Pizza is a Gift

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket. With me, as always,

the ninth wonder of the world, Judge John Hodgman. Ninth wonder of the world, Jesse.
There's the regular seven. Right.
And then the eighth is James Brown. Right, of course.

I was going to say Pebble Ice.

Yeah, well, I mean, they're sort of like, they sort of share the distinction. Yeah, I would put James Brown, then Pebble Ice, and then

my wonderful family.

Right, so

the Hanging Gardens, the Library at Alexandria, the Hodgman family. The Hodgman family.
Not including me.

Then, you know what I'll put next? All of the Judge John Hodgman listeners. Oh,

good thinking. So I think that puts me at about 12th Wonder of the World.
Yeah, because there's only about one or two listeners. No, well, I'm sorry, listeners.
I didn't mean to.

Oh, now I'm going to get letters. How dare you lump us all together.
Thanks, listeners, for listening. Here we are again, and we're clearing a docket in the middle of November.

It's sweater weather, finally, where I am in Brooklyn. Oh my goodness.
How are things in Los Angeles? Not as cold as I'd like. I'm going to be frank.

It's about where I'm always at, though, living in Los Angeles these past 12 years. I mean, it is, it must be a torture for someone who likes to wear tweed as much as you do.

It is genuinely distressing to me. And not just, I mean, I don't do great in hot weather anyway.
I mean, I'm from a very, very, very

temperate part of the United States, the Mission District of San Francisco, the one part of San Francisco that's never cold,

but also is, like the rest of San Francisco, never hot. Right.
Yeah, it's very distressing to me.

I have these piles of sweaters that I

just go fondle them. Well, you need, Jesse, and I've been been thinking about this more and more as the holidays approach.
You need a standalone freezer.

I had suggested in a previous episode, for those of you following along, you know this, that you get a dorm fridge-sized standalone freezer for your Pebble ice that you use as a bedside table, but you already have a fire safe there.

So now I'm thinking, what you need is a huge walk-in freezer. So that you can put on all your sweaters and then stand and look at your pebble ice on its pedestal.

I'm going to try to make that happen for you. Man, if we could get like a turntable in there and some nice speakers, that'd pretty much be my ideal lifestyle.
You'd be like Mr.

Freeze in there doing your research

and looking at your ice and listening to your tunes and wearing all of your cardigans. And you know what I would say if anybody complained? My house, my rules.

My walk-in freezer that I put in a shed in my backyard, my rules. Here's something from Megan.

My co-workers and I have had several discussions about the proper etiquette for checking to see if the shared bathroom is in use.

We knockers say that the person approaching the restroom should knock first before jiggling the handle. The no-knockers argue for skipping the knock and they just jiggle the handle.

I think it's more invasive to jiggle the handle without knocking first. The person inside may be startled by the sudden jiggle.

Or they could have forgotten to lock the door, which would potentially expose both of us to embarrassment.

The no-knockers think knocking is more invasive, and they don't feel obligated to respond to a knock. What say you? What was the Dr.
Seuss book where the knockers fought the jigglers?

It was the less successful sequel to the Butter Battle book. The no-knockers and the knockers and the jigglers and the no-jigglers.
This is serious stuff, though, I have to say.

This is a deep fear of mine. Every time I go into a public bathroom,

someone else is going to also have a basic human need. And then it'll be revealed to me that I'm not the only one who is doing it in the world.

A real problem here at Maximum Fun headquarters, where we now have

something like 15 people working in the office and only one bathroom. Yeah.

I know that. I know that because every time I come and visit you, I tend to spend an hour in the bathroom.

So what happens in the maximum fun HQ bathroom? Is there a culture of knocking on the door or jiggling the handle? I think probably jiggling the handle more often.

Here's the thing: I think that there is a tremendous social pain

in responding to the knock. Yes.
That is not acknowledged in this letter. And I think that that is, to my mind, outside of being walked in upon

the greatest social pain is that when you are using the bathroom, when someone knocks and then you have to say loudly, I am peeing right now.

Well,

you don't have to

say loudly what you are doing that's not the information they're looking for yeah they know what they know what goes on in there yeah but you don't have to these people aren't these people aren't new to bathrooms they know what bathrooms are for they know they're not for bathing i think you have identified the precise problem which is that you have to look at it from the point of view of the person in the bathroom megan

So, as you point out, Jesse, a knock requires an answer.

And it is never my desire to to speak to another stranger at all never mind when I am at my most vulnerable and shamy in the bathroom fulfilling the basest human need even my standard response which is like I don't say

I'll be out soon I am specifically peeing right now the way you do Jesse I don't feel they need that information I usually just say I'm in the bathroom, you know, bathing.

