Edible Arraignments

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jordan Morris, sitting in for Jesse Thorne.
This week, edible arraignments. Jenny brings the case against her husband, John.

John has received a lot of gag gifts over the years that happen to be food items. He is currently storing all of them in the fridge.

Jenny wants him to get rid of the gifted food, but John is too sentimental. Who's right? Who's wrong? Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge Jesse Thorne enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference. There's a thousand pounds of law, a thousand two hundred pounds of righteousness and integrity.

There's three hundred pounds of due process. There's precedent down there.
I'll tell you, I'll probably never need any of this justice, but I can sleep so much better knowing that it's down there.

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 just like the universe, or whatever?

Yes. Yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge Jesse Thorne's ruling, despite the fact that he has kind of a B-minus Werner-Herzog impression?

Yes.

Yes.

Judge Thorne, you may proceed. Jenny and John, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment and one of yours' favors.

Can either either of you name the piece of culture I was alluding to, obviously with some paraphrasing when I entered the courtroom. Jenny, I'm going to ask you to go first.

I don't know. This is a

probably not a correct guess, but this is my guess. Is it Princess Bride?

Okay, that's an interesting guess.

John, what's your guess?

Oh, man. I want to say it's some Steven Seagal movie

or something with a German villain. Well, obviously it's a Steven Seagal movie, but which Steven Seagal movie? Under Siege? Under Siege II?

Under Siege III, colon, is there an Under Siege III question mark?

I'm going to say Under Siege II, if there even is one. All guesses are wrong.

I thought, Jordan, Bailiff Jordan, I genuinely thought you were going to blow it for me when you said my B-minus Herzog impression. Yeah.
I'll be clear, that was not a Werner Herzog impression. Oh.

That was an impression of a guy being interviewed by Werner Herzog. Oh, I'm sorry.
The title character from the Werner Herzog documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly,

which is about a guy with very severe post-traumatic stress disorder from having been starved in a prison camp who keeps a bunch of food under his floor.

Fun fact, the subtitle to Under Siege 2 is Dark Territory. Under Siege 2, colon Dark Territory.
Here's another fun fact.

In Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Werner Herzog makes the man Dieter reenact his prison march. Oh, good.
Yeah.

John, tell me about the food that you keep in your house. I'm sure there's a certain amount of regular food.
I'm interested in the unusual food.

Well, so I have some friends who shop at the Asian food mart, and a lot of the food is just packages or food packaged with strange names or really unfortunate names

or really strange gross flavors. I also have a Stephen Seagal energy drink called a Lightning Bolt Energy Drink and

a

PB ⁇ J in a can that my wife Jenny's brother had got for me one year. And that is apparently lasts forever and it's in like a Pringles can, but it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I also have fried crickets and some other

other weird things. And where do you keep all this stuff?

Right now they're in the refrigerator. Jenny, what's your problem with this? This sounds great.
He's got peanut butter and jelly in a can.

Yes, the the can is wonderful.

My problem is that our refrigerator is really small and I cook a lot

and I'm constantly trying to stack stuff on top of it or like put stuff around it.

And I would really love it. It takes up probably like three-fourths of a shelf on our fridge, like in the door,

which isn't a huge amount of space, but because our fridge is small,

the space is important. So.

Bailiff Jordan, could you provide me with the photograph here of this refrigerator? Yes, I can. Here we go.
It was provided for us. And yeah,

I would describe, not to editorialize, but I'd describe it as overstuffed. Yeah,

what am I looking at here in addition addition to the Steven Seagal energy drink? It looks like you've managed to fit,

is that a bottle of sriracha sauce?

Oh, the sriracha is my wife's, actually. That is,

so that

I get to keep the sriracha. Yeah, it's good on everything.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that part isn't my doing. Hipsters from five years ago are right about that.

I see there are a few other things in here. It looks like you fit a beer.

That might be a jug of sauerkraut, I'm going to go ahead and say, and maybe some, I'll say call it plum sauce.

But yeah, you're right. This entire refrigerator shelf, this is a door shelf in the refrigerator, is full of nonsense.

John, why are you keeping all this stuff in the refrigerator shelf? I think that's just kind of the default place that it ended up.

We used to have a pantry in our old place where a lot of it lived, the stuff that didn't need to be refrigerated.

