You Can't Acquit With Us

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne, and with me, as always, is justice personified Judge John Hodgman.

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Stay tuned for the nitty-gritty.

That's I can't wait to get nitty and gritty, but let's go.

Now, this week's case, you can't acquit with us.

Stephanie files suit against her younger sister, Ashley.

As kids, they both created clubs with their friends and each excluded the other.

Stephanie believes that Ashley started her club first, excluding Stephanie and sparking this years-long dispute.

Ashley disagrees.

Stephanie would now like to be retroactively inducted into Ashley's childhood club.

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.

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind killer.

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Bailiff Chessey Thorne, please swear them in.

Stephanie Ashley, 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 he doesn't want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member?

Yes.

Yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

You have that a little bit wrong, Jesse.

I only want to belong to clubs that desperately want me as a member and that don't require me to do anything to get in.

in.

Like, I feel like the Yale whiff and poofs should have just said, You're in, even though you don't sing very well.

That's how I feel.

From the tables down at Maury's, come on, guys, put me in the mix.

Stephanie and Ashley, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

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

Question mark.

Stephanie, do you have a guess?

I'm going to guess the tick, the animated series.

The tick, the animated series.

That would be probably the least obscure of the three versions of the tick,

but still very obscure.

Ashley, what's your guess?

I am guessing that it is an excerpt from a mission statement of one of your secret childhood clubs.

Well, I'll put that in the guess book, but I being an only child had one club, the club of me.

There was no other member.

And all guesses are wrong.

Sorry.

In fact, that was the litany against fear.

I was really taking a risk with this one.

If either of you had ever read the Frank Herbert novel Dune or had any glancing familiarity with that cuckoo book, you would have known this one right away.

You would have said Dune, because it is from the science fiction eco

epic Dune.

Sean, you were not not exactly in safe territory making a reference to Dune with Judge John Hodgman listeners.

No, that's what I'm saying.

It was a real risk.

Did I say I was in safe territory?

No, you didn't.

You were rolling the dice there, buddy.

Yeah, I thought it could be, I was like, Stephanie Orasley is going to get it.

And then I'm going to have to be like, well, what is it called?

The Litany Against Fear.

And then I would say, well,

what is the super secret space club of women with psychic powers who created that litany against fear, who banded together behind the scenes to manipulate generations of births to genetically create the galaxy savior, the Kwisatz Haderach.

What would be the name of that sisterhood, Stephanie or Ashley?

Any guess?

I'm not aware.

The sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit, of course.

You guys got to read Dune.

It's good.

It's a good book.

Do you ever read Dune, Jesse?

I tried to read Dune once.

It's very readable.

I've never read any of the other ones, but I like Dune a lot.

All right, anyway, here we go.

So let's see here.

Stephanie, you bring the case against Ashley, and your complaint is that when you were children as sisters, Ashley excluded you from a club?

Explain.

Yes.

So this dispute stems from, we're talking about circa 1994.

I would have been in third grade, and Ashley would have been in first grade.

We're talking about the era of the animated tick.

That's what it's

also the era of the pog.

Yeah.

My friend Lacey and I had a club called SL Pogolators.

It was a Pog

So, Stephanie, you had a club

with Lacey called SL Publishing.

It was a Pog pog club.

I didn't know this would hit you this hard, Jesse.

That wasn't in the notes that I read, so it was a surprise.

I thought it was pretty fun when she said it was the era of the pog.

But I didn't know it was a pog club.

You guys have some really good metal slammers?

Plastic.

I had a plastic one.

I didn't know that was going to set off a Jesse Thorne laughter storm.

That was good.

You know how I feel about the caps from passion fruit orange guava juice bottles.

Yeah, for those who don't know, and honestly, I count myself among them because I was a grown man when Pogs were a thing.

Stephanie, what were POGs and what was the mission statement of the SL Pogolators?

Pogs are about a silver dollar shape,

thick paper, and you stack them up.

It's a pretty simple game.

You basically stack all the pogs up.

You have a slammer, which is a plastic or metal thicker piece, that you throw at the pile, and you're trying to flip the pogs over.

They have a kind of a front side with a 90s memorabilia on it, and a back side that's blank.

Alf.

The front side has ALF on it.

And the back side has like what on it?

Just white paper, it's blank.

I don't understand.

The slammer, how do you

throw it at the pile like a skipping stone, like a mini frisbee?

A mini frizz?

Or what?

There's different techniques.

Where does the slamming come in?

Yeah, I think the only rule, as far as I know, is that your hand can't be in contact with the slammer when it hits the pile, so you've got to throw it.

But there's different, I think there are different techniques.

I was quite the expert, but I was trying to refresh my knowledge on how the game works.

Yeah, because you've left childish things behind you, and these dumb childhood clubs don't matter to you anymore because you're a grown woman.

Or, oh, no, no, you're not at all.

You're living in the past, and you hold a grudge, and the grudge is against your sister.

Yes.

Now, SL Pogolators, may I presume that S and the SL and SL Pogolators standed for Stephanie and Lacey?

Yes.

I presume they were the only members of the club?

Yes, it was a two-person pog-playing playing club.

And what were the...

I think Jesse's laughing because Pogs is a game that's not any fun with two people.

How many people normally get in on a POG match?

Well, the more the better, really.

You play for keeps, so

with two people, you're just kind of passing them back and forth.

