Statute of Celebrations

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Summertime, Funtime Guest Bailiff Monty Belmonte from WRSI 939 the River in Northampton, Massachusetts, sitting in for Jesse Thorne.

This week, Statute of Celebrations.

Rick brings the case against his wife, Sarah.

When Sarah's birthday month rolls around, she likes to plan different celebrations with various groups of people in her life.

Happy birthday to you, Rick thinks happy birthday too many and would like to set a two-celebration limit.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Who looks like a monkey?

And who smells like one too?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents a present in the form of an obscure cultural reference.

You're the judgment day.

You're the judgment day.

You're the judgment day, boy or girl.

Summertime, fun time, bailiff, Monty Belmonte, will you please swear them in?

Please raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you.

Zoom, who lives on the moon, the birthday alien, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that Hodgman's birthday suit was an actual three-piece suit?

I do.

Yes, I do.

Judge Hodgman, proceed.

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

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this fake internet summertime court here?

The court is in exile in Orland, Maine, at WERU FM in Maine with producer Joel.

Say hello, Joel.

Hello, Joel.

I knew you were going to do that, Joel.

And of course, with Funtime Summertime Bailiff Monty Belmonte down there in Northampton, Massachusetts at WRSI The River, 93.9 FM.

How are you, Monty?

Very well, thank you.

It is a pleasure to hear your voice again, both of you.

And we have to move swiftly in this case because Joel is premiering a new show up here on WERU in exactly one hour, 3 p.m.

What starts?

Ripple Radio.

Go on, describe it.

With Jack Straw from Wichita, two hours of grateful dead.

This is the 30th anniversary of WERU.

If you want to donate to continue this arguably fine programming, go to weru.org.

Sarah and Rick, you're here too.

Yes, ma'am.

Now,

can you name the piece of culture that I paraphrased as I entered this fake main summertime courtroom?

Why don't we start with Rick?

I'm going to guess a song by Patty and Mildred Hill.

Not their most popular song, but maybe another song they sung

to their classes.

Wait a minute.

So wait a minute.

Let me understand you, Rick.

Because I clearly was not singing Happy Birthday.

I know, I know.

And I had a moment of podcast panic when Monty Belmonte started singing Happy Birthday to You, because for many years, that song written by Patty and Mildred Hill was famously under copyright, owned by Warner Chapel Music, and you could get a big fine for singing that song without paying a royalty.

And in fact, the producers of Eyes on the Prize, the very famous civil rights documentary, had to pay Warner Chapel billed them $5,000 to include a scene in which Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

is sung happy birthday on his birthday.

And Warner Chappell's like, give me my money.

And that's why, if you look at the DVD of Eyes on the Prize now, that scene isn't included because they couldn't pay up to this corporation.

But that song is Happy Birthday to You, which is now in the public domain, finally, after a lawsuit in 2016 was named to be in the public domain.

So we're not going to get sued for Monty having sung it.

But that Patty and Mildred Hill song

was obviously not the song I sang.

You're suggesting that what I sang was a different Mildred and Patty Hill birthday song.

So, Rick, another birthday song by the Hill sisters is what I am engraving in the golden plates of the guest book.

Sarah, what is your guess?

I'm kind of leaning towards Rogers and Hammerstein State Fair because I remember she does sing a song about her birthday and I think she's turning 16 or 17 and she's about to go to the fair.

I'm a little rusty on my Rogers and Hammerstein, but that's where I'm leaning.

You have much less rust compared to me.

I will put in Rogers and Hammerstein State Fair.

And because it's short, I'm going to sing the actual thing without changing the words.

To give you one more chance at a guess, just to give you a chance.

You're the birthday, you're the birthday, you're the birthday boy or girl.

Any change in your guess?

Good.

All guesses are wrong.

I'll take your silence as a no.

It's from The Simpsons, you guys.

It's from The Simpsons.

Monty, did you know that one?

I did not.

Joel, did you know that one?

No, I did not.

What the three of us are certainly old enough to have seen Simpsons season three, episode 13, Radio Bart, in which Bart celebrates his birthday by going to Wally Weasels, their Chuck E.

Cheese stand-in.

Oh, yeah.

And the robots sing a very sad birthday song to him, which is a joke on the fact that places like Chuck E.

Cheese and Applebee's and Fridays at that time could not sing happy birthday.

So their version of birthday was to sing you're the birthday boy or girl, and they just covered both boy and girl in the song.

It was one of my favorite jokes from The Simpsons, and apparently something that has now been lost to time, or at least Rick and Sarah's time.

I used to have the Olive Garden version of that birthday song memorized because we used to go there for my birthday all the time.

Can you do it?

From the pasta we make to lasagna we bake.

La Nana now we're wishing you a happy birthday.

That's the beginning of it.