And I think it just migrated into the refrigerator when we made the move to a new house. That is a really good point.
John, what proportion of these things would you say do not require refrigeration?

I'm going to say pretty much most of them. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.

Can I back up to the Steven Seagal energy drink? Yeah. I see a photo of it here, but I am not seeing a flavor.

Is it something traditional like citrus or berry, or is it something a little more sagal-y like, you know, wolf tears or fist sweat?

So you'll have to look at the, so right from the top down. So So it says ginseng on the top, and then below that we have cherry charge.
Cherry charge. Cherry charge.
I was missing that. Yup.

And then lightning bolt as well. So I don't know where that fits into the flavor category, but it tastes like lightning, apparently.
There's a really intense picture of Steven Seagal here.

And next to it, it has a quote from Stephen Zagal.

And I personally, Jordan, I don't know if this is your experience, but when I'm facing a crossroads in my life, I like to look to the words of Seagal. Yeah, I mean...

My Bible actually has Stephen Seagal's words printed in red.

I'll also just make an observation here about the photo he chose to use. It is not a current photo,

judging by the fact of how not bloated he is in it. He looks a little bit like half Steven Seagal, half Data from Star Trek.
Yeah, yeah. This is the quote from Stephen Seagal.

Quote, and I'm glad that they quoted him on this because it has that certain Stephen Seagal flavor to

a natural energy drink packed with vitamins and exotic botanicals. Only Steven Seagal could have given us that bit of wisdom.

There's also a part that says it is sweetened with all natural imported organic evaporated cane juice crystals,

which is sugar. That's what sugar is.

How did these things start entering your life? Because I certainly myself and have friends who shop at international grocery stores of various kinds, and none of them give me these things as gifts.

That's a really good question. I think it probably just started with like one thing.
I took a trip to

overseas, and this collection started like 15 years ago or something. And I think I brought something back that was just a flavor or like a thing that you just would not expect.

And I think people just started buying them for me after that. Like the energy drink, I mean, I think that was just, I think my friends and family know that I appreciate funny, ironic foods, I guess.

And one thing to note, you guys had mentioned the age of the photo on there. The actual can is actually from probably a time that he had looked like that.
So I've had these for quite a while.

Wow. I mean, you describe these as ironic foods.
I'm looking through the list. And while I might be a little ambivalent about eating rye chi, crunchy snack, milk flavor.

I have eaten super cola candy treats, and those are delicious. Nothing ironic about that.
Those are straight up tasty.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, obviously there are a couple of things in here that, you know, I would be reticent to put in my mouth, but there's actually a lot of things on here that I've enjoyed.

Britannia nice time cookies. These are very good.

Ding-dong snack mix. Had it.

I have not had

Bang Bang delicious in one bite, but it's wafer caramel crispy and chocolate. I mean, that sounds tasty.
Why have you not eaten some of these?

That's a really good question. So I think the irony is I don't really eat that much snack food.
So you're just saying that you just, you weren't peckish. That's why? You never got hungry around three?

If you look at, there's like a package that looks like a starburst candy kind of thing.

All the writing is, none of the writing is in English, but

if you can recognize from the fruit, that is a durian flavored. I don't know if you know anything about durian, but it's

interesting that someone made a candy out of it. It's a smelly but delicious fruit, if I'm not mistaken.
Smells like death or something.

Yeah, smells like death. I don't know about the delicious part, but you know, obviously the different tastes.
When you are snacking, and I guess from what you say, it's infrequent.

What kinds of things are you snacking on, if not these

unusual but largely delicious treats?

Usually like crackers for me, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

So

we have a wide variety of crackers in our house. I probably eat a lot of them.
A wide variety of crackers. You guys see them.
We have lots of them. You guys sound like fun.

I know, right? Do you have various temperatures of water?

We party hard in our house. Clearly.

Yeah, so we eat a lot of crackers and we eat a lot of fruit.

I think I've never actually...

tried to eat any of his food regardless of whether it looked good or not just because it was his and so I wanted him they were like his gifts I wanted him to be able to enjoy them I said we could try the fried crickets together at any time but no one's taken me up on them

I'll pass I've eaten fried crickets not bad sometimes the leg gets stuck in your teeth and that's gross

that's a true story about fried crickets

oh now I have if you notice some of these packages are open in the evidence that I'd submitted so I had tried the ferruccine and I have had the durian flavored not from this package but from a different thing so some of the ones that

I guess, where I've had multiples of things, I've tried out some different strange flavors and whatnot.

