Spider Buddies

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, ready to clear the voluminous backlog of cases that's threatening the integrity of this very building.

With me, as always, Judge John Hodgman.

Yes, even though we are currently on tour of the Western United States and British Columbia, Canada, justice must still be served.

Thus, I am in my traveling chambers, Jesse.

Do you know what my traveling chambers are?

I'm going to say one of those bathtubs full of goo from Battlestar Galactica.

No, that's a permanent installation of my regular chambers.

Traveling chambers are when I sit in the back of the tour van here, hiding under a blanket.

Like bird box style.

You see that bird box, Jesse?

No, of course I haven't seen bird box.

You haven't seen bird box, Jesse?

Everyone's seen bird box.

I mean, what can I say?

I've said bird box a few times.

Even the people who are constantly living under blankets or wearing blindfolds have seen bird box that's how important it is i thought look i don't want to ruin my chance to get into bird box too bailiff jesse thorn i did not like bird box as much as all the other uh humans in the world have liked it do you know what the premise is uh something about sandra bernhardt wearing a blindfold

no it's sandra bullock

sandra bullock thank you it'd be great if it was sandra bernhardt it's still you know what it's a very evocative movie it was a lot of fun to see it's about a world in which there are these monsters and if you see them you cause yourself harm.

So everyone's wearing blindfolds all the time.

I think it's fine.

But after Bird Box, where everyone has to cover their eyes, and then after whatever the Krasinski scary movie was, like Don't Ever Talk or whatever, like don't speak or whatever, stay quiet.

I want to do a horror movie where

it's like this world where you've been invaded by monsters.

And if you smell the monsters, you become a monster.

So you have to hold your nose the whole time.

And you know what it'll be called, Jesse?

What will it be called, John?

Smelt it, delt it.

I think you mean it'll be called Smelt It Delta.

That's right, Jesse.

Thanks.

Let's get to the first kid.

Something from Anna here.

My boyfriend Dan keeps spider buddies around because they're good bugs.

Spider buddies and good bugs are in quotes.

Did you see Spider Buddy, by the way?

I was going to say

another huge movie right now as we're recording this.

Spider Buddies into the Buddies verse.

I've not seen that one, but I hear it's very good.

I say spiders' webs are messy and they leave spider poop.

They're no better than any house fly or any other bug.

We're moving soon.

Please rule that when we move, all spiders are to be killed on site to protect the home.

Now, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, do you get the impression from this letter that Dan

simply is doing what a lot of people do.

If they see a spider in the house, they go, hey, buddy, and then walk away and leave it alone because spiders eat a lot of other pests, and therefore they're often welcome in homes?

Or do you think that Dan keeps spider buddies, which is to say he has a special room in his house where he sits in a big carved wooden oaken chair and covers himself with spiders and invites his girlfriend to come in and see him in all of his glory?

It seems like

what's halfway between each of them.

I think that's about where he's at.

Maybe it's a folding chair and hundreds of spiders.

Honestly, I want to believe

that he's an otherwise reasonable man

who leaves these spiders in the house because they eat other pests and all the reasonable reasons.

Yeah.

I

think

maybe

he is an unreasonable man who does that.

And I fear that he is an unreasonable man who does it not only because he wants them to eat other pests and they don't bother him, but also because he actively wants to bother his girlfriend.

He wants to creep her out.

I think it all hinges on if, I mean, this was submitted to us by Anna

with spider buddies in quotes.

That is, my boyfriend Dan keeps, quote, spider buddies, unquote, around, et cetera, et cetera.

And it hinges on, if that is a direct quote from Dan, forget it.

If he's calling them spider buddies, Anna, it's time for you you to get out.

Yeah, it's one of these Ben situations.

Oh, you're talking about that song by Michael Jackson in which he sings to his best friend, a rat named Ben?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you know, that's so weird.

I was just, you know, I drive my son to school some mornings, and for some reason, he put that on the car radio today.

And I was just like, it's so easy to forget that one of Michael Jackson's early big solo hits was a love ballad to a rat.

