Yappy Trails

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, Yappy Trails. Chase brings the case against his father, Chris.

When they go hiking, Chris likes to use that time to chat with his kid. Chase likes to quietly enjoy his surroundings.
He'd like his dad to give him the serenity he desires. 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.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

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. I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that the one time he hiked the Appalachian Trail, he was borne on the shoulders of four muscular men in a sedan chair?

Yes, I do. I do.

Very well. Judge Hodgman.
Jason, Chris, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

First of all, Jesse, that sounds nice, by the way. I like that.
It really sounds lovely. It sounds terrific.
That's exactly how I want to hike the Appalachian Trail.

And if any four Judge John Hodgman listeners want to bear me in a Hallen Quinn all the way up to Maine this summer, get at me.

But meanwhile, Chase and Chris, for an immediate summary judgment, one of your favors,

can you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom? Chris, you're the dad. Chase, you're the son.
So we're going to go dads first. Chris, what's your guess?

I'm going to say.

I don't know why. All I can think is it's going to be Alice Through the Looking Glass.
Through the Looking Glass.

Going with the sequel. Yeah, just to take a longer shot.
Sure, why not? You want to guess, what's the first one? Alice in Wonderland? Couldn't remember it.

Want to guess them both? Does it matter? That's the

thing so I can have more than two. You know what, John? I'm going to throw in Return to Oz.

Why not? How about also Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator? Another one of the sequels. Very good.
Sounds like a plan. Now,

Chase,

let me just tell you, it is wide open to you, sir. If you can guess whom I quoted as I entered the courtroom, this could all be yours.
Chase, what is your guess?

I'm gonna have to jump on the palaquin and say, go with what my dad said, because I have no idea. You can't guess what your dad guessed?

You gotta be your own man, Chase. How old are you? 17.
Grow up, kid. Make your own guess.
Can't guess your old man's guess. Come on.

You want to hear it again? I would rather sit on a pumpkin.

This is a quote about solitude. What you want, Chase.
This is what you want.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Hmm. You have to make a guess.
Yeah.

I will guess.

It sounds like some kind of parody on a grim fairy tale. So I will go with the general guess of grim fairy tale.
A grim fairy tale.

Well,

all guesses are wrong, and none of them them were close.

I'm sorry to say. And I'm actually not sure which work this is from,

but I would have guessed that maybe Chase might have gotten it because

you're still in high school, I presume.

You will get a high school diploma at some point, Chase?

Yes. Did you read Walden at any point in your high school education? I did not.

About the great, well, arguably great, certainly famous Massachusettsian misanthrope Henry David Thoreau, or Thoreau, as I learned to my deep surprise, is how it's pronounced according to NPR this past summer when his hundredth birth or death anniversary came around.

Anyway,

HTT, I like to call him, notorious.

Lived in a little cabin all by himself by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, which is a state in New England, Jesse. Never heard of it.

And preached the virtues of solitude and thrift and basically abstinence from all pleasure, never mentioning that the wilderness in which he lived, Walden Pond, had people visiting it all the time.

People were walking by his little house all the time. They're going swimming or they're going ice cutting.
He lived 20 minutes from his mom and went home all the time to eat dinner.

And his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson brought pies to him all the time.

I was reminded of all of these small hypocrisies when I reread this afternoon Catherine Schultz's incredible essay about Thoreau or Thoreau, in which she describes him as a jerk and a disingenuous, incurious, pre-limousine liberal whose support for abolition did not undo the white privilege involved and a Harvard man with no expenses or dependents claiming that everyone can and should live in a small house near the homes of his mom and wealthy friends.

Oh, go look it up. It's a great essay, and it's got one of the greatest titles of all time for a book about the author of Walden who lived on Walden Pond.
It's called Pond Scum.

All right. End of referral hour here with the pre-case Judge John Hodgman.
Let's get on to the case.

Chase, you and your dad, Chris, take hikes together through the mountains of Colorado where you live. Your dad wants to talk to you.
You want him to shut up. Is that correct, Chase?

It is correct. All right.
What is your dad always talking about all the time when you guys go on these hikes?

Anything that comes into his mind, really.

I think that's what becomes annoying as time goes on and I try to enjoy my surroundings and he's mumbling or jumbling about something or other.

