Inbox, Outbox, Catbox, Birdbox

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

With me, as every week, is the star of Fox's Herman's Head, Judge John Hodgman.

I'm sorry, Jesse, once again, you got me confused with Yearly Smith.

The classic mistake.

Well, joining us as well here in the Max Fun studio.

Hang on, hang on.

I know we've got a very special guest.

I'm so excited that this person is here.

But I got to say, I watched Herman's Head in its original run when that was on Fox.

I watched it.

I was down with Herman's Head, and I was like, this yearly Smith is going places.

I didn't know that she was the voice of Lisa Simpson.

And then I met her.

You didn't notice from her extraordinarily distinctive voice.

No.

You have to understand, this was, you know, 100 years ago.

And I was, and then I met her.

I met her at the Emmys, and I said, I loved you at Herman's Head.

and she didn't talk to me.

All right, go on.

Iced.

Iced by Yurdley Smith.

Maybe Yurley Smith doesn't need my snarky jokes.

Our guest is the millennial Yurdley Smith, the host of Max Fun's own baby geniuses, a writer on HBO's Smash Hit

action comedy, Mary.

She also has a stand-up special premiering on Comedy Central's digital platforms on March 8th.

The one and only Ms.

Emily Heller.

Emily Heller.

Welcome.

So happy.

Thank you so much.

This is the reunion that everyone has been waiting for.

The Code Fellas Reunion.

The Code Fellows Reunion special.

The fans have been clamoring.

Now, look, everyone knows who Emily Heller is.

And you probably don't know that she and I co-starred in a web-only animated project co-created by Brian Spinks and David Reese called Code Fellas, where we played spies and we had the greatest time doing voices together.

That was truly very fun.

I had a great time.

I think about that more often than I probably would just because I occasionally will check to see if someone has made me a Wikipedia page.

And when I look up my name, Code Fellows comes up, but I do not have my own Wikipedia page.

You still don't have a Wikipedia page?

No, I think someone tried to make one crudely and they did a bad enough job that Wikipedia was like, this isn't real.

But you're notable, right?

You've been written about twice.

twice.

I feel I should

have one.

Yeah, I'm notable.

I am an award nominee and winner at this point.

Yeah, both.

Yeah.

You deserve a Wikipedia page, if only for the Getty Images prank.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

I mean, think of the images they could use.

I guess you couldn't use the Getty Images one.

We should explain.

Emily, can you tell us what John is referring to?

John is referring to, I mean, and if you Google my name, it will be one of the first things that comes up, which I'm very proud of.

I went to the Emmys last year for the first time as a producer on Barry, and I

custom-made a clutch that looked like a Getty Images watermark so that on the red carpet I could hold it up and in the picture you wouldn't be able to tell if it was a Getty Images photo or not.

My idea was I was like, well, I don't think anyone's going to take a picture of me unless they have a reason to.

But also,

also my feeling was like,

I kind of feel like the Getty Images watermark has become its own symbol of I was at a fancy place.

And I felt like, as I can just buy that now.

Yeah, folks, if you don't know, Getty Images is a stock photo company.

They take pictures of celebrities at all sorts of red carpets and social events and premieres and stuff.

And then they sell those images for use in newspapers and magazines and websites and stuff.

And before you can own them, they have a watermark on them that says Getty Images.

And Emily perfectly recreated the watermark and put it on a clutch that she held in front of her.

And it looked like she was in a Getty Images photo.

It was really, really, really funny.

And so thank you very much.

That is just one section in the Wikipedia page that I am challenging a listener of Judge John Hodgman to make.

Stop the podcast and go make it right now.

And then you can come back and listen to the rest.

That's for you.

Emily, are you prepared to meet out some justice with us on this program?

Always.

Let's get right into it.

Here is something from Lauren.

My partner, Troy, still uses physical paper statements for his bills and transactions, which end up accumulating in unsightly piles all over the house.

When I try to get rid of these piles, he claims he will file them, which really means they end up in one large heap on his desk.

While I agree that some paper statements are unavoidable, most of this deluge of paper could be avoided if he were to sign up to receive electronic billing.

Not only would this reduce the amount of clutter in our home, but it would also be less wasteful and overall better for the environment.

Please order Troy to sign up for the paperless statements so we can get out from under this paper.

Wait.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Oh, Lauren, I think you could have resisted.

Yeah.

Emily just turned against you real hard.

Oh, yeah, that knocked me right off the fence.

Emily Heller.

Do you want me to start?

Well, I have a question for you.

You can take this as a prompt, or you can talk about whatever you want.

