor Jeffy's through this?

Anyway,

the image of them sitting at the bar playing cards in a pre-pandemic time was a wistful, charming image of a lovely couple.

But then the image of sitting on the same side of the table to play cards, like in their home.

If you have a table, sit across from each other to play cards.

Don't sit on the same side of the table.

Now you feel like you're a couple of weirds.

But listen, before I rule on this, Jesse Thorne.

You play cards?

You play some card games ever?

I have played cards.

I mean, cards fall under my general rubric of all competitive games are things that I struggle with emotionally because I want to win them so bad but I also feel guilty about how bad I want to win them and when I win I don't feel good but when I lose I feel bad

do you what's your game bridge whist rough Australian wrist block

nothing but bridge

just all bridge all the time my wife and I and the Andersons who live next door come over every Thursday evening for bridge and canapes Uh-huh.

And Bridge Mix.

Yeah, and Bridge Mix.

What about any of the rummy variants, like Rummy 500, Jin Rummy, Contract Rummy?

I play a little bit of Gin Rummy with my mom.

That was her game.

What about Dummy Rummy?

That's a rummy game.

You ever heard Dummy Rummy?

No, I haven't heard of that.

That's a real one.

You know what a fake one is?

What?

Mummy Rummy.

Was that what I was playing with my mom when we played Jin Rummy?

There are two variants.

One when you're playing with your mummy,

and the other when you are a desiccated reanimated corpse.

Oh, I didn't mention that my mom is a desiccated reanimated corpse.

They filled her body with honey to preserve it better.

What about Lemmy Rummy?

You ever play Lemmy Rummy?

With Lemmy from Motorhead?

That's right.

Sadly, Lemmy has passed away, but he was an incredible player of Lemmy Rummy.

And indeed, and in addition to being a

truly amazing figure of rock and roll and human being,

shout out to Hawkwind, by the way.

I don't want to let this Lemmy discussion pass without shouting out Hawkwind.

Yeah, Hawkwind.

When I interviewed Lemmy for my public radio show, Bullseye, it was at South by Southwest, and I interviewed him at the famous Austin barbecue restaurant, Stubbs,

where they were going to be playing that evening.

And the rules were

he would do the interview in the morning, but only at 11, which was the earliest he was available for any activity.

And he sat down with a full bottle of whiskey and a shot glass

as he joined me for his first meal of the day.

And he was so lovely and charming and bright and interesting, just as you would expect from a guy who invented such, who was in two very important rock bands,

but you know, especially Motorhead, certainly.

Um, he's just, he's just a joy.

So

when you are playing your card games and you are so desperate to win because this is an anxiety for you, do you cheat?

Do you look, do you take the opportunity to look at your other players' cards?

No, I'm not a cheater, John.

Right.

I'm a straight shooter.

You know that.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean,

obviously, it does not sound as though Ryan

is complaining that Sam is purposefully looking at his cards to cheat,

but she is scolding him.

And I get scolded this a lot when I sit around and play cards with my family, which we do from time to time, some gin rummy, never Lemmy Rummy, unfortunately.

I am often told that I am loose with my cards and I am like Ryan.

I'm like, just don't look at him.

But I would say that if you are a player and you accidentally catch a glimpse of the other player's cards, it is fair for you to say, I just want you to know that I can see your cards in case you want to make an adjustment.

But beyond that, just look at your own cards in life in general.

Just look at your own paper.

Look at your own quiz.

Look at your own work.

Do your work.

Do not be concerned with the other person's work.

Pay attention to what cards they're discarding.

Obviously, that's a key to how you win Lemmy Remy.

If Lemmy puts down an ace of spades,

his signature card.

His signature card, that means he's got a pretty sweet meld going without aces or spades.

Lemmy always hangs on to that ace of spades.

So when he discards an ace of spades, just give up.

Give up because he's got it.

He's going down for Jin.

I have one offering for Ryan.

Yeah, please.

Ryan is engaged to Sam

and finds her beautiful.

They're probably in love.

Odds are.

Sounds good.

She might be being cute with him.

And if she's being cute with him, which I think he's in a position to figure out if he gives it some consideration or some communication, if she's being cute with him, I think he should let her be cute with him because

their ability to smooch together, which might come from her being cute with him, is probably more important to their relationship than whether they're following the rules of Rummy exactly.