All right, give me an example of some of his mumblings and jumbling. Chase, you pretend to be your dad, and I'm you.
Like, okay, dad, let's take a walk through the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

He would say something like,

All pet names should end in a vowel.

Case closed.

I really try to keep my decorum behind this internet bench. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at such a perfect example of specificity being the soul of narrative.

My goodness, Chase, well prepared and well delivered. And now, Chris, tell me about your theory.
Well, should we talk substantively about pet names?

Because I actually am a strong believer in that exact point. And it is a good example of what happens on a hike because it's a great chance to test out something like that, right?

So I will make a pronouncement and then try to support it. And if you're hiking with people that are fun to talk to, they can really test you on it.

So my thing about pet names is you need, I'm thinking of dogs, being a guy who's been around dogs all these years. You want to end in a vowel so you can shout their name and they can hear you.

So if you have a name like our one dog is named Mr. Smith, that's a hard name to say Smith and have it really echo.
Well also it would be impolite because his name is Mr. Smith.

I do need to get a handle on that. That's right.
But every time we get a dog throughout Chase's life, I've had the vote for the same name, which is Mango, because that's a great name to shout, Mango.

And then you can say, go Mango. And that's how you can call your dog that will never have the same name as another dog.
But you end it with a vowel so you can shout it.

And so, Chase, for example, he would, you know, we get into an exchange about that and whether that really makes any sense.

Yeah, but you, every time you say the dog's name, every time you call the dog to you, you are literally telling it to go.

Are you sure you're not just trying to confuse a dog?

Come, mango, come mango.

You're right. I'm naming the dog for my own entertainment.
That's pretty much the top and bottom of it.

You are definitely a Hall of Fame weird dad already, Chris,

in the long history of weird dads being adored by me on this podcast. That does not mean I'm necessarily going to find in your favor.
Here's why you're in the Hall of Fame of Weird Dads.

One, you readily admit that you're making these pronouncements just to stir up trouble and spark a fight.

You call it testing a theory. I call it stirring the pot.
Two, you have given a lot of thought to this. Three, your ultimate perfect name for a dog, mango, is specifically confusing to the dog,

causing trouble wherever you go, Chris.

Also, we all know the best name for a dog is handbone, right, Jesse?

Absolutely. Although, a friend of mine recently met a baby who had a perfect dog name and terrible baby name, which is Banjo.
Oh, Hambo. Wait a minute, that's the name of the baby?

So a baby was named Banjo, which led me to think, what a horrible name for a baby. Then I thought, oh, but what a great name for a dog.
We had a dog named Banjo just five years ago.

Toe Banjo.

Who named Mr. Smith, Chase?

That was him as well. All right.
Well, there was a vote. Let's say that.
Everybody had a role there. Chris, you have your whole theory of dog names, and then you violated that theory?

Well, so we've got a family with me and Chase's mom and his sister and I. And so.
You counted yourself twice. Did you vote twice?

Well, I'll try again. Dad, mom, Chase, and his sister, Caroline.
And when we got the dog that became Mr. Smith, I voted as always for Mango.

And I explained again to everyone why Go Mango is a great ironic dog shout. And I was voted down, as I usually am.
But one of the other alternatives that we talked about was Mr. Smith.

And like all our dog names, they are chosen by the majority of the four. I see.

And you just can't let it go. So every time you guys go, how often do you guys go on these hikes through the beautiful mountains? You live in Colorado Springs, is that correct? Yes.

And so how often do you go out on these hikes together?

Our goal is once a weekend, if possible, if there's no conflicts. And recently, as school slows down, especially for me being a senior, we've been able to go out on those hikes more often.

That's nice. And as you say, you were a senior in high school.

Are you applying to colleges? Do you know what's happening next in your life yet? Yes, I will be going to Cal Berkeley this fall. Cal Berkeley.
Oh, yeah. How close is that to Colorado Springs?

Just a short hike?

Not very close. Well, congratulations on getting away from your father.

Thank you. And I guess I can understand why in these last few months you have together to go hiking every weekend, you would like me to order your father to shut up finally.

No, is that what you want me to order, Chase, that he not talk about dog names? What else does he talk about? Tell me more. There are kind of two categories I like to put his discussions in.

One are these

random, like the dog names, just authoritative statements that he lays down, and then he says you can open discussion on it. And then the other ones always must include a discussion.

And I think those are the worst because I end up getting drawn into the conversation unknowingly and I end up missing the entire hike.