It's really improved by having more than two people in it.

Yeah, Pogs is a little bit in spirit like marbles,

which is to say that part of the purpose is to collect Pogs, and then in playing Pogs, those Pogs that you manage to flip over with your slammer, you get to keep.

So

it's sort of like a children's collecting game, just like in marbles, the marbles that you I mean, I don't know exactly, I didn't grow up in Brooklyn in 1952, but I think the marbles that you knock out of the circle you get to keep.

So it's sort of like a gambling game of skill for children involving ALF and possibly Denver the Last Dinosaur.

And these pog discs, these thick paper pog discs, they originally started like as beverage,

like the liner of a beverage cap, right?

Or like a milk cap?

Exactly.

It's a Hawaiian game

based on the cap liner of a bottle of Pog Juice, which stands for Passion Fruit Orange Guava.

It's a blend that you can still buy in Hawaii and some other places.

Oh, wow, I never knew that.

But then it traveled to the mainland and became a mania

in the early 1990s.

You slammed some pogs, Jesse?

I slammed a few pogs in my time, yeah.

What would you say is the best technique for slamming pogs?

Because I don't understand from Stephanie what the physical action is.

Sorry, Stephanie.

Well, first of all, you're going to need a powerful slammer.

So Stephanie only had a plastic slammer, which is an okay slammer, but you really ultimately are going to want a metal slammer.

And that could really set you back.

I mean, you're going to have to go to that baseball card and comic book store and either buy a lot of packs of random ones or really put in an investment of $5

to get yourself that.

premium metal slammer.

And then you are holding it flat between your thumb and middle finger with your index finger on top and slamming it directly flat downwards.

And your goal is to kind of

hit the pile both powerfully and somewhat off-center, sort of like how you would flip a tiddly wink,

so that as many pogs are not only thrown into the air, but flipped over as possible.

And you're slamming it onto the surface of the table or the street or whatever, and it bounces up to hit the pile?

You're slamming it onto the pile, directly onto the pile.

Directly onto the pile.

How about that?

Yeah.

Sounds fun.

Should we change this into an all-pog podcast?

I think it would be more popular.

A podcast, as it were.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so Stephanie, you have this very lonely club of two pog players called S.L.

Pogalators.

And then what did Ashley do to provoke, in your opinion, this dispute?

Well, Ashley had a club with her friend, Lauren, that was called the Mr.

Thowel Club.

Mr.

Thowel?

T-H-O-W-E-L-L?

Yes.

It was pronounced with a T-H, but it was...

Was it

a vowel?

Was it related to the concept of a vowel?

No.

It wasn't completely unrelated.

It was a vowel-heavy language.

A language?

Hang on, let me turn to Ashley and get a sense of what her club was all about.

Ashley, you're the younger sister, right?

The younger sister, yes.

And you guys are in Virginia now, correct?

But did you grow up there?

Yes.

Okay.

And tell me about the Mr.

Thowel Club.

So the Mr.

Thowell Club, and I'm big enough to admit this, it was really lame.

It was essentially me and one other person.

Wait, I mean

lamer than S.L.

Poggelators?

Well, you know, you're...

Yeah, not as cool as most first-grade clubs.

You know, one thing I have to correct you on is that the SL Pogolators was very cool.

It was very cool.

It was very hip.

It was exclusive.

It was where everyone wanted to be, especially me.

Everything about it was awesome.

So Ashley, you really wanted to be part of the SL Pagolators.

Oh yeah, it was awesome.

What made them so cool?

I mean,

you're the younger sister, right?

So were you just looking up to your older sister?

Oh, yeah.

What was going on?

Yeah, Stephanie and Lacey were always really awesome.

They were, you know, two and three years my senior.

And so they did everything first.

You know, they were cheerleaders on the Pee Wee football team, which, mind you, I tried out for and got cup from.

They, you know, were like walking, talking encyclopedias of early 90s boy bands.

And then they played pogs, and they were really awesome when they did it.

And Lacey had a lot of pogs.

So kind of between them, just the amount, the volume of pogs they had to play with was envious.

Right, but they were just pushing those pogs back and forth between each other because it was so exclusive.

Right, right.

Stephanie, what pog were you most proud of?

I know you've been teasing me for my slammer, but I had a silver, sparkly, looney tunes slammer, and it was pretty great.

Wow, overture, like the lights.

This is it.

The pog of nights.

Well, that was our segment called Top Pogs.

You're on the podcast.

Ashley, did you have any pogs at the time?

I had a few pogs.

I also had a silver Looney Tunes slammer,

but I unfortunately did not have anyone to play with, so I did not get to use it very frequently.

Sounds like Ashley could have been a real asset to the SL Pogolators.

Stephanie, why was she not invited to join?

She had the Mr.

Thowel Club.

It's my clear memory that the Mr.

Thowel Club existed first, and that Lacey and I created the Poggolators in response to that.

Although

I have a little confession about that.

I will allow it.

It It doesn't help my case, but then I'll double allow it.

I was researching.

Well, I reached out to Lacey to see if she still had any pogs because I wanted to submit a picture for the evidence.

And well, her first reaction was, why, are Pogs coming back?

And I said, no, I'm going to be on this podcast where we're going to talk about.

She's like, I'm there.

I'll meet you at the ska concert.