You know, I grew up in a time,

nostalgia is a toxic impulse.

That's what we say on this podcast.

I don't like to romanticize the past, but I grew up in a time

where mail came in the mail, Herman's head was burning up the TV screens,

and Parker Lewis couldn't lose.

And I was contacted by the phone company to say that we hadn't paid our bill in the house that I shared with a bunch of young people.

And I needed to find the bill to prove that I had paid it.

And I couldn't find that bill because I threw it away.

And since then, I've hoarded every paper bill that I've ever gotten.

And it's not healthy.

But you are of a new, younger generation.

Your generation Getty images.

I am.

Do you even know what a paper bill is?

Yeah, I have a giant pile of them on my desk.

Oh, you do?

Okay.

Yeah.

Here was what was going through my mind listening to this call:

even if

this Troy person signs up for online billing, that will not solve the organizational problem at the root of this.

Go on.

Simply hoard the e-bills on his computer and be similarly ill-equipped to tackle them.

As someone who has like a very disorganized office, I understand that like having a physical reminder of a task you need to do is sometimes your way of

remembering to do it.

But I also think this is more of a,

if possible, a couples counseling issue where it's important to have a space in your home that is just yours, that does not belong to your partner

where you can hoard to your heart's content and keep it away from the other person so that it's not an issue.

But I do think the situation won't change until Troy wants it to change.

So let me understand what you're saying here.

You suspect, as I do, that Troy is disorganized.

That even if he were to get only electronic bills, he would hoard those electronic bills and is basically disqualified from adulthood and can't handle himself.

No, I don't know.

Not necessarily that.

No.

Perhaps he has diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD.

Sure.

I was diagnosed two years ago, and one of the many,

you know, symptoms of ADHD is a pile of papers that you don't know what to do with.

But I apologize for making the mistake, obviously, of long-distance diagnosis of Troy.

And I take that under advisement.

But I think you're quite right that if he hoarded electronic bills, Lauren might be happier because they're not lying around all the place.

But at heart, he would still have the anxiety that the pile represents, and that maybe he needs to seek some amelioration for that as an underlying issue.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Either way, signing up for electronic bills will not address the core problem that's at the root of this, which is that this person does not have a workable system for dealing with their bills.

And

my guess is that e-bills would be the same.

And what I recommend,

rather than creating a rule of no paper bills, would be, and this is, you know, setting aside whether or not this person has diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD, but just as someone who has ADHD and is learning how to cope with it, one of the ways to alleviate the burden of some tasks that are harder for people with ADHD is to ensure that there is sufficient structure in place to prevent everyday tasks from looming over you, because that makes you incapable of approaching them.

So if you as a household decided we are going to have a very structured, non-optional time of the month when we deal with our bills.

Right.

So it's not something that you have to will yourself to opt into, that would probably help Troy approach this stack of bills more easily than just telling him to get it under control.

And possibly a physical analog as well, like a place where the bills go when they come in the mail and a place where they go when they've been handled.

Yes, an inbox, an outbox, a shred box.

A cat box.

Yes.

A worm bin.

A bird box.

A worm bin, yeah.

You're talking about like a compost heap in the living room?

Fantastic.

This would be a way for Lauren to support Troy rather than just complain about him to a podcast, is what you're saying.

Yes.

One of the things about ADHD is that the pressure to do something,

sometimes like the way you think about a task as something that's like preventing your happiness can lead to a spiral of shame and inaction.

Right.

So if that's what's going on in this situation, Lauren, then I think you should have a conversation with Troy and figure out how you can help him deal with this pile rather than just feel annoyed by it.

And now, unsightly piles are unsightly piles.

I think, Emily, you also made a very good point, which is that maybe it's unsightly to Lauren, but Troy doesn't feel this anxiety.

Maybe this is just the system that works for him.

And maybe it just looks ugly to her.

And in that case, that's why it's important for people who live together to have certain private spaces

where they can be.

To be disgusting.

To be disgusting.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So, you know, Troy, if you're doing this in your office,

or your den, or your work nook,

then I think you're entitled to say to Lauren,

buzz off.

If you're doing this on the dining room table, then you need to police your pile a little bit.

So those are

a couple of the nuances to this case, but ultimately, this isn't a nuance podcast.

This is a judgment podcast.

In whose favor do I find?

Do I order Troy to go paperless, or do we tell Lauren, buzz off?

What's your vote, Emily Heller?

I rule in favor of Troy.

In favor of Troy.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, we don't usually do this as a tribunal, but go ahead.

Tell me your vote.

I'm willing to find in favor of Troy if there is an alternative system being put in place.

