Cobb Salad With Alan Ruck

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

And joining me from the great city of Brooklyn, New York is the man they call the king of Brooklyn,

Judge John Hodgman.

Brooklyn has no king.

Brooklyn needs no king.

We are in Kings County, though, for those county nerds out there for you.

Kings County.

Need to know.

You need to know.

You need to know what county you're in when you are registering to vote and when you are voting.

There are definitely types of nerds who still know every state capital.

Do you think that there are county seat nerds?

Do you think that some state capital nerds who learn their state capitals in fifth grade or whatever then move on to learn all the county seats?

Like, does Ken Jennings know all the county seats?

I don't know that Ken Jennings could name all of the county seats of every county in the United States.

Not even Ken Jennings necessarily could do that.

And that's why I'm going to devote what is left of my brain to knowing it.

However,

I'm going to retain a piece of my brain, the piece that is always firing

on all cylinder for the recording of the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And I'm not going to use the part of my brain that is devoted to my love for the actor Alan Ruck.

We were having some great,

I'm sure our guest is going to get this reference.

We were having some great bants, some great bants before the, some great banter.

Yeah, we were reckoning it up.

We were just bouncing off each other, Love Island, UK style.

And one of the things that came up is Alan Ruck and what an incredible actor he is.

Going back to, you know, whether it's Ferris Bueller's Day Off, America's greatest mythologizing of a high school sociopath, or Spin City, or

one guy in the Star Trek movie, or Succession, Incredibly talented actor, criminally underused, but

maybe he's living his best life.

Anyway, here's To Ruk.

I'll introduce our guest on the program, John.

We do have a charming, delightful, August guest,

a major podcasting celebrity internationally.

Internationally.

Yes, that's right.

Internationally.

She's one of the hosts of Answer Me This, perhaps the UK's most legendary comedy podcast, probably its most legendary comedy and question answering podcast.

She's the host of The Illusionist, a podcast about the English language.

And she is the host of Veronica Mars Investigations, which is about Veronica Mars, which is a television show.

That's fun.

It's a fun show, John.

I don't know if you ever watched Veronica Mars.

It's a very fun show.

Helen Zaltzman.

Does it have Ellen Ruck in it?

No, but it does have Steve Gutenberg.

And he doesn't have anything.

It has a lot of Steve Gutenberg.

It has a lot of people in it who then became very famous.

Like there's a one-episode Jessica Chastain appearance.

There's one episode of Aaron Paul.

One Paul Rudd episode.

Finally, Paul Rudd got famous.

Look.

Got his big break.

Yeah.

I love Rudd.

Everyone knows I love Rudd.

But of the RU actors.

Last names starting with RU, I want to go with Ruck every time.

Sorry, Paul.

Let's shine a light on Ruck.

That's right.

It's Ruck's time now.

Hey, wait, did we introduce our guest?

Yeah, Helen Zaltman.

Helen Zaltzman is our guest.

What a pleasure to have Helen here.

It's great to see you.

And by see you, I mean see you because we know now we are we are recording this using a

little technology I invented called Zoom.

Congratulations.

Yeah, I know, right?

No, some foreign government did it.

I don't know.

Anyway, it's a little facial data capturing device called Zoom.

And even though I'm giving my face away to this foreign government, I get to see you, Helen, over there in Brighton, England, which is where you are now, and Jesse over there in Los Angeles.

And both of you are wearing incredible tops, incredible shirts.

Helen, you have birds, or are those birds or grasshoppers on your shirt?

I'd never thought of them as grasshoppers before, but now my mind is open to a whole different possibility.

I think they're meant to be parakeets on little branches.

And Jesse's looks like when you stick your fingers in your eyeballs and then it starts coming up with all these psychedelic shapes.

Yeah.

That's a compliment, by the way.

I'm doing 80s Banana Republic over here.

I'm all about safari vests.

You know, you mentioned in our pre-show Bants, Jesse,

that that was an early vintage Banana Republic shirt, and I felt you very keenly.

That was my...

my store to go to.

When I dreamed as a young man of buying a pith helmet, I would get it.

Yeah, colonialism is bad.

I think we can stipulate that colonialism is bad.

However,

one thing which it wrought, the colonialism clothing theme park known as 1980s Banana Republic.

Yeah, they had a Jeep going through the window.

Come on.

Yeah.

But that shirt I never would have pegged for a vintage B-Rep because it's, as Alan points out, it's got a psychedelic air to it.

You look like a member of the Love and Spoonful.

Thank you, thank you.

Helen, on your podcast, Answer Me This, you answer a lot of questions along with your co-host, Ollie Mann.

And

I listen to every episode.

It has been my quarantine comfort show.

I have been listening to both new and old episodes of Answer Me This as I drive my youngest son around hoping that he'll fall asleep in the back of the minivan.

And

I wonder, are you prepared to deliver not just answers, but now on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, Justice?

Oh, I feel like I've been training for this for the 13 and a half years of Answer Me This.

Finally, my legal legal duties are coming upon me.

Thrilled, I've got my scythe, my hat, my wig, judge's wig.

Yes.

Wade.

I knew that judges in the UK wore wigs.