So I told her we were going to talk about the uh the poggolators and the mr thowell club and her immediate response was

oh the mr thowell club that's the club that ashley and lauren created after we excluded them from the poggolators isn't it oh so there's a little bit of a greyhouse dispute here in judge john hodgman parlance as to what what actually happened which came first the poggolators or the vowels

yeah ashley doesn't didn't know about that but uh lacey's recollection is in line with Ashley's, I have to admit.

I must say I'm not surprised.

And just because you brought it up, you do have some evidence, Stephanie, specifically Exhibit A being Lacey's pogs.

She still has them.

You sent in a photo of her pog collection, and this, of course, is available on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

And I don't know if you're seeing this, Jesse.

As a pog neophyte, this is a pretty impressive collection of pogs to me.

What do you think?

Now, I'm opening up the pog collection here.

I'm seeing a lot of holograms, which is very impressive to me.

One of them says, Be my Valentine, which is that's a seasonal hologram that's double valuable.

There's also what looks like a unicorn pegasus, which is one of the most powerful creatures.

In pogs or in general,

I think both in pogs and in general.

But

in pog parlance, a unicorn pegasus is something you're looking for?

Well, I think you're looking for holograms, but you're also looking for incredible creatures.

Like that red cardinal just sitting there on the grass.

The red cardinal that is apparently from a series of pogs that just depict types of bird

is a less impressive pog, I have to say.

What about these cartoonish uh footprints uh that are styled in the in the flags of the united states and then i guess the republic of ireland respectively is that something you're looking for footprint flag pogs well i mean i wouldn't turn down a footprint flag pog

i'm no quentin tarantino but it's fun is that something that's common stephanie the ffp the footprint flag pog gotta get them all

not that i'm especially aware of but there was a a wide variety i think these Disney pogs also look like particularly covetable pogs.

I see one featuring Aladdin from the movie Aladdin, of course, with his famous monkey on his head.

Yep, classic monkey head pog.

And then I'm seeing one featuring Cinderella from the movie Cinderella.

Oh, yeah, that's what that one is.

Yeah, that looks good, too.

She also submitted a picture of a genuinely impressive holographic bunny rabbit and a big yellow pog tube, which I'm going to be frank, in retrospect, definitely looks like something you keep drugs in.

It looks like a big, tall film canister, but it's the size, that's where you keep your pogs in

the cylindrical carrying case.

Is that correct, Stephanie?

Yes.

So on a scale of awesome to radical,

where would you place Lacey's Pog collection?

Well, I'm going to say I'm seeing relatively few exciting branded characters.

I would have liked to have seen perhaps some characters from U.S.

Acres,

the off-brand Garfield.

I mean,

the other half of

the Garfield television show

that had maybe an egg with feet.

I don't remember.

There was an egg with feet.

There was a pig named Orson.

These things I recall.

But I think overall, especially given the sheer volume of reflective and holographic pogs, it's a not unimpressive collection.

And I would say that the holographic Be My Valentine, which is a type of love pog,

and the blacklight poster style eyeball with lightning bolts are two of the real highlights.

So first of all,

I now wish upon you a career as Antiques Roadshow only Pog

of Razor.

Like, would that be a blessing or a curse?

I mean, it would be a curse, obviously, but like, Antiques Roadshow called you up, Jesse, and said, guess what?

We finally, we really need you this time.

We want you to be on Antiques Roadshow once a month, but you're only allowed to appraise Bogs.

Would that be a yes or a no?

Well, you know, the experts on Antiques Roadshow aren't paid and have to pay their own way to the places where they tape Antiques Roadshow.

Oh, my gosh, really?

That's all true,

but I think I would still do it.

All right, good.

You know, I got an email from them once.

I'll let them know.

I'll let them know that you're interested in the job.

Stephanie, are there any pogs in this collection?

And Ashley, we haven't forgotten about you.

This is not an exclusion of little sisters right now.

You're going to get your full due.

But I'm deep into this pog culture now.

This is my life.

Stephanie, are there any pogs in Lacey's collection that used to be yours?

I'm sure there are.

Do you remember losing in a bad beat?

I don't have any.

There aren't any specific memories that come to mind.

I mean, most games kind of went the same.

The game kind of goes the same way no matter when you play it, but we just kind of traded back and forth.

And it became...

Yeah, but there was a day when the SL Pogulators disbanded and the last game of Pogs between you and Lacey unfolded.

You're not haunted by the loss of any of these particular POGs.

There's no one that got away in here that you wish you could have back?

No.

As far as I can remember, I never actually purchased any of the pogs.

I think they all came my way through playing the game.

So they just kind of come and they go.

They're transient.

Right.

And you've left pogs behind, obviously.

You don't have your pogs, do you?

No, I don't.

No.

So the whole thing, you didn't even care about the pogs.

He was just excluding your sister, it sounds like

making her feel bad.

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.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Let's talk to Ashley for a second.

Ashley, tell me about the Mr.

Vowel Club.

A very, very interesting title for a club, arguably,

better and more creative than S.L.

Poggley's.

Perhaps.

Both are charming.

Ashley,

what was the Mr.

Vowel Club?

What was its charter?

What was its mission?

Who were its founding members?

So we were a group, a group of two, who we kind of had a little bit of a setup.

It was kind of like a Charlie's Angels type deal where we had an kind of invisible slash imaginary boss who would instruct us on things like our secret language and what games to play and, you know, silly faces to make towards each other.

And that was pretty much it.