Yeah.

Right.

I absolutely agree.

I rule conditionally in favor of Troy

so long as his paper is not in a shared space and so long as he has a system that is working for him and he's not working for the system, I have no problem with him staying paper full.

But Lauren should support him and make sure they both should make sure that the system is working for Troy rather than than dominating his every waking moment with fear and anxiety.

Here's something from Rachel.

I often use a ballpoint pen around the house.

After I'm done, I typically leave the ballpoint clicked open.

This irritates my husband.

He will follow me around the house while I use a pen, and if I leave it clicked open, he will pick it up and theatrically click it closed while I am watching.

I doubt that clicking the ballpoint down actually increases its lifespan, and I don't think my husband actually cares about the pen's lifespan.

I think his actions are just a manifestation of his anal retentive personality.

Thank you, Dr.

Freud.

If you find in my favor, I seek damages of a new box of ballpoint pens from my husband that I can leave open whenever I want.

If you find in my husband's favor, he seeks damages of a nice pen only he is allowed to use.

So, look, there's been already some discussion of mental health, and anal retentive is a term that is borrowed from Freudian psychoanalysis, which is one school of psychoanalysis, a fairly old school of psychoanalysis, and anal retentive speaks to a personality that is preoccupied to distraction with little things, little details, like whether the pen is clicked in or not.

Now, I know that there are a lot of

younger people who listen to this podcast, maybe people who are in high school biology.

So you folks probably also know that anal refers to the anus, which is a part of the body.

The anus is also the opening or hole at the end of a digestive tract.

That hole is also what this husband is being in this case.

Just wanted to get that.

He's being a little bit of a digestive tract hole, if you know.

Do you disagree with me, Emily Heller?

I don't disagree with you.

I think he's being a little ridiculous.

This is one of the...

Because what is Bottom?

There's a lot to break down.

There's a lot to break down here.

There's a lot to break down.

Is he worried about the cost of ink?

Because this is one of the lowest cost things to just let slide.

It sounds like there's another issue at play here.

Oh, you think so?

I'm not sure.

I think he really wants to make those bicks last.

It's just about the pens, for sure.

Of course.

Why would it be anything else?

Maybe the fact that rather than just sort of gently clicking the ballpoint back in later after she's done with it, he follows her around until she's finished.

That's a profoundly aggro thing to do, dude.

Don't do that.

It's very aggro, but I do have a small question, which is like,

if it does truly bother him so much, I do think that, you know, every relationship should have some allowances for some irrational emotional behavior.

Little weirdsies, little weirdies.

Linda Holmes calls them.

The little weirdsies.

And I do wonder whether it's absent-mindedness or malice that leads this woman to leave the pens clicked open, as she puts it, which I don't think actually describes the situation, but I don't really know what word to use otherwise.

Look, none of us are writers here.

Yeah.

So you actually falter for not clicking those pens closed.

I don't falter, but I just have questions.

Not that his reaction is reasonable, but is there a small part of her that is trying to provoke subconsciously the irrational reaction in order to feel some sort of moral superiority?

Either way, it sounds like a great marriage.

It really does.

I have one

point of distinction here that I would like to make because I agree with you entirely, John.

This husband's behavior is way beyond the pale.

He's being a total end of digestive tract.

But

there are a couple circumstances.

Like, Rachel presumes that his objection is the lifespan of the pen.

I would be surprised if that was his objection.

I don't think anyone

believes that the lifespan of a pen is a true metric because everyone knows that no one has ever used all the ink inside of a disposable pen.

Right.

I think the bigger concern, more likely,

is

accidentally marking things.

That's a great point.

And that comes to me as a person with a two-year-old in the house who will pick up any pen and mark things with it.

Yeah.

So, you know, in the event that she is putting the pen down on, you know, the arm of a white sofa or something equivalent, rather than putting it away open in wherever the pens go,

I understand his concern to some extent for that reason.

I agree.

I think you're absolutely right.

Although I think his behavior is nonetheless appalling.

Yeah.

Right.

Although I do think the emotion at the root of his behavior is: I need you to show me that my concerns matter to you.

I need some kind of demonstration from you

that what matters to me is important to you whether you share my concerns or not.

Can I tell you guys something that happened in my family?

Yes.

Yes.

We found ourselves often running out of pens at home because of the three

pen hoarding, pen disregarding, mad people who live in our house, my seven-year-old, five-year-old, and two-year-old.

And so I went on Judge Sean Hodgman's parent website, the New York Times Wirecutter,

formerly the sweet home.