They hold scythes.

Do they do field work in between?

Do you threshold?

I just thought to add to the atmosphere, I should also bring a scythe because I couldn't get a guillotine into the Airbnb I live in.

But it's not just judges that wear the wigs, it's everyone in a criminal case, like the people that go and fetch the jury from the deliberation room, have to wear like the full wig and back cape.

All of the lawyers.

It's amazing.

I think if you're in the jury, you're not supposed to come in wearing that style of wig.

But I would be interested to try just to see what happens.

Like, you're wondering if possibly some jurors might just on a day-to-day basis in their regular life wear those curly, white, powdered,

long

18th century style wigs.

Yeah.

And they blow up.

Like a mullet of very tight curls.

Like maybe the juror is like Grace Jones or something.

Someone who

has the self-possession to pull off such a thing in their day-to-day attire.

What if that was just your regular hair?

Then what are you supposed to do?

Yeah, what if you have powdery, white, tightly curled hair naturally?

Yeah, talk about setting it and forgetting it.

You'd have to do some serious setting to lock that down.

Well, let's get into the justice.

Here's something from Serge.

He says, a contractor recently did some work on our house and left a huge mess, including destroying a large part of our front flower bed.

We cleaned it up ourselves, but I sent an email to the contractor saying I was really unhappy with how they left things.

My wife thinks this was inappropriate because there's nothing they can actually do about it.

I think they should know I'm angry with how things were left so that they can try and do better in the future.

Who's right?

Helen, let me ask you first of all, is the term contractor familiar to you in England?

Builder, basically.

Well, I've educated myself in the vocabularies of other nations, John, to prepare for this moment.

Oh, that's right.

You are the host of a major language podcast.

I apologize.

I do apologize.

And, you know, as a child, I loved to read about American building regulations and so forth.

I mean, who didn't?

You're famous for it.

You're code crazy.

Up to code.

That's going to be your new podcast about American building.

Yeah, you spent time memorizing building codes that normal kids would have spent memorizing county seats.

Yeah, that's right.

That's just a bit mainstream, isn't it?

Yeah.

County seats.

A little bit on the nose.

Helen, have you ever written a letter of complaint?

It takes a lot for me to do that because I'm essentially a coward.

So I may have thought some pretty strong thoughts of complaint without transmitting them to the world.

But I think in Serge's case, he's not unjustified.

I think both he and his wife are kind of right in that the damage is irreversible.

But if there is,

you know, monetary damage to the flowerbed that the contractors could recompense them for or to come and fix it, or would he not trust them to fix it after the damage they've already done?

It depends on his motivation.

Did he want something

palpable or did he just need his feelings to be vented?

I'm going to treat this guy as a hostile witness because I think you put your finger on something there, Helen.

What is the intent?

Now, I'm going to give Serge credit for not writing to Yelp, which is my, as I've mentioned many times, Yelp is my favorite collection of short stories narrated by highly unreliable narrators.

I could just go down that hole and just marvel at people's self-deception.

And as I've often added, racist, parking-obsessed unreliable narrators.

Serge did not try to go into a public forum to try to hurt this person's business.

And yet I do feel that he is somewhat of an unreliable narrator because when he says, I think they should know that I'm angry with how things were left so that they can try and do better in the future, I do not believe that for a second.

I do not believe that he wants them to improve.

I think he should have just said, I want them to know that I'm angry, period.

Don't you think?

Do you believe him, Ellen, when he says that he genuinely wants them to improve?

I mean, that's really out of Sergey's hands.

Yeah.

I certainly don't think that was the primary motivation.

Well, and also, I think that it is highly doubtful that it will promote improvement.

Jesse Thorne, have you ever received a letter of complaint?

I'm a podcaster, John.

And when someone writes a letter of complaint, how does it make you feel?

Sad.

Bad.

Mad.

Desire to improve come into the constellation of your feelings?

Desire to quit the business.

If the complaint is phrased as constructive criticism where they are educating me, then I do tend to take it on board.

But if it's just them trying to prove they're better than me, then I think, you know what, I'm going to get worse just out of spite.

Yeah, I think there is a way to frame a letter of complaint

that is respectful, that may be, as Helen so quaintly and Englishly said,

they take it on board.

But it is a tough thing.

That said,

you know, I don't think it's unreasonable for Serge to write to them and say, hey, listen,

you made a giant mess in my yard.

Please don't do that in the future

if we work together.

I also think it's possible that, you know, depending on the size of the team that was working on this project, what kind of work it was, whether it was just an individual person,

it may be that the person that they hired, who's in charge of, you know, sales and customer service,

in the outfit, might not know that someone who's in charge of something else is doing something counter to those goals.

Absolutely.

So there is the possibility that

he might actually be letting somebody know, hey, listen, this guy you sent really made a giant mess.

And

in all those contexts, including directly contracting the person who did it, I don't feel uncomfortable with him saying, hey, please don't make a mess in the future.

And I don't think that the only reason that you would do that would be to seek recompense.

I think it's worth saying to somebody, please don't make a mess at my house.

Yes.

Just think of future flower beds.

Spare them this fate.