I know that the Chili's one is

happy, happy birthday from the chilies crew.

We wish it was our birthday so we could party too.

Hey,

all these restaurants have to come up with alternatives because those

miserly Hill sisters wanted their money.

No, it wasn't they.

It was the Warner Chap.

Anyway, here we all are together in a perfect world where a happy birthday song is now in the public domain.

And Sarah celebrates her birthday more than once a year.

Is that correct, Sarah?

I would say probably more than once in the month that my birthday is in.

Your birthday is what day of the year?

December 7th.

And Rick, you claim that Sarah celebrates her birthday not merely on the 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, a day that shall live in infamy, but also several times during the month.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it started out just during the week of her birthday.

She would say her birth week.

She would start making plans in November for things to do throughout that week.

And then this past year, it became her birth month.

And the whole month of December was basically fair game for planning different celebrations.

How are the celebrations different?

Or were they just parties to celebrate Sarah in all her glory?

She might ask to go to like a museum or a show, basically planning different events with me throughout her birth month.

And then she'll also say, you know, my friend Jackie wants to take me here for my birthday.

My friend Nicole wants to take me here for her birthday.

My parents want to do this with me on my birthday.

So she would definitely fill up the month of December with different events with separate friends or a lot of events with me.

And your contention is that she doesn't deserve this amount of celebration?

I think she deserves this celebration.

It's just December is a particularly difficult month to have a lot planned because there are holidays that we celebrate.

And my mother's birthday is also in that month.

My brother's birthday is also in that month.

And it's also, I'm a statistics professor.

And so that's right at the end of the semester.

So I have finals.

And so it's just a busy time of year.

Sarah, it is true.

Statistically speaking, December is the statistician's busiest time of year.

That is statistician hell month.

And I know that it's a busy time of year for him.

But I also know that some of his busyness is self-induced.

For example, on his mom's birthday last year, he spent the afternoon with her, but then chose to go to a podcast recording in the evening when he had to work the next day at 8 a.m.

You went to a podcast recording on your own mother's birthday?

Yeah, I invited her to go with me.

Somehow your invitation to a podcast on your mom's birthday was not enticing to her.

Somehow she didn't feel like going to a podcast with her son?

No, I don't think she understood what a podcast was.

Sarah, you guys are married?

Yes, sir.

And how long have you been married?

We're going on 11 years.

11 years?

That's the podcast anniversary.

Congratulations.

Well, thank you.

Make sure that you give each other some good podcasts.

Rick said that you started out celebrating your birth week, then it became your birth month.

Is this a lifetime thing for you?

Has this been going on your whole life?

Or how did this get started?

So birthdays are actually a pretty big deal in my family.

Even my mom now, and I won't, she says she's 39 and that's the age I'll go with.

Even now, she still celebrates her.

We still do something like a her and I thing.

She does something with my dad.

She does something with her granddaughters.

So this is like a family culture that we have fully embraced my entire life.

When I was a little girl, she would ask me like six months before my birthday, have you started thinking about your birthday yet?

What do you think you want to do for your birthday?

And this was summertime.

But it always gave me something really special to look forward to with my family and my friends.

It really created like a sense of community with the the people in my life because I felt like they valued and respected me and wanted to be around me as I celebrate this special day.

Right.

It was like for you guys and your family, birthdays were a kind of a holiday, but instead of honoring a historical event or a foundational moment in your religion, it's a celebration of you, you and you alone.

A multi-day celebration of Sarah.

But it's also about like my mom and my family and like with, you know, my mom had me when she was a little bit older and didn't think she was going to be able to have children.

And then I come along and she gave birth to me and went through a lot of pain and worked for it.

And so it also reminds her of like the sacrifice she made.

Wow, you actually did make it feel like a foundational myth and a religion.

That's wonderful.

I'm not being sarcastic.

Like that was very narrative and beautiful.

And now I wonder again why Rick is such a monster that he doesn't want to celebrate Sarismus as many times as possible in December.

Well, I think I might have an answer to that.

Please.

Rick is a genuinely reserved man.

He doesn't like to project himself on anyone.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

I already know he's a statistician.

You're saying me the statistician is not a party animal?

I mean, he is, but he likes party animal status one-on-one.

Like, he likes it when it's just him and I or me, him, and our children.

He doesn't like big parties.

I once threw a big party for his 30th birthday.

It was a disaster.

He ate something that he wasn't supposed to eat at the party that my friend brought, and he didn't talk to her for an entire year after that party.

And I think it's partially because he didn't want the party in the first place.

So rather than projecting his anger on me, he projected it on her.

What did she bring that you ate that you weren't supposed to eat, Rick?

Well, Sarah and I are both vegans, and so I assumed everything at my birthday party would be vegan.

And so I went to town on some cheese ravioli.

Cheese ravioli, and I.

