Legal Jar Gone

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, legal jargon.

Kit brings the case against his roommate, Olivia.

Olivia likes to keep and repurpose jars.

Kit says, Olivia's weird collection has grown too large, but Olivia can't part with them.

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.

Today, over 40% of the families living in the U.S.

do some podcasting, and the percentage is increasing.

The principle behind podcasting is simple.

Decay and spoilage are caused either by enzymes in the comedy itself or by bacteria and other microorganisms.

During the podcasting process, comedy is heated to a high temperature to stop the action of the enzymes and to kill all decay organisms.

The podcasts are then stored in sterile airtight jars to prevent contamination.

And then you just begin selling mattresses.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear him 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?

Totally.

Definitely.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite his famous affinity for the jar-themed Christian rock band Jars of Clay?

I do.

I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

You may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

Can either of you name a Jars of Clay song?

Hmm can you?

Just one?

Kit?

No?

Not even one.

Olivia?

No.

Pickles of Life.

Yeah, the Pickles of Life.

It's about the sweet, tangy taste of Christ's love.

That's actually a Jars of Clay cover band.

They play all the Jars of Clay hits at the Roadhouse up there in Amherst, Massachusetts.

That's where I'm finding you guys, right?

In my home Commonwealth?

That's right.

Fantastic.

And you both are attending, in some form or another, the University of Massachusetts.

Yep.

Yes.

Right.

So you are liberal coastal elite heathens.

Of course, you don't know any songs by Jars of Clay.

Could you name.

I don't mean to speak of your faith.

Perhaps I'm wrong there, but still.

Could you name the cultural reference that I actually spoke when I entered the courtroom?

Anybody?

Take a guess, Olivia.

No.

Kid?

Incorrect.

We have to move this along.

I think it was on a how-to guide

for jarring.

Pro-jarring propaganda.

Well, obviously, I was not talking about podcasting.

I was talking about pickling using jars, which are the subject of this dispute.

So, in a sense, your guess is right, but I'm just going to say all guesses are wrong because you're never going to guess.

That I was paraphrasing from the Reader's Digest book, Back to Basics, specifically page 206,

an amazing book of

a how-to book for the oldest American handicrafts.

I mean, if you want to learn how to make some venison jerky, you turn to Back to Basics by Reader's Digest.

It's an incredible book with lots and lots of photos of Back to the Landers in their 30s wearing old-timey garb, staring at cast iron pans.

It's like my favorite kind of reading.

It's one of my favorite books, and I purchased it at Nancy Dole's Books and Ephemera in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

Kit or Olivia, have either of you ever been over to Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts to see the Bridge of Flowers?

I have not.

We've intended to.

That's a lie.

Go over to Shelburne Falls.

Check out Nancy Dole's books and ephemera.

Jesse Thorne, you would love this place because it's got all kinds of old-timey pamphlets and weird little doodads.

Nancy Dole is an amazing collector of books and weird things.

So please check it out, everybody.

But meanwhile, since you could not name a Jars of Clay song or

the book that I was reading from, let's hear this case.

You guys are roommates there in Massachusetts.

Is that correct?

That is true.

Okay.

But not in love with each other?

Not even remotely.

Not even, not even remotely.

Coming out pretty aggro there, Kit against Olivia.

And you are the one who brings this case.

So what is this about?

So my good friend Olivia is somewhat of a mild hoarder, I'll say.

And we purchase a lot of pasta sauce in jars, almost always Newman's own.

and when it comes time whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa kit

yes you can't be talking about what pasta sauce brand you buy on my podcast oh that's true come on goodness forbid that kit should plug a charitable business enterprise i could it's true if you're gonna mention a brand newman's own is a pretty good one And they make a pretty good sauce, too.

So I won't fault you there.

But the problem is, you're eating spaghettis all night long, every night, and you have tons of these jars, and Olivia hangs on to them.

She's a mild hoarder, not a spicy hoarder, mild.

I wish that was more inaccurate than it is.

Okay.

How many of these jars do you have hanging around, Olivia?

Oh,

I'm not sure exactly.

I have not counted them.

It's not that many.

And it's not just those jars in particular.

So you admit to holding on to jars?

I do.

Yeah, I definitely don't throw them away or recycle them typically.

I mean, I do occasionally, but I hold on to them until I wash them at least.

Of course, yeah.

I like take the label off and wash them.

Taking the label off is not what's happening.

They always end up off.