Because the fettuccine one, it's really hard to tell what that tastes like by looking at the package. You've got a photo of something that looks like either cola or iced tea.

You've got something that looks like a sour fettuccine kind of thing. It says gummy on there.
And up in the upper left, part of the package that was ripped off to open it said bourbon.

So I really had no idea until I opened it what it tastes like. And what was the answer? answer? It was really hard to describe.
I still can't tell you. Sort of like a durian.

If Windex was a candy, that's what it would taste like.

So I guess here's the thing that is confusing me.

It seems like you are not nuts about this stuff from a taste standpoint, but how did your friends get it into their head that you liked it?

I think just my reactions to these things, like the peanut butter and jelly in a can, Jenny's brother gave me that. And he's also known for just giving strange gifts to begin with.
So

when I got it, I doubt he thought I was going to keep it forever. But

here it is.

And I guess the evidence that I have held on to them for this long, I guess maybe people are. Actually, my

friend just recently gave me the fettuccine one was like a recent contribution. So this is years later.
And this has been going on for years.

Some of these things have been in the refrigerator since like,

I don't even know. Like I said, that the photo on the Steven Seagal energy drink kind of dates that one.

Why are you saving these items?

I think as Jenny mentioned, some of it's sentimentality. And then

some of the things like the energy drink and the peanut butter and jelly cans, just like the fact that they exist is just entertaining to me.

Actually, the quick answer is I'm saving them because I think they're funny. Do you think they're funny in your refrigerator?

I think they're just as funny in general. I feel like if they moved from the refrigerator somewhere else, that would be okay with me.
But

I think Jenny's more problem is probably just with the fact that we have them in general and maybe the fact that they're in the refrigerator part is secondary I don't know maybe she could speak to that Jenny I would like you to speak to that how do you feel about the fact that these items of food are cluttering up your home

I feel really blessed that we have friends that love us enough to see things and think of us and bring them to us.

John,

what John didn't mention is he also designs packaging for products, and so he enjoys just funny packaging in general.

But I think my problem is I see that he's not, he gets them and he's really happy and excited to have them, but he, A, doesn't eat them and B, doesn't show them to anyone else after that.

So I don't feel like he's really

enjoying them to their full potential, I guess.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about about this week's sponsor. More delicious justice is on deck when we come back in just a minute.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Court is back in session. You're listening to edible arraignments on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Let's get back into the courtroom to hear more about the ironic foods that are inside Jenny and John's refrigerator. Here's the solution in my head.

I feel like when I, you know, get a food thing that is, you know, either too much for me or, you know,

yeah, something like this that is, you know, more funny than it is delicious or, you know, like something sweet that I don't want to have in the house because I know I'll eat all of it.

Do either of you have like

an office or something to bring it to so like everybody can have a taste? Or, you know, have you thought about having people over and putting out bowls of this stuff so people can enjoy it?

I think we've kind of talked about it recently. I did actually, I did not have an office before, and I currently do that I might be able to take that to.

I think it would be fun to be able to have people over and really enjoy them.

I think when people over, we may just don't not think about them because they're in the refrigerator.

And when people come over to your house, they're expecting crackers. They're coming for

salty. Piles of crackers.
Sesame seed. Cheese it.
Cheese-it. Chicken and a biscuit.
That's a cracker.

Ritz. Good old ritz.

I make really good hummus.

Jenny's snack game is much better than mine. So when we do have guests over, Jenny definitely puts out good

snacks for people. And like she said, she makes hummus and things like that.
So

I'm the one who eats the boring snacks.

Jenny, are you embarrassed at all that you own these weird foods? Do you know what? I'm not embarrassed by them. I think mine is more of just a practicality thing of like,

I just want my space back. Like I want that like two feet of fridge space.

I want him to enjoy them. I want him to eat them.
I want to know what the

weird crackers taste like. Do you want to know what the weird crackers taste like enough to eat them?

I would eat them with him. Yeah, taste the ding-dong together.
You have a package of ding-dong. You're a loving couple.