Oh, no.

Did you get sick?

I didn't get sick but I think you went in the bathroom and made yourself throw up I don't think so but he was devastating I was pretty yeah I just I kind of went into my quiet place you felt tricked and betrayed yeah yeah but Rick for real either you threw up or you didn't throw up what's the answer I cannot make myself throw up so maybe I felt nauseous

but I don't think I made myself throw up you are maintaining under fake oath that there was no throwing up of the cheese ravioli right yeah

okay sarah is he lying I thought he did, but maybe my recollection is a little, you know, tainted from just the entire year of him refusing to talk to my best friend.

Is that true that you wouldn't talk to her, Rick?

I just avoid contact with her.

Because of rage?

No, it's just,

I don't know.

It had to be for a reason.

You were mad.

You had a grudge.

I don't think I was like angry.

I think I just chose not to communicate with him.

I'm willing to believe you that you didn't throw up, but now Sarah has made a contention that you you didn't speak to her best friend for a year because you didn't like the fact that she served you cheese ravioli at your birthday.

I'm cool with them now.

We're going to, they could listen to this.

I don't know.

The year of silence has occurred.

The punishment has been inflicted.

It's a new time.

I needed some time to process and organize my feelings and we reconciled.

I'm cool with them now.

And do you agree?

with Sarah that you prefer celebrations sort of more one-on-one.

Yeah,

my family at probably like the age of seven or eight, I remember my mom telling me, yeah, we're not going to do birthday parties anymore.

And so it was always, I never had parties.

We would just go out to dinner as a family and I'd spend some time with the family.

And that was the extent of the birthday celebration.

No wonder you're blowing your mom off for a podcast on her birthday.

She pulled the plug on birthdays when you were seven or eight.

Yeah, I think probably like eight.

I think she

maybe found it hard to find people to come to my birthdays.

I wasn't like a big socialite or anything in the grade school years.

Well, yeah, I mean a statistician's perfect birthday party is one-on-one, two people just flipping a quarter a thousand times and recording the results.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, I'm gonna stop hammering the statistician thing.

I'm just feel very proud of myself that I've been able to pronounce statistician.

That's a hard one for me, normally.

Yeah, it's tough.

So do you have many siblings?

I have a a brother.

And when is your birthday?

January 25th.

And my brother's is December 6th.

I'm the older brother.

He's the younger.

December 6th?

That's Sarah's Mus Eve.

Yep.

That's what we're going to have.

Yeah, December 6th, December 7th, December 10th.

My mom's birthday is four days after, or three days after Sarah's.

So it's that first week of December is

quite filled up with birthday celebrations.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

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

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Rick, given that your mom said we're not really going to do birthday parties anymore, before you were even in high school.

And given that the one time there was a birthday party for you, someone tried to poison you with cheese, how does it make you feel over December to see Sarah having birthday events over and over and over again?

It's more just like this anxiety, I feel.

Like I definitely think she deserves

the recognition.

And it's honestly hard for me to have the time to fit all this into my schedule.

And so I feel bad that

we have to kind of put off some of the celebrations and that I can't commit to all of the celebrations she wants to plan because it's not just with friends, but she wants to do a lot of these things with me.

Whether it's a play or like an art house movie she might want to go see, that I probably would let her pick.

And I start to feel bad that I can't attend all these different things.

Is the birthday present to her that you let her pick the movie that one time?

No,

no, no.

But that's the other thing.

She starts dropping hints for birthday presents, and she gives me about like eight or nine different presents she wants for her birthday.

And it becomes difficult to decide if she wants them all or what does she want the most or has she changed her mind?

Right.

Sarah, how old are you?

33.

How old are you, Rick?

37.

You guys are grown-ups.

Yep.

Do you dispute Rick's claim that you start dropping hints for seven or eight birthday presents?

I think that seven or eight birthday presents, that claim is rather hyperbolic.

I might say two or three,

but seven or eight sounds a little bit extreme.

We try not to be materialistic people, but usually things that I ask for are like tech-related things because he loves buying tech-related things for me.

So like for what, for example?

Like an Apple watch or an iPad or a new phone.

And is the word or used here?

I say or.

I don't say I want this, this, and this, please.

Do you expect him to give you more than one birthday present?

No.

In fact, I would expect him to get what he thinks is the most useful for me.

And I try to say tech things because I know that he loves doing like research on electronic devices and he's very tech savvy.

And I just, I trust him so much with making those kinds of decisions.

Is it important to you that when you drop a hint, like gimme, gimme, gimme a smart watch or whatever?

I'll say Apple Watch.

I still love those guys.

I'm in wardrobe.

I'm ready to do the ads.

Come on, you guys, put me back in.

But, you know, when you drop a hint, is it important to you that you get the thing that you drop a hint for, or are you just giving suggestions?

