Verdict Through the Grapevine

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Verdict Through the Grapevine.

Stephanie brings the case against her husband, Ross.

There's a grapevine growing on their house and around their balcony.

Stephanie believes it's hazardous and wants to get rid of it.

Ross says it's a cool feature and he wants it to stay.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Some are born grape, some achieve grapeness,

and some

have grapeness thrust upon them.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Stephanie and Ross, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God or whatever?

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he only drinks wine made from prunes in his toilet.

I do.

Prison style.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

They call me Judge Bruno.

Stephanie and Ross, you may be seated.

We have you in from Minnesota.

Is that correct, Stephanie and Ross?

Yes.

Yep.

St.

Paul?

Yes.

Yes.

But we are residents of Minneapolis.

The withered twin of the Twin Cities.

I understand that John, our producer over there at MPR, Minnesota Public Radio, has already given you a verdict in advance of even recording this.

He has given us a very strong verdict.

Oh, that's true.

He did not hear all the evidence, though.

Now you've given away how he ruled.

I was going to ask you to try to keep it a secret so that we could see if my ruling would align with his.

We might be hearing from John later on.

But in the meantime, I'm still the judge here.

And for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of popular culture that I quoted as I entered this fake internet courtroom?

Stephanie, why don't we start with you?

Is it a reference to the Whitney Houston ballad, I Believe Children Are the Future?

Just, I'm going to, maybe you heard me say something different as I came in.

Maybe we were listening to your disc man.

I said some are born grape, some achieve grapeness, and some have grapeness thrust upon them.

And you're saying it's a Whitney Houston song?

I stand by that.

Okay.

I mean, if it's not that one, it's the one from the bodyguard soundtrack, right?

I will always love you.

It's definitely.

They're both very uplifting messages.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

I had forgotten how many fruit and vegetable references Whitney Houston was famous for making in all of her songs.

So you're right.

You know what, John?

A second ago, I agreed with her that it was a Whitney Houston song, but now that I think about it, I'm Grape Ness.

I'm pretty sure that it's Never Too Much by Luther Van Dross.

Well, all right.

You know what?

I love it when Bailiff Jesse Thorne becomes Bailiff Jesse Thorne and drops a guess into the guest book.

Never too much, never too much.

Now I got two guesses, and Ross, it's up to you.

What's your third guess to make the all guesses are wrong prediction come true?

To me, that sounds like dialogue from What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

I had not thought of that one.

What I like about that one is it doesn't have anything to do with what you said, but it does have grape in it.

Honestly, if you were writing the screenplay for What's Eating Gilbert grape and you didn't hit that line,

it'd be grape references all the way down if I was writing it.

I mean, for heaven's sake, yeah, I didn't think of that movie maybe because I didn't like it.

But as it happens, I'm just writing these all down into the guest book now.

Held for posterity forever.

But all guesses are wrong.

Of course, I was quoting dialogue from a movie.

The movie was called Meet the Raisins.

It was on a television special on CBS, November 4th, 1988, telling mockumentary style the true story of the band known as the California Raisins.

Four Singing Raisins, Claymation Animated, Claymanimated, I guess you would say, by Will Vinton, who a very famous animator who pioneered the Claymation style, certainly popularized it in the 80s and 90s, with his world-beating

Raisin singers.

Sadly, I learned in preparing for this episode that Will Vinton passed away in Portland, Oregon, where he had had his studios, Will Vinton Studios, just last month in October, early October.

So our condolences go to his family and his fans.

He's an amazing, talented guy.

And he created this phenomenon called the California Raisins for the California Raisin Advisory Board, which you may not be surprised also doesn't exist anymore.

I guess Raisin's got all the the advice they needed.

Yeah, they're like, enough already.

I get it.

More claymation.

Got it.

They were basically like, yeah, starting an RB group was a pretty good idea, but we're going to go back to being in oatmeal cookies now.

What is your age, Stephanie and Ross, if I may ask?

37.

37, Ross?

I remember seeing that very broadcast.

I'm 37 as well.

You were there?

I had the figurines from Hardee's.