And it's a wonderful thing to remember.

Yeah, I mean, really,

his only big early solo hit.

Was it his breakout as a solo artist?

Yeah, I mean, it was years before Off the Wall.

Right.

It was his only real hit song as Michael Jackson before the Jackson 5 became the Jacksons, I think.

It was the early 70s.

It was a very interesting time in culture where not only could you make a horror movie called Willard.

about a young man named Willard who loves rats and connects with them and they kill his enemies, but then a sequel called Ben, named after the rat, and then Michael Jackson sings the song.

Look, nostalgia is a toxic impulse, but I want to live then.

Anyway, back to Dan and his spider buddies.

There's a creepy element.

You're also very nostalgic for stagflation.

Of course.

I want one of those Gerald Ford whip inflation now buttons.

Win.

All right, so look, I agree that if Dan is calling these otherwise beautiful natural creatures his spider buddies,

that's a problem.

But in normal homes, spiders cause no harm.

In fact, they do a lot of good.

They get rid of a lot of other pests that you don't want to have around, that are often disease vectors or just gross, grosser than spiders even.

There are, of course,

two kinds of spiders in North America, at least, that do cause some harm.

And that is the Black Widow.

And the Spider Ham.

There's, of course, the Black Widow, aka the coolest spider, aka the Scarlet Johansson spider.

And everyone knows what that one looks like.

Stay away.

It's cool.

It's shiny and jet black, except for its cool red logo.

It looks like a superhero.

And the black widow, by the way, guys, you don't need to worry that much about the black widow.

Black widow bites you.

It's not going to be that bad.

Or so I've read on the internet.

You know what?

Consult a spider doctor if you get bit.

Not a doctor for spiders, but a doctor who knows about spiders.

Doctor for spiders is a very, very, a very niche arm of veterinary practice.

If you know a spider doctor, that is a spider who has gained a doctorate, consult them frequently.

They're probably very bright to just have overcome anti-spider sentiment in academia.

Well, it might be a spider doctor, which is a human doctor who was bitten by a radioactive spider.

That's also possible.

A black widow,

it'll cause you some distress, maybe some nausea, dizziness, and vomiting.

You would probably want to go see a doctor, but you'll probably just be given over-the-counter medication, pain relief.

Recluses, the brown recluses, your fiddlebacks, your violin cello spiders.

They're called that because they have a marking, the shape of a violin on the back.

You stay away from those guys.

Now, if you see any Danny DeVito's lemoncello spiders,

give them a kiss because they're very sweet and they taste lemony.

But those recluses, they have a venom that is necrotic and that can cause intense pain.

As I know, because two of the people in my family got bites from those and they leave a scar and they're not good.

It's not fun.

But they're called recluses for a reason.

They stay away from you.

The only reason you would get bitten by one is if you like, if one's crawling around in your pant leg by accident and you pull it on up

and then it's stuck in there and it freaks out and it bites you, they'll stay away from you.

Even the worst possible bitey spiders will stay away from you.

And, you know, I obviously use the internet today and I have this information to share, which is that according to the internet, In 2001, more than 2,000 brown recluse spiders were removed from a heavily infested home in Kansas, yet the four residents who had lived there for years were never harmed by spiders, despite many encounters with them.

Anna, that's not a comforting thing for you to hear.

It's probably terrifying.

If Dan is not using the term spider buddy, but is actually just leaving spiders alone, I am authorizing him to live with up to 2,000 spiders.

If it gets to 2,001,

that's too many.

But otherwise, I have to find in Dan's favor here.

Lori says, My husband deletes my photos and throws away my stuff.

What?

He grew up in a family where that was normal, but I'm deeply troubled by it.

Today, he threw away my collection of fortune cookies without asking.

Which one of us is in the wrong?

Well, for one thing, fortune cookies are perishable.

That's a concern that I have.

Yeah.

Laurie, you had me until you said the words collection of fortune cookies, which is really up there.

It really rivals in creepy phrases the words spider buddies.

Neither one of those is reassuring.