I'm giving suggestions.

For me, it's really about being together.

Okay, so that's another issue.

I'm just going to put a pin in that for one second and just say, how do you account for the very different

experience that Rick is having when he comes to me and says, she's dropping hints for eight presents and I got to get them all for her.

Why is that his perception of what's going on?

I think that he's trying to make a case that you'll side with him and so he's going to be a little bit more on the demonstrative side.

You know, if he can present to me a list of the seven or eight things I asked for, I'd be more than happy to concede.

All right, I'll allow it.

Rick, do you have a list of seven or eight items?

There was the Apple Watch, there was a blender,

I think you wanted.

And I know you wanted to go to a musical, I don't remember which one, or a play.

And

you wanted to go to a restaurant that we hadn't tried yet in LA.

But yeah, I don't have a list of seven or eight items.

That's four.

And you notice those aren't all presents.

Those two presents and then two, maybe three experiences that we share together.

Right.

But they cost money.

That's true.

I appreciate, or perhaps you should, that going to a play together is different than buying a thing.

True, yeah.

It's not a gift, but there's been times when on the birthday it's presented, like, here's tickets to this event.

And that's kind of the gift that we give each other on a birthday or for a holiday.

And so it's just all this planning around her birthday.

And it's this time of year where I feel like under an extreme amount of stress and pressure.

And trying to figure out exactly what to get her just adds to the confusion.

I would kind of like just like a hint, like, this is what I kind of want for my birthday.

And then I know to get that.

But when I hear this is what she wants for her birthday, I start investigating and researching that.

And then I hear another hint given a week later.

It becomes very confusing to me.

So you would like one clear hint for a preferred capital B birthday, capital P present,

and no other obligations in the gift giving department sort of thrown at you.

Would that be a fair statement of your position?

Or just no hint, and I'll just figure out something on my own.

She's shaking her head no, but I think I could pick out a gift without her giving me a hint.

I kind of want to surprise her.

What are you afraid of, Sarah, if he were left to his own devices?

What are you afraid that he would get you?

I'm just afraid he's going to get me something that I don't really want, that it's more something that he wants and he thinks I want.

Like, I don't know, a new pair of running shoes?

I think you'd be okay with a pair of running shoes.

You've left hints that you want.

I don't want a new pair of running shoes.

Okay.

Gift buying for Rick is entirely different.

Why?

Rick says to me after Christmas, this is what I want for my birthday.

Tell my dad.

Tell my mom.

Tell your parents.

And I feel like that takes away some of like the surprise of it.

And I like surprises, but I don't want such an extreme surprise that it's something I don't really want.

On the one hand, Rick is wrong because he's saying exactly what he wants.

But on the other hand, Rick is wrong because if left to his own devices, he would give you running shoes and they're they're garbage.

Not that they're garbage, but I just don't.

I mean, he loves running, and running is not my favorite thing to do.

But he would like us to run together.

Joel Mann?

Yes, Judge.

We're here in Maine with Joel Mann and Monty Belmonte.

Yes, Judge.

I want you guys both to get Sarah some running shoes for her birthday.

Consider it done.

What's your size, Sarah?

Doesn't matter her size.

Joel, I'll get the left shoe, and you get the right shoe.

Got it.

Right, exactly.

Mismatching salkony jazzes.

That's what I want.

I want one color on one shoe, one color on the other shoe.

As our gift to you for Sarah's Miss.

Well, it's Sarah's Miss, but now that tradition is also being passed on to our daughters.

And so that's a scheduling nightmare, which I kind of worked on

to see what would happen if all of my family members got a birth month.

And so that's what I'm kind of concerned about, is that just our daughters, it would be the month of May and the month of September, but also if it applied to other family members, having a birth month would create quite a bit of celebrations that I'd have to experience.

So you did send in some evidence, a remarkable array of photos of ticket stubs from concerts that you have seen.

which I will invite you in a moment to explain the relevance of, but all of those ticket stubs will be available.

If you want to see what great taste these guys have in music, and they do, you can go see evidence of all the concerts they've seen in the past several years at the JudgeJohn Hodgman page, maximumfund.org.

I also will have them at the Instagram page at JudgeJohnHodgman on Instagram, as well as some very lovely photos of you going to see musicals like Amelie and Hamilton.

But Rick, you specifically sent in a spreadsheet, a birthday calendar.

You've done a mathematical breakdown of the impact of the birth month concept upon your family.

Am I getting that correct?

Yeah, there was two ways I thought about it.

Either we could give each person two weeks before their birthday and two weeks after, or we could just celebrate if your birthday is in December, then you get the whole month of December to celebrate.

If your birthday's in January, you would get all of January.

So I thought about it both different ways

just to see

what that would mean.

as far as celebrations are concerned and how it would impact my schedule.