I usually say like, I'll be right out or whatever. But even so, that has a hint of deep embarrassment to it because having to talk to the person, you have to acknowledge what's happening.

And they know what's happening. And you might as well be saying, instead of, I'll be right out, you might as well be saying, we both know what's happening in here.

And by speaking through that door, I'm acknowledging how non-soundproof it is.

It's really the thinnest piece of ply with the flimsiest lock that I was counting on and erasing me from the world while I attended to my basis business. It's no fun.
It's no fun to acknowledge that.

But here's what I would say, Jesse Thorne. I don't like jiggling either, because jiggling is like you're living in a haunted house all of a sudden.

You know, a knock could cause dread, but that's a jiggling of the handle

in a horror movie. That's a jump scare.
You know, it's like,

especially if someone doesn't do it, you know, gently.

It's like a home invasion scenario. It's like you're in the strangers all of a sudden.
So, this, John, is why you advocate Kool-Aid Manning?

Honestly, Jesse? Oh, yeah.

No, not, no. Obviously, don't burst down the door.
Back to the jiggling of the doorknob, even if it is locked, I will still wonder whether I, in fact, did lock it.

And that causes what we'll call accidents. Poor aim.

And you still have to talk at the end anyway, because after the jiggling, you still have to say, I'll be right out, right? Or I'm in here. Stop trying.

I mean, I understand that you're specifically referring to the bathroom at my taco in Garvanza here in Los Angeles. Well, it's a nightmare.

And yeah, I think we've all had that experience there, but it's worth it because the Barbico de Borrego is so good.

It's so good, John. You've had it.
It's so good. Can it be as good as the way you just said it, though? Barbaco de Borrego.
I love that. It is really good, too.
And that bathroom, though, is scary.

That's no good.

The solution for the world is get one of those Deadbolt locks that has a vacant and occupied alternating sign on it.

So when you turn the deadbolt, the little sign in the window on the exterior of the door goes to occupied. That's the best way to do it, don't you think?

And if you have, that's not, that's some technology that you might have to pay a locksmith to put in. If you don't want to do that, there's also an easy thing where you can make a sign.

But if it comes down to it, I would say knock. That's my feeling.
Sorry,

we're going to have to split on this one, Jesse Thorne.

But I say knock is more polite, it is more definitive, and it at no point scares you into peeing on yourself.

I'll tell you what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to lock that door and ignore all sounds.

Then I'm going to come out, and if there was a bunch of jiggling and stuff, I'm going to give a meaningful look to the person who was trying to come in that says,

Hey, I was just in there doing my thing.

Okay,

that's a kind of social revenge.

Look, it's your office.

I think that that might be an abuse of power, but that's fine. What? Doing my thing?

Okay.

The one exception that I will say about knocking, the worst way to do it is if you do a really scary knock like

Ebenezer.

What if you get one of those things that suction cups onto the door and it goes knock, knock, knock, knock, knock like Pee Wee Herman has?

Well, if Pee Wee Herman has it, it's allowed. Okay, great.

Okay, here's something from Ahmed. My wife Mary and I have a constant dispute about items we purchase from the grocery store which say refrigerate after opening.

I like to put those items in the fridge immediately before opening, but my wife does as the item says, after opening. My argument is that people tend to put things back where they got them from.

Items intended to be refrigerated will accidentally go back into the pantry, thus ruining them.

Mary thinks it's wasteful to put things in the fridge until absolutely necessary as it consumes energy when not needed. Both of us are pretty hard-headed about this, and we can't seem to agree.

I hope you can help us with our problem. All right.
Everyone, stop what you're doing. Ahmed's got a new system.

Everyone, stop doing the thing you've done forever the common sense way, because Ahmed has figured out a new system based on his long-distance thought reading of your unconscious mind.

You know, I bet you didn't even realize that you did this, everybody.

I'm sure this is going to come as quite an eye-opener, but you know how when you get a jar of mayonnaise from the grocery store, it's not refrigerated, right?

It's shelf-stable because there's a vacuum seal. And you take it home and you put it on the pantry shelf, and then you're like, I need some mayonnaise to make some tuna salad.

And you open it up, you break that vacuum seal, thus making it penetrable to airborne bacteria.

You see it says refrigerate after opening right on there, but of course you forget.

You use the mayonnaise and just wander dumbly over and put it right back on the shelf where the blank space was where the mayonnaise normally goes. Remember how you know how you do that?

You know how you don't put it in the fridge after you open it, even though it says refriger after opening because you love Listeria? No, you don't remember that because you don't do it.