Did you have characters?

Were you playing characters within the context of the Mr.

Thowell Club?

No, just ourselves.

And this imaginary Bosley-type boss, Bosley being the...

No, Bosley was the friend of the Charlie's Angels.

Charlie was the mysterious voice that only came over the speakerphone to give the Charlie's Angels their crime-fighting instructions.

That was who Mr.

Thowell was in your universe?

Correct.

And how did you channel the voice of Mr.

Thowell?

He had a siren call that I think Ashley should grace us with.

Well, there was a lot of intuition involved.

We just, we just, a lot of telepathic communication, if you will.

I will, if you give me something more to go on than that.

I mean, my question here is,

did one of you, who's your co-angel in your fake Charlie's Angels, Mr.

Thowell gang?

Lauren.

Lauren.

All right.

And so did Lauren do a voice, or did you do a voice, the voice of Mr.

Thowell?

Or would you say, I'm just receiving a communication from Mr.

Thowell?

Yes, I'm receiving a communication.

Often we instinctively knew that each other was telling the truth about the communications that we received from Mr.

Thowell.

Well, I would imagine that's the law of the Mr.

Thowell Club.

Well, no.

There's no liars in Mr.

Thowell.

Right.

And what kind of instructions would Mr.

Thowell give you?

You mentioned something about language.

There was a language that we

spoke which was loosely based on pig Latin.

A secret code language that only you and Lauren

were supposed to know?

That was the intention.

It was not that hard to decipher, in fairness, but the intention was for it to be a private language that only members of the Mr.

Thowell Club could speak and understand.

I'm sorry.

I feel like I've heard a lot of talk about this language, but maybe I missed it.

I haven't heard any talk in this language.

Yeah, can you still speak it?

What is the name of the language and can you still speak it?

The language does not have a name.

It just is.

It just exists.

But it was mostly you take the first letter of a word and then drop the remaining letters and then just substitute them with a lot of A's and then one E.

So for example, my name, Ashley, would have been A.

A.

A.

A.

A.

A.

A.

A.

E.

Pronounced?

How?

Pronounced A.

Pronounced A.

A.

Okay.

Sometimes.

is there a more illustrative example that you can give me?

Well,

like, I would like to play Pogs, please, sister.

How would that come out?

Probably something along the lines of, I would like to pay.

Pay.

How about something simpler, like, please love me, sister?

That would be, please love me, stay.

Okay, you only do one word in the whole sentence?

Yeah, it wasn't particularly inventive.

All right, but let me get this straight.

This is first grade,

right?

Right.

First grade, you and Lauren are channeling an entity

known as Mr.

Thowell,

who is teaching you a secret language.

Yes.

And pardon me, Hannah Smith, producer, you're going to have to bleep this out.

And you wanted to play Pogs?

This was such a cool club.

It's incredible.

This is Stephanie.

The Mr.

Thowell Club is by far cooler than the Poggerators.

I really disagree.

Ashley, what do you, I'm not sure you're fit to judge.

You're too far inside of it.

So, Ashley, from your point of view, which club came first?

The Poggalators.

The Pogglators.

And you and Lauren formed Mr.

Dowell in order to have a thing once Stephanie rejected your application to the Poggle Ators.

Right.

Do you remember the day that you asked to be part of the Poggle Ators and the day that Stephanie said no, never?

Not even when we're in our 30s?

It was really an ongoing process where every single time they would play, they would lock themselves in Stephanie's room and I would beg to play.

Please let me play, let me play, let me play, just this one time.

And every single time the answer was no.

And how did that make you feel?

Well, it made me feel like I was an outsider, like I was less than.

I wasn't fit to play Pogs.

Stephanie, do you recall this happening?

Do you recall excluding your sister from the club?

Yes.

It was most of the fun of the Poglings.

It was just,

it was like a diamond medallion status, a completely meaningless award that you only want because someone else has it.

Yes.

All right.

So, Ashley, here's the thing.

I'm trying to get to the point of where this is still a dispute.

This happened in the distant past.

And part of that has to do with who came first, the thoul or the pogs?

The classic riddle.

Who came first?

The thoul or the pogs?

Your memory, Ashley, is what?

Poggulators first?

Pogolators first.

You know, Stephanie, I think we can now stipulate that probably pogulators

did come first, because that's what lacey recalls right i would say it's in dispute

it's a gray area

but

i don't know about that i do want to say that uh

ashley has continued to give lacey and i such a hard time about the pogolators for so many years that uh yeah you were mean you were a mean older sister

but a few years ago lacey and i uh attempted to make amends by making Ashley a retroactive member and renaming the club the SLA Pogolators.

And what did Ashley say to that?

Mrs.

Ashley, I was delighted to join.

But

there is a but.

So

Stephanie claims that, well, we made you a part of the SLA Pog Leaders.

Well, by what definition?

Because we have never played Pogs.

Stephanie and Lacey sometimes hang out secretly under the guise of having play dates with their babies.

But now we know Lacey still has Pogs.

So what if they're playing Pogs?

I don't know what they're doing.

They could be playing Pogs.

Yeah, but they invited you to join the club.

All you'd have to do is offer them the standard $100,000 initiation fee and then go through the rites and rituals of joining the Pog Laters.

And then you would know all their secrets.

There was no formal ceremony.

It was very much an afterthought.

It was,

I think we were, I think it was Stephanie's Bachelorette party.