I just didn't know whether you had crusty jars of, you know, old spaghetti sauce under your bed or whatever.

Oh, God, no.

So what are you doing with these nice, clean jars once you've stripped Paul Newman's face off of them?

we use them for cups mostly.

They're nice and big.

They can hold a lot of ice water.

And then I use them for other things too,

like rooting plants in them or

putting flowers or storing things.

I guess anything you could use a jar for?

Sure.

I think you kind of summed it up.

Do you have cups?

We have some cups.

But not enough cups?

Not enough cups.

Not big enough cups.

You frequently run out of cups and have to drink from your cupped hands?

No, we get to drink from jars.

Got it.

Kit, I asked Olivia how many jars she has, and she claimed to not know, probably because she's ashamed of the number.

I would hope that you probably at least have a ballpark estimate for how many jars you have.

I don't have a ballpark estimate.

I have almost an exact number.

Oh,

yes.

So here's the deal.

Please break it down.

In the cabinet alone, when I had gone to take the picture for my evidence, there were 10 pasta jars of a branded variety in the cabinet.

Yes.

I don't even know if there are that many cups in the cabinet, but we can get to that at a different point.

I then went into the dishwasher, removed the jars that were in the dishwasher, and collected the jars only in the kitchen vicinity.

And there were about 23, 24 jars.

Total.

Not even that many lids, but definitely that many jars.

Kit, when you say of a branded variety, do you mean that the branding remains on these jars?

Are they still labeled or semi-labeled?

I will say that the particular brand that I have aforementioned in the podcast embosses their jars near the rim.

Right.

So you can clearly tell the brands.

Right, right, right.

We don't, it's not all that brand of pasta sauce jars.

Some of them.

No, why would you want uniformity in the garbage you're putting on your shelves?

You want a little variety of different styles and brands of garbage that you're putting on your shelves.

Right.

The other ones don't have anything marked on them.

So.

I will say in my defense that I have found a jar that still has enough of the label remaining that I was able to identify it as a salsa that we buy in the house.

It's a hard sticker to remove.

In the cabinet, ready to go.

How many, and is that the only one that you found that was still bestickered in any way?

Yes.

However, I have found some that still have the glue that's kind of inspires underneath the labels, that tacky glue.

It does not get removed.

Yeah, I know.

After like two dishwashings, it gets removed.

We let nature remove them.

Sure.

So, Kit, total number is about 24.

Did I get that right?

Yes.

Okay.

And why is this an inconvenience for you?

What is your dislike for this system?

So I do purchase cups with my real money that I make.

And one would want to put them in the cabinet meant and designated for cups and mugs.

But enough jars are in the cabinet that I have to take those mugs and put it in a separate cabinet, sad, with the olive oil and Pyrex containers.

Right.

Which is just upsetting.

It's a storage issue.

It is a storage issue.

Is it offensive to you on a different level besides your not being able to put the cups in there?

Or like, is there another

problem of any kind?

If we're being entirely honest.

Please.

You are under fake oath.

It is a personal annoyance as there are only three people living in this entire house and we can't even get through half of the jars in the course before we clean the jars that are already in the dishwasher and place them in the cabinet.

There are probably jars that have been sitting there for months, untouched, unlooked at, unloved, that could just as easily be in the recycling.

It does sound, Olivia, a little bit like you got more jar than you need.

Um,

well,

I don't think so.

Who's the third roommate?

It's my fiancé.

Oh, okay.

He lives with us, too.

Okay.

And what's your living situation?

Are you in a house?

Are you in an apartment?

We have like a townhouse style home.

So there's like two floors.

Yeah, fantastic.

And are you basically just

collecting all these jars because you know it drives Kid crazy to drive him out of the apartment?

Are you jarling him?

Are you just going to keep packing the jars in until Kit finally goes, I've had it, I'm going to move out?

No, no, definitely not.

I think there's a genetic component in me

that

drives me to keep jars and to not throw them away.

Her biological father was a jar.

Sorry.

In my house growing up, we only had jars.

We have so many jars there at my parents' house.

And it's great.

We always have cups.

The jars don't break as easily as glasses do.

Glasses break, and then there's glass everywhere, and that sucks.

Yeah.

What better way to ensure that there's no broken glass in your home than by hoarding glass jars?

Well,

they can take quite a fall, you know, and they won't break.

And

I don't know.

It just seems very normal to me.

I feel like they're very useful.