Why not taste the ding-dong together? We have two packages of those. Yeah, date night, John.
There you go. How many of these things are currently

healthily consumable? How old are these things?

Some of these are definitely expired. That sandwich claims to last forever or something, so I'll, you know, but um, the energy drink definitely um might be pretty suspect.
Um,

some of the uh candies, the the fettuccine is brand new, but the bang bang is

maybe like over 10 years old. Same with the crickets.
I'd say about half of them are probably consumable. If you were going to choose one to eat right now, what would it be?

Oh my gosh.

I think it might be the energy drink.

I don't even drink energy drinks,

but

I think it would be that. It probably tastes horrible, and that's why I would want to drink it.

I mean, if this is really a non-bloated Steven Seagal era energy drink, you're playing a very dangerous game. Yeah.

I know and maybe I think that might be why I haven't because I reached that critical mass where I just couldn't

you know once I reached its expiration date and I'm like well now I can't open it. I am looking.
There is some fine print on the can. It does say discard when Stephen Seagal becomes bloated.

Jenny, is there a funk coming off any of this? Are you noticing the smell in the fridge?

I think there's only a few of them that I think actually need to be refrigerated, and I think they are refrigerated because they'll melt, like the chocolate ones, or there's like some cream center business going on.

But most of them don't actually need to be refrigerated. They were just kind of all stored together.
Yeah, so Jenny was the one who actually moved them into the refrigerator.

Originally, they were just kind of in different places. And

yeah, like she said, it's just kind of like one place to keep them.

Yeah, and it frees up some cracker space.

Jenny, what would you, if you had this tray free, what would you be putting in there?

I would put homemade pickles. I would put it.
Oh, wait, hold on, Jenny. What kind of pickles are we talking about here? Ooh, dill pickles.
Sure. What about a bread and butter pickle?

Oh, I could do that. I haven't made those.
You could pickle a beet. Just saying.
I was about to bring up pickled beets. You could pickle a beet.

Sorry, I don't mean to yell at you. You seem nice.
I'll definitely try that one. I did carrots.
Pickled carrots are actually. Oh, those are great.
Yeah. Throw a bay leaf in there, you know? Yeah.

So do you feel like the lack of space in the fridge is preventing you from doing food projects like home pickling?

Yeah, I think it's more, yes. I think I would do a lot more cooking if I had more space.

And I think also I would, it would free up my time to do do other things. So it wouldn't take as long when I get groceries and I have to mash the groceries into a smaller space.

So you would have like a newfound font of grocery mashing time.

Yes. That you could use to mash other things.

Well,

we also have a toddler, and so he's kind of running around in the background, slowly destroying everything.

I think I would just have

be able to put things away faster, close the fridge, and then be able to

manage that.

John, why do you want to keep these? Why aren't they in the trash? Oh, man.

I think it might just be because I started down the road and, well, some of them I could honestly probably part with.

But like, I feel like if I throw away the energy drink, no one will ever know it existed. So you see yourself in a way as preserving these for future generations?

Yes.

You know that's weird, right? Yeah, just a little bit.

If something happens to you, you want your toddler to grow up knowing that Steven Seagal once had an energy drink and once was

slim and handsome.

And of course, to know the wisdom of Seagal. Of course, the wisdom of a natural energy drink packed with vitamins and exotic botanicals.
Right.

And also that he could then own it. It could pass it down to him.
Right, to his children.

Right. It can be used for currency should some sort of apocalypse happen.
John, do you you have other collections?

Yes and no? A little bit. Jenny?

Jenny? Does John have other collections? Yes. Do you want to guess? Let's take some guesses.
Jesse, what do you think, John?

Well, my first thought, obviously, is themed Legos. Oh, I was going swords.
Okay. I'm going swords.
The interest in Segal points to a man who also has many swords.

I feel like given his interest in product design, it's possible he has a vintage box of Quisp cereal. Oh, sure.

And what's that? What was that 90s Slacker drink? No. Okay.
Cola. Okay.
Cola. Yeah.
I bet he's got some OK-Cola somewhere. Sure.
Charles Burns designed the packaging. Oh, yeah.

Jenny, what other collections does your husband have?

Okay, so I'm afraid to call them collections because I know a collection...