And they both kind of, one of them, I don't even remember who, was like, oh, okay, fine, you can be in the club.

And I was like, oh my God, you know, this is unexpected.

This is like a party for me right now.

But there was

a lot of money.

But, yeah, they thought, well, where was the ceremony?

You know, there wasn't any kind of oath or there were no speeches.

It wasn't special.

So I think they did it

really, I think it was unplanned.

We discussed it.

We discussed it.

Lacey and I had deliberations for several hours before making the decision to let you in.

Well, I think the plaintiff has proven herself to be a little less than credible at this point.

So, you know, maybe, maybe not.

You're saying that Stephanie and Lacey just threw this to you, that it was a SOP.

It was nothing to them.

Right.

Plus, there was no pogs being played anymore, as far as you knew, so who cares?

Right.

Right.

Right.

I mean, the poggolators may have been formed with the express purpose of being mean to you from their point of view.

But Ashley, you wanted to play some pogs.

Right.

I'm like, I want to get in on this.

So you said no?

Did you refuse the invitation to the SLA Poggolators?

Oh, I accepted the invitation.

I would never be so rash as to refuse an invitation I'd waited for for over 25 years.

Well, okay.

So then do you feel you had justice, even though you still suspect your older sister of foul play?

No,

I have some requests.

Some requests?

Yeah.

I just forgot.

You're not even the one who's bringing this case.

Stephanie's suing you.

It's a bit of a countersuit, I guess, if you will.

All right, hold on your request for a second because I need to talk to Stephanie.

Stephanie,

you are bringing this lawsuit, and it is clear that you are the wrong party in every way.

So, what are you possibly suing Ashley for?

I sued Ashley because she, even after we've attempted to make amends, she's not accepted

our gesture.

She hasn't,

she continues to give us a hard time about it.

Anytime I see Lacey, it's, oh, did you guys play Pogs without me?

Are you going to see Lacey?

Are you guys going to go see Lacey and form another secret club to exclude me from?

And

it's incessant.

She won't leave us alone.

So

I want it to stop.

You know the saying from the game of pogs?

You reap what you sow.

Sometimes you slam and sometimes you get slammed.

The other thing that's weird here, Stephanie, is that unless Ashley is now lying to me,

she says that she has now accepted the invitation, and you say she's not accepted the invitation.

You also say that she formed the Mr.

Thowell Club before you, but Lacey says that she formed the Mr.

Thowell Club after you as a reaction to being excluded from the Pogglators.

You are as unreliable a narrator who has ever written a Yelp review, as far as I'm concerned.

She accepted the membership to the SLA Pogglators, but she hasn't accepted it as

she hasn't taken it as a resolved issue.

She continues to hold a grudge about the

you were hoping that by

offering her membership in this club,

that it would erase all of her hurt feelings and it would all be water under the bridge, as they say, in pog playing certainly.

Yes, it was an attempt to make amends for our past wrongs.

It was an attempt to put a slammer down on her feelings

and turn you into the good guy, finally.

You see where I'm going with this.

Why are you suing Ashley?

Did you want to join the Mr.

Dowell Club?

Yes, I do.

I think Lacey and I have done the right thing by admitting Ashley into the Apoglaters, and

I think Ashley should do the same thing for me.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Did you ever want to join the Mr.

Thowell Club when it was going on?

Oh, yes.

Because Ashley formed this cool club that was based on imagination and friendship.

She wasn't just playing a game,

playing a mind game on you.

Her club was, it was,

I think it was designed to be attention-grabbing.

They would run around doing this

call.

What was the call of the Mr.

Dowell Club?

I'm trying to make Ashley do it, but I don't think she's going to.

You have to do the imitation of it, Stephanie.

Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo.

It had a little more like putzpah to it when we did a few days.

Well,

you're invited to set the record straight and do it yourself.

Oh, I couldn't possibly.

That would be gauche.

Why?

Because it would violate a secret of your order, or because you're scared.

The former.

Ashley, apart from the obvious vitriol

between you and Stephanie, you know, the Charlie's Angels had three members.

Why not invite Stephanie in?

You know, why not broker a piece years ago and say, you want into Mr.

Thowell Club?

Great.

We'll teach you the language.

You change one letter of one word of every sentence you say, and then you go,

and

you also have to receive transmissions from a weird extra-dimensional being.

But you've got to let me into that pog club.

You could have quashed this beef then.

You could have brokered a piece then.

Why not?

You know, to induct someone into a sacred club is a big deal.

It's not something I take lightly, unlike the plaintiff.

It's, you know, something that needs, there needs to be a lot of thought and a lot of effort and ceremony, and it needs to be special and unique.

And I would never just offer someone admission to the Mr.

Thowel Club without really putting forth the groundwork that would need to go into that.

So maybe at some point that would be reasonable.

But at this point, I'm still, frankly, I'm still upset.

I'm still upset about not being in the Poglators.

All right.

I mean, that was your joke, Answer.

Because how many rituals of initiation into the Mr.

Thowell Club have there ever been?

Zero.

You and Lauren got together and just started hearing voices.

You can't tell me that you had like a whole initiation rite mapped out,

a whole system of debating Stephanie's merits or demerits as a potential member.

You just didn't let her in because you were mad because you weren't in the Poglators Club, as you just admitted, correct?

That's fair.

Are you still friends with Lauren?

Peripherally.