You grew up with them.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite kind of jar?

Um,

I don't know.

I don't like to pick favorites.

I don't like to think about them that emotionally.

No?

Mostly you have those Newman's own jars.

Well,

there are noises happening.

What's going on?

I have some concerns with the assertion, I don't like to think of them that emotionally.

I'm not sure I'm convinced of that fact.

She just grew up in a household which used old jars as glasses.

It seems to me a responsible reusage of a piece of glassware.

I didn't even know it was weird until Kit had a problem with it.

My past roommates in my life

never thought it was an issue.

Or at least they never took you to fake podcast internet court about it.

Oh, that is an egregious lie.

I know your previous roommate brought this against you.

Kit, I will allow that objection.

Please tell the story.

I know the former roommate, and when I had originally brought up this issue with the jars, Olivia said, and I quote, Jackie had the same issue.

And I would also like to counter that I have no problem with reused.

I believe in going green.

I have a problem with 20 glass jars sitting in our kitchen, half of them going unloved, unused.

Is there any number of jars that would be acceptable to you, Kit?

I keep throwing around the number eight arbitrarily, but it's starting to sound okay.

I just feel like if there was more room in the cabinet, I wouldn't even care.

Part of me me wouldn't even care if the jars like sat in the basement and just rotted away until there was enough jars to like build a whole cabinet of jars.

I would almost be okay with that.

I just want to be able to put my cups in the cabinet, man.

You're talking about making a cabinet out of jars for more jars?

I have to be honest with you, I wouldn't put it beyond Olivia.

She's very crafty, and I would be okay with that usage as long as the jars used for the crafting were in the basement.

You're listening to 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.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Let's take a look at the evidence that you sent in.

You sent in these photos, and they will be available, obviously, on the show page at maximumfund.org as well as on our Instagram, which is judgejohnhodgman on Instagram.

And here is evidence.

You submitted kit.

These are jars found in our cabinet alone.

And yep, I see a whole bunch of those Newman's own jars and then a sort of a motley assortment of other outlier jars next to it there on what I presume is the kitchen table or another.

And then you have this sent in, which is

all right.

Before I read the caption, let me just explain to the listener what this is.

This is a Newman's own jar

with the lid on it, with holes poked in the lid,

and the jar half full of water.

And the caption submitted by Kit is, quote, after Olivia found out she was going to be on the Judge John Hodgman show, she started getting a little creative over what to do about the plethora of jars in the condo.

This is a watering can.

Olivia, that's not a watering can.

Come on.

Now, my favorite part of this, which I can't believe I didn't put in the caption, is that we already have a designated bottle for watering the plants that is also a reuse because we used to use it for our olive oil.

And it's just sitting out in the living room.

There is an extant item for this purpose.

But that bottle is not as good at watering succulents because all the water comes out at once instead of trickling out from little holes.

We have a hot two succulents.

Well, first.

Inaccurate.

All right, I see.

And now finally, here are all the jars and tops in the kitchen.

Like, when you showed me the first photo of just the array of Newman's own jars and then the four outliers, to me, that was feeling like, yeah, there's a craft project about to happen here.

And then when you showed me this new photo with all the jars and all the tops, including the watering can, quote unquote, this is beginning to look a little like mania.

And then there's a picture of a dog.

What's this all about?

Oh, I just

forgot to send in evidence.

So I just emailed Jennifer a picture of our dog, Feta Cheese, who sometimes plays with the jars.

Seems like Pandora, okay.

Jesse.

You seeing this dog, Jesse?

I'm going down the...

Is this a part where we tell him that the dog's name is Feta Cheese?

Already said That's good.

It's Fatka's little feeder up.

It actually looks kind of like Jan's dog George.

Oh, yeah.

I've seen that dog.

That's a cute.

Feta Cheese is a cute name for a dog, and that is a cute dog.

Even though, and I'm glad you sent it in because I loved getting Jesse's reaction to all cute animals.

But you're saying that the reason you sent it in is because

Feta Cheese sometimes plays with the jars, that is the most astonishing and egregious reach of logic that I've ever encountered in this courtroom.

Dogs left jars.

Actually, there was an exact story associated with this.

We had a jar on the floor with water and ice, as one does with one jar, not 18.

And the dog grabbed it and brought it into the living room just to say hi.

It had water and ice in it, and Fetta Cheese brought it in?

That is

going to spell it.

Why is this case not about this miracle dog?