Well, no, like,

there's a very specific definition for collections in the court as far as like things that are well thought out and things are like displayed and like enjoyed. Like he has like hordes of items.

So okay, wait. Every box, every box that comes into our house, so like small appliances to large appliances usually come in a box.
So TV comes in a box, a mixer, sand mixer comes in a box.

He saves all of the boxes so that when we move, it will be easier. He also saves, and I don't even know if the Apple Store does this, but he really loves the Drawstring Apple bags.

And so we just have a massive collection of Apple bags. These are just plastic shopping bags?

They've got a little backpack strings on them, like, you know, like a swag bag you'd get at a con or something like that.

Well, so I guess, so the boxes thing is just a practicality of moving, which we recently did. So I'm glad I kept a lot of those boxes three years ago.
And

but we were at my last place or before we got married, I I was there for about 11 years. So

I don't move very often, but when I do, having a TV go into a box is so much more convenient and safe.

Yeah, and the Apple bags, I wouldn't really consider like too much of a collection. I just use them for like trash bags and things like that

in my car and whatnot.

I do also, the only thing that I really consider that I actually have as a collection is a collection of yo-yos.

John, you've beaten both themed Legos and swords.

You've topped us. You're following the rule of threes.
Yeah.

You're welcome. And

yeah, no, I do not have swords. I don't have a ponytail.
I don't have anything.

My fondness of this energy deek is only the humor that I find in Steven Seagal.

But

no, yeah, so I have a collection of yo-yos.

And

yeah, I don't know. What would you like to know about that? Well, you got a glow-in-the-dark one? I do.

Cool, that's all.

Jenny, what would you like me to order in this case? I would like you to order that John either eat the food items or throw away the food items a week after they come into our home.

So as of right now, any food that we have, he either eats or throws away. And then when people give him new items, again, he either eats them or throws them away, and it's done.

John, why won't you do that? What do you want me to order?

Oh, man,

I still think I want to save at least some of these. Anyone's in particular, or just you want to have a little taste? You want to have a little taste once in a while?

Oh, man, probably the cans, probably the energy drink and the...

PBNJ. I think if I am ordered to get rid of things, I would like to probably eat some of them or have people over.
I think you guys had a good idea of having people over to,

you know, sample the treats.

Yeah, it seems like, I mean, the cans could be displayed on like your desk at work, you know, where someone would display a, you know, funko pop or whatever.

Like, it seems like you could, you know, take those out of the fridge and just put them in a, you know, a place where you would have knickknacks.

Please no.

You know what? Here's the ironies.

So you like them in the fridge, you like them better in the fridge because they're hidden.

Yes.

Jenny, do you have an otherwise? Do you have mercy on me? Do you have an otherwise tasteful home that is always teetering on the precipice of husband distastefulness?

When it comes to this, yes.

John, what kind of packaging do you design? And I want to be clear here.

Jordan and I have done an exceptionally great, basically perfect job of not doing any buzz marketing throughout this conversation.

So I would like to ask you to follow in our footsteps and not mention any brands, as we have not, again, through the entire course of this program, because we're doing a great job filling in for Judge Hodgman.

Sure, sure, no problem.

Yeah, so I've done a lot of work in the toy industry. I've had my own business doing design work and

toys, some baby products, things like that. So I usually get to work on some fun stuff.
But yeah, consumer products. I actually have not worked on any food.

Have you gotten inspiration for any work products from

stuff like this, kind of weird curiosities that people have brought you? Have you used that?

Have you looked at these, gotten inspiration, and moved it over to the workspace?

I think probably when this like a collection kind of

see I never even thought of it as a collection until now, but like once I started amassing these items,

the answer is yes. Not so much as much anymore,

but I think in the beginning, definitely,

especially if I'm trying to make something that, like if I'm working on a packaging that is supposed to have some kind of like irony or humor to it in like the collectible world or something like that.

You're making collectible packaging?

Like I said,

like packaging for collectible products. Like I said, if I was working in the toy industry and there was like a boutique product that

people, you know, collected, like a collectible toy. Like a Steven Seagal action figure.

Oh, man, if I only had the opportunity. With real blues guitar action.

Does that exist? Look, he can karate chop with his ponytail.