And I looked up Best Pen and I found something called a Uni Ball Jetstream, which is a clicky pen.

And I bought some of them for my wife for Christmas.

In fact, I bought enough of them that we would never want for pens for at least years to come.

And it has been such a joy and delight in my life to always have a really good $3 pen around.

Yeah.

It was so worth the $40 that I spent on pens.

That's, you raise a good point because what Rachel says, like, if you rule in my favor, we will buy a bunch of disposable pens.

If you rule in his favor, we will buy him one nice pen.

Do both.

Yes.

Exactly.

I feel like a lot of times people get married and they assume they have to integrate every part of their lives without thinking critically about each additional integration.

It sounds like you guys need to be a pen-independent couple.

Yeah, you shouldn't integrate every part of your lives.

Really, you should integrate very few of them.

You married this other person because you love this other person and because it is another person.

Yes.

The rules don't all have to be the same within a household.

And you're absolutely, I mean, certainly there are different styles,

shall we say, of tidiness,

certain different standards of tidiness that may be asymmetrical that might cause a person, say me,

to be distracted all the time because there are socks in places where they shouldn't be.

And sometimes it's just one sock and you don't know where the other one is.

Places where they shouldn't be, like hands or ears.

Not on the body, on the on different parts of the floor, which is to say any part of the floor.

But I have learned to respect that sock hampering is not always a priority for the people with whom I live.

And I think that you raise a very good point.

First of all, Rachel's husband stopped following Rachel around.

That's not okay.

But Emily Haller, you raise a very good point, which is that it may be that Rachel's husband feels that his concerns, whatever they may be, are not being paid attention to.

And that makes him feel, you know, sad and alone.

And he lashes out.

And it may be that his concerns are not being paid attention to by Rachel because he's annoying.

And

he's being really annoying about it.

And she is consciously or unconsciously unclicking pens willy-nilly to show him that he's not the pen boss of her.

Yes.

These dynamics are not good.

And I would say that Rachel's husband stopped following her.

Rachel, take a minute.

You don't seem to really know, or at least in your petition to this court, you speculate that he's worried about the life of the pen or the ink.

But it could be something much different that when you hear what it is, makes more sense to you.

Or it could be simply him saying, it just drives me to distraction.

I can't explain it.

Please, please.

you know, if only to express your love for me, click the pens closed so I don't have to think about it all the time.

And then maybe do that a third of the time, and then I'll feel okay.

Yes.

Can I relate a quick anecdote about my own relationship?

I hope you will.

I believe I am the Rachel in my relationship.

I am a disgusting slob who knows nothing of cleanliness.

I don't think about what I do or where I put things.

And I am partnered with someone who is not that way.

And he has in some ways civilized me.

And the way he has effectively and gently done that is to explain to me the reasoning behind the certain ways he's optimized his life.

One of the, I think, earlier things in our relationship that he made me think about that I hadn't thought about before was:

I should have a hand towel in my bathroom that is not the towel I rub all over my body when I get out of the shower.

As a courtesy to my guests, perhaps maybe that means that that towel is not clean if it has been rubbed all over my body, even if it is when I get out of the shower.

Or, and I should maybe not wipe my face off on the same hand towel that people are using to dry their clean hands.

And

just walking me through the logic of that was very helpful.

It was easy to grasp.

I'm a smart person.

I just hadn't thought about it.

The lighter side of husbands' systems.

Do you think you would have gotten to that understanding quicker if he had followed you around the house growling on the back of your neck?

I think the most surprising thing about this letter is that they reached marriage

before

understanding the reasoning behind the decisions they make around the house.

I technically find in Rachel's favor, I order her to get a whole bunch of pens that she can do with what she wishes, but hear your husband out and try to understand what he cares about and buy him a pen that only he can use.

It's like an O.

Henry story, but they win this time.

Yes.

Let's take a quick break.

More docket clearing coming up in just a minute with the great Emily Heller on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

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

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket, joined by Stand-Up Comic Emmy nominee winner?

Nominee.

Nominee.

Nominee.

WGA Award winner.

WGA award winner, Emily Heller.

She has a brand new stand-up comedy special coming to all of the Comedy Central

streaming platforms.

What are we looking at?

Comedy Central app?

The app, their YouTube, their website.

I think that's it.

The app.

That's the history.

That's great.

What's it called, Emily?

It's called Ice Thickeners.

Ice Thickeners.

Oh, like conversations that go wrong.

Not ice breakers, ice thickeners.

Ways to get to important, uncomfortable conversations.

I like that.

Yeah, it comes out on March 8th, International Women's Day.