Yeah, you may not know, but a flowerbed in the United States is a place where we plant flowers.

I think you would call it a flower trolley or a lorry.

A lorry.

Flower sofa?

Yeah, there you go.

Sofa or couch, what do you say?

In England, they're called pants.

But sincerely, Helen, sofa or couch?

I'd say sofa, John.

Sofa, yeah, me too.

Thank you for settling something in my own marriage.

All right, anyway.

Well, you're arguing over whether Helen Zaltzmann says sofa or couch.

Yes, that's why we asked you to be on.

It's precisely right.

Honey, I won.

I'm really sorry to come between you in this matter.

It's very important.

Yeah, it's all right.

We've got a lot more things to settle, too.

So here's what I'm going to say about this guy.

Serge, write your letter.

Consumers, write your letter.

Sometimes you need to express anger because you're just upset.

And sometimes you need to give feedback to a company or a service provider

so that they don't make the mistake again in the future.

Rarely do these two moods intersect effectively.

That is to say, if you are sincere, Serge, that you want to help them try to do better in the future, as you say,

then you must express that without anger.

If you are sincere, that you want them to know that you are angry, then do not try to fool us with your pat on the back saying you just want them to do better.

You just want to vent your anger.

Because when you vent your anger to another person,

I mean, and you express yourself angrily,

which is the only reason I could imagine you use the word angry in this letter, Serge.

People tend to go, no, thank you.

People tend to say, close a windowshade, tear up a letter, turn around, walk away, lock the door.

If you really want them to do better in the future and alert them to some problems that maybe the company wants to know about for all the reasons that Jesse articulated, then you have to really just take a deep breath and, you know, do what I did when I had to let the waiter know that this is not an acceptable Cobb salad.

And

I hated it.

I hated complaining to the waiter.

But a cob salad is important.

And if you had seen the gross green ring around this withered, half-hard-boiled eggs yolk,

you too would be angry.

And I had to explain to my family members, I need to talk to the waiter, not because I'm angry,

but because all people do in restaurants is take pictures of the food and post it.

And this is going to hurt their business if you serve this cob salad to somebody else again.

And I, and I, and I, as, as you do when you need to express something went wrong with your business, you have to say, I'm not angry and I don't know who's to blame, but you might want to know that this was not really acceptable and

then tip your waiter a thousand percent at that point because it's not the waiter's fault.

You know what I'm saying?

Anyway, don't just post stuff on Yelp because that's just hurtful.

Write your letters, express your anger, or express your constructive criticism in a de-angrified way.

And also, the other thing you need to do,

when you hard-boil an egg, you need to immediately plunge it into ice water after you take it out of the hot water, or else it's going to form that gross green ring around the yolk.

Did you know that, Ellen?

I did.

I've spent my entire life trying to eliminate the green ring, John, and I will never stop trying.

Now what I do is I just, I've had that printed on a calling card, and I just leave it behind in every restaurant I go to.

They love me.

And it also explains why you give that one-cent tip.

You want a tip?

Here's a tip.

Plunge your hard-boiled eggs into iced water, dummies.

Hodgman out.

Come on, Alan Ruck.

We're taking our custom elsewhere.

Oh, what a dream that would be to eat in a cobbl salad with Alan Ruck.

All right.

Well, if Alan Ruck likes a very, very hard-boiled egg with the green ring.

Well, if that's his style of eggs.

It's not about the hard.

Alan, you know what?

Alan Ruck would understand, Helen.

It's not about the hardness.

It's about the oxidization that is stopped when you put it into the ice water bath.

You can cook that egg for as long as you want.

Just plunge it in an ice water bath and keep that yolk ungreen.

Alan Ruck would know.

Cobb Salad with Alan Ruck, a new podcast by me, John Hodgman.

Let's move on.

Sarah says, every year a good friend and I set a fiction reading challenge organized around a different set of parameters.

He has started listening to audiobooks while working on other projects.

This goes against the spirit of our competition and the goal of reinvesting in reading.

I don't have any problem with audiobooks generally, and if he wants to listen to them beyond the scope of our arrangement, that's his business.

But him listening to a book while he solders electronics, mows the lawn, or cooks dinner doesn't compare to the single-minded focus and unique pleasures of reading.

He doesn't want to give up our tradition or the competition, so I am asking Judge Hodgman to order him to adhere to the original terms of our arrangement.

Helen, you should know that these people write us all the time.

These people have been coming at the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast for a decade,

trying to say that listening to an audiobook is not the same thing as reading a book.

That is very harsh of the people that read via audio for all sorts of good reasons.

Yeah.

Do you want to discredit their audio reading experiences?

Right.

It's not merely snobby.

It is also ableist.

And it is a long-standing precedent of this podcast that they are absolutely equivalent experiences and not one is not better than the other.

Remember, everybody, all fiction began as spoken word.

Helen.

Whoa.

I don't like to listen to audiobooks.

You know why?

I get distracted.

Yeah, same.

But that doesn't mean they're bad.

No.

If anything, Sarah should admire her friend for returning to the Homeric tradition of books in this way.