You're saying it's a gentle, flirtatious tease.

I think it's entirely possible it is.

I'm not there, so I don't know for sure,

but it's very possible that it is, and that he is maybe valuing their card game over being cute together, which is an important part of being in love and eventually getting married, which is their point.

Oh, yeah, all right.

I'll support that interpretation.

Only Ryan and Sam should know if she is being cutesy flirtatious in her tease of him.

Or if they're just bickering with each other.

I can see your cards again.

Well, you should look at your own hand.

That's, I mean.

John, whenever I play Bridge, there's so much bickering.

I usually, my wife and I play with our neighbors, the Bickersons.

They're not around.

We just play with Garfield and Odie from the other

neighbors.

Okay.

I'm ready to watch that sitcom once we can film safely again.

Maybe I can coax Jeff East out of retirement in East France to play Mr.

Bickerson.

Mark says, my beautiful, never-wrong, incredibly selfless wife undoes all of that goodness by throwing tea bags into the in-sink garbage disposal.

Real roller coaster ride of a sentence.

All of that goodness

is literally thrown down the drain.

This just feels instinctively wrong, and I'm guessing it has terrible outcomes for the life of the garbage disposal thingy and probably the planet.

I have done absolutely zero work to investigate whether this is advised by the manufacturer or not.

It felt like something that needed your and only your unique insight to adjudicate.

You don't want my insight.

You want me to search the web for the answer because you're too lazy to do it, Mark.

So you're already...

You're already on my disposed tea bag garbage list for that.

Before we go to that, Jesse, do you have a disposal in your home?

I do have a disposal in my home.

It is one of the great joys of living in a single-family home in California.

Yeah.

And do you have house rules about what goes down the disposal and what does not go down the disposal?

I put eggshells down there and you're not supposed to.

I've done it for 10 years.

I'm not going to stop now.

I love doing it.

Every time I love to imagine them getting crunched up in there.

That was a great and guilty pause.

And I appreciate that because I do the same.

And guess what, Jesse?

What?

You're not right,

but you're not wrong either.

I mean, there is no consistent, definitive guide to what is okay and not okay to put down the garbage disposal.

If you go online, you will find very, very contradictory advice from equally experienced seeming plumbing websites and home websites and what have you.

And eggshells is one of those things where it's like, you should never do this.

Eggs have a membrane that will wrap around the spindle or whatever.

And then someone else will say, but that sharpens the blades.

And someone else will say, there are no blades.

And

there are all kinds of disputes.

And I think that it has to do with different kinds of garbage disposals.

And you should follow the recommendations of your manufacturer.

I can tell you this.

Don't put a whole box of Cheerios down the garbage disposal.

If you read my book, Vacation Land, you know that

will, that will, all that fiber will immediately expand.

I think about that every time I clear my children's breakfast dishes.

Well, you can put a little down, just don't put a whole box down because you think it's expired and that's the way you should get rid of it.

Throw it out for the birds.

Don't make a Cheerio tumor in your pipes.

Jesse, what about this scenario?

What if you have made a classic Corn Husk doll,

right?

Right, sure.

But what if you discover that the Cornhusk doll has become possessed by an evil demon?

Can you put that Cornhusk doll down your garbage disposal?

It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that you should put down a garbage disposal, but on the other hand, I mean,

The other day I got some water on my Mogwai.

Oh, no.

And I had to put a few gremlins down the garbage disposal.

And sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

But there's a difference, right?

Because

poor gremlins, the evil gremlins are creeps.

Yeah.

They were mostly spider gremlins.

But corn husks, unlike gremlins, are tough and fibrous.

And there is some consistency of belief that fibrous things like celery, avocado peels, a lot of fruit peels, and stringy things like celery and banana peels should not go down there.

That is consistently agreed upon.

And by stringy things, you might include string, like the kind that attaches to a tea bag.

I am hoping,

Mark's wife, that you are not throwing down the tea bag, the string, the staple, the piece of paper.

Because a staple is not getting ground up and sent back into the waste treatment.

center to be biogas.

That's not a living thing.

That's an inert material.