I have to say, I'm not sure I'm following this spreadsheet particularly because there are a lot of great names.

For example, in row two, January, column B is birthdays, four.

Column C is people, Ricky, Brenda, Wendy, and Amy.

Column D is celebrations 124.

Column E is closer family one.

Column F is who, and that is myself.

You are Ricky in this case, right?

Yeah, yeah.

How are you calculating 124 celebrations?

Well, that would be four people.

There's 31 days in January.

So that would be 124 different celebrations if each person.

Celebrated every day.

Celebrated every day day of the month.

But Sarah doesn't do that, Ricky.

Sarah, do you celebrate your birthday every day of December?

No, I do not.

Would you want to?

No, I would not.

How many times did you celebrate your birthday in December last calendar year?

What were the celebrations?

And Ricky, you listen and tell me if she's forgotten any.

And if it includes Ricky, I'm going to call him Ricky from now on because that's how he referred to himself in his spreadsheet and it's adorable.

That's how I refer to him.

All right.

When you count up these celebrations, tell me if Ricky attended.

Okay.

So we had a dinner with my parents and the kids.

I don't think Ricky was there.

I think he had to teach that night.

So I don't think Ricky was there.

And then there might have been like a day where we went to LACMA.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Yes.

The one I put on the timeline was when we went to Hamilton, and I considered that my birthday celebration with him because we went to a really nice dinner.

and that wasn't until after Christmas.

Okay.

I also was actually gone on my birthday.

I went to a California Teachers Association conference in San Jose, which was the 7th, the 8th, and the 9th.

So I didn't even see them on my birthday this last year.

Did the California teachers give you a cake?

They did not.

Don't waste your time with them anymore.

Did they give you an Apple Watch at least?

They did not give me an Apple Watch.

They gave me a hotel room where I watched the soccer game.

Well, you know what?

That's fun too.

Hey, I forgot.

I wanted to ask you, what is the blender that you wanted?

I wanted a Vitamix, which is like I do a lot of cooking, which are things that benefit my husband and my family.

But we ended up getting recently we were forced to get a new blender, so we got an Oster,

which is also a high-powered blender, but it's just not as expensive.

Yeah, the Vitamixes are pretty.

You can't hear it on the fake radio, but I'm rubbing my fingers together.

Pretty pricey.

Yes, they are.

But they make a very good velouté.

what is a velouté like a really silky pureed soup oh okay well that's like what i made for dinner last night it's too bad he didn't get you a vitamix would have been velvety

what did he get you he got me apple pod earbuds um so i can listen to dodger games and he doesn't have to listen to them anymore that's a gift for both of you yes and a gift for this podcast because we're now sponsored by apple listen to me apple

Trying to help you out.

I'm here for you.

I'm here for you.

I'm in Maine right now, but there are several flights a day from Bangor.

I can be wherever you need me to be in any minute.

Also by Vitamix, making an incredible velouté.

Vitamix for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Monty, when's your birthday?

March 16th.

What'd you get for your birthday?

I do not like getting anything for my birthday.

I would rather ignore it.

And I decided to turn my 40th birthday, which was this past one, into a fundraiser for the Shea Theater in Turner's Falls and called it Monty Belmonte's 40th birthday, Bacchanalia, and Orgy.

And I sat on stage in Roman garb and drank like the god Bacchus while people roasted me.

So that's what I got for my birthday.

That's fun.

Yeah.

Joel, when's your birthday?

October 8th.

What did you do for your birthday?

I was left alone.

The dream of every person in Maine.

You got it.

My birthday was June 3rd.

You know what I got for my birthday?

What?

My dad bought me some new tires for our Jeep.

Excellent.

Nice.

Very functional gift.

And I got some lovely pieces of clothing from my family.

In any case, what's with all these ticket stubs, you guys?

I don't understand why this is in my feed.

So I submitted that because I wanted you to see that since Rick and I started dating in 2004, we have only celebrated my birthday on my actual birthday like two times.

Once was for my 30th birthday, and then I think once was in 2005.

We went to a concert.

But I want you, if you look at the dates of the ticket stubs, they're all different dates.

None of them actually are on December 7th.

Would these all be your official birthday concerts that you're seeing together?

Yes.

Okay.

So we're talking about Sparta at the House of Blues Anaheim, December 6th.

Acoustic Christmas, 2004, December 11th.

Yep.

International Noise Conspiracy at the Troubadour, 2005, December 5th.

Yep.

Of Montreal, November 22nd.

Weezer, November 27th.

Watch the Throne, December 11th.

So these are all to establish that Ricky is taking you to bands that you love for your birthday,

which is a nice gesture, but ultimately failing you because it's never on your birthday.

I think he just takes into consideration that

a birthday doesn't have to be celebrated just on one day.