And so that's actually how he introduced me to your show was through the hot dog sandwich question

and questions like that. And we kind of fall into these loops during the hike.

So you get into a debate and then you feel you don't get to enjoy the beautiful, pristine Coloradan surroundings. Exactly.
In your opinion,

Chase, is a hot dog a sandwich?

It's hard. It was a long discussion, and it was

enlightening to hear yours.

I do not think a hot dog is a sandwich.

Remember, you are under fake oath. If you are lying to me simply to spare yourself my wrath,

only wrath will follow.

No, that is completely my decision. I've had similar discussions with friends afterwards as well.
What was your initial position?

It was hard, and it was a lot of back and forth during the hike.

It's a complicated issue. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a little confused on this point, as we learned in the news recently.
She was

led down the garden path by Stephen Colbert into saying the wrong thing, and I blame Stephen and find it, frankly,

offensive that he would

take the time and precious life essence away away from this bulwark of democracy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in order to use this poor woman as a weapon in his vendetta against me. But that's another story.

Chris,

hot dog, sandwich, or no? Quick.

Not a sandwich. Right, good.

We may proceed. So, Chase, what would your preference be then, that he not speak at all? Total silence? Yeah, I think I should have

the say over whether he can speak or not. I think parents should speak when spoken to.

I would like to be able to recognize a conversation dragging me down a rabbit hole and be able to cut it off before I miss the hike.

Boy, you guys really love Alice in Wonderland. I was going to say, yeah, it's right there with that reference.
Good job.

Is this really about not wanting to miss the beauty of nature or simply wanting your dad to shut up for once?

I will admit, I love the discussions, and we have them often. I think it's important to note that we often go out to eat brunch or breakfast or lunch, depending on the time, after a hike.

And at that time, I love to talk extensively about

whatever he'd like to, because I like debating with him, but I do think the purpose of our hike is to really enjoy what Colorado is offering us and that I might miss in Berkeley.

Right. Because Colorado is probably going to be gone in 10 or 20 years, and your dad will be around forever.

Oof.

Oh, yeah.

That's right. That's how dark I just got.
I just predicted Chris's death. I don't even know your answer.

I'm sure that you'll be as immortal as I plan to be, so don't worry about it. Let's take a quick recess.
When we come back, Chris explains why he enjoys talking to Chase so much on their hikes.

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Court is back in session. Let's get back into the courtroom for more yappy trails.

So, Chris, how does it make you feel that Chase wants you to be quiet on these hikes and save them for post-hike brunch?

I'm conflicted. You know, I'll tell you,

you know, all cards on table, I will admit that, you know, him wanting me to be quiet for a minute may be tied to larger issues about my chattiness generally. So.

Are you overly chatty, sir?

I might be a guy who talks a lot. I might be.
You can ask Chase, you know, for his independent opinion, but around the house, I think there is a lot of talking and arguing and bantering going on.

And many times I'm an instigator, and probably people would vote collectively to get dad to shut up once in a while.

So you think you're saying he has a point? I just want to get that on the table. I'll allow that it may be a point anyway.
But I'm conflicted because I'll tell you, hiking for me is

it's more and more as we get older, it's a unique moment and it's the moment where we get away from other stimuli.

So if I can just offer this, as a little kid, for example, as Jase and I have been hiking around together with the rest of our family for these many years and as a little kid

You know, his life wasn't all filled with screens and TVs and people and homework and college apps and everything else all the time. And so when we'd go out for a hike, I think it

wasn't his only minute to spin down and have a thoughtful conversation with me about a thing. And it probably wasn't my only minute to do that with him.

But I feel like more and more, I'm looking at a 17-year-old kid with a schedule that's busier than mine, and he's got a lot of pulls on his time, and there are people always trying to text him and communicate.

And the same is true of me.

And the hiking, when you get out there, in addition to the fresh air and the view, and we've been lucky to live in the Bay Area and in Colorado and really have special places to hike so he's right about that you hate to miss it but the other thing that's happening is the only sound is the tromping sound of your hiking boots as you go and over a period of you know hours sometimes for a hike and it is irresistible to me to use that that specially quiet moment to get into real conversations and especially with Chase and the other guys in our family.

When you go hiking every weekend, is that just you and Chase or is it your whole fam?

Well, like Chase said, we struggle to try to do it on weekends.