Even taking the tea bag off of the string,

you know,

I don't know what model you have, but to me, that seems like that's problematic.

That bag is going to be a problem.

Once mine broke and the guy told me he was upgrading it by a horsepower, I was pretty excited.

Whoa.

Yeah, it's probably all those eggshells.

Yeah, no,

I would follow your manufacturer's advice, call them

or write to them and ask them, and I bet they will confirm that a fibrous bag full of tea with a string and a staple on top of it is not a good thing to put down your disposal.

And more to the point, I would suggest that when information is available to you,

look, I'm glad you're a listener, but when you can find out information, do it.

Find out the information for yourself.

Don't put that mental burden on me, Judge John Hodgman.

But it was nice hearing from you all the same, Mark.

Let's take a break.

More items on the docket coming up in just a minute once I check the health of my garburetor on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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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 in pots and pans?

It's true.

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

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But Made In isn't just for professional chefs.

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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.

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

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It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen 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.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Hello, it's Judge John Hodgman reporting to you from a separate timeline with a time stream news flash.

Directly after the recording of this episode, I checked a social media website that I don't often check, where I had put a query out to the Insyncurator company regarding the tea bag debate.

And I saw that they had replied,

and their reply was,

Hi, John.

Thanks for reaching out.

You're welcome, Insyncurator.

Yes, you can put tea bags if the string/slash staple has been removed.

So, there you have it.

If the string and staple are removed, you can throw that teabag down your Incincurator brand

garbage disposal.

But look, this isn't an ad for Incincorator.

Maybe you have a different kind of garbage disposal.

Call them.

Go to their website.

Or better yet, don't go through the trouble of taking the string and the staple out.

Just throw it away.

You might be grossing out your partner.

All right.

I return you to your timeline.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

We have a letter from Stacey.

She says, My family of four makes tacos at home at least once a week.

My nine-year-old daughter fills a hard shell with normal taco goods, then puts that inside a soft shell with a layer of refried beans holding the two together.

My husband says this is wasteful, and it throws off the ratio of fillings for everyone else.

He wants her to consume one shell at a time.

I say she eats it all, she's not wasteful, and that he should plan for the amount of food we need.

Texture is key to a good meal.

She isn't gluttonous.

Also, taco fillings can be eaten in a variety of ways, not only in a shell.

So leftovers with no shell isn't a problem.

Who's right and who's wrong?

The daughter, obviously, but first, we haven't even posted this episode yet.

And somehow I've gotten 10,000 emails about what is okay or not okay to put into the garbage disposal.

Thank you for your feedback.

So I don't know how you knew that we were talking about this.

And I've also composed 7,000 emails about what does and doesn't go in a taco.

So let's talk about tacos, Jesse, because I know they're an important part of your life.

Yeah, they are.

That's true.

And your favorite taco place recently closed, right?

Wasn't there a...

My favorite Mexican restaurant has announced its closing, but has not yet closed.

It has not yet closed.

They're still running, yeah.

What is your opinion upon Stacey's daughter's taco technique?

You know, I believe

that if you're at a restaurant and they try and serve you a hard-shelled taco with a bunch of iceberg lettuce and pieces of tomato on it and

ground beef in the bottom, that you should get out of that restaurant.

But I don't have a problem with that as

an easy home family meal in the classic American casserole cuisine tradition.

It's a nice meal.

It's easy to make.

You can just take the refried beans out of a can.

You know, I have no problem with that at all.

And in that spirit, rather than in the spirit of a quote-unquote, authentic taco, though I'd say authentic is problematic here.

But in that spirit, I say go to town.

That sounds fun to me.

Yeah, I mean, the distinction you draw is important because

the tacos that you describe, that you get to enjoy in Los Angeles everywhere, and which I get to enjoy in New York only sometimes when the one truck is parked outside the ATM on the corner, probably follow the taco convention that you are used to, which is soft shell always.

Yeah, two softened corn tortillas, usually softened in a griddle, on a griddle.

Right.

And then and then filled with lengua or

asada or al pastor, pork, al pastor, or what have you.

Sure, not ground, not the not the classic sort of Taco Bell version, which is hard shell, ground beef, iceberg lettuce, pieces of tomato, possibly hot sauce on top, but not pico de gallo.