I set out to record a comedy special with no men in the audience, and I did not succeed.

Sorry, I just really wanted to see the show.

We didn't succeed.

Now, I think you should hear my laughter.

However, I am asking that men refrain from watching it.

Wow.

I'm at your mercy.

The power dynamic here is complicated.

But if I find out that the numbers aren't good, I would like you to pitch in and watch it.

But let's just see how things play out.

Well, we're so happy that you're here and here to help us dispense some more justice.

Shall we continue?

Here's something from Christopher.

I've played video games with the same username for about eight years now.

My brother's starting to become old enough to make his own accounts, and he's using names that are very similar to mine.

My username for almost all my gaming accounts is YoungBlood2354,

and he chose to use YoungerBlood2354.

In a game we play together, I named a flying pet Sky.

He got one and also tried to also name him Sky before I found out and stopped him.

I don't believe he should be able to take the names I use.

He doesn't see an issue with it.

Emily, I kind of feel like I'm going to let you handle this one

because I'm going to be busy over here walking into the ocean because I obviously have no business being alive on this earth anymore.

I don't know what this is about.

My experience with video games was when I was 12 or 13, my parents got me an N64 and I didn't leave the basement for a solid month.

And I learned a thing about myself, which is to be afraid of video games.

What was your game that took your brain over?

The game was Banjo-Kazooie.

And I beat it three times.

Oh, wow.

And it messed me up for a while.

There was a period of time where I wouldn't leave the basement for 12 hours except to get another hot pocket.

But I understand

intellectual property disputes.

I understand a sense of encroaching sibling identity.

I think it's very natural for a younger sibling to look to their older siblings for guidance.

and to wish to emulate them before they have individuated their identity in a real way.

I think.

And if I may, and I'm an only child, so I'm speaking out of turn here.

But like to look to their older siblings for guidance and to emulate them because they love them.

But if they can also get away with annoying them at the same time, that's a win-win for the younger child, right?

Absolutely.

As the youngest of three,

I can confirm that as true.

Right.

I think that you're not going to get anywhere by getting your younger sibling to stop copying you.

That's not a thing younger siblings will ever do until they're adults, maybe.

What you can do

is to assist them

in crafting their own identities in this game.

Oh, all right.

Take an active interest and role in

how they name their creatures

because really this stems from a sense of admiration they feel toward you and what would mean more to them than you taking an interest

in this aspect of their lives?

Wow.

This thing that they are trying to share with you.

You know, Emily Heller, when we find the emotional core

of a case, we call it finding the crux.

Only because at one time I said, I think the crux of this is, and I found it, and I'm known as the crux finder.

Can I say it usually takes me about

75 minutes to get to the insight

that you got to just just then?

Absolutely.

Emily, listen, youngblood2354.

First of all, your name is dumb.

These are not the intellectual property you need to cling to.

Yeah, do I need to tell the audience that none of this is capitalized?

It's all just run together.

And why, why 2354?

Like, this is, like, I understand when you're, when you're, look, I had to sign up for an AOL account.

John Hodgman was taken.

They suggested John Hodgman 39 or whatever.

And I'm like, no, I came out with something that didn't have numbers.

I worked hard to come up with something that didn't have numbers at the end.

So I don't know whether these numbers are assigned to you because there are at least 2,353 other Youngbloods out there, or whether this is an aesthetic choice that gamers use to add a whole bunch of numbers at the end of the thing.

I don't care what it is.

Youngblood,

your name isn't that cool.

Your name isn't that cool.

Don't worry about that.

And second of all, Youngblood2354,

listen to Emily Heller.

Emily's telling you the truth about Younger Blood2354.

He loves you.

Now, look, if you wanted to get back at him, I wouldn't blame you.

You know what you should do?

You could change your name.

Change your name to his given name.

His legal first, middle, and last name.

And the numbers should be his Social Security number.

Get it from your mom.

But don't dox your brother.

Don't dox your brother, Youngblood.

Listen, Christopher, his real name is Christopher, according to this.

We don't,

you have to understand, just like your little brother is like copying you, both to express his love for you and also to sort of needle you for attention, you have to understand that we're all very elderly.

And

when we make fun of your handle, it's only because we know that

we are breathing cemetery air even as we speak.

We have one foot in the earth while you are just now rising.

So call yourself whatever you want.

Although I must clarify, Emily and I are millennials.

That's true.

I'm a floating skeleton in a robe over here.

Here's something from Kira.

My significant other Tim and I are trying to do our part to consume more consciously.

We usually agree on how to best respect our planet, but recently we've been feuding about which grocery store to go to.