We don't do it every weekend because of one schedule and another, but it will be all four of us, the mom and the sister and the brother and the dad, or any subset of us.

But I think, you know, Chase is the one who's taking issue in particular with my habits while we're hiking.

Chase, why don't you go hiking by yourself every now and then to drink in the full beauty of Colorado without your dad's constant yammering?

I'll say it is actually a thing at my high school being very near the mountains to go out and lunch and hike around a little and I have and I think it's fun and I've both on both occasions told my friends to be quiet and welcome conversation as well there.

But I do like the presence of being with my dad. I feel like without conversation you can still kind of feel a familial bond or some kind of kinship when you're walking together on a hike.

I think the atmosphere creates a tight bond that doesn't require conversation.

How long a hike do you usually take? And is it a circular trail? Do you get up a thing and then come back down a thing? Do you go around a thing?

How does it work?

We have a pretty good variety to choose from here, and I think it's all of the above on that.

They can range from

maybe 30 minutes for a really quick one to a couple hours or more.

Right, but so for

sorry. No, that's okay.
If you would just be quiet for one second, Chris, and allow me to speak.

For a dude who self-accuses of being a chatterbox, you're not defending yourself particularly strongly or jumping in as much as I hoped you would. So go, please go ahead, Chris.
Say your thing.

Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to reinforce, I think we're very much day hikers.

I don't know if this matters, but we haven't ever really been campers, like hiking for days on end, but we'll go on hikes for a couple of hours or something as long as like Pike's Peak Peak is really like 12 hours up and down.

So it's something like that, but we're home and dry by the end of the day is the deal.

How often have you done Pike's Peak? 12 hours. Geez, you guys.

Yeah, only we've done it twice. It is the, you know, here in Colorado, people talk about 14ers, that is mountains higher than 14,000 feet.
And there are, I think, more than 50 of them.

And the one in our town, the one that towers over us, is Pike's Peak. And we have never even got past it yet because we haven't lived here that long.
But it is just over 14,000 feet.

It's the best hike I've ever done. Let me tell you something.
I've been in Colorado. I've been up top of some of those mountains.
I didn't hike up them. I drove up them.
You get up above 14,000 feet.

You don't have a lot of breath left to be talking about dog names.

The air gets very thin.

I think the conversation does change at the very end of that hike when you're at the top. People are very focused on just getting to the next step and the next one after that.
You're right.

Yeah, that's when you've got to be pretty quiet because your brain is exploding in your skull.

It's fun. It's fun hiking.
I enjoy it. So, Chris, you mentioned that, you know, Chase is going to college soon.
He's not going to be around.

What are you going to miss when he's not around for you to go hiking with?

Well, I mean, this is where you get, you know, I don't know if this is a crux, but it is, this is where you get to the heart of this for me, is, you know, as he's gotten to be the guy he is now, he is a smart kid.

He's very thoughtful, he's interesting, he pushes back on ridiculous theories that somebody might happen to blurt out during a hike or at any other time.

And I've never had more fun testing those ideas and kicking around than I do now with Chase. He is just such a great guy.

So as I look at him getting ready to pack a bag and go away, I look forward to more hikes with his sister and his mom, but they won't be quite the same.

So you can see why it's even even possible that I've been even too chattier than usual in recent year and a half or two years as I see this coming. Because there just isn't anything like it.

As a little kid, he was kind of a chatterbox, but the conversations were obviously very different.

So now that he's this very smart guy, he's at an age, I don't know if you've been around a lot of teenagers that start to become much more quiet.

He's much more careful about his words, as you can probably pick up. And so drawing him out, as you can, in that kind of hiking context, it's irresistible.

So you're on record saying that your wife and daughter are no fun to talk to.

They do listen to the pod, I have to say. Okay, well, you can get that in post, right? How old is your daughter?

Carolyn is 15. So you've got a couple years left to bother her with your theories.
Yeah, she's really going to come under the

terrible gaze and conversational focus that Chase knows now.

Yeah, Chase, this is your last time to shield shield your younger sister from the full brunt of your dad's theories and ideas and conversation.

Don't you have a responsibility to absorb as much of it as you can before you leave?

No, Your Honor. I am totally fine dropping that hardship on her.

Does your dad repeat conversational gambits or is it different every time?

Rarely. I think sometimes they can circle around depending on how interesting they are or how impactful he believes they are.