And I think he does really take great joy in doing it more than one day in the month of December, especially because more often than not on whatever day we celebrate together, we get to go to like usually a nice dinner.

Or because I love cooking, I am more than willing to make a delicious dinner for him to enjoy because it helps me unwind and it helps us relax.

So it's not, he enjoys this just as much as I do.

I just think with work lately, he's, and because it's around finals time, it stresses him out a little bit,

which is why I've been more than willing to like bump down my birthday celebrations to after Christmas, which is what we've done the last two years.

How many birthday celebrations do you want to have?

I would like one with him.

I would like one with my two girls and him and I.

And then one with my parents.

And then I do enjoy doing things with my friends.

I don't expect him to go to those things.

Like, we'll go hiking or we'll go get manicures or do you know, I'm not going to necessarily invite him along to do that, but it does require his commitment to maybe supervising our children while I am out with my friends.

So, Ricky, if I were to rule in your favor, which of those would I nix?

I really think that for the birthday, we can do something at our home with our kids on the day of a birthday, and then another celebration with maybe more of the family or with friends.

And I think just those two days, I think that would be sufficient.

But we're definitely going to get rid of the celebration where it's just you and Sarah out together on a romantic romantic date.

That's off, right?

No more on that.

If she wants to use that second party just to be the two of us, then that would be her decision.

It's just me having to,

when she uses the word for my birth month, I want to go see this play.

For my birth month, I want to make sure we go see this movie.

For my birth month, I want to go to this restaurant.

For my birth month, I want this blender.

For this birth month, I want this smartwatch.

It becomes overwhelming.

Sarah, do you use the term for my birth month?

Yes.

You say that out loud.

Yes.

And my seven-year-old and my four-year-old say it too.

The deal is done.

I don't know if there's anything I can rule at this point.

I don't know if we can roll this back.

How do you feel about your own birthday, Ricky?

What do you like to do on your birthday?

January 25th.

See, I remembered.

I like celebrating it, but I just like celebrating it with my family.

I really don't want people to go out of their way to acknowledge anything.

She even took it off of Facebook.

Right.

You should be deleting Facebook anyway, but that's a different screen.

Has it always been that way for you, Ricky?

Especially after the 30th birthday party, she brought together my friends from college, my friends from work, my family friends, and she brought those three groups together, which I keep all separate.

It was kind of a disaster of a 30th birthday party, and so I've just kind of really receded and tried to de-emphasize my birthday as much as possible.

And I just want to spend it with my family.

When you say I want to spend my birthday with my family,

do you mean you, Sarah, and your daughters?

Yeah, my parents usually want to see me too, though.

So I guess my parents.

Okay.

I just want to make sure I understand what you mean by family.

Yeah.

Sarah, both of your parents are alive and together?

Yes.

Right.

And to both of you, both sets of parents live nearby?

Yes, we actually have three sets of parents because Rick's parents aren't together anymore.

So he actually gets two parental celebrations because they don't celebrate together.

You say get as though he gets to enjoy two parental celebrations, whereas I would say he's cursed with two separate celebrations for his birthday.

But that's a difference of point of view that I think we're going to discuss when I come back from chambers.

Right now, though, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into the giant inflatable bouncy castle that I hired to be my chambers this afternoon.

And I will be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Ricky, can I call you Rick?

Yeah.

It seems to me that you're suffering birthday trauma, first with your mother pulling the plug on your birthday so young, and with the 30th birthday cheese poisoning, and now with the mission creep in regards to Sarah's birthday from birthday to birth week to birth month.

But statistically speaking, what what are the odds that this case leaves this courtroom and lands in divorce court if you don't adhere to Sarismus?

I have no problem adhering to whatever the judge rules.

So I think the chances are pretty low of us ending up in divorce court.

I'd say 0%.

Good answer.

Sarah.

Yes.

Hamilton tickets is the greatest gift of all time.

Isn't that enough now for the rest of your life?

Or will you never be satisfied?

If I can see Hamilton at least three more times, then I will be satisfied.

You know how many people would love to see Hamilton one time?

How lucky you are to be alive right now, Sarah.

I feel very fortunate.

We'll be back in just a moment with the judge's decision on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

Okay, so like Gricky, I am not going to confirm or deny that after my deliberations within my bouncy house that I threw up.

I maybe did.

I definitely have a terrible headache.

And yet I can still provide justice in this case.

I have faith.

So I was listening while bouncing to Monty Belmonte, my summertime, fun-time bailiff, and he touched upon something that I was going to touch upon, which is that there is a difference in perception of what a birthday is between the two parties.

And specifically, that Ricky has had birthdays only associated with trauma, or rather,

you know, cheese poisoning in one case.

I don't know the circumstances in which your mom said this is it for birthday parties after a certain age, but you know, Ricky's experience of birthdays is not associated necessarily with good times, maybe just neutral times at best.