What's all this jar talk?

We should be talking hero dogs here.

She's pretty amazing.

She's like a St.

Bernard dog, except instead of whiskey, it's water.

Instead of a barrel, it's glass in her mouth.

She's a small poodle and she works very hard.

She's a rescue hydration dog.

You can't let your feta cheese play with glass.

Come on, Olivia.

It's an accident waiting to happen.

But think about how much worse it would be if it was a fragile cup.

I forgot that the condo that you share with your fiancé and Kit has no tables or surfaces on it.

Everything has to be on the floor.

I also am led to understand that in addition to Feta Cheese and your fiancé and Kit, also living in this home, are two rats named Lambshank and Ham Hock

and two guinea pigs named Toblerone and Charleston Chu.

Is all this true?

Yum, that's all true.

Who owns the rats and who owns the guinea pigs?

I am Kit and I own the rats.

Yeah, and I own the guinea pigs.

They're obviously playing into my known bias towards pets named after ham products.

My lifelong desire to own a dog named Hambone.

I actually did not even know about that at all.

I have to say, though, Kit, you said something amazing just a minute ago.

And it's been a long time since we've done a new t-shirt for the show.

Would you be okay if we did a t-shirt that just said, I am Kit and I Own the Rats?

I would be absolutely honored.

Whether or not I find it in your favor, I think I am Kit and I Own the Rats.

That's incredible.

I want to do it in the style of one of those out-of-print t-shirts.

I want to mock up a fake old young adult book from the late 70s, early 80s.

Doesn't that sound like the title of like a great Essie Hinton book, I Am Kit and I Own the Rats?

Come on.

The real question is, is do you want pictures of the rats?

Of course I want pictures of them.

We're not idiots.

I tried to send pictures of the guinea pig, but my phone wouldn't load them.

It's really sad.

I'm tired of hearing your weird excuses, Olivia.

Your excuses, your half-truths,

your lies about Jackie not having a problem with the jars.

She didn't.

Jackie accepted me.

She kept quiet.

Kit, I have a question.

How do you feel when you have guests over at your home and you are pouring them some iced tea or wine or orange juice and you are doing it in

reused spaghetti sauce jars?

I will immediately start in a barrage of talking about how much I hate it, if we're we're being honest.

And we do have...

So you're saying it's a great conversation piece.

Oh, it is a great conversation starter.

I will admit that.

However, I will try to go for either what is a real container to drink things out of or one of the smaller jars, which I find so much less offensive.

But I would like to say that most people like the jars and side with me when they come into our house.

It's not a democracy.

This is a courtroom.

What do you think your house is?

Some kind of restaurant in Austin, Texas in 2008?

We could be.

They're just kids, Jesse.

They're just kids.

I mean, Olivia, you're 23, according to what I have in front of me.

Yep, that's right.

And you're getting your Ph.D.?

Yep.

In what?

Molecular biology.

That's for real.

And, Kit, you're 22, and are you also at UMass Amherst?

Yes.

And what's your educational goal?

I'm going to be pursuing my master's in molecular biology.

Boy, oh, boy.

So we work in the same lab together?

Oh, really?

This comes up more than you could ever imagine.

Oh, my.

You currently work in the same lab together?

That's right.

That's exactly right.

And he yells at all of our coworkers about this all the time.

I do not yell at anyone.

I speak passionately from my point of view, and you just have never had a rebuttal thus far.

So it was, I was going to say, you're young, you're roommates now, but you won't be living together forever.

Why not just let this go for now, Kit, until you have a place of your own?

But the fact is, it sounds like you guys are going to be locked in a career path together for the rest of your lives.

For at least two years, I'd say.

Yeah.

So you have two more years or so along with Olivia and her fiancé.

What is your fiancé's name, Olivia?

Ian.

Ian.

And what does Ian think of these jars?

I'm not asking you, Olivia, because I know you're going to lie.

Kit.

Does Ian have a problem with these jars?

Is he okay with it?

Is he just under the sway of Olivia?

What's the deal?

I will start by saying that Ian loves Olivia more than I think anyone could love another human being.

Gotcha.

He has a soft problem with the jars, but definitely deals with it as that's not what he's focused on.

What he has done in the past is when I've been taking cups out of our dishwasher to put in the cabinet, because sometimes I have trouble because there are so many containers for drinking liquids.

He has walked over to me and almost like a father figure, shown me how to Tetris the cups together

so that I can kind of like invert them to fit both the jars and the cups that we have.