I think he did judo. Is that what Steven Seagal does? Judo? You know,

we have exhausted all of my Steven Seagal references. Wasn't there a reality show where he was a sheriff's step-by-step? Oh, yeah.
Yes.

I did watch one of those, and a significant amount of the episode was dedicated to him playing blues guitar.

Like, he solved the case, and then it's like, well, time to go play with my band. And then you just see, like, a full-length Steven Seagal and his band concert.

John, what's your ideal resolution of this conflict? Continuing the status quo?

Oh, man.

I mean, I'm always a fan of compromise. So I don't know, finding some kind of compromise, like something where I can give Jenny some space back in the

in there, but

that, I don't know, some of these

items get the notoriety they deserve, I guess. I don't know.

Yeah, I guess if I could hang on to a couple. I don't know if notoriety is the word we're looking for.
Like, I guess they would get the notoriety they deserved if, like, they killed a man.

Hey, one of these might. These are pretty old.
That's true. That's true.

Which of these is the most special to you, John? Definitely the lightning bolt energy drink. Jenny, are any of these special to you in any way? No.

No.

That's very fair, Jenny. Yeah.
John, is there any of this food that you are unwilling to eat? Oh, man, I think for the joke, I would try any of these.

Except for the durian. I do not want to put that thing in my mouth.
I have tried that before, and it is pretty awful. Both the fruit and the candy.

There's no flavored thing that claims to be durian that I've liked.

John, how how do you think it would go over if you brought all of this stuff to your workplace and just made some little bowls of it and put it out in the communal kitchen and said, you know, like it's weird food day at my office.

Like, everybody have a little bit. Do you think that would be a fun thing for your office or do you think people would be weirded out?

Oh, I don't know. I'm still getting a read on them.

I just started a new job. So

maybe, yes, maybe no. I don't know.
It might just, I may be the weird dude with the weird food or it might go over well. I'm not really sure.

Jenny, you've described these items as John's items, and you seem very respectful of that. But the two of you are married, are you not? Yes.

In what state do you reside? Arizona. Now, it just so happens that Arizona is what's called a community property state.

Do you understand the consequences of that? Yes, I do. I don't.
It means for your benefit, John, that everything that each of you own is actually owned by both of you. California's the same.

Everything that my wife and I own together is owned by both of us. And everything that Jordan and his cat Bug own is owned by both of them collectively.
That's true. Even that washcloth she likes.

Yeah.

Does that change the way that you think about this case, Jenny?

No, it doesn't. I wish that I could just like go and throw all the food away.
And I know I have the legal right to do that. But John would be sad.

I still have to deal with a sad husband, and that's what I don't want.

Well, we'll see whether he's happy or sad when I return. I think I have enough information to compile a decision.
Jordan, please have your way with them. I'm going to retire to my chambers.

Please rise as Judge Jesse Thorne exits the courtroom.

Jenny, what do you think your chances are? I think my chances are looking pretty good.

John, how do you feel? Man, I don't know. I'm thinking maybe 50-50.
We'll be back in just a second with Judge Jesse Thorne's decision on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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!

Please rise as Judge Jesse Thorne re-enters the courtroom. Thank you, Bailiff Jordan.
I want to begin my remarks by pointing something out.

I am

a lover

of strange foods. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a lover of ironic foods, but I welcome them.
I'm someone who loves to go to the 99 Cent store

and buy

Larry the Cable Guy beer bread mix.

I'm someone who's familiar with the full range of TGI Friday's branded snack products.

I'm somebody who loves to go to the Asian grocery store. Here in Los Angeles, nearby, there's a wonderful Korean grocery store that I love to go to.

I love to go to Little Tokyo and consume Japanese comestibles. I love to try a

mango chile product from the Mexican-American grocery store.

In fact, I love all these things so much that I created an unsuccessful web series called Brian and Lindsay Will Totally Eat That,

in which I made the two

least adventurous and culturally distinctive people I knew eat

many of these very same products, including fried crickets, although ours were prepared Oaxaca style.

It's something that I love.

I think it's wonderful and beautiful. I love the experience of

almost traveling internationally, culturally, by eating something where you literally cannot read what it says on the packaging, so you do not know what you're about to eat.

That is a thrilling experience for me. I think it's great.
It's so fun. Sometimes I'm upset with the results.
Sometimes I'm delighted by the results.