But oftentimes he brings new ideas to the table. Does your dad talk to other hikers if you pass them on the trail?

That is another thing that I have talked to him about in the past because he does.

And it is, I find that even more annoying than him talking to me because I'd hate to impose our presence upon other hikers trying to enjoy the scenery.

So if you're going up the hill and some hikers are coming down the hill, does your dad block them and say, hang on, you guys, what's a good name for a dog?

Usually it's not that bad, fortunately, but in as much as stopping them on the trail and engaging them in some kind of conversation, how's the weather up there?

What's it look like ahead? How are you guys doing today? And

I always cringe whenever he does that. I have some evidence that was submitted by you, Chase, specifically.

First is a photo that, of course, we will be posting on the show page at maximumfund.org, and as well as on an Instagram account at instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman. And this is an older photo.

Is that correct, Chase? Tell me what we're seeing here. Yes, I was hoping to show in the photos that these conversations are not new.
They've been going on for a while now. And so

I think they're a picture where he's quite clearly talking to me as a young child on a hike and once again distracting me.

In fact, you wrote to me, as one can see, this is a quote from you, Chase, quote, as one can see, one, my father has been stopping me to talk throughout my life, and two, we are constantly surrounded by beautiful nature that I am missing due to his prattling.

How old are you in this photo, Chase?

I think I'm maybe five. Yeah.

What I see here is a dad.

You're in a little clearing on in some beautiful nature, and you and your sister is your sister holding like a little walkie-talkie here or something or is she about to eat a poisonous mushroom i can't tell

it it must be some kind of walkie-talkie or a right maybe a pine cone or yeah and the two of you are sort of crouched down in the grass and your dad is on one knee

talking to you both and here comes running one of your many

i presume no longer alive dogs is this banjo the dog

I think it is, yes. Yeah.

You know what, I don't see a photo here. I don't see a photo of a dad annoying his son in this photo.
I see a beautiful family scene. A father and a son and a daughter enjoying some time together.

Did you think that sending me this photo of this beautiful family scene would make me think that your dad was a jerk?

I was hoping you would show that I do not remember those hikes.

Do you remember what your dad was talking about in this moment?

I believe we were talking about something regarding the walkie-talk. All right, stop stop it.
There is a 0% chance. Hang on.
I'll allow it.

If you have a specific memory of your dad talking to you about walkie-talkies while you're trying to pick up a piece of grass and learn to whistle with it, I'd like to hear this.

I'm sure we were plotting out some kind of game of hide and seek with the walkie-talkies.

Okay. Yeah, that's terrible.

What a terrible thing for your dad to do.

I thought he was giving you a theory about... Now, Chase, I think probably Channel 5 is a better channel than Channel 4, typically.

And you also submitted an affidavit here from your mom. Is that right? Chase? Yes.
All right, and I'm going to read that now.

To Honorable Judge John Hodgman, Ray Chase, last name redacted. Your Honor, I am Chase's mom and Chris's wife.
As their fellow hiker, I have a great interest in the outcome of this matter.

I actually don't mind if you rule in favor of hike talking or against it. My strong request is only that you rule categorically for one or the other.

I can hike with people talking or with people not talking. What I can't take is any more hiking with people talking about whether people hiking should talk.

I know I can rely on you to close this matter once and for all. Thank you very much.
Signed, mom.

How much of the talking that you do on the hike is about whether or not talking should be happening, Chris?

Well, it is a great question, I think.

No, not too many times. It has come up more than once because Chase starts patiently to stop me, and then sometimes that escalates a little bit.
I see. Chase, why don't you just split it up?

Half of the hike can be no talking, and half of the hike, like on your way up, talking. On your way down, no talking.

I think many times the trails are more circular. It's not the same pathway up and down.

So that would be missing some scenery as well. And I think,

especially on the way down, sometimes, or on the way up, we're winded, or on the way down, we're a little more tired, and then the conversations tend to draw out or be less fun than they would be if we were sitting on a plateau somewhere.

Chase, is there no compromise for these last few months that you are living at home? Is there no compromise other than dad shuts up that is available?

If he will point out a tree to me or a bird that I didn't know, I'd be happy.

I guess if he was regarding the hike itself, I would be happy. But if

he's spouting some nonsense, if he's doing something like that and drawing away from my enjoyment of the scenery, then I think that's unacceptable.

All right.