We used to call that taco in Anglo-American middle-class cuisine, but that is not, that is a distinct food group that we can now call Taco Bell cuisine.

Yeah.

Or in deference to our friend Nick Weiger of the Doughboys, we can call it Del Taco Cuisine.

Sure.

But actually, I will be more specific to Taco Bell because I have really played this out in order to give our listeners time

to start their incredibly long letters of complaint to me about this.

But I'm already on top of it.

You can throw it away.

I wasted your time this time.

Because

what they know and what I learned doing research is what Stacy's daughter is doing is replicating a double-decker taco, specifically a Taco Bell menu item, much beloved by many Taco Bell aficionados,

which is a hard-shelled taco with ground beef and lettuce and whatever.

that is that is nestled inside of a of a soft flour tortilla that has refried beans in in it and it sounds great

And by the way, the double-decker taco is one of nine Taco Bell menu items recently discontinued, much to the consternation of Taco Bellistas.

So I respect Stacey's daughter's life hack.

I don't know whether she got this from Taco Bell or whether she came at it from her own ingenuity, much like both Newton and Leibniz invented the calculus.

But it's great.

And I can only feel that the specious argument that this young woman's dad is making about wasting food items, I mean, that is, that is obviously a cover story for the deep fury and jealousy he feels for the fact that his daughter is a genius and he is not.

That his daughter is inventive, imaginative, and sees ingredients and puts them together in a different way.

I absolutely find in favor of this young woman.

I'm going to eat this food tonight.

You know what?

I'm going to upgrade everybody's taco night immediately real quick uh-huh without adding any extra work of note

instead of buying ground beef for your beef tacos buy what they call flat meat in some some butcher shops or grocery stores they might actually call it carne asada but just buy flat meat

And all you really need to do to season it for a pretty good asada, and there are very complicated asadas that are wonderful as well.

But flat meat is a great eaten meat very flavorful you don't need to do much what they do at most taquerias for asada is take flat meat put a bunch of salt and a bunch of garlic powder on it and i know that there are cooking enthusiasts who are fundamentally opposed to garlic powder for various reasons and so on and so forth blah blah blah blah blah but you just do that and then if you have access to a grill you grill it otherwise you can pan-fry it pan cook it and then you cut it across the grain.

That's as easy as seasoning ground beef with taco seasoning,

but it tastes a lot better.

I'm too hungry to continue.

I'm too hungry to continue this.

Thank you.

I know.

I know.

Let's move on to Ellie's question.

Ellie says, my friend has a hat problem, but it's not the amount of hats she owns.

Most people think not like possessed hat or itchy hat or.

The problem is what she wants to do with them she wants me to steal someone's hat someone who i hardly know i let this go until she recently informed me she wants to sleep in a pile of hats please tell me what to do thank you ellie sent from my pile of hats uh uh

This is one where I really have to blame myself for not inviting Ellie and her friend on the podcast live.

Because

there's so many questions that I have.

First of all, does Ellie's friend want Ellie to steal from a specific person whom Ellie hardly knows?

Is there a specific person who's got a specific hat that Ellie's friend wants for her hat bed?

Or is it just a random sort of like

gang initiation dare?

Go steal someone's hat.

Go steal a stranger's hat.

Also of interest to me is why is it someone that she hardly knows?

Right.

Like, do strangers' hats not have the same snooze juice?

I think that there must be a specific hat.

Yeah.

What is the power?

What is, why is it important that it be stolen as opposed to borrowed or purchased?

And why does Ellie have to do it

instead of Ellie's friend?

And what kind of hats, and if you're going to sleep in a pile of hats, which I could see being a special,

you know, everyone has their little weirdsies, as Linda Holmes says.

That could be a little, that could be, give a, that could have a special power for you and your imagination.

But I still have questions.

Are the hats themselves on a bed?

Because that would be very bad luck, as we know from the movie Drugstore Cowboy, or are they just piled up on a floor?

I think you put down a layer of your

harder hats, construction hats, fireman hats,

armyman hats.

Okay.

Then you add a second layer of caps.

Uh-huh.

And you start with brimmed caps and then you go to like

baseball style caps and five panel skateboard guy style caps.