But also, as adulthood advances, I find my time to read a book becomes more and more reduced, and so perhaps Sarah's friend cannot devote all the hours singly to reading.

And if he doesn't multitask whilst listening to the books, then that's it for this rather charming tradition.

How is Electronics going to get soldered

if he's doing everything Sarah's way?

Is he supposed to not eat dinner?

Is he supposed to have an unmown lawn?

No.

Is he supposed to be alone with his thoughts?

Ugh.

I just, you know, this is the newest and most novel way

of getting,

of expressing this snobbery.

Because Sarah right now is listening to this, going, but I wrote right here.

I don't have any problem with audiobooks generally.

And what did you say?

Stop lying to yourself, Sarah.

That's right.

You're trying to make it all about the spirit of the competition.

When

reading books should never be competition.

I mean,

who needs that in their lives?

Kids at the library in summer who are trying to get free baseball tickets.

All right, that's fair.

That's fair.

If you're trying to shock train an army of young people into a love of lifelong reading, bribery with baseball tickets is one way to do it.

But if you're actually.

It worked for me, John.

I have a lifelong love of baseball tickets.

Is that what you said?

Lifelong love of reading baseball tickets.

Yeah.

Maybe, let's say, this time last year, when we all had a lot more mental capacity for paying attention to

book reading competitions,

this would have been an acceptable debate.

But in a year where all we're trying to do,

all we're trying to do is solder our electronics and listen to our, you know, N.K.

Jemison or whatever, and just not think about everything for a moment, yeesh, maybe not have a book competition this year.

Maybe just console yourself with books however you want.

I have a good book recommendation that I found very consoling.

Consolatory?

Consolatory.

Consiliatory.

Constabulary.

Constellationary.

Constanter.

Constabulary.

I don't have a language podcast, so I don't know.

Constant sofa.

Our friend Elliot Kalen from the Flop House, I showed up at his front door just in a terrible emotional state, begging for him to loan me a book that would distract me purely and not upset me at all and be delightful the entire time I read it.

And he loaned me a movie book called The Studio by John Gregory Dunn.

It is a narrative, it is a narrative nonfiction about a year

at 20th Century Fox in Hollywood, 1967, 1968, as they make the ultimately...

what ultimately became the semi-boondoggle Dr.

Doolittle, along with the monstrous surprise success, Planet of the Apes, and a number of other films.

And it's full of like

Gene Kelly trying to make a Tom Swift movie, and

you know, Tom Swift in his flying lab,

the movie that you most associate with legendary screen dancer Gene Kelly.

That's right.

Obscure turn-of-the-century children's adventure fiction.

Exactly.

And it is a hoot, this book.

It's called The Studio, John Gregory Dunn.

If you're looking for a distraction, you could hardly read a more pleasant book and amusing.

And it is also like genuinely fascinating and insightful about the ways that movie studios operated in the very last crumbling days of big studios.

Anyway.

Helen.

Bookwreck.

Helen, what's your bookwreck for consolation book?

Constabulary.

In England, they call it a lift.

We call them bobbies.

I don't know how cheering it would be, but I recently read the novel Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, which I thought was amazing.

Oh, yeah.

Strong recommend.

It's beautiful.

And did you read it Sarah style?

That is to say, with your nose in a book, or did you listen to it while soldering electronics?

Well, I've tried reading while soldering and created many fires

and many highly flammable electronics.

So I just did it book-wise, but that's because I'm listening to stuff all the time for work.

Right.

And so listening to things for fun is not really a thing I do.

Not to be a traitor to Sarah's friend.

No, no, everyone has their own way of learning.

Some people get it through the ears.

Some people get it through the eyes.

You don't need to have a book fight to be friends.

Some people through the nose.

Just

the smell.

Oh, yeah.

Do you ever enjoy an olfactory book?

It's the same experience.

I love wafted learning.

Yeah, you smell the words rather than see them.

You can only do it if you have synesthesia, but it's worth it.

Thank you for that recommendation, Helen.

Say the name of the, I know Tayari Jones.

Say the name of the book again.

It's called Silver Sparrow.

Silver Sparrow.

I will put it down.

Let's take a quick break.

More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket with our friend Helen Zaltzman from Answer Me This, The Illusionist,

and of course Veronica Marr's Investigations.

Here's a letter from TC.

He says: During the pandemic, I've been sitting down to urinate, which I feel minimizes the necessity to wash my hands.

I make zero contact with anything and use my elbow to flush.

I do this out of a not-so-irrational fear that as the second wave of COVID is mounting, supplies like soap may become dangerously scarce again.

If I only have to wash on a one to three ratio, that will conserve our soap.

Naturally, my wife thinks this is counterproductive, as we've been taught since childhood to wash your hands every time.

Typically, I agree, but these are drastic times and I earnestly feel I'm on to something here.

To be clear, this only applies to going number one.

I'm simply trying to figure out the most efficient method.

Well, there you go.

The most efficient method to maximize our yield in case, you know, the world starts to really fall apart.

I guess if if that should happen, this is all a moot point.

Has he considered stockpiling soap?

Has he considered no longer urinating?

Ingenious.

He's just perpetuating his own problem.