Chris,

Chase seems like a very principled young man who clearly has an enormous regard for nature.

Is this about your talking to him

or getting him to talk to you?

Oh,

on my part,

yeah.

Well, you know, it's both.

I wish I could be categorical. I really enjoy the back and forth.
And we just don't get that much time to do that kind of thing. But like I said, I think for me, when you're hiking,

this unusual chance to slow down and think things through and talk about them thoughtfully and even over a period of time. You know, you can go silent for a while and then somebody has a thought.

That kind of atmosphere is. Can you go silent for a while, sir?

It's happened. You know, we said near the top of a very big hill or something like that.
No,

I think there it is a special opportunity. And it's probably true that particularly as he gets older, I am susceptible to this dad thing.

And I know that both Your Honor and the Bailiff are fathers and may experience this sometimes yourselves. You know, you think I've gotten to be this old.
I've made this many dumb mistakes.

I can save this person who's important to me from the same misperception. So here's a thing I just got to tell you now because I just thought of it in this thoughtful moment on the hike.

How can I not share it? I think I probably struggle to edit myself.

Before I go into my yurt-shaped chambers here to consider my verdict,

Chase,

do you think your dad just wants to talk or do you think he also wants to listen?

I think that's an all above as well. I think he enjoys the discussions and I think he enjoys hearing my opinions as well, especially as I've gotten older.

He's made it clear that he thinks our debates are more involved and

a little more intricate.

But I really do think most of the conversations are him making a statement or

presenting an idea or a theory to me. You know, I feel like we've talked about the hot dog as a sandwich debate.
We've talked about the all pet names should end in a voweled

theory.

Do you have any more in the chamber that I need to know about before I go into my chambers, Chase? Yes. I mean, there are a whole bunch I could choose from.
I think

maybe

tell me everything.

A nonsense one that we've talked about before is the use of toilet paper and tissue paper, and can you use them interchangeably? Got it.

We've talked about a lot of college stuff over the time, which have been more serious, but just as involving.

And he's passed on life lessons to me that I have taken to heart and that I find very important and that I still remember today.

And I think

those are definitely worth the time. For example,

his top three life lessons for me, and this has come up multiple occasions, he always says, one, be kind to others, two, be kind to yourself. And three, pay attention.

And I think those, I take those close to heart. And those, I remember the time when I hear them on the hike,

on which hike it was, specifically where we were. And although it was just as involving and I missed the hike just as much, those are some conversations that I've cherished.

So I will give that to him. But now you've had enough.
Correct. I think he's out.
All right. I think I've heard enough from both of you, frankly.

And I will now go into my yurt that I am using for my chambers here in the middle of the beautiful wilderness of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York. And I will be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Chase, you brought the case.
How are you feeling about your chances?

I think you pushed me into a little corner there about

a few things, but I think my dad's recent induction into the Weird Dad Hall of Fame might play into my favor.

Normally, you have to be retired for five years before you can get elected to the Hall of Fame, but he really leapfrogged that with a truly exemplary performance.

Chris, how are you feeling about your chances? Well, I think given the closing window, I'm hoping that I can play on the sympathies of the court.

I think, you know, when it's a dad hike, it's a dad hike, and you can go hiking with quiet people at other times.

I hope that gives me a shot. But I have to say, going in,

I am mindful that chatty dads can be annoying to lots of people, so that may not be the most sympathetic character. Chris, what's your profession?

I work as a lawyer, but not the litigating kind, more than negotiating kind.

Using your powers against your own child, are you?

Ineffectively, I guess we can agree. We'll see what the judge has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judge Hodgman, we just concluded the Max Fun Drive. It was a truly incredible experience.

I want to thank every single person out there who supported any of the shows in the Maximum Fun Network, but particularly those who supported our show.

Your support is what allows us to pay Jennifer Marmor her salary and benefits and rent studios around the world and make room in our lives to make the show that we are really proud of.

And I know that I am very proud to work for every single one of those folks who supported Maximum Fun.

I would also just very quickly like to echo those thanks and just say again how much I appreciated hearing from everybody during Max Fund Drive, all of the wonderful things that people said on all the social medias throughout the Max Fun Drive, you know, in addition to all of your wonderful contributions, just those sentiments really,

it was fun to watch and fun to be a part of. And I'm very, very grateful to every one of you who is hearing the sound of my voice or will hear it when it finally comes into their podcast ears.