All right, let's unpack this a little bit, Jesse.

Your husband grew up in a family where apparently they disposed of things, other people's things, without permission.

And now he is deleting your photos and throwing away your stuff.

That is wrong.

But I think you need to take a hard look at what you're collecting.

If it's old cookies, to quote Marie Kondo, those aren't going to spark joy for you once they're rotting.

I don't know.

Do fortune cookies rot, Jesse?

What's the longest you've ever had a fortune cookie?

Five minutes?

Yeah, because they're delicious, right?

Well, they're not that delicious, but what are you going to do?

Not eat them?

They're right there.

I always grew up believing or being told that if you didn't eat at least part of the fortune cookie, the fortune would be null and void.

Although they're not really including a lot of fortunes in fortune.

They're not really telling you your future in fortune cookies anymore.

They're mostly just aphorisms.

You know, John, I grew up being told that if you got the rapper of a Tootsie Pop that had the little boy in the headdress shooting an arrow at the stars,

that you could turn that in at the corner store and they would give you a free Tootsie Pop.

I had never heard that, but I knew that there was some special significance to the bow and arrow boy shooting at the stars.

Did you ever try that?

Did you ever try to redeem a rapper for a new Tootsie Pop?

John, you've known me for a long time.

Do I seem like a guy who tries things?

No, I just thought about it and stayed home.

Did you think about it so much that you collected up to 2,000 wrappers in your collection?

Yeah, I mean, the fortune cookie.

It could be, she could have meant a collection of fortune cookies fortunes.

Yes.

But even that is garbage.

I would agree that that is garbage.

But as we know from Mari Kondo, if a piece of garbage sparks joy for you,

one person's garbage might be some other person's treasure, and no one should be throwing away your garbage treasure without getting your permission.

But if she's talking about fortune cookies,

then that feels like the tip of a hoardy iceberg that requires some examination.

But even so,

Lori's husband, you got to get permission before you throw away weird junk, even though we all know it's junk, like a garbage bag full of fortune cookies.

So I find in Lori's favor, but Lori, watch yourself.

If I find out that you're collecting spider buddies or cold cuts, I may need to send in the sheriff.

As you once said in one of your great estates, chiggety check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Didn't I say riggity wreck yourself?

Now that I think about it, I think that might have been Ice Cube.

It was either you or Ice Cube.

Yeah.

But he was doing like a DOS effects thing.

Whichever one of you it was, you were doing like adopting the special,

you know, DOSFX flow.

Bum, stickity, bum, stickity, bum, huh?

Let me just say I can't comment on that, or I should say I can't kickety comment on that because legislation is onity going.

Let's take a quick break.

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

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

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

Let me ask you a question.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

Here's something from Jose.

Before my wife Deirdre and I were married, we verbally agreed that she would name any of our future presumed to be female children, and I would name any of our future presumed to be male children.

Well, now we have two girls, and Deirdre is pregnant with our third child.

If that baby's a girl, I'm asking the judge to order our verbal contract null and void.

Oh, no.

No.

Just because, hey, Jose, just because a contract is

weird and kind of gross does not mean it is not a contract.

For example, Jesse and I, we have an agreement that should we ever have to wear blindfolds and go down a river together in a death canoe to avoid monsters,

he gets to steer, but I get to pick the music on the boombox, and we both get to scream.

And we shook on it.

We shook on it.

It was a verbal contract, but it's binding.

I'm just picturing all the lady names that Deirdre's coming up with.

So far, I'm thinking Doris,

Cloris, and Grandma.

Dolores.

Jemima Morris.

Deirdre's an awesome name, by the way.

Jordana Morris.

Just old-fashioned.

I love Deirdre.

That's a great name.

Jose,

I love your name too.

And I guess I like you.

But I don't like like you.

But I don't like like you for sure, because you bet bad.

Two things here.

You bet bad on this contract.

It was a dumb contract to make Because it's a, you know, if we're talking about gender assigned at birth, it's kind of a 50-50 proposition.

And second of all, it's a really weird and sexist bet to make.