No one does it. Sorry, Amit.
I think everything has its place, John. I think it should have a place.
I think having more than one place for stuff is confusing.

Like, for example, I bet there are a lot of Judge John Hodgman listeners who think that anyone who puts mustard in the refrigerator is stupid because you don't have to refrigerate mustard.

It's too acidic. It doesn't go bad on the shelf.
Well, you know what? I put mustard in the refrigerator. You know why? Because that's where my condiments are.

I got a condiment area in the refrigerator. When I'm looking for condiments, I go to the condiment area.
So I think they should decide based on where they have more storage room.

Jesse Thorne, oh, bailiff my bailiff? That's absolutely correct. Because I'm no out in Brown, right?

I don't know about all the thermodynamics that go on inside a refrigerator, but you have a refrigerator running, it's going to chill that area no matter what's inside of it.

You put two cans of soda in there, it's not going to take more energy to chill them both down than the one can of soda if that's all you have in the refrigerator.

And as long as the air can circulate, if you have something that is cooled, it will lose less of its heat when the door opens, which is mostly why the refrigerator has to be cooling, right?

Like you open the door and a bunch of the cool air escapes and warm air goes in and whatever space is taken up by that jar of mayonnaise will stay cool because that jar of mayonnaise can't slide out the door like the air could.

Right. You don't, that's how you, that's how you waste energy is opening the door more than you need to.
That's why I have a refrigerator with a glass front. It's my favorite thing.
I never have wow.

Yeah. That's incredible invention for people who are capable of keeping their refrigerators presentable.

Well, you know me. I like to have my condiments arranged just so.

And one thing that you definitely do not need to refrigerate before opening are cans of tuna. But you know I'm putting them in the fridge because I want my tuna salad to be cold right away.

Cold as ice. Cold as pebble ice.
And ready to sacrifice. It rhymes.
I'm not sure what it means, but I like it. It's like a

late 70s rock song, but I really know it as part of the MOP hit. Oh, right.
Cold as Ice, the Mashout posse. Oh, was it by that band Cold Tuna?

And meanwhile,

Amit, store things where you want to store them, but don't push your system on me or your wife, Mary. Let's take a quick break.

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

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week.

And in addition to extensive mustard talk, I mean, with the amount of mustard talk that we've had, you would think that we were maximum funds hit podcast, stop podcasting yourself.

Do they do a lot of mustard-based content? Dave Schumke. Yes, I love him.

Couldn't love him more. Just love him to death.
Sometimes I worry I love him too much. Dave Schumke did have some mustard talk, but then too many people were sending him mustards.

Oh, I missed that story arc.

He had to institute a stop talking about or sending me mustards.

Hey, Judge Sean Hodgman, listeners, if you bought pallets and pallets of mustards to send to Vancouver, Canada to give to Shumka, send them my way. I like a mustard.

I had some nice mustards from that time when on Bullseye, David Cross said, I looked like a hipster version of the guy on the fancy ketchup bottle. Mr.
Kensington.

The folks at the fancy ketchup company caught wind of that and sent me some nice ketchups and mustards. It really worked out well for me.
Oh, sir, excuse me, Sir Kensington. I apologize.

I forgot that he was knighted.

Here's something

for service to the condiment empire. All right, Nick, what do you have to say? My wife, Emily, and I have been married for nine years.

For nearly all of that time, I have cooked most, if not all, of the meals we've eaten at home. A few minutes before the food's on the table, I like to sound the alarm that dinner's ready.

This gives Emily and the kids time to wrap up what they're doing and make it to the table. Emily has come to take my announcement as a false alarm.

She ignores it and arrives a few minutes after everything's ready and sitting on the table. Worse, our kids have followed her example.

I find myself sitting alone at the table as our dinner cools below optimal temperature. Emily is a vegetarian and our kids can be picky.

I work hard to make sure everyone in our family has something they'll eat on their plate. It feels hurtful when they leisurely make their way to come and eat it.

I'm asking you to order my wife to take my announcement seriously, get to the table in time to get settled, and encourage our kids to do the same. Jesse, you do a lot of cooking in your household.

Is that not so? Yeah, I think I would say because of my work schedule, these days my wife probably does 75 or 80% of the cooking for the kids.

They don't really eat anything.

So that would be chicken nuggets,

baby carrots. That's about it.

And also that

barbacoa. Yeah, well, they'll eat beans and rice, but they actually don't like the beans and rice at my taco.

But when you cook, do you cook them just for your wife or for the whole family? I sometimes cook for the whole family, but generally for me and my wife.