Tim wants to start living, hashtag zero waste, and shop at a store with a hefty bulk section.

Unfortunately, several local food co-ops have closed recently, meaning that the closest option for packaging-free bulk goods is provided by a grocery store owned by a certain online retailer.

FogDog.com.

I've been pushing for shopping trips to the local supermarket that has been a neighborhood institution since 1974.

Though it has no bulk section, I'd rather shop at this thriving local business instead of paying Jeff Bezos,

owner of FogDog.com, a premium for food.

I'm seeking an injunction to prevent Tim from throwing our money into the coffers of an evil corporation by way of dried beans and bulk granola.

John?

Yes.

This evil corporation is your employer.

Yes, I know.

I don't.

Look,

Emily Heller, you can disagree with me if you want.

But I'm going to say this.

Take it easy on the evil here, Kira.

Evil.

I use Amazon.

I'm on the tick season two, premiering April 5th, Amazon Prime.

And, you know, the young people of the world will tell you, there is no ethical consumption in capitalism.

You can't shop cure.

So, you know, and how do you know that this local grocery store that everyone loves, you know, that the owner isn't secretly a racist or whatever?

You don't know.

You don't know.

You don't know who's doing the best in the world and you're doing the worst in the world.

You know, maybe your local grocery store has factory farm pork.

How can you look in the eye of communities that have their water poisoned by pig feces in a factory farming area?

Or maybe they're selling beef.

You're destroying the earth.

I mean, it's just the way it goes.

I'm not a nihilist,

but we don't have to speak in terms of evil necessarily.

And rather than being a moral scold, I think, Kira, you could reasonably point out the contradiction in Tim's thinking and action.

If he wants to reduce packaging

and the impact of packaging, then it does not make a lot of sense to go to Whole Foods

and thereby support Amazon, which uses a lot of packaging.

I'm not saying don't use Amazon.

Make your own moral choice.

But if his goal is to reduce packaging in his life,

then the place he's going to is probably not the place to go to.

And he needs to find another food co-op that's a little further away or maybe a little bit more inconvenient so that he can drive his fossil fuel machine as far away as possible to save the earth from a single plastic bag or whatever it is.

Emily,

how do you feel about it?

Am I just a monster or what?

No, you're not a monster at all.

Here's my feeling on it, because I was raised by hippies and I've always tried to

recycle, reduce, reuse, et cetera.

I grew up on that cartoon commercial where someone's brushing their teeth and the water's coming directly out of a lake and the fish in the lake calls the person on the phone to tell them to turn the water off when they're not actually putting their toothbrush under it.

Yeah, also don't brush your teeth with lake water.

That's gross.

But here's the truth of the world we live in.

Our choices and consumption will not save us.

Which is not to say there's no hope.

It just means that the only true way to

change what's happening is to focus this fretting energy that you are spending, worrying about your own choices, on pressuring your lawmakers to more thoroughly regulate the companies that are destroying the earth.

They have done a big trick on us by convincing us that our choices are to blame for what's happening and that our choices are the only way to do anything about it because they don't want us turning on them and regulating them.

What we need to do is regulate them.

That's the only way out.

Yeah, and the War and G solution.

Yes.

Part of the trickery that governments have, and specifically our government, have used to avoid enacting policies on a large scale that are going to reduce waste, reduce climate change, et cetera, et cetera, have been to encourage this idea

tacitly and directly that there are virtuous products you you can buy that will fix the problem for you.

And that's just not necessarily the case.

It's just not true.

Yeah.

I mean, live the way you need to live.

Support the businesses that you feel good about supporting.

Do what good you can in the world, but, you know, don't fret and bother, as Emily Heller said, don't spend so much energy fretting over whether you're each living up to your preferred hashtags in terms of what you buy.

Tim can go and get the food that he needs to get, and I don't care where he shops, and you can go shop at the local store and your dollars are going into your community in ways that balance each other out.

It's not a zero sum.

And in the meantime, write a letter or call a congressperson.

Yeah, or, you know, just start a garden,

recycle your toilet water,

get a worm bin going, drop out of society.

There's no way to participate.

without contributing to suffering.

So, you know.

Although, to be fair there was a guy named bob who had a show that came on after uh jordan and i on kz our college radio station in santa cruz california and bob lived in the woods on eighty dollars a month and only came into society to record Angela Davis speeches to cassette tape that he could then replay on his radio show

and

when he would record the Angela Davis speeches to cassette tape he would often mess up our recording of our radio show and that's why there's some of our radio shows that I don't have a recording of.

So, you know, you could be that virtuous and still be causing.