Yeah.

I mean, California raisins,

very surprisingly, were a a thing for a long time.

Yeah, they were huge.

Especially since raisins themselves are suboptimal as snacks.

And the California raisins as character designs were not good to look at.

But they did sing initially, heard it through the grapevine.

Get it, raisins.

And that is what brings us to court today.

Stephanie, you have brought the case against Ross because you guys have a big old grapevine on the back of your house and you want to get rid of it, but Ross does not.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

All right, Stephanie, tell me about this grapevine.

Where did it come from?

Was it there when you moved in?

Where is your house?

What is the exact street address so that all the Judge Sean Hutchins fans can come and take a look?

We live in South Minneapolis in a craftsman bungalow that is almost 100 years old.

And the grapevine was there when we moved into the house and is apparently older than the house itself.

It was brought in by the original owners when they they moved into the house in the 1920s.

And prior to that, it had existed on their farm.

Oh, okay.

I thought you meant that they built the house under the grapevine.

It was a freestanding grapevine.

In the shape of a house.

Yeah.

And they're like, that grapevine's about to fall down.

We better put a house up in there.

Yeah, it's a load-bearing grapevine.

Oh, that was a good joke, Ross.

I find in your favor.

Make it easy for all of us.

So the grapevine has been there ever since we moved in.

All right.

I don't know a lot about what you call it, viniculture, viniculture, but you can take a cutting from an existing vine, graft it to another one.

You can do all kinds of crazy things with grapevines, including create the reason for a house.

So this is an over 100-year-old

grapevine.

Yes.

That you want to burn while dancing around it.

I do for a number of reasons.

How large a number?

I would say four to five.

Let's do four.

You know what?

Three.

Three is a classic number for comedy and justice.

Okay, sounds good.

The number one reason is that the vine.

Can you do it in reverse order with a drum roll, please?

Oh, yeah.

Let me just turn my page.

All right.

Stephanie's number three reason.

For getting rid of the grapevine.

My number three reason is that the grapes are not used for anything.

Grapes are not used.

Stephanie's number two reason for burning the 100-year-old grapevine.

The vine requires a significant amount of maintenance.

Okay, what kind of maintenance?

It requires being trimmed back quite significantly.

If left to its own devices, it will grow.

It started growing onto our neighbor's fence.

It also attaches itself to the stucco on our house and has grown out to the cable wire that runs from the alley into the home, providing our internet.

It also releases a lot of grapes, which then can be slippery if it rains or gets stuck to your shoes and tracked into the house, leaving grape stains on different surfaces.

Are you saying that this grapevine is trying to choke off your internet access?

Yes.

Trying to isolate you?

It is.

What is its plan?

Man, first they get rid of the net neutrality regulations, and now this.

this

I still find in Ross's favor.

Okay, and the grapes are unusable because, why?

They're disgusting.

They are disgusting.

They have big seeded pits in them.

And they're Concord grapes, which is not the type of grapes you would buy in the grocery store, like a red or green grape.

Right.

It's the candy flavoring, basically, which I've never liked.

And we don't make jelly, we don't make wine.

So there's not really much to do with them.

With all due respect to Concord, New Hampshire, a state in New England, a region of the United States, Concord grapes are gross.

That's a given.

All right.

Here we go.

Those are two good reasons for getting rid of grapevine.

I don't even know what number one could be, but here it comes.

Stephanie's number one reason for getting rid of a 100-year-old grapevine on her house.

The number one reason is that the grapes attract raccoons,

which then climb up.

Number one with a bullet.

Okay.

The raccoons climb up onto our balcony and eat the grapes and then poop all over the balcony, rendering the balcony unusable.

More than unusable.

It's a lake of poison.

Ross.

Have you ever listened to this podcast before?

I have listened to an episode in which you discussed at length the dangers of raccoon feces.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Highly toxic.

Has a parasite in it.

98% of raccoons are infected, something like that.

If that poop dries out and becomes friable and you disturb it and you accidentally inhale it and get that parasite in your brain, you could go blind.

You could have dementia.

You could go into a coma.