And does she blow you off when you say, honey, it's dinner time? My wife listens to the show, John. Mm-hmm.

And I love her very much. Wonderful.
Basically, the most of anybody. Well,

then I will say only this. Emily, the wife in this case, who is in no way like the wonderful Teresa Thorne, is wrong.
She is wrong

to blow off coming to the table when her partner has worked to create a delicious meal or maybe passable meal. I don't know.
I don't know how good he cooks. Maybe that's the problem there, Nick.
Yeah.

Nick's boguarding the kitchen when he can't cook. Yeah, maybe no one wants to eat your grummy food.
I don't even know.

But even so, I would say not only is Emily wrong not to come to the table in a timely fashion, but she's modeling wrong behavior to your kids.

It has everything to do with the fact that you are doing work for others and they should be respectful of that.

Just as, say, if the arrangement in your household is that Emily does, I don't know, the laundry, she would hope and expect that you would put your dirty laundry in the hamper or wherever is convenient to her and not throw it over the fence and ask her to go get it or something.

You know, that's how you help people.

And yet, I am going to rule against you, Nick, specifically because you said, I find myself sitting alone at the table as our dinner cools below optimal temperature.

I found that phrasing to be alarming. It made me worry that you're a robot.

Or worse, like a foodie.

Or someone who feels that optimal temperature is more meaningful than family, that you're putting in all this work and you want to be adored for this special thing that you put together.

And when and after you've finished plating it, that no one's there to ooh in awe over it, it offends you. Now, this could be wrong.
My impression could be wrong.

I may be overestimating your foodie persnicketiness here.

And for that, I apologize if that's true. But you wrote those words, optimal temperature.

That's a flag for me.

And I would say that, especially with kids in a house, you said you figuratively ring the dinner bell a few minutes before everything's ready to go.

I would just not get upset about this and make your adjustment and sound the alarm earlier. Don't try to deceive your wife, Emily.
You owe her the truth.

Don't like ring it knowing that she's going to take a few minutes and then finally she arrives on time.

I think you need to have a conversation with her and say, I really hope that you guys will come to the table when it's ready to eat because it makes me feel

unappreciated.

And I'm going to make sure that you guys have enough time to get it together. And what I would advise that you do also is

prepare some kind of appetizer that everyone loves. Nachos is a great answer to that.

Just something to put on the table when you say it's dinner time that will give them some incentive to come and sit down and start eating those nachos while you put the finishing touches on your

nutrition foam

and your molecular duck con fee and give you the opportunity to get it to them at optimal temperature at optimal time once they're already there.

I'm not sure that this will solve the problem, but I do think that you need to give them more time.

You need to give them an appetizer and you need to have a conversation with Emily about how it makes you feel. I'm sure maybe you have done so,

but Emily, if you haven't heard it yet, I hope you hear it now.

I agree with you entirely. And as somebody who cooks, I empathize with Nick's feeling.

And I've had that feeling myself when I've sat down to eat after having cooked and served the food and then no one is there to eat it with me.

I think there is another kind of unstated part of this that I find myself having to remind myself of in my home, which is that

when I take on this piece of domestic work, which is cooking dinner, in my house, which has three children, the oldest of whom is seven,

that means that I am assigning to my wife the very difficult domestic work of both child care while I am cooking

and

being almost solely responsible for

corralling those children and getting them to the dinner table.

And I think it's important to remember that, like, while, Nick, you are feeling like I am doing this hard thing, which is cooking and getting the dinner on the table.

And I get it because I do that at my house, and it's hard. And you feel proud of a meal, and then there's no one there to share it with and you feel bummed.

But remember that in doing that, your partner is doing a different, very difficult domestic job. So you're not the sole hero of this scenario.

I think you're very right to express in a thoughtful way how it makes you feel, but try and do it in a way that makes it clear that what you would like to do is find a way that you can help in order to make it a more happy and comfortable and equitable situation for everyone with the understanding of the work that she is doing while you are doing your work.

Yeah, thank you for putting that focus on it, Jesse. I mean, that's absolutely right.
And, you know,

a lot of time, especially on a weeknight, you know, everyone's just doing the best they can and acknowledging that they just need more time.

Put yourself in the other person's shoes a little bit and just go easy on each other. Sarah says, I'm currently on an interstate bus.

I think from now on, we should get letters that note the exciting venues from which they arrive. I would love that.
If you have anything for the docket, let us know where you're writing from.

Tell us about the world that you're in. Give us a little word picture.
I'd love to know. All right, Sarah, you're on an interstate bus.
Great storytelling device. Bring me along on your journey.