Yeah, I hear you.

It's getting a little crowded.

He's an enabler, in other words.

Kit, one piece of evidence that you might have sent in in favor of your case would be pictures of the cups and glasses that you're buying with your money that you would prefer to use.

Because

I have no, I mean, obviously, you are Kit.

You own the rats.

You've given the rats incredible names.

You've been a delightful litigant so far.

I have no reason to doubt your taste.

But what if your glasses look dumb?

Can you describe what your preferred glassware would be?

My preferred glassware are just plain tall dining glasses, just nice, simple, clean.

You might have a couple of cups that you got from like Miami when you went as a kid or whatever.

I really like wide mugs,

which you can stack the aforementioned cups in.

So it's space efficient.

You're right.

I definitely should have brought in a picture of the cups because I do have some wild cups.

Maybe 10 tall standard to Miami.

Could be to Orlando.

It could be to like Myrtle Beach, whatever Miami.

Right.

Dooley known.

She doesn't have those cups.

I do not have the Miami cups, no.

My favorite cup right now is a clear cup that has a little B on the side that says buzzed because I drink a lot of coffee.

Which is in the cup cabinet.

Well,

you're not talking about stemmed glassware.

You're talking about

like tumblers, like a glass tumbler.

Let me ask you a question.

Is the glass and your preferred glassware, your preferred ice water drinking cups or whatever you want to call them?

Like, is it clear or is it like green or blue?

It is ideally clear or at least translucent.

Yeah.

And is it like, is the surface pebbled and full of little bubbles or is it just plain and as plain as possible?

It is as plain as possible, very smooth, wide top.

Yeah, Kit, even describing these glasses, you've won me over on this.

Those are nice glasses.

It's refreshing.

It's nice to have a wide top, get a little bit of ice on your lips.

It's nice.

Ice on your lips.

You're trying to go for two t-shirts in one.

You already got one.

You can only get one catchphrase here.

Wide.

Okay, I'm making a comment here.

Wide top, a couple of notes.

I'm homing in now on my verdict.

Kit, you're willing to reduce the number of jars in rotation to eight?

Absolutely.

It's seemed pretty reasonable, Olivia.

Why is this unfair to you?

Here's the thing.

I think Kit...

I mean, we do have a lot of jars, that's true.

And I'm not opposed to getting rid of some of them,

but

I think that Kit

exaggerates the situation a little bit.

And I'd be happy to move some of the jars into the cabinet that he thinks his cups are just placed into.

That's fine, I guess.

But

I don't know.

I feel like he just makes a really big deal out of it, and

it's silly.

Well, I can't disagree with you, Olivia.

He does make a big deal out of it.

I just want to be accepted for who I am.

Well, I don't think he's making quite that big a deal out of it.

You don't hear him talking about it with my co-workers.

What has given you the suggestion that he does not accept you for who you are?

He, like, just

brings it up a lot to, like, everybody that we meet.

Okay, so let's just give me an idea.

Obviously, we've established that your relationship with the truth is fairly flexible.

So I completely appreciate that you're an unreliable narrator.

But let's just say for the moment

that you're Kit.

What would Kit say to someone else about you?

It would be upsetting to you.

I'm like, oh, hey, Kit, it's me, Judge John Hodgman.

It's so great to come and visit your condo here at Amherst.

I can't wait to meet your two rats because i know you're the one who owns the rats

uh i'd really love a glass of water oh my gosh there are quite a few quite a few jars here kid what's the story he

i guess i as kit would say role play um show me how bad kid can get you are the one who brought this up you're the one who says you're not accepted for yourself you're the one who says that kid is making too big a deal of it make a big deal out of it let me see what's going on

So he will point out to people that we have a lot of jars.

If you like go to give somebody a cup of water, he'll be like, oh, do you like the jar you're drinking it out of?

Here, look at all these jars.

You want more jars?

Like, Olivia's a hoarder and keeps all these jars.

And then I can't put my cups anywhere.

But he really doesn't have cups and they would all fit.

So he basically treats every social interaction in your home as though it were this podcast, an excuse to make fun of the jars.

That's right.

And outside of our home, he brings it up.

In the lab, in a professional setting?

In our lab.

Yep.

What was the time that he made fun of your jar hoarding?

Oh, I'm not going to use that term.

I haven't made my judgment yet.