Thank you. Judge Hodgman, we're headed to Chicago in a few weeks.

If you're in Chicago, there are still tickets for the second Judge John Hodgman show at the Onion Comedy Festival. That's right.
The first show sold out real quick.

We are closing in on selling out the second show, so please do not delay.

You can get tickets by going to my tour page, which is johnhodgman.com slash tour, or to the events part of the maximumfund.org website.

Also on my tour page, since we are talking about the future, may I just say we're just a few days away from April's amazing Gene and John variety show.

This is occasional guest bailiff Gene Gray and a brilliant person in general, Gene Gray, plus me, John Hodgman, the person you know from this podcast. We do a variety show every month in Gowanus.

This one is going to be insane. We have some amazing surprise guests lined up, and I hope that you will consider coming on by and saying hello.
Again, that's all on johnhodgman.com/slash tour.

Let's get back to the case.

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

I can can appreciate why both parties

feel a certain anxiety.

That maybe the hiking conversation, which has obviously been itself a conversation for so long as to whether or not it should be happening and to what degree, is now extra fraught because, of course,

Chris was very adept at finding the crux.

There is an obvious time limit on this father-son ritual.

Yes, you will always go on hikes together so long as you are both alive and ambulatory and more or less speaking to each other, which I trust will be for a very good long time. But

Chase is about to go to college in a different state with a different topographical features. And you both want to get as much out of these last moments as you can.

Obviously, Chris wants to get as much conversation out of his son

before he goes off to college and Chris is left walking alone or with his wife and daughter, which is established. He might as well be walking alone because they're so boring.

Sorry, mom and daughter, but I'm just taking Chris's lead on this one.

And Chase wants to absorb as much of Colorado, the home that he is leaving behind,

before he moves to another place.

Like all teenagers, it does not strike him that he is going to miss his mom and and dad.

And I can tell you, as a former teenager who left to go to college,

Chase, you won't. Sorry, Chris.

It's going to be a long time before you miss your mom and dad. You know, Chase is genetically designed to put all of this in his rearview mirror and get out there into a landscape of his own.

where he can walk in total silence without having his dad muttering behind him the entire time. I mean, the metaphors for everything that's happening here are so almost clichéd.
You know,

someone needs to walk his own path. The dad wants to make sure that his son doesn't stumble.
I mean, it's all there for the on-the-nose taking.

And it'll all be resolved in a couple of months anyway, because it'll all be gone, right?

You know, whether or not you anticipate missing your dad on these hikes or miss these rituals for many years to come, the fact that you have these memories of these hikes will be enough.

You won't appreciate that your dad will be wandering the mountains alone without his son.

It'll take a long time, maybe until you have your own child, to appreciate how sad that is going to be for him. I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty.
It's just true.

You just, kids aren't biologically built to feel and anticipate the sort of the loss of that bond. because it's their biological imperative to separate that bond, to separate from parents.

It's the way it goes. It's complicated stuff.
And it's hard for me exactly to figure out how to rule because I totally sympathize with both parties. As a dad,

I completely sympathize with the sadness and the fear and the terror that, and the knowledge and the certainty that my children won't be walking beside me for that much longer.

They're disappearing before my eyes even now.

And as a former teenager and certainly as a narcissistic only child, I absolutely sympathize with the desire to be out there on my own

in that world.

Chase said that Judge John Hodgman would rule in Chase's favor because Chris has already been inducted into the Weird Dad Hall of Fame. Chase, you'd know nothing about my podcast.

Weird dads almost always win.

Hall of Famers, especially.

One of the great weird dads that I've encountered in my life, and I've talked about it before on this podcast, is a guy named Kenny Shopson who runs a kind of a restaurant/slash

social experiment called Shopson's General Store in the Essex Street Market here in New York City.

And he raised five kids in the city, and it was hard for him to pay attention to all of his kids because he was working all the time alongside his wife in the store.

And they had five kids, and it was hard to manage.

All young kids around the, you know, only a few years apart from each other. Two of them are twins.
And I asked him, how did he do it?

You know, how did you maintain a relationship with each one individually? And he would say, well, I would take them out on walks around the neighborhood every night, one kid per night,

five kids, one for each night of the school week. And I said, what would you talk to them about? And he said, nothing.

I never spoke. If I spoke, they would never talk.