Dear Judge John Hodgman, I am in that giant dome that Buckminster Fuller built for Expo 67 in Montreal that's now some kind of zoo. Uh, pics or it didn't happen, buddy.

I'm currently on an interstate bus, says Sarah. It's around a four-hour trip.
I've always had the opinion that when eating on public transport, it's rude to eat food that has a strong smell.

We departed from New York, New York, and the couple sitting directly in front of me brought two large, fresh New York pizzas into the bus.

They've had the boxes in their laps and will occasionally eat a slice, filling the area with delicious pizza smells. I'm not hungry, but I am now hankering for pizza.

Am I right to be annoyed with these people, or am I just being overly sensitive?

Can I tell you my gut reaction, John? Please. I think you probably have a considered opinion.
I have a gut reaction. Go.

My gut reaction is: anybody who's not stabbing you on an interstate bus is cool.

That's the standard of behavior. All stabbing and above is not cool.
Below stabbing,

it's the best you can hope for.

Well, let's then,

obviously, I agree.

Let's imagine a non-stabbing environment where we can lay down some more nuanced rules of civilization. Oh, you mean a train?

Okay.

I took the bus for a long time everywhere. And

yeah,

you just can't go in with expectations.

Sometimes you get lucky, but you just can't go in with expectations. But generally generally speaking, I think you would agree, Jesse, that there are certain foods that are not appropriate for

closed systems, close-quartered, recycled air environments, like a bus or a train or an airplane, right? Yeah, like pot stickers. Okay.

Tell me more. What else?

Fish. Especially if you get a really smelly fish like smelly fish.
Have you ever had that?

Yeah.

Smellfish.

I think they call that monkfish now. They renamed it.
The poor man's lobster.

French onion soup. I mean, I usually bring that on the Greyhound when I'm.

Sloshy, sloppy stuff is not good. I mean, also,

this is something that has been said before on a podcast that I think we both enjoy called the Dough Boys.

That if you're going to eat your fast food, eat it in the terminal. Don't bring it onto the plane because McDonald's has a very special smell that is not for

I would love to. See, here's the thing, John.
First of all, I'm disappointed that you talked about the Doughboys because earlier I wanted to say something about the Doughboys, but I held my tongue.

So I was like, you can't just talk about the Doughboys. This is the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I thought about talking about how Nick Weiger is a robot and he thinks that the optimal temperature for salad is hot.

But actually, I'm Burger Brigade for life, so I would never say something like that.

But anyway, the thing of it is, John, I think that now that on airplanes, you can't buy food often. Right.
As someone who'd need, I need to eat food, and I need to eat kind of certain kinds of food

at very regular times because of my migraine headaches.

I remember our 2016 tour, which I dubbed the Chicken Nugget Tour, because we had to stop for chicken nuggets, and I hadn't had them since I was about 12.

And I got to eat a bunch of chicken nuggets with you because for medical reasons you had to have them. And I was the greatest.

Yeah. I mean, like, that is literally the only context in my life in which I eat fast food or at least chain fast food.

I mean, like, I eat a lot of tacos, but it's the only situation in which it comes up. It's like, if I'm in transit and I have, say, an 11 o'clock flight.

I know that I'm not going to be able to eat lunch at 10 a.m. Right.
I've brought chicken nuggets on airplanes on probably a half dozen occasions.

And I feel bad for people as once in a while I'll turn to the person that's next to me and say, sorry, my food's so smelly. I'll eat it quick.
Perfectly handled. Okay.

All I'm saying is, yes, have a care to the air and space that you're sharing with people around you.

And if you need to eat a Fieri burger or some chicken nuggets, you can just say, this will be over soon to your neighbor or whatever. It's fine.
It's fine.

And you also have a care to

the sound of the food and how you eat it.

A lot of people have mesophonia, and

you don't want to bring in that mesophonia fish that's so popular these days. That's the fish when you eat it.
It sounds like chewing. And you don't want to be going like, mm, mm, mm.

Oh, I'm going to get letters just because I did that.

Be cool, you know.

But I will say this to Sarah: anyone can bring pizza anywhere at any time. Pizza is a gift.
to civilization. It smells great.
It is not offensive to eat. It is a delight.

And the fact that you want to eat it makes it clear. I mean, it only reaffirms my point, which is pizza is always a net positive.

And just because you didn't think ahead enough to get your own pizza doesn't mean that I'm going to order these smart people to not eat their pizza on the bus. Pizza is good.

You're just jealous that you didn't think of it. And next time, Sarah, you will.