Yeah, I'm not sure that this guy has really exhausted the full potential list of crackpot schemes to avoid doing the simple thing that we not only

know from common sense works that we are actually asked to do by all of humanity to help stop the spread of this disease.

Dude,

knock it off with the scheme.

You know, you're not going to save soap.

I don't think you would stockpile soap, Helen, because I think what he thinks he's doing is reducing his soap consumption so that in some

post-apocalyptic wasteland future, there will be a little soap left over that he didn't use for humanity.

But it's like, I think you're more of a hero by keeping your hands clean

rather than using less soap and

describing in public how you sit down to pee.

Like, that doesn't make you a hero.

Just wash your hands.

How true do we think the zero contact is?

Because

if he is sitting down on an open toilet, not touching the seat, and flushing with his elbow, the toilet is still open and therefore the vapors of his urine are transmitted six feet.

It's a droplet transmitting contraption.

He might be moving the toilet seat with his knee.

Could be.

Like a soccer player warming up.

I don't know what that looks like.

Like hacky sack style.

I imagine this whole thing being hacky sack style.

I think Helen points out the, I mean, the urine vapor argument is very compelling.

Not merely because...

He's either touching the toilet or he's got the urine vapors.

Either way, I would suggest a hand wash.

You're absolutely right.

As you pointed out, Helen, it is a droplet-spread disease.

You are putting yourself in closer con like the urine is connecting with the surface of the water.

It is being agitated, and you're closer to it than ever, sir.

I have to say this, John, though.

Go ahead.

One thing that I'm with this guy on is during the pandemic sitting down to pee, I don't do it for scheme reasons.

I don't have an efficiency scheme here.

I just don't have the emotional strength to stand and urinate at the same time.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, look, that's where I'm at.

I just go in the bathroom and collapse.

It's a great opportunity.

I'm not against

the method,

although I agree with Helen that I think that its sanitary benefits are arguable at best.

But take any opportunity to sit in a closed room to stare into the middle distance for a while.

Absolutely.

Maybe pop in

your earbuds and listen to an audio book.

Maybe an audio book called The King of Dragons by Carol Fenner.

Narrated by Alan Ruck.

What about if he's showering, he soaps less?

Then that's a far bigger area of his body.

You know, people get very overexcited on Twitter about whether you wash your legs or not.

Has he considered washing less of his legs?

Perhaps?

For conservation reasons.

People are getting overexcited on Twitter about something.

I hesitate to raise it because I know that it's very important for some.

This topic about washing your legs, though, I have to say, is one that I've not...

It's the one Twitter fight I've not encountered.

Please spare yourself.

People are arguing that you shouldn't bother washing your legs.

Or that you definitely should.

You could get around it by just washing one leg, I suppose, and pleasing everybody.

Compromise position.

Wash one leg, avoid the urine vapors.

Mike says, every morning I take my dog Bella out on a walk through our neighborhood.

At the end of my street is a cemetery.

Sometimes I'll walk through it with her.

But I've recently been wondering, is it disrespectful to those people there to take my dog walking through?

I always have poop bags and clean up after her if she goes to the bathroom while there.

We always walk along the road, not through the gravestones.

Attached our cute photos of our dog.

It's a beautiful dog.

Looks like a great friend dog.

Yeah,

a great friend dog?

Yeah, great friend dog.

Friend dog is a type of dog.

That's like a dog that's big enough to give

a real hug to.

And maybe it's not like, it's not like distinctively adorable

in a, you know what I mean?

It's not, it like, it's, it's, all dogs are cute, but it's not, cuteness is not its top quality.

Its top quality is that it looks like it would be a great and loyal friend.

Like a lot of golden retrievers are really great friend dogs.

That's right.

Because you, they, you see it and you think, oh, I could really hug that.

I could hug that.

I could hug that and get all of the stuff that is caught in that dog's fur on my body.

For sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Helen, do you have a pet?

I don't, John, because I live an itinerant lifestyle and it feels unfair not to to provide a stable background.

But I used to grew up with dogs and just trying to remember our cemetery policy.

Well, first of all, all dogs go to heaven.

That's a statue.

I think, though, because it was the 80s and 90s, in Britain, people just left all the poop on the ground.

Yeah.

You can see that as a metaphor if you want, but it was also a literal truth.

But I think if I were to be dead in a graveyard, I'd be quite happy that a dog was using it for whatever ends they had in mind.

All right.

So, Mike,

first of all, just mark this down.

Helen is in the prime of her life, a happy, healthy individual.

This is not going to help probably your dog Bella.

But in the future,

when

the three of us are all dead, you have Helen's permission.

to poop on her grave.

Yep.

Your dog, your dog.

You don't want Mike to poop on your grave, right?

I think that would create further questions that would derail the immediate concern.

Right.

Bella or your future dog may poop on Helen Saltzman's grave.

Make a pilgrimage.

Jesse,

can Mike's dog poop on your grave?

Yay or nay?

Yeah, no, that's fine with me.

I don't even know if I have a grave.

Right.

Burial at sea.

That's what I say.

Once a sailor, always a sailor.

Yep,

point.