And then on top of that, your caps for sale style caps.

Your woolen caps.

And then your newsletter.

On top of that.

you put your your like

your watch caps you know your your watch hats your your meanies

your toques.

Then on top of that,

you put some Angora hats that your grandma crocheted for you or knit for you onto a layer of soft, soft Angora.

I mean, there might be cashmere here, but I'm not asking people to get enough cashmere hats to cover an entire bed.

This is a lot of ingredients.

You're basically describing or inventing the cheesy crunch Gordida of hat beds.

John, it's simple.

It comes right to your door, vacuum-packed in a cardboard box.

You open it up and watch the miracle as it expands.

For all of the wonderful partners that we've had on the show,

we've never had, unlike every other podcast in the world, I don't believe we've ever read an ad for a mattress.

But I am encouraging everyone within the sound of my voice,

any entrepreneurs out there,

please start

a hatbed company,

an internet hatbed company, so that we can advertise internet hatbeds on Judge John Hodgman.

They come right to your door.

They cut out the middleman.

We bought a hatbed mattress factory in Germany so that we could bring a high-quality, low-cost hatbeds right to your door.

I'm ready for this.

I have to say that Ellie's letter

about

being brainwashed and conscripted into a criminal conspiracy to steal hats for a hat bed is like the world's most adorable QAnon conspiracy theory.

And it all takes place at a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Look, the principle here is don't steal.

So obviously I'm finding

it's not even in Ellie's favor.

She asks, what should I do?

Don't steal someone's hat for your friend.

However,

I am ordering, well, I'm not ordering.

I am really requesting some answers to my question, Ellie.

I would like you to please submit a clarifying document asking

what person, what hat, why.

And then I order as penance.

to your friend that that person write a clarifying document describing why they want to sleep on a bed of hats and what kinds of hats specifically.

I need more information.

Not to make my ruling, which is don't steal, but to

get this idea out of my head.

I feel like

I've been possessed by these questions, much like a corn husk doll is often possessed by an evil spirit, which happens all the time, by the way.

Don't make corn husk dolls.

They're just basically a demon trap.

You know what I would say if someone asked me to go steal a hat for them for their hat bed?

What?

Y'all go make me lose my mind, pumpkin head, pumpkin head.

That was a better DMX.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, disputes about waking up and of course, denim shorts.

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.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week, and we have something here from Maya.

Maya says, hello, my name is Maya.

I just recently moved in with my partner of three years, Timer, T-A-I-M-U-R.

Sorry, timer or timer.

I'm doing my best.

He is so lovely 99% of the time, except for when he has to be woken up.

He requests that I wake him up from naps so that he doesn't sleep for too long.

Then he gets very grumpy and says things like, oh, you're so mean to me, and stop hurting me while he's half asleep.

It hurts my feelings, even though I know he doesn't mean it and he's just half asleep and out of his mind.

I would like the judge to order him to get his sleep schedule together, so no more staying up until 4 a.m.

to play video games on the weekends, for example.

Then he won't have to take naps and I won't have to be yelled at by the love of my life who happens to turn into a grumpy toddler when he's sleeping.

Longtime fan of the show.

Thanks.

Sleep hygiene is very important.

And I have to say that during this period of

staying at home a lot,

my relationship with sleep hygiene has gotten

unhealthy, actually.

You know, I was working on a 17-year sleep deficit of being a parent to one and then two children.

And

once it became clear that no one was going to be getting up early anymore in this household, I have been sleeping so hard and so long,

and I've been feeling so good and mostly not guilty.

But now I feel like I got to be a regular human being again and get up before 10 a.m.

Get out of bed before 10 a.m.

You've got littles in your house, Jesse, so you're up and at them no matter what, right?

Yeah, and my sleep hygiene is an immense priority to me because of my chronic migraine migraine headaches, for which sleep is probably the number one most powerful trigger.

So I really keep a very consistent sort of 10.30 to 6.30 schedule for my sleep.

I try and add a little on the beginning and a little on the end if I can.

I have so enjoyed catching up on my sleep.

It has made me feel so much better.

But just recently, I've kind of felt like,

now I feel drenched in sleep.

I don't feel sleep hygienic.

I feel sleep dirty.

I've got to shake it off a little bit.