We're not as tight as we used to be.

Life just kind of took us down our own path.

So we're not as tight as the Poglators are.

You never call her up and go, woo!

And then slam down the phone.

Unfortunately, no.

Stephanie,

you have a child?

I I do.

I have a daughter.

Because you and Lacey are getting together for mom dates and play dates and stuff?

She lives a couple states away, but we still see each other pretty often.

And Ashley, do you have a child?

I do not.

Mm-hmm.

Interesting.

All right.

So, Stephanie, what would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor, and why should I?

I would like you to rule that Ashley needs to let bygones be bygones, except the gesture that Lacey and I made by inducting her into the pogulators as

that amends have been made and that there's no further wrongdoing and leave us alone about it.

And I also think she should do the same for me and let me into the Mr.

the Owl Club.

It says here, you also want Ashley to acknowledge that she started the dispute.

Is that something you still believe is true?

Well, in light of the new evidence, I'm willing to concede on that one.

Ashley,

what would you have me order if I were to find in your favor?

I think a very reasonable ruling would be the following.

I would like both sides.

We're not in the same room, but I feel like I'm hearing you unspool an ancient parchment on which you have written your demands.

I think it would be very reasonable

for both of them, both Stephanie and Lacey, to prepare a written apology in which they accept that they excluded me from the club on purpose.

They apologize for that.

And then they then offer me a real

role of membership in the SLA Poga Leaders.

I then think we should commemorate the new membership, the real membership, with some kind of ceremony.

And I'll be, you know, I think we can compromise on what that process would be.

And I would like to play at least one game of Pogs with the SL Pog leaders.

If all of this was provided, would you suitably induct Stephanie and perhaps Lacey into the Mr.

Dowell Club?

I think that would be reasonable, yes.

All right.

You're ready to settle this.

Stephanie, all she's asking for is an elaborate written apology.

Do you think you and Lacey can provide that?

I'm not sure, even if we did, that it would meet her standards.

You think that she is shifting demands, that she just wants to get you to humiliate yourself with an apology, and then we'll start making more demands?

Yes.

Is there any evidence to suggest that that is Ashley's modus operandi?

Well, I think the past 25 years of her teasing us about it are the evidence.

What does the teasing mean to you?

You're the big sister.

You've got a life.

You've got kids.

Who cares?

Well,

to me, it reminds me of a part of my childhood that I'm not proud of.

I'm not,

I don't like being reminded that I created a club to exclude my sister.

So it doesn't make me feel good to be reminded

that that happened.

Ashley, how does Stephanie feeling bad about herself around this make you feel?

Well, I don't want her to feel bad.

Are you sure?

But I would like,

I would like.

Seems like you enjoy it.

I think it's high time for us to bury it.

All right.

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

Before I go into my secret star chamber here in the windowless tomb that is my private clubhouse of one,

there is one other piece of evidence, Stephanie, that you submitted.

It is Exhibit B, Jesse Thorne.

I'll let you look at that before you usher me out of this courtroom.

Wait.

This dog isn't really sleeping, is it?

This is Stephanie's dog, Riley, sleeping

on a bed, a dog bed.

That's how he sleeps.

He's not.

No, he's itching his back or something.

No, that's how he sleeps.

Ash is waiting for him.

No, he doesn't.

Don't try and fool me.

Everyone can go look on the Instagram Judge John Hodgman of the show page.

But I'm going to tell you, Jesse, it took me a long time to figure out which was the head of this dog and which was the tail.

This isn't that dog.

This is a furry Mobius strip.

Google Images recognizes him as a cat.

This is so weird.

This is the kind of pictures people should be sending me.

If your dog doesn't sleep upside down, don't at me.

Well, I'm happy.

Okay, good.

Can you get me out of here?

Yeah, please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Stephanie, how you feeling?

Well, not great since the judge basically told me I was wrong.

So I'm not feeling too good.

Are you feeling bad because you've been abusing your sister or because you're going to lose?

A little bit of both.

Ashley, how are you feeling?

Well, I think that went very well for me.

I was not expecting a third witness to come in and basically prove my case, so that was a nice little treat.

But, you know, I think we'll have a good, a fair ruling.

If you could have one pog in the world, any pog in the world, what pog would you like to have?

Hmm.

I don't know, maybe one of those meta-slammers that you're talking about, because I had never heard about that.

It probably would have been unsafe to let a bunch of eight-year-olds play with those.

But, you know, we're all grown now, and I think I'm ready for a metal slammer.

How about you, Stephanie?

Probably just something like a 90s insignia that said pal

would be pretty cool.

Yeah, okay.

I mean, you two are really setting your sights low there, but I'm going to let it slide.

We'll be back in just a second with Judge John Hodgman's ruling

you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe

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 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.

So, I like you both very much, right?

Ashley, you are a provocateur, a classic poop stirrer, a grudge holder, a poker in the ribs of your sister.

Truly, the picture of a Mr.

Vowell Club member.

And Stephanie, you are at best misremembering the order in which these clubs were formed and the purpose for which they were formed.

You are trying to rewrite history such that Mr.

Thowell Club came first so that you can cast yourself as the aggrieved party who had no choice but to form the SL Pogolators.

and exclude Ashley from your room as payback for being excluded from her special club.

But Lacey, unfortunately for you, undermined that.

And I do think that it is a misremembering, because you yourself know that why you are rewriting this history, because remembering it accurately makes you feel bad.