But if I don't speak, then they will talk.

I don't know if that's going to work for you guys

for Chris to be quiet

so that Chase will say what's on his mind before he goes. As far as I can tell, Chase truly does just want to look at those birds and trees.

It's very hard for me to rule that a dad should be quiet when, in fact,

dads have

an almost biological imperative

to tell everyone how they're thinking and what they should be doing with their lives. Why do you think I have this podcast?

But I'm going to order in Chase's favor.

Sorry, Chris.

You've had your way for a long time.

And I love the topics of conversation you're bringing up.

And I know that you probably are pretty good at goading

Chase into conversations.

But now that we're in the home stretch here,

I think it's worth a try

to have it Chase's way,

as he is a

young adult now,

and see what happens if you don't opine

over whether toilet paper is the same as tissue paper.

See what happens in that silence that you're going to have to get used to pretty soon anyway.

And see what Chase ends up saying once he inevitably finds that silence unbearable.

He might even start bringing up weird theories of his own.

And Chase,

I want you to take advantage of your dad's silence when you're up there to not just look at the trees and look at the birds, but in the absence of his talking,

think about what it will be like to not have him with you in your daily life

and meditate on that as much as the trees and the birds.

I don't like to rule against weird dads.

It's basically like ruling against myself. And I don't like to rule against the obviously charming and wonderful spirit that Chris is trying to bring to this relationship.

But these relationships change.

And I think that in this

last few months before Chase goes to college,

maybe you should give him a taste of the medicine that he's asking for

and see what happens when the two of you are just on top of a mountain being quiet together.

Meanwhile,

mango is not my favorite name for a dog, but I order the next dog be named Mango. Oh, it's a win.

A hot dog is obviously not a sandwich. Toilet paper and tissue paper are not interchangeable.

And my advice to both of you is to be kind to others, to be kind to yourself. These are just ideas that I had myself recently.

And most of all,

when you're up there on the mountain not talking, pay attention. This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Chase, how are you feeling about the decision?

I'm happy about the ruling, and I think it'll be an interesting test, and we'll have to see how it works our next hike. How are you feeling, Chris?

Well, I'm a big believer in fake internet law, so I'm going to absolutely abide by this thing. And it will be a great test to see if I've really passed on this hiking tradition or not.

If Chase can make it through an all-day hike without

starting to spout fake theories or goofy ideas, then I will have to respect that.

What kind of dog do you think Mango will be?

We always take the dog that's been at the pound the longest, so we've never known going in what the next doggie will look like.

That's a nice rule. Ideal and absolute.
Chase, Chris, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books. In just a second, we'll dispense a little bit of swift justice.
First, we want to thank Matthew Batters for naming this week's episode Yappy Trails.

If you want to name a future episode, be sure to like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook. It's worth it.
Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. That's not worth it.
No, it is. I'm kidding.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H. O.
And check out the Max Fun subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com if you want to chat about this week's episode.

Our episode recorded by Jacob Brownell at 91.5 KRCC in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Our producer and our recordist here in Los Angeles is the capable Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, your disputes answered with quick judgment. Sarah says, I contend Tickled Tuesday is a thing.
My husband vehemently disagrees. Who's right? Who's wrong?

Jesse, have you ever heard of Tickle Tuesday?

I believe I saw a documentary last year about it. Are you talking about the documentary Tickled?

Yeah, isn't that about Tickled Tuesday? terrifying creepy documentary that i was too scared to watch after i saw the trailer

yeah i guess i didn't see it and that's why i'm not sure whether that's what it was about

uh if anyone wants to go and read the wikipedia page for the documentary tickled you will understand why i find the very concept of tickling to be much more nefarious than i thought it was when I was a kid.

And I definitely don't like the idea of Tickle Tuesday. So if it is a thing, I say don't make it a thing.

Tickling other people is a form of torture and should not be done, especially between husband and wife, unless you are both consenting to it.

And if your husband is vehemently saying Tickled Tuesday is not a thing, that's because he's tired of being tickled on Tuesday. And I rule in his favor.

You know what? Can I offer a complimentary ruling from the bailiff's chair? Please.

I rule that taco Tuesday is also not a thing. It's an international phenomenon in all the places of the world that have bad tacos.

Well, luckily, we are not recording this on a Tuesday, so I have no comment.

That's it for this week's episode. Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.
No case is too small. We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

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