Whereas, Sarah, your experience of birthdays has been very positive.

And as I mentioned before, you know, you wove a very compelling and beautiful narrative about what your birthday has meant in your family, especially to your mom who wasn't sure she was going to be able to have children.

And lo, this miracle baby was born.

And that is why we leave a special place at every table for Sarah to come in from the wilderness.

I'm conflating a bunch of holidays here, but you know what I'm talking about.

Thus, Sarah Ismas was born.

And I see absolutely no issue whatsoever with Sarah enjoying her birthday to the fullest during the month of her birth and doing different things

with different family members and friends and so forth.

And I don't really see a huge demand

in the three birthday expectation that Sarah has requested.

The close family birthday, the larger family and friends celebration, and the one-on-one date.

I think that there is a world in which that would work

happily for a couple that had both the means and the time to spend that time together.

That said, I do see another difference in how birthdays are perceived.

Ricky, no matter what his childhood trauma surrounding birthdays was,

is 37.

Sarah is 33.

She is of an age where birthdays are still a fun thing to celebrate rather than the age that Monty and Joel and I have reached and which Ricky is approaching in which birthdays are simply an annual reminder that we are dying.

Something that we wish to ignore as much as possible and certainly do not wish to remind ourselves of three times

a month or more.

This is why the idea of Rick, quote unquote, getting to parental birthday celebrations is not a get, but a horrible anti-bonus in my mind.

No, thank you.

The fewer times I can acknowledge my birthday, the better.

So, on the one hand, I admire the fact, Sarah,

that you still have and that your family still associates joy with birthdays as opposed to dread.

And I hope that you keep that for as long as possible.

And I'm glad that you want to celebrate and that the people around you want to celebrate you.

And there's no doubt that Ricky wants to celebrate you.

But here is what I'm going to say, that is the harder thing to say.

You're a grown-up.

Patton Oswald has a long thing about

how, you know, birthdays are for kids and you get them until you're 21.

And after that, then you should should have a birthday once every 10 years.

The landmarks are less meaningful.

And there is something,

and this is the hard thing to say, there is something to this court's ears

that finds celebration of self,

if overdone, a little unseemly.

I think that while honoring your birthday a couple of times over the month with different people in your family in different ways is perfectly reasonable, and you obviously deserve to be celebrated.

It's sereism

after all.

I think you need to be a little bit more attuned to

the effect of seismas on the whole community.

When Ricky says that it causes him anxiety to hear about all the things you have planned, because he knows he's going to have to adjust his schedule whether or not he's invited or not.

When Ricky says that he has anxiety when you are dropping all these hints, even if they are not eight hints, even if they're only four hints of the things you want to do for your birthday or get for your birthday or whatever.

For an attentive, conscientious person like Ricky, I believe that he does feel that anxiety.

And I think you need to hear what he has to say about that.

I think that when you think about what your kids are hearing, When you say, for my birth month, I want this, for my birth month, I want that.

I think you need to be conscious of the fact that you are locking yourself in for a lifetime of birth month for both of your daughters.

And if you want to raise them that way, that's fine, but it's going to be an extra burden on you guys.

You're going to start to feel like Ricky when your kids are saying for my birth month, for my birth month, for my birth month, and they're coming up with eight, nine, 19 different things that they want to do for their birth month because that's been a settled law in your house.

It's not something I would honestly, from one parent to another, advise because we have two kids.

They each have, weirdly, just one birthday each.

We don't talk about whole birth months.

And when your kids are little, they're happy for cake and ice cream.

But when your kids get, they will get to an age between nine and twelve where suddenly they're having a lot of ideas about what they want to do for their birthday.

Like my son had grand schemes for a huge day-long

LARPing celebration in the theme of Game of Thrones, a TV show which he has never seen and which would be entirely inappropriate for a 12-year-old birthday party.

And it was a huge psychic burden to me to have to wind him down from that and suggest a smaller scale celebration.

And I think that if you're modeling ongoing month-long celebrations of birthdays, including multiple requests for presents, that's going to come back and parentally bite you in the behind, is my prediction.

You can take that warning for what it is or what it isn't.

That is not a legal order, or even in this case, a a quasi-fake legal order.

That is just a word of parental guidance from the future that you may take or leave.

My two cents for worth all the half a cent that it is.

We are now six minutes from the start of the debut of Joel Mann's new two-hour all-grateful dead block on WERU here in Maine.

And I'm sure Monty's got something to play on the radio down there at WRSI, so I'm going to wrap this up very quickly.

I think for the sake of your mom and yourself, Sarah, you should enjoy Sarah's mist to its hilt.

However, I think that Ricky's request is reasonable.

Two celebrations to which he is required to attend.