This is not me talking.

It's CDC talking.

Also, Ray Suarez talked about that on our special live episode from Washington, D.C.

back in 2016, when I also heard a case between two women who worked together, one of whom didn't feel like voting that year.

And I let her off easy, and I hope she's hearing me now.

Thanks a lot.

Shouldn't have left you off easy.

I should have ordered you to vote.

I also learned during that episode that the recommended method for dealing with the raccoon poop is to get a

propane-fueled torch or something like that.

Yeah, burn it with fire.

Yeah, despite how cool that sounds, I'm still in favor of keeping the grapevine.

If you did not happen to hear that episode, folks, you might also have read all that information in my Thurber Award-nominated book, Vacationland, available at bookstores and online at pit.ly slash painful beaches.

You know how I feel about raccoon poop, Ross.

I mean, I think most people who aren't armed with the surprising knowledge that raccoon poop is highly dangerous probably don't feel fondly about it either.

Judge, I would also like to state for the record that we have an eight-month-old son who could also be exposed.

Ross, I don't know how even your funny joke is going to get you out of this one.

For starters, the eight-month-old child is not allowed on the balcony and won't be for years to come, I don't imagine.

But I will say that over the last few years, I've done a bit of maintenance on the grapevine that has greatly mitigated the amount of raccoon droppings on the balcony.

But I will admit that it hasn't been eliminated completely and that the raccoons do in fact, I believe on purpose, relieve themselves directly in front of the door.

Oh yeah, they're malicious.

Only 10% of the raccoon's anti-human campaign is poisonous poop.

The other 90%, head games.

Yeah.

I think that plays into my argument here, though, because we know how vindictive these raccoons are.

What are they going to do if we remove the grapevine?

Let's not be specious.

Crows and all corvids are super smart animals that can use tools and have been shown to carry grudges against humans that they do not like and also to teach their baby corvids to hold those same grudges.

That's why my son gets chased by a crow every year in Maine.

True, they don't like him.

I don't know why.

Judge Hodgman, can I tell you something about crows?

Always.

I'm well known for hating crows because I feel that they are always planning something.

Yeah.

You hate them almost as much as you hate Draculas.

Yeah, oh well,

almost, yes.

Right.

I wouldn't put it past a crow to become a Dracula.

Totally.

However, recently on the Maximum Fun subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com, there was discussion of a person who had found a crow dead on their lawn and removed it and then started being attacked by the crow murder that lived near his house.

And a helpful amateur crow biologist explained that crows will murder fellow crows who violate their social contracts, then put their dead bodies on display as a warning to other crows.

And if you disrupt that display, you become essentially a crow enemy of the state, and they will attack you you indefinitely.

I want to know what their contracts are.

What are the agreements the crows are coming to?

It's like living in a Maoist nation.

The point is, crows are more terrible than raccoons.

Raccoons are pretty terrible, but I don't think that you're seriously suggesting that raccoons would plot fuzzy vengeance upon you if you got rid of this grapevine.

You know, I don't think we can say that for certain.

Specious, Ross.

You're being specious.

Let's take a quick recess.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Court is back in session.

Let's return to the courtroom to hear more of the case.

Ross, let's get to the crux.

You love this grapevine.

Why?

Why does it matter so much that you would have this disgusting, well, you know what?

I don't know if it's disgusting.

It might look beautiful.

Hang on a second.

You sent in evidence.

A photo of the grapevine in question.

This evidence shall be posted on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org and also our ever loving Instagram, instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Let me take a look at this and I'll see.

Oh, it's gross.

This doesn't look good.

I don't like it.

Is this in its current state or have you worked on it since then?

That's its current state.

It always looks like that.

This is after Ross.

went in and did some maintenance on it that he claims to have done.

Yes.

First of all, it's a very nice, very well-tended backyard, I'll say this.

And I love the idea that you have a 100-year-old craftsman house, and you probably maybe know more about it than I can half remember now, but the arts and crafts style swept through the American prairies in like Frank Lloyd Wright times, right?

Yep.