Literally, yesterday, he gathered the undergrads together and told them the tale of his horrible jar

collecting rheumatovia.

He's very dramatic.

Did you bring the undergraduates around into a campfire circle to tell a story about the JARS kit?

Is there a festivist-style airing of grievances?

To be fair, the undergrads were already gathered in a campfire-like scenario when one of the undergrads is dealing with a very strange roommate scenario.

Calling our lab a professional environment is a little bit out there.

It's kind of a fun house.

I mean, don't get me wrong, like we do science, but like...

It does seem like you had fun.

All right.

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

I'm going to go back into my chambers where I have to wade through a waste pile of Diet Moxie cans, and I will make my decision.

I'll be back in the morning with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

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

Not great.

Why not?

Oh, man.

I feel like

I just don't think it looks good.

I think he's really siding with Kit.

I feel like I've been painted in not a great light, but it's okay.

Kit, how are you feeling?

I feel like if this was a painting, it would be realism because everything I've said so far has been completely accurate.

So I feel true.

I feel excellent about it.

Oh, my God.

I feel like I'm being sharked right now.

So to summarize, Kit, you still feel belligerent?

I will admit to sometimes being passive-aggressive and sometimes very light on the passive.

Kit, it's sounding more and more like you're lucky to have a roommate.

I would like to think that we are friends 99% of the time, the 1% being jar-related.

Oh my God.

We'll be back in just a second with Judge John Hodgman's verdict.

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 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 Lollum.

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 next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

So everyone is wonderful and they send in their disputes to Hodgman at maximumfund.org and I always enjoy reading them.

And there are lots of people out there who have not heard back from me.

I just, I must beg for mercy.

It's just that there are a lot of cases that come through my inbox and I read them and sometimes they're not quite right for the podcast or I'll think of them for the New York Times column.

And I appreciate all of your patience.

I'm going to say that I don't know if you guys remember this, but

my memory of receiving Kit's complaint about the jars

was that I answered, yes, we'll hear this case maybe even before you hit send, Kit.

It was that fast.

I'm so into this case.

And I have a personal stake in it.

I'm not going to recuse myself, but the reason that I am so fascinated by this case is that I got a, I got a,

you guys, I got a shelf full of jars.

I got a shelf full of jars.

I had some beautiful, beautiful drinking glasses

that were slowly going away through natural attrition because they were getting dropped by clumsy children and they were getting replaced by the adult that I live with, whom I'm married to, with old jelly jars.

Old jelly jars and I'm even going to say old pasta sauce jars.

I have these things in my life.

And then at one point there was a project that involved.

I don't remember what the project was going to be, but it sure did involve buying a dozen

ball brand mason jars.

And those are all over the place.

Judge Hodgman, I don't mean to interrupt, but was the project a cabinet made of jars for your jars?

It was not.

I don't want to interfere with Kit's patent on that.

That's amazing.

So not only did I have all these jars that were masquerading as cups or glasses or whatever you want to say,

but I also had

the piles and piles of

the lids.

And with the mason jar lids, those aren't even full lids.

They're just the rings with the resealable cats.

Do you know what I mean?

Or the sealing cats?

Mess.

And I felt a tremendous amount of shame because what if humans were going to come over for a dinner party or whatever?

I would be embarrassed to serve them stuff.

This is not 2008 in Austin, as Jesse points out.

This is now in my house.

And then I realized.

As this went on, now in my house means no one's coming over.

Not dinner parties.

I mean, 22 years old, maybe you're going to have a little party or whatever, but in our house,

mostly what we need glasses for are to fill them up with ice and fill them up with water and put them next to our bedstand so that we can go to bed at 8:45 p.m.

That's what we're using them for.

And you know what?

Jars are great for that.

Jars are

the best ice and or seltzer water drinking device ever invented.

I love those glasses that you picked out, Kit,

but I know that they're not as big as a big old honking 24-ounce ball jar.

But you didn't see this coming, Kit.

I love these jars.

Love them.

They're not good for company, but who cares?

They're very, very versatile to have around the house.

I appreciate what you're doing, Olivia.

That said,

you got too many jars.

You got way too many jars.

24 jars.

You're a household of three human beings plus a small menagerie of adorable animals who shouldn't be near glassware to begin with.

A normal house of three, you probably need about eight glasses, maybe 12 for a real dinner party, but that would be unusual.

So 24 pasta jars plus

whatever Kit's got going on, that's more than you need.