In which case, Mike, bring Bella to the ocean

and have her poop, take her poop and throw it in the ocean in honor of Jesse Thorne.

You know what I'd love to see?

Someone tweeted me yesterday that their pandemic hobby is imagining themselves building mini-electric boats, which he sent me a picture of this beautiful boat, and I thought this was like

a pond boat, like you would sail in Central Park

in an E.B.

White novel.

But it wasn't.

It's a boat a person sits in.

They're like six or eight feet long, which is like just the size.

It's like a shriner car.

Yeah.

But it's a boat

that really works.

Now it's all I want in the world.

Jesse, I happen to know a place where you can get four of them, but

you can only buy them as a group.

They're for sale at Dream Boat Harbor.

Google Dream Boat Harbor.

It's run by our friends up there in Brooklyn, Maine, off Center Harbor.

Great organization promoting the love and craft of building and going in wooden boats.

Not pooping in.

Take it easy, Bella the Dog.

Don't poop in this boat.

Getting into it and using it, sailing and motoring it.

But they only come in a multi-pack?

The seller will only sell them all together.

And I think that there are four of them, and they're about as long as Bella the Dog.

Like,

you would have such fun.

We would have such fun together.

All three.

Look, there are four of us here right now.

Helen, Jesse, me, producer Jennifer Marmor.

We're all getting little boats.

I love this outcome.

Yeah, that's good.

Now, as for me,

I don't know how I will be buried, but if I were interred in the ground, keep your dog away from my

grave site.

I don't want your dogs poop.

People have different preferences.

And since they do, I think it's better to err on the side of don't poop on graves.

Now, you say, Mike, that you only, you only walk through

the roads in the cemetery, not over the graves, which I think is appropriate.

I've done, I don't know if you guys have done, but I've done quite a bit of cemetery walking

during the pandemic as a way to get outside.

particularly Greenwood Cemetery, which is going to be less crowded than a lot of the parks where young people just love to run and breathe on each other.

The Greenwood Cemetery is a beautiful old historic cemetery in Brooklyn that is absolutely gorgeous to walk through and wildly depopulated.

But in the early part of the pandemic,

there was a real problem because people were flocking to it with their dogs and their frisbees and playing frisbees and having their dogs poop.

And dogs are not allowed in that cemetery.

Mike, call a cemetery.

Find out.

Is it Greenwood Cemetery?

Because I'm going to tell you, dogs are not allowed there.

Is it a different cemetery?

I mean, if it's a historic cemetery and there's no office, then I would err on the side of it's okay to bring your dog through, but try to keep the poop to a minimum.

But if it's a cemetery that is active and has an office, you call them and find out what their policy is.

That was pretty cute.

Let's take a break.

When we come back, we'll hear a case about anonymous notes.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

Here's something from a listener about anonymous notes.

He says, My wife and I received an anonymous note in our mailbox complaining about our fireworks.

The writer also claims one of us rolled through a stop sign.

Admittedly, we set off a single firework at 9 p.m.

Monday, July 13th, and it would not be out of the realm of possibility that we could have rolled through a stop sign.

So I plead no contest.

In our defense, the firework I chose on the aforementioned date was the quite modest fountain style.

I've been greatly harmed by anonymous complaints in the past as a minister in a small town.

We were effectively run out of this town because of a small group of disgruntled anonymous parishioners.

The pain of that experience brings up a lot of fear and anxiety when it happens now in a new context.

I'm exceedingly kind and compassionate.

Not to mention modest, I added the last sentence.

If I were approached in person, I would apologize and change my behavior.

But when receiving an anonymous note, I become irate and irrational.

How should I respond?

I've attached photos of the note and of the firework we set off for evidence.

Sincerely, embarrassed and annoyed in New Hampshire.

Do you like the irony that this is an anonymous note?

Maybe they don't want to make themselves even more of a target.

There are many levels of cowardice here.

Helen, do you have the note, the anonymous note that was left for the neighbor in front of you?

I'm just trying to read.

The handwriting leans backwards, which I think some graphologists would see as a danger sign, depending on contraindications.

The note says, Neighbour, is it the 4th of July?

No, it's the 13th, triple underlined of July.

Fireworks are done.

Capitals underlined, brackets, and illegal.

Fireworks, you're burnt.

I was walking by your house with my dog.

When you let off your lame fireworks, I wouldn't use the word lame, my dog freaked out and jerked forward to run away, and effectively threw out my back.

I probably won't be able to pick up my daughter for the next two weeks.

Thanks.

Given you're new to the neighbourhood, maybe try and be courteous, particularly if you want the same from your fellow neighbours.

While you're at it, stop rolling through stop signs too.

You clearly didn't see the kids on their bikes last week.

Respect your neighbours.

Capital's underlined exclamation point.

Thank you very much.

That was a wonderful performance, by the way.

Thank you.

I trained.

And I'm glad we were able to re-traumatize our anonymous listener together in this way, while also revealing the awfulness of this letter, which is designed to hurt, not to help.

Speaking of complaints that are designed to hurt versus trying to help.

Yeah, you can't unthrow this back by writing this letter.

No.

Effectively.

Yeah.