And it's those very classic, squat,

like one-story bungalows or just a little bit of a two-story thing with great big sort of sweeping roof line and usually a porch and beautiful clunks of heavy wood pillars and stuff.

That's right.

Yours seems pretty tall for a craftsman.

Does it have that classic arts and crafts look from the front?

It does, yes.

You should have sent me that picture.

We can add that.

Please.

The backyard looks beautiful, extremely well tended, well done.

That mulch along the pathway there is beautifully spread, even.

But you have this big old mop of green Sigmund the Sea Monster stuff all over your back door, and I can see where it's invaded onto that balcony.

Where does that balcony lead out from?

What is that door in the balcony area?

What room is there?

It's from a hallway that runs through the length of the upper story between a bathroom and a spare bedroom.

But you can't use that balcony because it's covered with raccoon poop, right?

That is correct.

I would say we have used it despite the raccoon poop on occasion.

We have.

I used to sweep out the raccoon poop,

not knowing of the dangers, but ever since then, the poop has just sat up there year-round.

You're saying that the knowledge that I imparted you about the danger of raccoon feces has now turned your balcony into a superfund site.

That is correct.

Well, I can't say that I'm sorry that you know this information, but I would like you to do so.

I mean, you can't have your balcony be a raccoon litter box.

It's a safety hazard for you.

So, Ross, there are a lot of downsides.

to this grapevine that I and Stephanie have identified.

And speak speciously of raccoon vengeance.

I think, as a human being, you can probably defend against the raccoons.

If there were crows, I'd tell you to move.

These raccoons are real big, Judge.

Yeah, because you're feeding them grapes all the time.

Why is this grapevine important to you?

I mean, I'll give you this.

It's a serious thing to consider getting rid of a plant that is older than your home, especially if your home is 100 years old.

Is that what's happening, or is there something else?

What's going on?

No, it's mostly respect for my elders.

The grapevine, as you mentioned, older than the home.

It's lived through World War II.

It's lived through the many brutal winters it's seen here in Minnesota.

And to

get rid of it simply because some raccoons are hungry, To me, that seems, I guess, disrespectful to the vine.

You know, to me, it feels like it would be sacrilegious to cut this thing down.

It'd be like going into a museum and like ruining one of the old paintings.

Sacrilegious feels strong, unless you're a Dionysian or something.

Yeah.

I mean, if you worship the earth and plants, you're like some kind of pagan satyr.

I feel you.

That doesn't sound too bad.

He's not pagan.

But it's a unique feature of our house.

I can't recall seeing any other house in the Twin Cities that has a grapevine growing on it.

It offers us some visual privacy if we're hanging out up on the balcony, which we have done.

And I just kind of generally like it.

And, you know, as I mentioned,

the maintenance that I do to it each year does mitigate the amount of raccoon action happening up top.

Can you quantify that mitigation in any way?

Yeah, so I used to hear the raccoon up there.

This is, we're in prime raccoon season right now in late October.

The grapes, if there were any remaining, would be at full ripeness, and this is when the raccoons would come to feed, usually around 9 or 10 p.m.

I think they kind of roll out of bed and just head straight up.

But this year I have not seen any evidence of raccoons up there.

So I'm thinking that it was a very successful year in terms of dissuading them.

And I would like to,

you know, let this grapevine live as long as I'm able to maintain it.

I would say that rolling out of bed at 9 or 10 p.m.

is one of the things that raccoons have in common with Lemmy for Motorhead.

The other thing is surprisingly nimble hands.

And they both want to eat the rich.

So when it's wintertime in Minnesota, what happens to this vine?

The leaves fall off and it just goes into

hibernation or whatever it is that trees do.

So it just looks like a haunted house at that point.

Yes.

Twisting dead tendrils.

Or, excuse me, hibernating tendrils.

In the Minneapolis-St.

Paul area, are there

freegan organizations dedicated to harvesting home fruit?

I mention it because there are some very dedicated ones here in Los Angeles where if you have too many here in LA, it's mostly citrus fruits and avocados.