Thanks for taking us on your bus ride. Can I offer a secondary ruling? Of course.

If you're coming to visit me in Los Angeles and you're coming from San Francisco, you have to bring sourdough bread and tortellinis from Lucas. For sure.

You know, I don't eat a lot of bread, so like when I eat pizza, lots of times I have to go on a corner and just scrape off the toppings and put it in my mouth like a weird morlock.

I would never do that on a plane. When we come back, we'll hear about sock folding and a listener recommendation based on a piece of settled law.
It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We'll talk to you more in just a second.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

I don't know what a Josie Long is, and anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.

She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.
She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones.

I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I? Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast, Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother.

This is a musical theater, not a Parisian bordello. Simply go to maximum fun.org.
I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket and we've got some.
And John? Yes, here I am. Can I just be clear?

I want one bag of cheese tortellinis and one bag of meat tortellinis because I like to do half and half. That sounds really good.
I know people really like the raviolis, but I like the tortellinis.

So,

I mean, I'm not going to tell you, don't bring me raviolis, but it's going to be, first of all, it's going to be hard to keep them upright in those flat boxes on the airplane.

But also, I prefer tortellinis. I love the idea that your long-term comedic tagline has always been, don't bring me raviolis.

Let me say something else about

ever since I first got famous as a supporting character on Fibber, McGee, and Molly.

You know, one of my very favorite sandwiches in the world is a tuna fish sandwich. Love it.
Love it.

I can't have that on a plane or a bus. Too stinky.
No, that would be gross. Oh, good.
Yeah, that is pretty gross.

All right. And don't just get me the boudine sourdough from the airport.
I mean, you can. I'm not going to turn it away.
But give me something nice. Acne.
Tassahara.

Give me something good. Anyway, here's something from Leah.
My business and romantic partner, Seth, and I own a small cleaning company together. We have one point of conflict that we can't resolve.

Sometimes when we're cleaning houses together, we have laundry to fold. I match up the socks and fold them in half together.
Seth stretches the elastic of one out and around to consume the other.

This stretches out the elastic and ruins the socks, causing them to slip down and get eaten by shoes. When Seth sees my neatly folded socks, he unfolds them and redoes them his way.

I'm seeking an injunction to stop him from messing with my neatly folded socks. I'm also requesting that you order him to stop ruining our client's socks with his archaic elastic stretching method.

Instead, he should fold them nicely, like I do.

Hmm. Well, this, of course, is a Mari Kondo thing.
We've talked about Mari Kondo on this podcast a fair amount.

She has taken over our culture.

She is the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and has a lot of ideas about how you should remove from your life any object that does not actively, as she calls it, sparks joy.

And you put all of your stuff in the middle of the room and you touch it and it's like, does this spark joy? And you just know it.

And you know it when it's not there and you take that thing and you get rid of it, you give it away or throw it away or whatever you do.

And she has a thing about socks too, which is like she doesn't want you to stress the socks.

And I'm not just talking about the elastic in the socks by folding them over in that way, making them into a ball. Like, she feels like that, that is stressful to the emotions of the socks.

And that the socks are doing work for you, and

you should reward them by letting them fold and lie flat in a state of non-tension. And then you thank them for your service, and then you sing to them a little.

That's how you put your socks away, according to Mari Kondo. I've tried folding those socks.
I grew up with my mom doing the fold-over ball sock method, and that's what I've always done my whole life.

But then I tried doing the folded method. And I had to say it did not.
Didn't work for me. Those socks would get separated.
And I'm going to say that,

you know, you've given me some very nice socks recently, Jesse. You gave me some hot dog socks and some Yale Blue socks from Japan.
They're really high quality socks. I love them.

I'm going to go ahead and buzz market Anonymousism, the dopest sock company there is. And also some beautiful packaging.
Best sock packaging I've ever encountered.

And I bend them over and I ball them up too. And I hope that it does not offend you.
But what I have discovered in

my years of doing this is that the elastics do not noticeably wear out. It is much more convenient for me.
And I don't believe socks have feelings.

Jesse, does it bother you that I do that with the very nice socks that you sent me? Would you rather I not? Because I won't if you ask me to.

Not in the slightest. I grew up as a fold-over only the top person.

My wife grew up as a folded into a ball person.

I once learned that my beloved father-in-law, who at the time was in his mid-50s, had never even heard of the fold-over-the-top method and had never seen it before in his life, which was pretty great.

Well, wait, now I'd like to know. Maybe I don't know the method that you're talking about.
I'd like to clarify this, if I've not interrupted your train of thought.