But I mean, and as wonderfully as you read it, I hope you'll not be offended.

If we are able to get Alan Ruck to read it,

we're going to put that in instead.

I concede to Ruck.

It's fine.

As I did for Ferris Bueller, I was right to be recast.

Leave all of this in.

Yeah, have either of you ever received an anonymous note from a neighbor?

I never have, but to be honest, I'm known for being exceedingly kind and compassionate.

That's true.

Fair enough.

When I lived in a building with 21 other apartments, we received a note about a loud party we hadn't had.

Which I felt offended by because I also didn't know who had had it, so I couldn't forward the note.

Right.

We'd had zero parties.

You know, if you're writing a letter to your contractor or builder or flowerbed lorry designer,

you are at least signing your name, even if you're venting anger.

Yeah.

An anonymous note is not only, I think, intrinsically cowardly and threatening,

but also the the opposite of neighborly

you know the point of reaching out to a neighbor even if it's to convey something that's critical or difficult to talk about is that you're trying to maintain a neighborly relationship yeah it feels like with this note it must be by somebody who lives very close by and so the recipient How would they feel comfortable in their home being watched all the time by these people, none of whom they can trust.

Yeah, just in case.

And by the way, anonymous letter writer, we're on to you.

Alan Saltzman's already identified you have a backward-leaning handwriting.

Some very strange kerning as well.

Yeah, strange kerning.

Thank you.

Finally, someone notices the kerning.

I mean, it's just a matter of time.

And we know you live nearby.

We know you have a dog and a daughter.

Yeah, we know you can't pick up your daughter effectively.

Yeah, you effectively can't pick up your daughter.

What if the daughter's in her twenties?

They don't offer that information.

What if they already couldn't pick her up anymore?

Comfortably, my favorite part of this anonymous note, by a wide margin, is that they thought, what were the consequences of the dog jumping forward?

Well, it was uncomfortable for me.

I could say I threw out my back, but that wouldn't be true.

And I'm nothing if not honest.

That's true.

So

I'm going to say it effectively throughout my back.

And the other thing that we know,

we know that they live in New Hampshire, and we know that the anonymous letter writer, the anonymous neighbor with the dog, has a limited knowledge of New Hampshire state or county law, because fireworks are totally illegal in New Hampshire.

It's like light fireworks or die is on their license plate.

Everything's legal in New Hampshire.

That's right.

They don't even have to wear seatbelts, do they?

I don't know.

I don't know anymore.

All I know is that when you drive across the border from Vermont into New Hampshire, you know it's happening.

Because in Vermont, you're on these wonderful, beautifully, even,

luxuriously funded state roads, and then you cross into New Hampshire, and it's just like you fall off a cliff into a canyon of potholes.

There's just a sign that says residents must know karate.

The sad thing is, if this person had made this non-anonymous, then they might have received an apology for their

back

and other injuries, physical and emotional.

But the way they've done it, they're not going to be fulfilled by this either.

It's a very bitter act.

If you're writing a letter of complaint, as we have established, you can either express anger or you can express constructive criticism.

This is a letter that expresses anger, and because it is unsigned, it is intimidating and scary.

Now, I could see a situation where you would want to express even constructive criticism

to a neighbor

where you might fear reprisal of some kind.

And if that were case, that's an extenuating circumstance in which a letter might be unsigned.

But don't give all these clues about who you are and who your dog is.

That said, I have some critique for the other anonymous letter writer as well.

One, fireworks drive dogs up a tree.

We know that

now better than ever because there was just this rash of nightly fireworks in most urban cities for mysterious reasons and people with dogs, their dogs really suffer.

Two, if you live part-time in a state where fireworks are legal, such as, let's say, Maine,

Augusta is the state capital, particularly if you're in Hancock County.

Noise travels and fireworks get shot off.

You should let your neighbors know that you're going to do it if you're going to fire off more than one.

In this case,

a fountain firework,

one fountain firework, I think you probably could get away with on your own property without getting pre-approval from your neighbors.

But that just leads to my other critique of you, anonymous listener.

whom I love in my heart, but still, fountain fireworks are the worst.

Why would you waste time, money, and neighborly goodwill on a fountain firework to begin with?

Now, I am deeply sorry that you are run out of town by anonymous accusations.

That was a turn in this letter that I did not expect.

That was a big, dramatic, novelistic turn.

And I'm very sorry that happened, and I can appreciate why an anonymous letter would...

would traumatize you, but all the more reason that you should know that writing an anonymous letter itself is bad.

Stand behind your words, whether you're writing to a podcast or whether you're talking to your neighbors.

Especially if you're talking to your neighbors.

You have to live near each other.

I think that there's nothing you can do.

This letter succeeded in its purpose of making you feel awful.

You have to tear it up.

put it behind you.

Please stop at stop signs.

That's probably a good idea.

Even in New Hampshire, that's highly recommended.

But try to put this past you and keep an eye out on your neighbors.

See if you can figure out who it is.

Finally, we have heard from a listener named Amelia who has a dispute with her parents.

Here's what she says.

Dear Judge Hodgman, my name is Amelia.

I am nine years old.