Yeah.

When I lived in Santa Cruz,

I lived in a house where someone else who lived in the woods decided to move in with us.

And I was not consulted on this decision.

And

this person liked to live off the land.

We should explain.

This person was a marmot.

This person liked to dig things out of dumpsters and eat roadkill and things like that.

And

that sometimes led them to putting Roadkill in our freezer without asking us.

And that also might have been the more conscientious consumption, but it still made that person a jerk.

So Kira,

I got a rule in Tim's favor here.

I think you should point out to him the inherent contradiction if he wants to reduce packaging in his life that his particular behavior is embracing.

You can find him some better bulk places to go that maybe he can bike to, but otherwise, stay out of his way.

Hashtag life is a lonely journey.

You'll never be pure.

Take action, vote, and

pressure governments to regulate businesses.

Is that right, Emily Heller?

That's what you said, right?

That is correct.

And I have no opinion as an NPR journalist.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear about Tapwater and the knock versus handle jiggle debate with ReRestrooms.

We'll be back in just a second on the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast.

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

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's Learn Everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

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

Oh, we're ruined!

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

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

With me, Judge John Hodgman, our guest, stand-up comic and WGA award winner, Ms.

Emily Heller, also co-host of the Great Baby Geniuses podcast.

Here's something from Patrick.

I have a dispute with my wife, Tara.

Both of us are perfectly fine with drinking tap water, but she harbors a prejudice against filling a water bottle from a bathroom tap.

She's not an otherwise germaphobic person, so I find this specific objection to drinking perfectly good tap water irrational.

Hmm.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Emily Heller, what do you think?

Do you know if he's talking about like the bathroom at their house or like public bathrooms?

I think he's talking about public bathrooms.

There was a broader context in the original petition that we edited down for length a little bit.

Sorry, Patrick.

But it was pretty clear that Patrick was talking about in a public place, if they could not find a water fountain or a bottle refilling station, he would take his bottle into the bathroom and fill it up, and Patrick's wife, Tara or Tara, would say, no, thank you to that.

And he's like, that's irrational, and you must drink it.

So I'm I'm not a scientist, but I do know this.

When you smell poop, it's because there's a little piece of poop in your nose.

That's correct, right?

Which means...

That's just basic natural philosophy.

It's just basic.

So

if you're in a bathroom and you can smell anything that you don't want on the lip of your water bottle, I absolutely understand why you wouldn't fill it up in there.

And there's all those reports that came out about those electric hand dryers, how what they're actually doing is just aerosolizing.

Yes.

They're just launching all of the germs from your hands all over the walls of that bathroom.

The water itself might be fine, but the faucet that it might is coming out of is just covered in little pieces of poop.

And I think that it's reasonable to be squicked out by that.

And whether or not you're in real danger, I think it doesn't matter.

You

want to drink the water.

Yeah,

I agree with you.

And I mean, like, Patrick could go into that bathroom and take swabs and send them to a lab

and be able to prove scientifically that there is no little bits of poop floating around.

and that would not transmit to the water.

But this is one of those little weird seas that we were talking about earlier.

And little weird seas is a little bit, I mean,

credit, of course, to Linda Holmes, our friend, for inventing this term, which I think encapsulates it perfectly.

The only imperfection about it is that it seems a little diminishing, right?

There's nothing little about a little weird sea.

If you feel it, you feel it.

And if you're causing no one else any harm, then there's no reason not to respect that feeling.

It's like, it smells like poop in here, and I don't want to drink water out of this thing.

I'd rather wait.

It's hard enough to get yourself to drink water in the first place.

It's boring.

It's tedious.

It tastes worse than other things.

I'm going to be honest with you guys.

If there was a sparkling water faucet in a public bathroom,

I'd drink straight out of

a water bottle and vibe.

Mouth on the handle.

Oh, yeah.

But that's you, Jesse Thorne.

That's you.

Yeah, that's true.

I'm normal, and we're talking about weirdsies.

I think, here's the thing, though.

I think the point of a relationship as intimate as a marriage is specifically to get close enough to someone that you can say here are my weirdsies

love me yeah

yeah

that's the whole point that's the whole beautiful thing to say to be with another person yeah because otherwise it's it's really a pain in the digestive tract hole

to be with another person.

I mean,

there are obviously intrinsic benefits and

sort of unexplainable, magical things to sharing your life with someone else.

But if you're expecting the other person to adjust to your own weirdsies,

which you mask as rationality,

if you're expecting someone to click the ballpoint pen in the way you need the ballpoint pen to be clicked, and mask your weirdsy as the only scientific, right way to do a thing, is

punitive and strange.