And goodness knows that I'm a lifelong supporter of Super Cola candy treats.

But I don't think that's what this case is about. I see through

your attempts to appeal to my sense of humor, John. I see through your attempts to appeal to my sense of irony.

and my sense of whatever, cultural miscommunication, humorous cultural miscommunication, my eternal love for crossed wires.

John, what this is about

is your inability to let go of something that frankly does not have much emotional meaning to you.

If you said to me during these proceedings, these items were gifts from people that I love and care about.

People like my brother-in-law, a man I love in part because of his penchant for giving bizarre gifts. I might have been more friendly to your case.

If you had said to me, these are essential research items that I need to support my family while my wife works hard at home with our toddler,

I might have been more friendly to your case.

But the reality is that what you told me was, you don't want to get rid of these things because you don't want to get rid of these things.

It's the same reason that you're not getting rid of the boxes. Fun fact, movers actually have boxes that they bring with them to pack stuff up in.

It's the same reason you don't want to get rid of shopping bags from the computer store,

which you literally use for garbage. You have ticketed them for the garbage and yet will not allow them to be thrown in the garbage.

You said, I don't want to get rid of my Steven Seagal energy drink because I just want it to exist in the world.

Well,

breaking news to you, John. It will continue to exist in the world indefinitely.
It's impossible to destroy. It's like a MacGuffin from a comic book movie.

Throw it in the trash and it will still live on forever.

And Jenny, I am sensitive to your plight as a parent.

I know what it's like to have a house that's too small and the chaos agents known as small children wandering around them, destroying things, and so on and so forth.

That's my life, too.

And I also have immense respect for the emotional work that you've done to preserve the order of your family and to preserve the feelings of your husband, who you obviously love very much.

And John, I I don't doubt that you love Jenny very much as well, although I kind of have to, I have to make a bigger leap to make that presumption. But I think it's probably true.
It's true.

Frankly, the only ameliorating factor here, John, for me, the only thing that warms me to your case is that you've apparently used a professional light box to photograph all of these items, and so they will look very good when they're on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page.

So

here are my orders to you.

First of all,

I want you to host a weird food party. You can add weird foods to the mix, and in fact, I would encourage you to do so.
Why not green tea Kit Kats? Why not

adobo-flavored corn snacks? In fact, I suggest that you watch

Brian and Lindsay, Will Totally Eat That, on the MaxFun YouTube channel for a few great great ideas. Invite some friends over.
All of you consume these together.

Furthermore, I order that you, John, eat some of every single one of these items. These are food items and you have brought this upon yourself.
If they are poisonous, do not feed them to others.

You must eat them. If you start to feel ill,

Stephen-Sagal-like, which is to say bloated, gassy, distempered,

C'est la vie. It's your party, buddy.
You brought this upon yourself.

Secondarily, I order you to obtain

cheesecake-flavored Kit Kats. These are Kit Kats that you bake in a toaster oven

that then become a delicious gooey-baked treat. I want you to make a video of the two of you eating them together in a romantic context.
Perhaps a candle-lit dinner.

Glasses of red wine.

You do white wine, actually, with

a cheesecake kit. Thank you, John.
Thank you. I'm a small yay in my off time.
That's why we've got bailiffs. Yeah.

I want you to make a brief video of you eating them straight out of the toaster oven in a romantic context so that we can post it on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram.

I order that you take your Stephen Seagal energy drink,

which is made with real, evaporated, organic, imported cane juice crystals,

to your office and display it on your desk for a period of one year, after which

it is at your discretion. But if this item is good enough for your own home and your own family, it's good enough for your coworkers.

And it will show what a fun, cool, Steven Seagal-loving blues guitar playing guy you are.

And finally,

Jenny, I don't want to leave you out of all of this.

I order you to try making pickled beats because I love pickled beats. It's definitely my favorite type of pickled.
I feel like I'll throw a bay leaf in there. And please, throw a bay leaf in there.

It is so ordered.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Fake Judge Jesse Thorne rules, and that was all.

Please rise as Judge Jesse Thorne exits the courtroom.

So, Jenny and John, let's get some thoughts on the verdict. Jenny, you came out on top of that one.
How are you feeling?