You can either fold over just the tops of the socks to hold them together,

or you can fold the top of the sock to envelop all of the rest of the socks.

So one has just the top part of the sock, it's thinner and it's folded over slightly. Less of the elastic is being stressed in that situation.
Yeah, and the elastic is being less stressed as well.

Or you can fold it in half first, then into quarters, and then over into a ball. Right.

But John, this is the reality of the situation. Yeah.
It's 2018. Sock elastic has come a long way.

You preach.

If you are talking about a very unusual sock, and the examples that come to mind are maybe

all cotton camp socks,

which are really thick and could be kind of crunchy if they're all cotton. Those could get a little stretched out.

But generally speaking,

high-quality socks these days are a blend of materials and made in knits that are

very

resistant to getting stretched out.

You know, like the anonymousism socks that I sent you are probably something like, you know, they're often, you know, 90% cotton, 8% nylon, and 2% something stretchy, like Lycra.

All cotton socks even generally will not suffer, but they could theoretically.

If that's a big concern for you, I'd get socks with a little bit of stretchiness in them. I mean, like, as a menswear blogger, the owner of the menswear blog put this on, I generally advise against

pretty much all synthetic fabrics. I have a soft spot in my heart for rayon, but besides that, I'm against almost all synthetic fabrics.
There's really no reason.

You have a soft spot in your heart that's made of rayon. Yeah.

There's really no reason. I think silk, wool, and cotton are extraordinary performers in almost any context.

However, in socks

and underpants, I think that a blend is often most suitable, unless you wear boxer shorts.

But I think that in socks and underpants that require some stretchiness, a little bit of a blend is great.

And the blends these days are spectacular, and there's a very small portion of synthetic in there, and it does not lead to pilling or lose its stretch. So I would not be that worried about it.

Well, I appreciate that, Jesse, because I would hate to have dishonored your gift by mistreating the socks that you sent me, because though I feel fairly confident that socks don't have feelings, I know that you do and I take them seriously.

And I think that it probably would be better for socks in general just to do the fold over at the top. But you know what Leah is talking about here is no adjoining of the socks at all.

They're just putting them together and folding them in half. That is the Mari Kondo way.
And I would say that's great too. If that works for you, Leah, go for it.
What works for Seth works for Seth.

But here's the thing that you miss. I love that you guys have a house cleaning business together.
You're romantic partners. You clean houses together.
Sold in the room, 10 episodes on Hulu. I love it.

Great premise for a show and for a romance. Delightful.
I'm glad you're cleaning houses and I hope you get a lot out of that.

But you are missing the whole point, which is what does the client want you to do with their socks?

Just ask them, how do you want us to fold these socks? I, Leah, have a magical way of doing it that I read in a book by Marie Kondo that is a worldwide bestseller.

This dumb-dumb partner of mine, Seth, wants to ball him up. They'll make the right decision.
But it's your job, I think, right, to help in the way you are asked by the clients who are hiring you.

So it's not for me to judge. I can only say that this one time.
But I'll judge anyway. Seth's fine.
You're fine. Just

ask your employers.

Can I tell you my inkling about how that one's going to turn out, John? Sure.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the kind of person for whom it works to just put them together and then fold them in half

is the kind of person who owns a cleaning business.

That's the person who won't lose socks if they do that.

Fair enough.

There may be others. They may be.
I believe, in fact, in my heart that there probably are some others who who could handle that.

Our producer, Jennifer, that's why she's the fastidious producer of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I know that in the 1960s beer cooler in which I keep my socks and underwear in my closet,

all aluminum, it's really neat,

I would definitely lose socks immediately.

I would need to have like one of those crazy, like a closet professional built a closet for me with like long rows of low flat drawers that just are only for socks

in order to make that work. I'm just not that kind of person.
Why aren't you putting pebble ice in that beer cooler? That's the problem.

As listeners of the show know, it's settled law in this court that cohabitating couples should sleep in a king bed if space and budget allow.

Sophie wrote in with a further suggestion to ensure a peaceful night's sleep.

In addition to mandating that all couples shall sleep on a king, I would add a second mandate that all couples should sleep beneath their own duvet. Oh,

well, go away. If the couples do not have duvets, they should buy them.

Unless you're a pair of Draculas who don't move and have identical heat preferences, as all Draculas do.

Sorry, I don't like to add editorial comments. No, I know how you feel about the Drax.

I'm almost too mad right now. Just thinking about Draculas makes me so mad that I can hardly make it through the rest of this question, to be honest.
Well, there's only a little left.

Did you know that Draculas are allowed to have any job, John? No, I didn't know that.