We listen to your show a lot and congratulations on your Webby Award.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amelia.

That's very kind.

During COVID-19, my parents are bickering a lot over meaningless things because we're cooped up together.

Here's one example of a meaningless thing.

My dad wants sliced pickles for putting on hamburgers, but my mom says the sliced pickles taste different.

Also, she says buying whole pickles is better because you can slice them or spear them.

My dad says, this is my favorite part of this whole thing.

My dad says he just wants normal pickles that normal people eat.

Oh.

Thank you for providing the direct quote there, Amelia.

They've got such different life goals, her mom and dad.

I know.

They also bicker about my dad's water schemes.

In case you were wondering if dad was the practical one, he freezes water and puts it in insulated cups.

I'm not sure what that means.

Also, mom uses the word task instead of chore.

Please tell me.

Now that's when it becomes an omnibus

complaint.

Right.

Please tell my parents to stop bickering about meaningless things.

Helen, do you say task or chore?

Sometimes both.

I feel like they're words that can both belong in the lexicon.

I don't understand the grievance there.

Hang on, hang on.

Hang on a second, Helen.

Hang on, a San.

I have to talk to my wife.

Kath?

She says both task and chore.

Neither of us win.

Damn it, Helen.

Darn it.

Sorry to come between you.

I thought I was going to get a two for today.

All right.

If there's a third one, then that could be the important tiebreaker.

All right.

What does Helen Saltzman feel about sliced pickles versus whole pickles?

Well, I feel a lot of things.

One is, can this household not keep two jars of pickles?

One for the normal people and one for the whole pickle people

who want the variety rather than just single-use pickle.

Also,

some advice from my mother about marriage is to choose your battles.

You know, if you're going to kill each other, make it about something really worthwhile, not the pickle slices.

And she has tolerated

an unhappy marriage for 50 years.

Sage advice from Helen Saltzman.

I'm going to say this:

I do not normalize one form of pickle over another.

A sliced pickle versus a whole pickle is like an audiobook versus a book.

Equivalent experiences.

But there is reason to have preference

because you can't buy a whole pickle and slice it in the way those sliced pickles come with the ridges.

Sliced pickles sometimes have little ridges in them.

That's a different thing.

Well, you're talking about pickle chips?

I think we're talking about sandwich slices, but you would have to have extraordinary knife skills to generate at-home sandwich-sliced pickles.

That's cut flat the long way.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

That would either generate a huge amount of waste or just be extraordinarily difficult to do at home, even with a very sharp chef knife or a mandolin or whatever.

I think Helen Saltzman is right.

Pick your battles.

Pickles, not worth it.

Keep two jars.

Freezing ice in insulated.

I'm not sure even what's going on there.

It sounds like they're just making ice cubes.

Don't normalize pickles.

They're equivalent pickle experiences that are different and you need to honor them.

And be like Helen.

Use task or chore interchangeably.

Doesn't matter.

But the point is, mom and dad,

you're hurting your daughter.

Amelia's nine years old.

She doesn't want to listen to you bicker.

Knock it off.

Sit down together, the three of you, and enjoy an Alan Ruck movie.

I don't even know that Alan Ruck was on 10 episodes of a reboot of The Exorcist in 2016.

That's my evening sorted out.

Helen, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Thank you for letting me help you save lives.

I'm going to repeat my recommendation of Helen's work.

Answer me this, which I was introduced to many years ago when I had dinner with Helen in London, England, in a very nice Indian restaurant.

And

she said, Oh, I have a podcast too.

And I said to myself, Oh, no.

Oh, God.

I have been a loyal listener of Answer Me This for many years.

It's a wonderful show.

Helen's co-host, Ollie, does a great job as well.

I think we can all agree, not as good as Helen, but a great job nonetheless.

Ollie's really great.

I've had lunch with him as well.

And it's a show where they answer all kinds of questions from general knowledge, interesting information to etiquette to advice.

And it's always a hoot, and I always learn something when I listen.

And The Illusionist is her show about the

unusual contours of language, especially the English language.

And that is also a hoot.

If you want to learn the history of bras through a lexicographical

lens,

then I recommend The Illusionist.

And Veronica Mars Investigations.

What can I say?

Veronica Mars, it's a fun show created by a guy named Rob Thomas, who's not that Rob Thomas, a different Rob Thomas.

There's room for more than one Rob Thomas in this life.

Two jars of pickles is fine.

Sliced and whole.

There's the light rock Rob Thomas, and then there is the super nice Rob Thomas, who one time was on a live sound sound of Young America in Los Angeles.

I'm talking about 10, Veronica Mars was still on TV when it happened.

It was 10, 12 years ago.

And he said, hey, listen, I can't make the early call.

I'm going to be just on time.

I've been in the little brother, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program

for the last 15 years, and I'm going to my little brother's high school graduation.

He's going to college next year.

And I said, yes, that is a great reason for you to be just on time for my live show you're doing out of the kindness of your heart at a 40-seat theater in Santa Monica.

So, Rob Thomas, nice man.

Rob Thomas, nice man.

Sliced or whole.

You got to love a Rob.

Our docket is now clear.

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

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your Judge Sean Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this 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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