But if you've got an avocado tree and you can't eat all the avocados, you can just make one internet post and four or five hippies will come to your house with fruit pickers and

make guacamole or whatever.

We have a winery that was doing doing that with apples, but not grapes.

You may want to have a word with them.

I think they may be confused about their business model.

I did have a co-worker one year who came and removed all of the grapes and made grape jelly with it.

But even that was a big ordeal.

for him, proving to me that it's very difficult to successfully remove all the grapes.

It was like three hours and he had an extension ladder and was at it for a long time.

Would he say, I'm never going to do this again?

He never offered to do it again.

It stopped giving grapes, hypothetically, and stopped attracting raccoons.

Do you have any other problems with the vine?

I would like it to be trimmed back a bit more to prevent it from growing, you know, onto the house and hanging over the back door and growing onto our neighbors.

But I think I could live with that and we could manage that.

The primary challenge is the grapes.

You heard all of Ross's

explanations

for why, as part of his religion, he cannot cut down a grapevine

and also cannot anger the raccoon gods

that he worships.

Do you feel that those explanations are A, true?

And B, complete?

Is there anything Ross is holding back?

I I do not feel that they are true.

I have not seen him fat into any pagan rituals since we've been married.

And I've never seen him show that much respect or fear for raccoons.

So what do you think is going on with Ross?

Why do you think he's opposing Rawiness?

I think he just has a very sentimental attachment to the vine.

Maybe because he's becoming the vine.

He's completing his transformation.

Or maybe because Ross, as you knew him, has long since been replaced by a new sentient being made up of raccoon poop parasites that has taken over his brain that wants to propagate itself to you and your child.

Look, we're just a little bit past Halloween here by the time this podcast comes out, but I'm thinking, I'm going to sell this screenplay.

And

I'll give you guys a story credit, I guess.

Thank you.

Is it possible that Ross is a second-tier Batman villain?

I'm like a poison ivy hench person.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're a Jason Woodrue, the plantmaster.

I think I really delighted some DC Universe nerds out there with that deep cut.

Somewhere our friend Glenn Weldon from Pop Culture Happy Hour is like crying with joy.

Stephanie, if I were to order in your favor, this would get taken away completely.

Yes.

What would be the benefit to you of having it gone?

Do you think your house will look better?

Do you think it'll be fun to see out the windows?

I do think it would be nicer to have something that's easier to maintain.

I would like to be able to sit on the balcony without risk of death.

And it would be nice not to have to deal with the grapes falling year-round.

I am open to replacing the vine with another sort of growing vine that doesn't produce fruit.

To get that vinyl look that Ross loves in his earth religion?

Yes.

And Ross, obviously, you would like me to find in your favor and just say, leave it alone.

Let me have my vine.

That's correct.

And by leave it alone, I just want to reiterate that leaving it alone does involve a number of hours of labor on my part to prevent it from fully engulfing the house and, you know, turning it into my plant church.

Stephanie, do you agree that Ross's work has mitigated the raccoon problem to some degree?

And do you think you can go farther?

I think it has mitigated it to a degree.

I do think he could go farther, but I think it would be quite a bit more effort for him.

Ross, have you done any research into viticulture?

I was wrong before, everyone.

It's not viniculture.

Viticulture is the horticulture of vines and grapes and junk.

Have you done any research into the Concord grape and its care and tending?

I have done some research into the history of the Concord grape, but not into its care.

I'm going totally by instinct on that.

The vine doesn't care if you know its life story.

No, it cares if you know its life story.

It doesn't care if you know its ancestry.

You know, if you're going to be a steward of this vine,

you need to do some research, right?

Ross, I never took driver's ed, but I did read a biography of Henry Ford.

Do you have any gardening expertise of any kind, sir?

My sister is an experienced gardener and landscape designer, so

that's a no, I guess.

I'm glad you came around to that yourself.

I feel like we're finally getting to a place of honesty here.

It's become a self-guided tour.

Has your sister ever weighed in opinion?

Not on the grapevine, I don't believe.

Stephanie, do you remember any?

No, but she is the one who did the nice mulch beds in the back.

She does good work.

What is her name?