You know, you got two girls.

You want to change the rules now.

Why?

Why did you want to name the boys?

Because they have value and not the girls?

Because they're your children to raise and train in the arts of hunting and fighting and pickup artistry and bad naming ideas?

And did Deirdre expect the girls to be her toys to name?

Look, maybe that's not what was going on.

Maybe I put a lot on you with that.

But this agreement is kind of unseemly and it has a lot of gender role baggage associated with it that maybe you weren't thinking of.

And it ignores a lot of what we understand about gender today.

I mean, what if one of your girls realizes that they are a boy?

If that happens, let him choose his own name is my advice.

But for now, you guys made an agreement.

You got to abide by it.

John, you know how that situation happened in my family?

The child we presumed to be our son turned out out to be our daughter.

Oh, I had no idea.

Yeah.

So she, her name is Grace, a name she chose.

But when she told Teresa what her name was,

she said,

Greece.

Oh.

And Teresa got really worried.

And then she said, oh, do you mean Grace?

And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Oh.

And we but we there was a brief moment where Teresa was terrified that in order to respect our child and her deepest emotional needs, we would have to have a child named Greece for the rest of our life.

I would imagine that there's some gentle steering

that would be appropriate.

Can we call you Gigi, sweetie?

Yeah, some

gentle adjusting that could go on.

If she had said, I want to be called grandma, that's an interesting one.

I don't know.

But yeah, Jose,

sorry.

A contract is a contract, no matter how weird.

Here's something from Ashley.

My husband Charlie and I quarrel over his coffee intake.

He makes and drinks at least two pots of half-decaf coffee every day with a 12-cup Mr.

Coffee coffee maker.

I believe this is too much coffee to be healthy and request he cut back to one pot per day.

He says that because it's half decaf, there's literally no downside and that it's actually a healthy and hydrating beverage.

Well, Ashley, Charlie is correct in that there literally is no downside.

That is to say, this coffee dispute has no downward trends associated with it.

And nor are we talking about a slope on a mountain or anything else physical.

We're talking about drinking a lot of coffee.

And he also has a point that, Charlie.

Because as you know, I've been reading the internet today, and it so happens that I know that most doctors, spider doctors, and regular doctors now agree that the diuretic effect of coffee, that is pee-pee, does not offset the hydrating qualities of the water it contains.

So he's not wrong there.

But we both know, actually, there's a reason you wrote in here, which is Charlie is being too cute and too clever by half with his argument that by drinking two pots of half calf,

he is not drinking one pot per day of full calf.

He is effectively,

he is trying to somewhat literally muddy the waters of his coffee intake by suggesting that by pouring in some muddy, uncaffeinated coffee, it's somehow negating the effects of the fully caffeinated other half.

So if he's drinking two full 12 cup pots of coffee a day,

fully 12 of those cups, of those 24 cups cups are caffeinated coffee.

Now, the FDA, that's the Food and Drug Administration you've heard so much about, they say about 400 milligrams of caffeine is fine per day, and that's about two to four cups.

But they also say that 600 milligrams is probably too much.

Now, ignoring the half-calf sleight of hand, even though I hate to do maths, I can do this for you.

He's already drinking 1,200 to 2,400 milligrams of caffeine every day.

And that is more than the government says is healthy by far.

But in the time of this recording, the federal government is shut down and the FTA is calling in sick because they're not getting paid to advise you and Charlie anymore.

So it's really, and we're in a lawless land now and it's really up to you guys.

I would say probably

one full 12 cup pot of caffeinated coffee per day is

more than is probably good for you and is probably going to have adverse health effects, especially as Charlie gets older over time.

I would say that I am not a doctor or a spider doctor,

so I'm sure that Charlie would argue that he is not experiencing any of the adverse effects of caffeine, which is nausea or dizziness or tension or headaches or sleeplessness.

And I'm sure that he would say that very vigorously at a very high level, very quickly.

And maybe not.

But I am ordering Charlie to consult his doctor or Respider Doctor about this because that's a lot of caffeine to take in.