You formed a club with your cool friend to play the coolest game on earth, Pogs.

But you didn't care enough to even remember which pogs you had, which pogs you cared about.

You didn't even care about which pogs you kept because your pogs are thrown to the winds.

You form the club

in order to needle your sister.

And that's what older sisters do.

I dare say it's what all older siblings do because it's fun.

And now,

now

all that has happened in the ensuing

two and a half decades is actually needling you back.

reminding you of this time in your life when you were less, slightly less than gracious.

I don't think you were outright mean, but Ashley felt bad.

And now she takes pleasure in making you feel bad.

Yes, you do, Ashley.

You do take pleasure.

I can tell.

I think the first thing that needs to happen for your relationship to be repaired and for you to progress is for Stephanie, for you to acknowledge that this alternate reality that you constructed in order to make yourself the good guy, and indeed to justify your bringing this case to me as though you were the wounded party, when clearly the wound is entirely borne by Ashley, is to acknowledge this and to not just offer a membership in the Pogglators as a throwaway at a bachelorette party,

but to really get out a quill and parchment,

get some Pogolators' letterhead,

write a letter of an apology from you and from Lacey, and indeed the entire Poggalators organization,

acknowledging that the club was formed, at least in your mind, purposefully to exclude Ashley.

And you may even need to apologize to Lacey too, because it seems like Lacey actually liked Pogs.

Whereas

you just liked the sad sound of your sister banging at your door.

I say this not merely to rule in Ashley's favor, which obviously I do,

but also because it's important, especially since you and Lacey are now once again in a club to which Ashley does not belong, which is motherhood, parenthood.

You are once again at a slightly different and yet pivotal stage of your lives.

And Ashley's on the outside looking in.

Ashley, you like your niece?

Oh, she's the best.

She's adorable.

I'm also her godmother.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I have no doubt.

I mean,

I'm not suggesting that just because you like hurting your sister, you don't like your niece.

Of course you like your niece.

But this informs...

I wanted to establish for the record that obviously

you have love for your sister, Stephanie.

You have a love for her daughter.

You probably enjoy being an aunt.

You're probably an amazing aunt.

Would you say that's true, Stephanie?

Yes, it is.

And what kind of child does

Lacey have?

She has a boy.

She has a boy.

And she lives a couple of states away.

She's in New Jersey.

Based on the geographical information you provided me, I'm prepared to make both my ruling and my sentence.

First of all, obviously, I rule in Ashley's favor.

As I said, a written apology is an order.

Ashley, I then order you to drop all beef, slam all beef down.

Gross.

Sounds gross, but you know my intention.

Try to draw everything into pogs.

It doesn't work.

That's, you know, maybe I shouldn't be running a podcast after all.

You got to let it go.

You got to let it go.

And then

I want, Stephanie, you to invite Ashley to be part of the Pogolators.

And you guys are going to get

a couple of rooms rooms in a nice hotel about midway between where you are in Northern Virginia and where Lacey is in southern New Jersey.

Or maybe in Airbnb.

And you, Stephanie, and your daughter, and Lacey and her son, and Auntie Ashley here,

are all going to meet there.

And there will be an induction ceremony.

I would like pictures of it.

And then you're going to play an incredible game of pogs.

and finally give Ashley the justice that she deserves.

And Ashley,

you are going to forgive your sister and Lacey,

and then

you are going to take their children and secretly induct them into the Mr.

Dowel Park.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

How do you feel, Ashley?

I think it's a very fair ruling.

And I think we can both adhere to it, especially the last part.

How about you, Stephanie?

I feel pretty good.

Even though I lost, Ashley has to drop the beef.

So I feel good about that.

Slam the beef.

Well, I just forgot about something.

This whole ruling, by the way, is contingent upon Ashley doing the call.

If Ashley doesn't do the call, I'm going the other way.

And the beef continues.

Oh, gosh.

Well, there's only one thing I can do, which is Oh, oh!

That's the sound of a gavel.

Thank you, guys.

Stephanie Ashley, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Our thanks to all of Max Fund's members, everyone who's retained their membership through tough times, everyone who's added a membership, everybody who's upgraded a membership.

We're grateful to every single one of you, and we cannot thank you enough.

Hey, Jesse, I have a question.

If I wanted to gift a membership to someone else, can I do that?

Absolutely.

This is something that

was a lot of work to implement, as it turns out, but we did it because

this is something that people have asked for in the past.

But given the fact that there are so many people out there whose circumstances have changed,

so many people out there who wish they could become a member, but just aren't in a position to, and there have been so many people who have reached out to us and contacted us and said they want to do something to allow those people to become members.

You can give a gift membership at maximumfund.org slash join.

So if you're already a member and you're looking for a way to do a little something extra, that benefits maximum fun and it'll benefit somebody who otherwise isn't in a position to become a member.

If you haven't had a chance to become a member yet, you can do so at maximumfun.org/slash join.

I'll say it again because I like saying URLs.

Maximumfun.org slash join.

I also want to give one more thank you, not just to our members and not just to all the folks who are buying tickets to the events that benefit the Equal Justice Initiative,

but I also want to thank

my father passed away a couple weeks ago, and

I shared

some stuff about him and his life on Twitter and on social media.

And I offered that if people wanted to give a memorial gift, they could give it to an organization called Swords to Plowshares in San Francisco,

which is a veterans organization that does direct services for veterans.