Her name is Ellie.

Shout out to Ellie.

Ellie landscaping.

Yeah, laying down some fresh duff.

Has anyone commented, pro or con,

whose opinion you respect in your life?

Or have you, because you are now controlled by the raccoons and they patrol your property all the time, totally isolated yourself from your friends and family?

I think

upon first glance, the grapevine gets a lot of positive comments.

Not my first glance.

Judge Hodgman, I have to admit here, I think it looks nice.

Do you?

You may be a more neat person than I.

I do like a little bit of a slightly overgrown garden, but I think it suits the aesthetic of the house.

You know what?

I'm willing to entertain that there are other opinions besides mine.

And I think that a kind of overgrown-niche garden is something of a little bit of a California thing.

Like that kind of John Muir, natural, let it all hang out garden.

And it has a beauty to it.

I agree with you there.

But I'm going to say that this is definitely, and I think the people who go and visit our Instagram page and our show page, I think the people who will look at it will see that this is definitely a grapevine that supports two interpretations.

Bad and not so bad.

We're kind of pretty.

Stephanie, if I were to order in your favorite, who are you going to call to tear this thing down?

And what are you going to do to console Ross as you destroy his god?

I did speak to a landscaper about removing it several years ago, and they had to refer us to an arborist because it was out of scope of what the landscaper could accomplish.

So we would have to call in a professional arborist to have it removed.

And Ross, if I were to find in your favor, what are you going to promise me now in terms about becoming a viticulturian?

What steps are you going to take to do better?

Because you've done pretty good.

Well, thank you.

But I don't think you've done the best yet.

I think clearly there's some research that can be done on proper care of Concord grapevines, and I'm sure there's plenty of information out there on the proper ways to,

you know, maintain them while keeping them under control.

Congratulations, Ross, on perhaps the most passive construction of any resolution that any litigant has ever given.

And I think there is some research that can be done.

Mistakes were made.

Well, speaking of mistakes, I took a moment just to look up Concord Grapes in Wikipedia just now, which admittedly I could have done before the podcast, but admittedly is also more than you've done at all, Ross.

And I realize now that they're named for Concord, Massachusetts.

Not Concord, New Hampshire.

Concord, Massachusetts, my home Commonwealth, which is a part of New England, a region of the United States, Northeastern Europe.

Sorry, I haven't heard of it.

No, I know.

I'll send you a map sometime.

Hmm.

So we are all, well, at least you and I, Ross, are somewhat corrected.

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

Since John Miller at MPR in Minnesota has already come to his own decision, I will take my secret portals to the MPR chambers and hear from him what I'm going to rule.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Stephanie, how are you feeling about your chances in the case?

I'm feeling pretty good.

I feel like the judge really understood the dangers that the vine brings and had a healthy skepticism of Ross's newfound religion.

Are you willing to do the necessary propane blowtorching to make your house habitable again?

I'll explore that as an option, I guess.

Ross, how are you feeling?

You know, I'm a little nervous.

I think we all knew coming into this with raccoons involved that this would be an uphill battle for me.

And I think the hearing bore that out.

What would you say is your top Greek god other than Dionysus?

Got to be Poseidon, right?

I mean, anyone with a trident, basically, which is just Poseidon, right?

Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Anybody trident, that's going to be your guy.

Although, Hestia does a great job stoking that hearth.

Well, anyway,

it may or may not be that I've been reading Delaire's Greek miss with my second grader.

We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So the California Raisin Advisory Board no longer exists.

But luckily for you guys,

the

conqueredgrape.org, the website of the Conquered Grape Association, has many, many answers that I have just discovered.

First of all, conquered grapes are primarily harvested to make 100% grape juice, and that's it.

You don't really make wine out of them.

So I'm not surprised that Apple Cidery did not want to take your grapes to go turn them into wine.

Can I grow conquered grapes in my backyard?

Yes, conquered grapes can make an attractive arbor.

But conquered conquered vines do require annual pruning and will take four years before producing a big crop.

You've got that covered.

Here's another interesting question

about conquered grapes.

This is from the website.