One of them is a date, and one of them is a family event to which all pertinent members of your family are invited,

or a party to which everyone is invited.

And whoever can come comes, and that's it.

But a third event, however it might be organized, an event among your friends, event among your parents, it should just be: Ricky is required to attend two events, one the most personal, one the second most personal.

And the third, or the fourth, or the fifth, or the sixth among friends, among family, lunch with your mom, hiking with your pals, testing out your new Judge John Hodgman gifted mismatching salkony running shoes on a birthday 5k or whatever it is you want to do, go for it, enjoy it to the hilt.

But I think Ricky needs to know in advance of statistician hell month that there are two events that he's going to be responsible and required to attend so he doesn't have to worry overly about the others.

And be conscious of the fact that the more events you add, even if you only mean it in the fun anticipation of your birthday, when you talk about this stuff, it adds to his anxiety burden.

Perhaps it's not fair that you're responsible for his anxiety burden, but that's what marriage is all about.

It goes both ways.

And in terms of the gifts, you know, I would let him choose a gift or give him one to think about.

Because I feel that when someone drops hints for a lot of different gifts, it really does give the other person a certain amount of psychic burden to have to try to sift and figure out which is the one that is really meaningful and maybe put aside ideas for gifts that they have on their own.

So I hope that you take this order with the great respect and admiration and celebratory love of Sarismus that this court feels.

But I do have to find in Ricky's favor in terms of making these small limitations so that his brain space can be freed up a little bit so that he can grade those math tests and also be a great husband to you while also offering you as much opportunity in your own

life to enjoy Sarismus as much as possible.

It's a little bit of a splitting of the baby, and the baby was just born.

Oh, well, happy birthday, baby.

But

this is nonetheless the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules.

Let's get to the grateful dead.

Monty.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

And to keep with the birthday singing, on the first day of Serezmus, my true love Ricky gave to me a mismatched pair of sakani running shoes.

Sarah, are you comfortable enduring Ricky's war on Sarismas?

I mean, I agreed to, you know, follow the judge's advisement and decision, so I'm okay with it.

Ricky, can I call you Rick?

Yeah.

Statistically speaking, how likely is it that Sarah will keep to this agreement of only two celebrations with you of Sarismus?

I'm going to go with

60%.

There were some suggestions beforehand that she wasn't going to exactly adhere to the ruling, but

I think we're going to try it out and we'll see if I need to write back to the judge.

Well, Rick and Sarah, thank you both for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another case in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Jordan Welch and Jennifer Milner for naming this week's episode Statute of Celebrations.

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

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho, and check out the maximum fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

Evidence and photos from the show can be found on the Judge John Hodgman page on the Maximum Fun website and on our Instagram account, which can be found at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

This week's episode was recorded by the one and only Joel Mann at WERU Radio and Orland, Maine, where they, like WRSI and Northampton, are now going to be subjected to more than one Grateful Dead song in a row, which might actually be one Grateful Dead song, just really stretched it out.

And our producer is Jennifer Marmor.

Now let's get to Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Leanne says, my husband thinks sandwiches taste better when you smoosh them down after making them.

He says it's a bread texture thing.

I think this is silly and ruins the sandwich.

Who's right?

Well, I think that it is a bread texture thing in the sense that it depends on the texture of the bread.

So if you're making a sandwich on a really soft white bread, you're going to compress that white bread sponge into a flat sheet of gluten that is no good.

Right.

However, if you have a thicker, a multi-grain, like a peasant bread or whatever, like I prefer a flat sandwich to a lumpy one, and I'd rather give that a little bit of pressure just to get all the ingredients flattened out and melded together.

But oh, Joel Mann is shaking his head.

What's the deal, Joel?

Who wants a smushed sandwich?

I'm not talking about smushed.

It's like you sat on it or something.

Just compressed.

A little easier to bite.

Just evened out.

But But this guy's pressing down on it hard.

Well, I mean, that's what I'm saying.

Don't press your sandwich too hard, dude.

I, you know, it's Leanne who uses the word smoosh.

I don't know if her husband is actually smooshing it.

If not, maybe he's just, you know, settling it.

But the best way to serve a sandwich is to make the sandwich,

cut it in half into triangles, and then put it in the refrigerator case at the Brooklyn General Store for three hours.

And then then come back and get it.

If it's a cold sandwich, if it's a hot sandwich, make it be a sausage and cheese on

English muffin, wrap it in tinfoil, and then put it to steep in the heat case at the Brooklyn General Store in Brooklyn, Maine for nine hours.

Those are the only two good sandwiches.

Monty, you want to weigh in before we go?

I just would love to hear your opinion on to smush or not to smush a hot dog sandwich.

Well, that's all the time we have for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thanks so much for joining us.

You can submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash jjhoe or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too big or too small.

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

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