I'm feeling really good. I'm excited.
I'm excited for the party. I'm a little nervous and probably will have my car keys on hand while John consumes all of these items.

Have your car keys on? Oh, so you could drive him to the hospital? Yeah, you never know. You would take your child and flee while he dies on the kitchen floor of ding-dong poisoning?

Or in case, sorry to break out of my chambers here, but in case any of the beverages have fermented and he gets too drunk and thinks he can drive. Oh, sure.

That's true.

Yeah, the energy drink might be an alcoholic beverage by now.

John, how are you feeling?

How did you like the idea of the weird food party? I like it. I think it'll be fun.

Hey, that's, you know what's funny?

I suggested a bay leaf, and I'm the bailiff. Bay leaf?

Bay leaf. Anyway, John and Jenny, thank you for being on the podcast, and we both hope you are strong in your intestinal regions.

Another case in the books. Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Jason Jackman for naming this week's episode, Edible Arraignments.

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

Follow us on Twitter at jesse thorne at jordan underscore morris and check out Bubble Maximum Fun's scripted sci-fi comedy podcast, guest starring Judge John Hodgman himself in episode three.

It's available wherever you get your podcasts. That's Bubble from MaximumFun.org.

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

Evidence from this week's episode 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 Mark Nurbrass and Frank Torres at KJZZ Radio in Tempe, Arizona. Our producer is Jennifer Marmor.

And now let's get to some swift justice. Oddly, not the title of a Stephen Seagal movie.
Yeah, seems like it should be. We will answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

What do we got, Bailiff Jordan? Lauren says, last year my husband's New Year's resolution was to laugh at my jokes. Now that the resolution has expired, he refuses to laugh at my jokes.

I would like the judge to order my husband to humor me and laugh at my very corny but very awesome jokes. Smiley face emoji.

That's not just a smiley face emoji, Jordan. That's a laughing out loud emoji.
Tears in his eyes emoji. Tears.
It symbolizes her sadness that her husband no longer supports her. Right.

He ran off with that cat who has heart eyes.

Jordan, you've been forced to laugh at my jokes for,

gosh, I'm 37. Yeah.
So that would make it 18 years now. Oh, sure.
It's a special kind of hell that I live in.

What's your feeling about this? Um,

boy, how do I feel about this? I mean, he shouldn't

listen. There's degrees of laughter.
There's like the laugh you give, you know, when something unexpected happens or when something, you know, a truly genius piece of comedy happens.

But then there is the laugh that you give because you love someone. It's an expression of delight that, you know, they're there, they're trying to make you laugh.
You love them. You love their spirit.

And I don't think that because it is something that maybe you have to muster, that means that it is any less valid. So I will say to your husband,

personally, my opinion is that if you are making a joke, unless it is in poor taste, he should try and muster some sort of reaction, even if it is a good-intentioned groan.

There you go. That's the one.

Here's the part that strikes me as the key.

Now that the resolution has expired, he refuses to laugh at my jokes. So you think

on principle he's not laughing. My initial feeling is, I think that no one should be forced to laugh at anyone else's jokes.
A smile and a nod should suffice if you're not moved to laugh.

I'm concerned that the husband may be

a Star Trek android

who doesn't know what jokes are or how to laugh, and in fact, has to build up some kind of weird system of rules inside his head in order to laugh at jokes.

And I'm also concerned, even more than that, even more deeply than that, that he's some kind of vengeful monster who's trying to make his wife feel bad.

I'm going to balance those concerns against my initial feeling.

I'm going to rule that

he must always

acknowledge her jokes in the spirit in which they are offered

and in the spirit of their love and partnership.

However, I will not order that that acknowledgement must take the form of a laugh, a fond smile,

a pat on the shoulder,

sure,

a rub on the tum-tum.

Whatever it may be,

I will ask that you do so with a free, open, and loving heart.

But that laughter ultimately is something that need not be faked. It's a natural, reactive act, and if it does not come naturally to him, then so be it.

However, he must do something to acknowledge the sanctity of his relationship with

the person that he loves. Twins dancing emoji.
Painting nails.

That's about it for this week's episode. Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.
No case, too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge Don Hodgman podcast. Bear emoji, bear emoji, crab emoji, crab emoji, crab emoji.

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