Jesse Thorne, how much coffee do you drink a day, would you say?

None cups a day.

Right, because migraine trigger for you, right?

Yeah.

I didn't trigger a migraine just talking about it.

Yeah, I got to protect the healing power of caffeine in my Excendrin that I take once in a while.

Oh, right.

How many milligrams of caffeine is in an Exedrin tab?

I think a dose contains about as much caffeine as is in a cup of coffee.

Would you take 12 to 24 doses in a day?

No, but that's mostly because the aspirin in it would probably punch a hole in my insides by the time I'd take it that much.

Well, I don't want your insides to have a hole in them.

So please take care of yourself.

And Charlie, take care of yourself.

And don't play these half-calf games with Ashley.

She only cares about you.

Go talk to your doctor.

I have one concern here, John.

Please.

It's that what

is in here is the story of what is healthy and hydrating for Charlie.

What is not in here is how this is affecting their lives and relationship.

This extraordinary volume of caffeine will have consequences in anybody,

you know, whether it's aggravating anxiety or irritability or any of a dozen other side effects of caffeine,

which I think, like, again, I'm not opposed to caffeine at all, but it does have consequences.

The one here that I would be most concerned about, and I wonder if Ashley is disinclined to share it, is stank.

Go on.

I have a colleague with whom I shared close quarters who, for a time,

was

when working, who for a time was drinking a lot of coffee, and his stank really blossomed.

It really,

really, really

came into its own.

This is not a normally stank-oriented person, but during the heavy coffee period, the stank bloomed into a beautiful rosebush.

And it was a real challenge for me

because it's not really something you would say something about exactly.

And upon the reduction of that.

intake to a more normal or traditional level, the stank receded and it was no longer longer a concern.

So I wonder if Charlie is kind of a jerk when he's drinking a lot of coffee or if he's smelly when he drinks a lot of coffee.

Like, those are the kinds of things you might not say about somebody on a podcast, but might be of consequence.

Are you talking about breath odor or like stale coffee from old cup odor or bodily odor?

I'm talking about a combination of breath and bodily.

I'm talking about sweating it out

Essentially.

See, because that's, I drink a lot of coffee.

I don't drink as much as Charlie, but I drink a lot of coffee.

And I usually combat malodor by

pouring a vat of Earl Grey tea over my head every half an hour.

You know, that's good.

Or you can just swathe yourself in tea bags because those will suck up the odor.

I think that there is something a little beyond the pale of 24 cups of even half caffeinated coffee per day.

You're getting close to that thing where runners die from drinking too much water while they're running a marathon.

Yeah, it's just a lot of water to take in, too.

24 cups of anything.

Where does he put the food?

Yeah, Charlie, take care of yourself and stop lying to Ashley about your half-calf scheme that you've got going on.

Be honest and just say, I'm drinking a huge amount of brown water, and a full half of it is full of a stimulant that is

good in small doses, but not good in huge doses.

Deal with that reality.

Also, you stink.

Jesse Thorne said so.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear about sharing toothbrushes and a letter from a listener regarding the language of German.

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 listen.

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 Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

We've got something here from Madeline.

My husband uses my toothbrush no matter what lengths I go to to make our toothbrushes recognizably different.

He wakes up earlier than me.

When I wake up, the brush I believe to be mine is always wet.

We've talked about this many times.

He also packed my brush for a trip a couple of days ago.

When I asked him about it, he said it was his.

Then I asked him when the last time he'd opened up his own brush was, and he was silent.

Should I let this go because I love him?

Should I find his germs cute?

Or should he use his own toothbrush?

That's in all caps.

Oh, well, just...

I think she prefers the latter most,

based on the capitalization.

You know, I was trained in literary theory at Yale University,

accredited four-year university in southern New England.

Haven't heard of it.

Is that near Ball State?

Next door.

Great.

It's an annex.

And there's a lot to unpack in this text.

So let's go through it together for a moment.

My husband uses my toothbrush no matter the lengths I go to to make our toothbrushes recognizably different.