Can conquered grapes be frozen?

Answer, anything can be frozen.

But why?

If you have the will.

Folks, anything can be frozen and anything can be.

I didn't even realize I was making a pun when I formulated this sentence.

Anything can be frozen and anything can be conquered, including this Concord grapevine.

Sorry.

That just happened genetically.

I'm a dad.

I didn't mean to do that.

The vine can be trimmed.

The vine can be pared down, pruned, made beautiful, or at least less toxically poisonous due to its attraction of raccoons.

The question is: Should I allow Ross this chance

to worship freely the god that he loves more than his own child and wife?

Or assess what is true

that this plant, through no fault of its own, is attracting pests that are leaving a highly dangerous substance in an area that is still trafficked occasionally by you until the moment you learned that it was dangerous to you.

And now you have given up part of your home to nature to be reclaimed by the vines and the feces of the animals.

And this is a danger.

Raccoons are cute, and some people have them as pets.

And, you know, have I read the CDC's warnings?

Sure.

Do I know anyone who's gone into a raccoon poop coma?

Personally, no, but I believe in science.

I'm glad you're okay, Stephanie.

But this has to be addressed.

And of course, the safest way to address it is to remove it.

What do I mean by remove?

Do I mean destroy it with fire?

No, that's for the poop.

I mean, remember, you read a book on the history of Concord grapes, but you forget the history of your very own vine, Ross.

It did not grow there.

It was moved there.

There is no reason that it has to be right up against your house.

It is a hearty, hundred-year-old thing that can live again

back a ways in your backyard.

Make a trellis and put the vines, you know, get your sister.

You have a sister who does this.

Or call an arborist.

Take a healthy cutting, replant it, and have a beautiful trellis in your backyard, something you can sit under.

So the grapes can fall into your lats and then the raccoons will jump up on your body.

It'll be delightful.

And the reason that I am leaning towards this decision

is that you think you have done a good job, but you have not done a good job.

Ross, I'm sorry.

You put in a lot of work to get that thing looking still pretty rough, still blocking a lot of light into your windows.

Admittedly, I do not enjoy a more sort of lush, overgrown look to a garden, but in the case where it is on the side of the house,

I think that it still feels

bushy and unappealing, at least to the eye of this judge.

And so I think that a solution that would solve all of your problems would be to move both the vine and the raccoon bait further into your beautiful backyard where you have room for such a thing.

Maybe that's not a solution that Stephanie would like, because maybe she secretly hates your God and is using this all as an excuse to just burn this thing to the ground.

I am leaning to that decision, but I only lean so far.

I don't think you've done enough work, Ross, to mitigate this serious problem in your home.

Not merely the aesthetics of having the grapevine, which I consider to be suboptimal, but also the pests and poison it is attracting.

You have not cut it back enough.

You do not know enough about how to tend one.

Nor have you borne the burden of having this thing by responsibly getting rid of the...

You have raccoon poop on there right now, right?

Yes.

Probably.

Yes.

I don't know how John at MPR ruled, but I bet he's got raccoon feces in him right now.

You tracked it into his studio.

I'm glad I'm only speaking to you via Skype.

So first things first, you got to mitigate that raccoon dirt in consultation with a pest control expert, animal removal expert, whatever.

You've got to get respirators.

You go to the hardware store.

This is fun, right?

Go to the hardware store.

You get to buy a whole set of new raccoon poop disposal togs.

Respirator and special gloves or whatever.

You got to get rid of it.

You got to check out a website, figure out what's the best way to make sure that your balcony is no longer toxic.

Because you deserve to use that space.

The original builders of the house did not build that balcony there to give to vines and raccoon.

They built it for your use.

So that's job one, no matter what.

And I'm putting this on you, Ross, because you're the one who's arguing to keep this thing.

And job two,

just for a little bit of suspense, here comes a drum roll.

Trim it back.

Ross, you have one year to get this thing under control.

And by under control, I mean trimmed and pruned such that it is aesthetically pleasing, 100% to Stephanie,

and

harvested sufficiently so that you do not have raccoon poop on that porch.