But the point, you know, obviously I will rule in Maya's favor that I do think that timer,

and again, we hope we're pronouncing your name correctly.

The timer has got to get his act together and not stay up till four in the morning playing video games.

Look, I get it.

Gaming late at night and all night long,

that's fun.

I know it's fun,

but that's for children.

That's for children and teenagers and 20-something year-olds.

Maya and Timer are engaging, are embarking on a life together of cohabitation.

Now it's grown-up time.

Not only are you probably physically a little bit older, it's time to be aware of the fact that you are sharing the space with another person.

And

you need to practice fairly good sleep hygiene so that you don't yell at your loved one when you're waking up.

You ever have to wake Teresa up, Jesse?

She wakes up before I do in general circumstances.

She's more of an early to bed, early to rise person than I.

So I generally don't, but I have had to.

And I have had one of my children had a night of night terrors

a few months ago.

And

I think that the half-asleep, half-awake state in a loved one when they are upset, something that I really identify with Maya around

is how terrifying that is.

It is really distressing.

Extraordinarily distressing.

And, you know, I talked to some doctors about night terrors.

They said, generally speaking, they're not even remembered by the person having them.

They don't represent an actual psychological trauma, but man, are they scary.

Yeah, they're distressing to your partner, timer.

And in particular, like, you're so mean to me, is, I think, substantively different from stop hurting me.

But also, both of those are particularly upsetting and galling

in similar measure because this is a favor that you have asked of your partner to do this thing for you.

You are asking Maya to be your mommy and wake you up from your nap,

which, by the way, is also not a healthy thing for a cohabitation cohabitation of equals.

You're a grown-up, set an alarm, get your sleep hygiene together, set an alarm when you're taking a nap, take responsibility for yourself, especially since you know

that

when you ask Maya to wake you up, you are hurling invective at her, which is painful for her.

One time my wife woke up years ago.

I probably told this story before.

She woke up and she was just looking around.

And at the time, she had a cat named Francis who was just this big, fat, dumb cat.

And I said, Are you okay, honey?

And she said, It's a supermarket caper, and Francis is in charge.

Now, that was

enjoyable to me.

That fugue state, that into that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, has been a great story that we tell each other all the time.

As we imagine this poor, dumb, black, and now sadly late cat leading a heist in a price chopper or whatever.

But if she had looked at me and said, stop hurting me, it would be hard to forget that.

I'm with Maya almost all the way here.

I do have one

point of distinction or difference with their assertions here.

And that is that if timer

was sleeping normal hours at night, he wouldn't have to take a nap during the the day.

I don't think those things are oppositional.

I think taking a nap during the day can be a really healthy, delightful, rejuvenating experience.

It's one that I've only discovered in my 30s.

I was a resolute non-napper for a long time.

I learned to nap as a man.

And it's added a lot to my life.

I don't nap every day by any means.

And certainly right now,

my family is too busy and intense during the day because everyone is in the house all the time and my children are young but in general i found that taking a nap in the early afternoon is a big boon to my life and my ability to stay happy and healthy the rest of the day so don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here

yeah

timer you're the baby because you're asking you're asking your parent to wake you up yeah and by the way baby don't sleep in bathwater.

That's dangerous.

Yeah, that's also true.

Okay, here's something from Scott.

Yeah.

Please tell my son, Hugh, that cutoff jeans aren't Jorts.

Hugh?

You're wrong.

Obviously, they're not Jorts.

Yeah.

They're Sheens.

You know why they're called Sheens, Jesse?

A lot of people think it's because they're short jeans, sheens.

Are they sheered jeans?

No, they're named for the actor Martin Sheen.

Oh, wow.

It's his favorite kind of

bottom half garment.

Isn't that fun?

Fun fact, every episode of The West Wing where he's shot only sitting behind the desk,

Sheen is wearing some sheens.

Yeah.

Yeah, Hugh, stop it.

I'm recording a cover of Edwin Starr's classic hit, War, parentheses, What is it good for?

Yeah.

And it's going to be called Jorts.

What are they good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Say it again.

The docket is clear.

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

This week's episode, produced by Jennifer Marmer and Kristen Bennett.

Hi, Kristen.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

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

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

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

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