Am I to believe from this, Jesse, and tell me what you think, is she like painting the toothbrushes or dressing them up in certain ways?

I'd like to see her wrapping them in grip tape.

Yeah, that's a different thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Is she labeling them?

Okay, so that's one question that

haunts me.

He wakes up earlier than me,

and what I believe to be my brush is always wet.

Why is there ambiguity

around her brush at this point?

Not only, I mean, most people know what their toothbrush looks like, and she's also going to lengths in order to differentiate them.

Is this a memento type of situation where they wake up each morning and their memory is

looking at their body for the tattoo about which brush to use?

Yeah, exactly.

They've forgotten which brush it is.

Every night she goes to bed going, I've got to put a thousand pipe cleaners onto this brush so I remember that that this one is mine.

And then even then in the morning, there's some question in her mind.

I just imagined making two fists in front of me and the knuckles on one say oral and on the other one they say B.

Thank you.

That's some good buzz marketing.

I look forward to getting all that oral B cash.

I don't want to let hope spring eternal and just say, you know, I've only got one tattoo on one hand and it says quip.

Get at me, podcast toothbrush companies.

But and then I think that this idea, now that we're saying it, that they suffer from some sort of selective toothbrush amnesia every day is supported by the fact that he presumably

sincerely comes back from the trip and he packed her brush.

And when she asked him about it, he said it was his.

Either he's telling the truth and he suffers from some kind of brush blindness, or he's a horrible gaslighter.

But none of these questions and problematics are as compelling to me as the sentence that begins then.

Then I asked him when the last time he'd opened up his own brush was,

and he was silent.

Opened up his own, what are you talking about?

What brushes do you open, Jesse?

Is there some news?

I think she means when was the last time he

got himself a new toothbrush?

Like he was like, this toothbrush is worn out i'm opening a new toothbrush

okay

well madeline let me say this to you i don't know what's going on in your house

and unless you are suffering from some kind of toothbrush amnesia this should not be difficult

get different colored toothbrushes and tell your husband it is not okay for him to use your toothbrush.

I don't know whether he thinks he's just confused or if he thinks it doesn't matter or he thinks maybe it's some cute form of intimacy, but a toothbrush is going into some very private mouth crevices and germ pockets and chewed food holes behind your teeth.

It is not okay to share a toothbrush even with the person that you kiss on the mouth.

Because I guarantee you, no matter how thoroughly and intimately you kiss your beloved, your tongue is not going to where that toothbrush is going.

It is not scraping the back of the tongue.

I hope not.

Or maybe that's a thing.

I don't know.

Who am I to judge?

If you are suffering, if you guys are suffering from some kind of toothbrush memento style forgetfulness, or if you think he's doing this on purpose, or if he seems unable to distinguish between the toothbrushes, no matter what lengths you go to, to make it clear that yours is yours and his is his, you got to keep a separate stash.

And you got to get, you know, you know what I got for the holidays this year from my wife?

I've been asking for it for years, Jesse Thorne.

What's that?

Fireproof document safe.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so I can keep my documents without fear of them being burned by flames.

Get a brush safe.

Get a small safe where you keep your toothbrush.

And that way, should you guys ever disappear,

either because you've decided to go on the run or something, you get taken to another dimension and the police come to look in your home to see what happened to you and they find in your bathroom closet a safe with a toothbrush in it.

They'll have something to tell their kids for years about the weird toothbrush couple who disappeared.

Get a toothbrush safe.

That's all you have to do, Madeline.

You know what's the closest thing you could probably get to an actual toothbrush safe?

No.

One of those little snap covers that covers the head of the toothbrush for when you put it in your Dop Kit or your travel bag.

Yeah.

And it's got little holes in it so the toothbrush can still dry out, but it covers it up and snaps closed.

I mean, that does not have a lock on it, but her husband would have to make an affirmative choice to take that off and use it if you kept it on yours.

I thought about that, but

I think there's the possibility that he is making the affirmative choice.

Wow.

Right?

Because this is happening over and over again.

It's not hard to distinguish between toothbrushes.