12 months, a full season of viticulture for you, Ross.

But if a raccoon poops on that porch in that year, you got to give it up.

Can't do it.

Cannot have it.

If you love it that much and you want to devote your time to it that much, if you want to truly be a priest in the church of this vine, you got to protect it and your family.

One raccoon spoilage in that year,

you call your sister, move it elsewhere in the yard.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Stephanie, the case didn't quite go as you hoped.

How do you feel about the decision?

I'm disappointed, but I do feel confident that within 12 months, we'll see some additional raccoon poop, and then the vine will have to go.

You're looking forward to your husband's failure, in other words.

Yep.

Ross, how are you feeling?

Good.

It appears I've got a lot of vitricultural work ahead of me here, but I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

If it helps, I can loan you my biography of Henry Ford.

But Ross, Stephanie, before you go, we need to check in with John Miller over there at Minnesota Public Radio in Minnesota, who has already reached a verdict long before we even had this conversation.

John, are you there?

Right here.

Thank you for recording us there in Minnesota.

How are things there in the Twin Cities?

Oh, beautiful, cold, you know.

That's right.

The ush.

Yeah, that's the motto of Minnesota.

So you've heard my verdict.

What was your verdict?

And has your opinion stayed the same or changed over the course of this conversation?

Oh, it became stronger.

I live in their neighborhood.

I hate the raccoons in our neighborhood.

They're filthy.

They're eating my garden all the time.

My cat escaped, and I tried to get my cat back, and I kept catching raccoons.

I hate them.

They're like rats.

Yeah, they're terrible, terrible creatures.

So you advocated for getting rid of the vine altogether.

Completely, top to bottom.

Moving that raccoon bait further back in the yard away from the balcony would not be sufficient for you.

No, not in my neighborhood.

No.

No way.

All right.

Well,

would it be fair to say that your judgment is biased by an incredible animus against raccoons because they kidnapped your cat?

Yeah, we should have caught John and Voidure.

No, they're huge, man.

Like, I came home from work late one night.

I saw one in the back in the alley.

I thought it was a dog.

It was so big.

Like, they just get huge.

And your neighbors, Ross and Stephanie, they're feeding them.

Yeah, I know.

Maybe I should bring a lawsuit against them next time.

Yeah, we talked about it.

Yeah.

Well, I would wait a couple of months before you take any vigilante action.

Okay.

Thanks very much, Judge John Miller, over there at Minnesota Public Radio.

Say hi to Minnesota.

I miss you guys.

All right, we'll do.

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

Thank you.

Thank you.

Don't forget to check out conqueredgrape.org.

We'll do.

And I wish you the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amen.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Ryan Daly for naming this week's episode Verdict Through the Grapevine.

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

Please also follow us on Twitter.

at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho, and check out the Maximum Funds subreddit to discuss this week's episode.

We're also on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman, where you can see that grapevine and decide for yourself whether it looks pretty okay as I said or whether you're wrong.

Make sure to follow us there for evidence.

The rest of the yard is so manicured and beautiful.

It's just not in keeping, but all right, fine.

Yeah, no, the rest is very careful.

Yeah.

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

This week's episode recorded by John Miller at MPR Minnesota Public Radio, our producer, the ever-capable Ms.

Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

You ready for this, John?

I am ready.

This comes from Jeff.

My wife took a photo of me sleeping.

I admit it's an amusing photo, but do I have the right to demand she delete it?

Hmm.

I don't understand why Jeff would be concerned.

I mean, obviously, his wife took a photo of him sleeping so that throughout the day she can take it out and look at it and think about the time when he will be dead.

Jeff, it's creepy.

What your wife did was creepy.

You obviously have every right to control and limit the use of an image of you at your most vulnerable that was taken without your consent.

And if you feel that you do not want it in the world, Jeff's wife, take out that photo and delete it in his presence.

But, you know, before you do that, send it over to us, hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Yes, we can put it on our Instagram.

Absolutely.

That's it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or just email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

We are always grateful for every case we receive.

We consider all of them.

No case is too small.

We'll decide.

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

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