And it's one that my dad received services from when he was a homeless addict who was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

And it's a place where my dad worked after he got clean.

And

they just dropped me an email and said that they

raised about $10,000 in my dad's name.

And I'm very grateful to everybody for that.

And

I also want to thank

just

out of the blue the other day, I got an email from my dad's hospice doctor.

And I hadn't been able to be up there in the Bay Area where he was in hospice at the VA hospital because of

pandemic restrictions.

And

she sent me an email and she said just completely coincidentally she was a Max Hunster

and that she knew about my dad and realized it was him when one of the nurses mentioned to her that he had been a peace activist.

And she said, Well, if he was a peace activist and his last name is Thornton, it must be Jesse Thornton's dad.

And my dad had pretty advanced dementia by the time he passed away.

And the doctor told me that she was able to connect with him

over long lunches when

she was in the hospice center because she knew so much about his life and work

and

it was the most vivid

illustration to me of the effect that

our community

has had on my life and my family's life

so I want to thank her Her name's Dr.

Chubbuk.

I'm probably pronouncing it wrong and it's Chubuk or something.

Sorry, Doc.

But more than that, I just want to thank everybody who

helped me in remembering my dad and

earlier this year in remembering my friend Evan who passed away and

who have been so kind and supportive about me being away from the show as much as I have been, which is obviously not what I want.

I love doing this show, and who have made it possible for us to make this kind of business over the past decade or so?

So, thanks, everybody.

And especially thanks, Dr.

Chubbuck, for helping my dad.

And thanks, John and Jen, for the kindness that you guys have given me.

I'm so proud to work with you and so grateful to work with you.

We love you, Jesse.

And,

you know,

it's hard to express that

when,

you know, you're crying and your tears are mixing

with the sweat from standing in a laundry closet.

But the stories about your dad were very inspiring and meaningful to me over the years and

part of

the deep DNA of this show.

And

to quote him, I'm sorry I stepped on your gerbil.

A true classic.

Sometimes you step on people's gerbils, and all you can do is say, I'm sorry.

When I think about the legacy that my father left to me and the rest of my family, and my father was a complicated man with many failings, but also an extraordinary man.

And one of the things that he always taught me, and it's something that he learned

when he was working as a peace activist, as a Veterans Peace Activist.

And, you know, among other things, they wanted to march in the Veterans Day Parade and the VFW wouldn't let them.

and when they joined the parade the VFW and the cops beat the crap out of them

and

he told me that story

and he laughed about it because it was so dumb that they did it not that they joined the parade

but what a dumb reason to beat somebody up

and um

And he used to say,

if you can't laugh, then what's the point?

And he was not funny, but he was an amazing laugher.

And he loved,

he even loved when I told that story about him stepping on my hamster, which is probably

his way.

I mean, he's the one who stepped on the hamster.

So it was, I can't imagine it was anything less than nightmarish for him.

But

I don't think I would have gone into this work if it wasn't for him.

So

I'm so grateful to him for teaching me to laugh in the face of pain.

And I'm grateful to you guys for giving me the chance to do that every week.

It's such an important part of my life.

And I'm grateful to my dad for teaching me that

anytime I need a laugh, I can just think about the time that he was talking about how funny you were, John.

But he described you as, and this is a quote from my dad, your friend Hausman.

No greater honor.

It's better than Hadegumen

is what I easily get.

Yeah, so look,

most of the podcasts that we do here at Maximum Fun,

they're pretty comedic.

And I think

it's been a pretty unfunny time.

And it's been a real joy and privilege and consolation to be able to provide some distraction.

We have Swift Justice coming up in just a second.

We want to do a show, right?

Yeah.

We want to thank Ryan Stratton for naming this week's episode You Can't Acquit With Us.

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

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

And check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

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

This week's episode was recorded by Peter Solomon at Virginia Public Media back when people were allowed to go into radio studios.

This week's episode produced by Jennifer Marmer and Hannah Smith who have been doing extraordinary work in extraordinary circumstances.

We're so grateful to them and Jesus and all of our colleagues at Maximum Fun.

All right, what about us with justice?

Steve says, is it okay for me to ring the bell on my bike as I'm approaching pedestrians from behind on a shared pathway?

I ring my bell to warn them I'm coming, but often they're startled by the noise.

Help!

Why doesn't he just throw pogs at them?

That's what this podcast is about.

Pedestrians are going to get startled no matter what if you're coming up from behind them.

I think you're doing the right thing by giving them a little ding-ding.

As long as you give them a little ding-ding, you're not like, bring, bring, bring, bring, bring, bring.

Here's the thing, Steve.

I understand you're trying to do the right thing.

But whether you ring or you don't ring, you have to remember, you're a bicyclist.

There is no way the world isn't going to hate you.

Pedestrians and cars will hate you, no matter what you do.

Whether you're a good cyclist or a bad cyclist.

And I urge you to be a good cyclist.

There's going to be a certain amount of anger thrown your way.

But the compensation for that is, as a bicyclist, you know in your heart, you're the best person in the world.

That's why you get to wear those pants.

That's right.

You're the most virtuous and best person in the world.

Everyone take care of each other out there on the roads.

Come on, share the road.

Yeah, and it's good to ride bikes.

It's great to ride bikes.

That's it for this week's episode.

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

No case is too small.

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

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