If you're, let's say you're at the park, it's a children's park,

and you see a groundskeeper there,

that guy could be a Dracula. He could be a Drac? There's no law against it, John.
Draculas can have any job. Any job.

Usually night work, though, I would presume. It's disgusting.
You know, they drink blood. Well, I guess, I mean, it's almost the definition.
That's kind of their main job.

Everything else is a side hustle for a drac.

Gig economy.

Unless you're a pair of Draculas who don't move and have identical heat preferences, this will greatly improve hot-cold sleeper disputes and cover hogging battles.

Well,

I would think it would be hard to snuggle. Yeah.
You'd get caught in the seam.

I mean, here's the thing. In the past, as it's been pointed out by Sophie,

I have encouraged that Judge Sean Hodgman listeners consider, if they are married or cohabitating, they're sharing a bed, and it is within their means and the size of their bedrooms, to consider a king-size bed.

Because sleeping is a solitary act of relaxation, going deep into yourself. The together times of bed use,

that's a sometimes thing, but it's an all-times thing that you need to sleep and you need to be comfortable. And in my life, I find that two adults and a queen, never mind a double,

no matter how much you like to cuddle, that's not going to scale night overnight.

You've got to have some space. You're basically getting yourself into a Charlie in the Chocolate Factory situation there.

Those grandparents were so lazy. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?

If you learned that your friend lived with his wife and child, his parents and his wife's parents and the four grandparents all slept in a bed in the middle of the living room. Head to toe, baby.

Anyway, that's not what you want.

And this is a provocative idea because I appreciate that having, if you had a king bed and two single duvets,

that you each would have a lot of flexibility. It would definitely prevent trapping your spouse with your farts underneath underneath the covers.

But

I think that a king-size duvet is simply too much. I mean, it's sufficient.
It's too much covers for even the most dedicated of covers thieves, such as my wife, to fully co-opt.

She can't get all that covers over there. She tries.
It's too much. It's like when a magician is pulling scarves out of his pocket.

She keeps pulling and pulling, but there's still some left on your side.

So, you know, I think even though though I have often said the ideal sleeping arrangement for a married couple is actually

two villas separated by a reflecting pool, and you visit each other from time to time.

I mean, obviously, that's only if it's within your means, everybody. To have two villas on a cliffside in Greece, that would be good.

You have to have the reflecting pool, though, I think, between them.

I think that would work great for us to shoot our commercial where we're each sitting in a bathtub next to each other watching the sunset and we reach over and hold hands. That'd be perfect.

It's a great arrangement. But I do think that you do want to have a certain togetherness.
This is not a point of law.

I'm just saying I would not opt for the two duvet option, but I like the way you think, Leah. And if it works for you, by all means, go do it.
Why not also try

getting rid of duvets altogether and have two sleeping bags on top? Or two coffins if you're really Dracula's. Why not?

Can I perform perform for you the Porgy and Best song parody that I wrote based on your comments earlier?

I'll allow it.

A

cuddle is a sometime thing.

Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. I judge that worthy.

Okay, well, the docket's clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman, our producer, the ever-capable sock folder, Jennifer Jennifer Marmor.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum fund subreddit to discuss this week's episode. You can find that at maximumfund.reddit.com.

Submit your cases, and oh boy, do we love getting your cases. Oh boy, we just love them.

Just love them to death at maximumfund.org/slash jjho or email us at hodgman at maximumfun.org where you you actually look at the case.

John, I want to be clear to our audience, if they think that we've got some unpaid intern sifting through these cases and referring them. No, John Hodgman looks at them.
Jennifer Marmer looks at them.

These are our top employees. Yeah, there are three people in the organization.

This is like, this is at least number two and number three, for sure. I don't look at them.
Don't care to, but Jennifer and John do.

And if we had interns, we would pay them, but we don't have any interns. I read every email that comes in.

You obviously can't hear every case, but I often will reply to them, and I do enjoy hearing from you.

So, if you have any cases, obviously, or any other thoughts, questions, concerns, or duvet schemes, write into hodgman at maximum fun.org.

And here's my, by the way, here's my Porgy and Bess parody that I worked up when you were listening to the credits: I love you, pebble ice, but I can't store you.

My cooler's too small and full of socks. That's all I got.
That's all I could get to him.

We have production fellows, by the way, here at maximumfun.org. Shout out to Shana and Chewy.
And they not only get paid a living wage, they also get health insurance.

So take that, unpaid interns that are fictional. Yeah.
Yeah, those are the ones who need to

who really need to shape up.

Take that, you unpaid interns.

That'll show you for taking that unpaid internship and being exploited.

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

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