Unless he is really so absent-minded and confused i i think he could easily get past that level of security i'm thinking about back in the dear old days of the sharper image catalog

they had these um special humidors for collectible wristwatches that would spin your watches around all night long so they would stay wound your your self-winding watches a beautiful display case that was lockable.

And I'm thinking like, she needs a special display case that has good lighting and obviously a lot of air fans in it to dry out those brushes, those bristles.

And it's something that only she knows the code to, and that he will not be able to get through.

We've got a couple of disputes we wanted to issue follow-ups on.

The first is nine-tenths of the law.

It's a recent episode where Colleen and Kevin send their kids to a German immersion school, and Kevin likes to practice speaking in German with them, but Colleen said his bad pronunciation would have adverse effects on their learning.

And as part of the ruling, Judge Hodgman asked that Kevin record himself reading the poem Song of Childhood from the legendary Wim Vender's film Wings of Desire.

Here is that audio.

und vo ended the Raum.

Ist das Leben unter der Sonne, nicht bloss, ein Traum,

Istwach ichse und horror und Reicher, nicht bloss, der Schein, einer Welt, Woderweld.

Giftes statuslich, das Bose und Leuter, Die Werklich, Die Bozenzind.

Wikana sein, das Ich, der ich bin, Bevor ich Verde, nicht wah, und das ein malich der ich bin, nicht mer der ich bin, zein werde.

Nice work, Kevin.

Sounded pretty good.

What do you think, Jesse?

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it sounded like a native speaker, but given my extensive knowledge of German and how it should be pronounced, I give it a B.

I'm going to give it a B plus, because I'm a little bit of a softer grader than you.

And I think the pronunciation is getting there.

It seems a little hesitant.

Seems like he's reaching a little bit.

He also needs to work on his poet

talking

with weird breaks between words and occasional upspeak to make it sound artistic.

Do you know the comedian Morgan Murphy?

Of course.

Very, very talented comedian.

She is a brilliantly hilarious comic who, in high school, was a slam poetry champion.

Oh, no, I did not know that.

That's amazing.

Yeah, and she later had a bit in her act about it in which she said that you can, I'm paraphrasing from a long-ago memory, but she said that you can turn any block of text into a slam poem by adding the word Zion at the end.

I think, Kevin, listen to what Morgan Murphy has to say.

And also go back and like,

you're doing great.

I think you can, before the end of the year, you can get your grade up to an A minus or an A.

Go back and watch that Wings of Desire again and just imitate the way

whoever it is says in that movie.

You'll get to see a great movie and you'll practice practice your German pronunciation.

Do we have something else regarding the German language on the docket?

Yeah, we do.

We also heard from Corbin about a docket clearing episode, Classic Friend Around, with you and Gene Gray.

You told a joke involving the German word schmetterling.

Yes.

And butterfly.

As a German speaker, he thinks it's not funny, but he says,

the German word for 555,555 is way funnier to English speakers.

My entire family couldn't care less because it's just a number, but my girlfriend will literally fall over like a fainting goat in fits of hilarity laughing.

Here is an audio recording he provided us of him saying the German word for 555,555.

Funf hundred, fump, um fump tik, thousand, fumf, hundred, fump, um fump tik.

Yeah,

that's pretty solid.

He says, yes, it gets longer and quote unquote funnier the higher the number you go.

It works the same for all numbers, but apparently fumph just sounds funny in English.

Absolutely correct.

Fumph sounds really funny.

I know that funny words are supposed to end in hard sounds, but fumph is really funny.

Well, thank you, Corbin.

I hope that you are Corbin Dallas, the character from the fifth element.

But even if you're not, I appreciate your listening and sending in a recording of you saying funny sounds that mean something in another language.

The docket is clear.

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

This week's episode, edited by the great Christian Duenas.

Thank you, Christian.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org JJ Ho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

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

Fump hundred, fump, fund, fumf sig, thousand, fumf hundred, vumpf, und fumpfing, fump sig.

No, you know what?

It's all in the delivery.

I don't got it.

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