And what Emily Heller said, I think everyone should listen to again and again.

Hit your 15-second rewind button on your podcast machine.

Just maybe over and over again.

Well, thank you.

Listen, full disclosure, I had therapy this morning.

So I'm approaching this from a much rawr, more emotional place than I would on a different day.

But I just think the world is so beautiful and messed up that we need to love each other.

Thanks, Emily.

You can cut that out.

I agree with you.

No, I think we're cutting all the rest of the show out.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just going to be a one-sentence podcast, finally.

I mean, preference in food, in art, in music, in where we go to shop, what kind of experience we want to have when we go out into the world,

knowing what makes us feel gross and knowing what makes us feel good.

This isn't about about adhering to a hashtag to be morally

consistent.

Hashtag moral consistency.

Sure, thank you very much.

This isn't about

adhering to a completely strict rational logical order in order to honor science or logic in some way.

You develop preferences in order to survive, in order to make life more happy and less sort of miserable to get through.

And when you know that you don't like something, that's not easy to know.

But when you know you don't like it and you avoid it, that's great.

And it's not easy to even know what you like, right?

Because there are a lot of people telling you what you should like and what you shouldn't like.

When you know what you like and you go and you get it, that's great too.

Preference is a survival tactic.

It is not an arbitrary, irrational thing.

So long as your preferences don't hurt other people.

And so long as you're like Emily Heller,

you're talking to yourself, you're talking to your therapist or whoever it is in your life, and you're getting to know that your preferences are real and not just stuff that you've inherited from an upbringing or from a commercial or something.

We also heard from past litigant Laura from episode 161 Cold Case.

Her dispute at the time, and that's quite some time ago now, was about whether or not to run the air conditioning.

But the case was also the catalyst for one of our tenets of settled law.

John, do you want to share the tenet in question since since it was one that you determined?

I was so happy to hear from Laura.

You may recall that Laura was living with her then-boyfriend in Germany, and she wanted to get an air conditioner, and he did not.

And we talked about the cultural differences between Europe and America with regard to air conditioning, and eventually they did not get an air conditioner.

But I learned during that case that they lived within driving distance of a massive indoor German water park

housed in a former Zeppelin factory.

And they had not yet been to it.

And I got angry at them about it.

And so

it's now settled law in this court that if you are within 250 miles of a German water park that is housed in a former Zeppelin factory, it is mandatory that you visit it.

And send me the bill if you have to.

But she was writing in this case about a dispute, Emily Heller, that we had with regard to proper etiquette.

When you're in a shared space, like workspace, and the bathroom door is closed and you don't know if there's someone in there and it's a single-use bathroom do you knock on the door or do you jiggle the handle to check if it is locked and you know it's a single-use bathroom yeah there's only one facility in there there's one there's one hole for your digestive tract hole you knock knock of course you knock you don't jiggle the handle it's going to freak someone out no i'm a handle jiggler i think it's less freaky than knocking Oh, well, let's hear what Laura had to say about this very dispute.

Jesse Thorne, will you read the letter, letter, please?

There's significant debate about this in my office, which has a particularly bad bathrooms to people ratio.

One of our co-workers has started responding to knocks with, come in.

I really like this as an alternative to the options you discussed because it turns the table and makes the knocker feel weird and uncomfortable.

We don't know who this co-worker is because people

usually flee the bathroom upon hearing that reply.

I love the mystery bathroom ghost.

He goes, come in.

I endorse that solution.

So this was episode 161.

We're now on episode 400-something.

This is like ancient history.

And as much as I am grateful to Laura for writing in, I'm mad at her because she didn't let me know.

She went to the water park and took pictures.

And she didn't tell you about it?

She didn't tell me about it.

Like, we're not the oldest friends.

So how did you find out about the pictures?

I just said, Did you ever go to that water park like I told you to do?

And she said, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot to tell you.

As if you had no stake in this?

Yeah, it's like we, as if we hadn't shared life together.

And, of course, we have Laura's pictures from Tropical Islands Water Park in Germany on our show page at maximumfun.org and on our Instagram, instagram.com/slash judgejohodgman.

You can check them out there.

Emily, your brand new stand-up comedy special is going to be on all of Comedy Central's digital platforms on March 8th.

That's March 8th.

International Women's Day.

Please, no men watch it unless she's unhappy with the numbers, in which case, please do.

I am at your mercy.

The docket is clear.

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

Our producer is the ever-capable Ms.

Jennifer Marmer.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.

O.

And check out our Maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this episode.

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

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