So the obvious solution here,

the one that is respectful to both parties, is to reduce your stock of jars.

And I would say

eight is very, very generous of Kit

to allow you to keep eight in the drinking glass cupboard rotation.

Eight is more than you need.

And the other 16,

they either go to the transfer station

in the recycling bin, or they go in your basement.

A quiet little hoarding

corner of your own.

Kid's fine with that.

I think everything that Kit is saying is perfectly reasonable.

And so I am technically finding in his favor.

But I'm going to say this.

There are some other things you guys need to hear.

One,

what Olivia is doing is fine.

It's not necessarily to your taste, kit to have recycled jars as drinking vessels,

but living with roommates, especially when you're in graduate school, is all about putting up with other people's weird experimentations, bad taste, and ugly posters and junks.

That's just the way it goes.

It is not unreasonable what she is doing.

Not to your taste, is not intrinsically unreasonable.

The amount of jars is unreasonable.

I just want to make sure you understand.

I don't want to get too excited, Olivia.

And even though I'm finding in Kit's favor, I also have to say to Kit,

don't trash your lab mate in front of the undergraduates.

I know you guys all have fun there.

I know it's all a working environment, but it's still an undermining thing to do.

And I'm sure it was all in good fun.

I'm not going to make a big deal about this thing, but part of the condition of Olivia taking two-thirds, I think I got that right, two-thirds of of her jar collection out of rotation and either putting it in the basement or in the trash means you got your way, leave it alone, don't laugh at her with the undergraduates.

It's uncool.

Olivia.

Yes.

Here's another thing.

When these jars break, first of all, I hope they don't get broken by Feta Cheese carrying them around all the time.

But when these Newman jars break, we do not want you to replace them.

Here's why.

In the interest of being green, I'll let you use them.

But Kit points out, they're embossed.

It says Newman's own all around the top of them.

And that's not cool.

That's not good looking.

The ones that I keep more plain.

Yeah.

He's really fixated on the Newman Zone.

Plain jars.

Plain jars.

I like the plain ones better, too.

Take the Newman's own out of rotation as soon as possible, either by putting them in the basement or through attrition, which is to say, smash them up.

Smash them up and get them out.

I don't want to enable what's going on here, but

the brand bon mamon French jelly, that makes a really good Roxglass.

They're really nice.

And I would say Rayo's or Rouse, I can never know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

It's a famous Italian restaurant here in New York City.

They do a jar of spaghetti sauce, and that's a really nice jar.

And I don't think it has any brand embossing on it, but brand embossing on it is no good.

And also, by the way, make your own spaghetti sauce, you guys.

Come on.

And finally,

the thing that really struck me here, Olivia, that I really need to correct in your behavior.

You work in a lab.

Beautiful.

Beakers are the coolest kind of glassware to have in your kitchen.

They're amazing.

You go into a restaurant

and they're serving wine and graduated beakers.

Oh Oh my gosh, that's an upcharge of like 35% right there.

And you know you're going to get your food in the form of a foam.

That's right.

Straight-sided, beautiful beakers.

And then maybe everyone's happy unless they choose to enjoy being unhappy, which is also a good part of life.

So there you go.

Eight jars only.

Take the Newman's own out of rotation kit.

You get what you want.

So stop complaining to the undergraduates.

To peers, it's fine.

But the undergraduates,

you can't let them know.

And in general, don't let your dogs eat glass.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that as all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Olivia, how are you feeling about getting rid of two-thirds of your jar?

Okay.

I do have a question, though.

Is it two-thirds of...

Is it just the big jars?

Because I don't know what kids count is.

Is it just the big jars that we have to get rid of?

You get to keep eight jars.

Eight jars you get to keep.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Pick your favorite eight.

Pick your favorite eight.

You're a scientist, ma'am.

You can count jars.

Kit, how are you feeling?

I feel good.

I feel like I have some points of personal growth to make, but I accept that with the space that's going to exist in the cabinet.

Thank you both for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another case in the books.

Before we get to our swift justice, we want to thank Eli Denowitz, Steve Tedder, and Alex James for naming this week's episode Legal Jargon.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, that's where we ask for your suggestions.

You can follow us both on Twitter.

John is at Hodgman.

I am at Jesse Thorne.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

And check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this week's episode.

You can find that at maximumfund.reddit.com.

This week's episode recorded by Garrett Sawyer at North Fire Recording Studio in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Our producer is the capable Jennifer Marmer.

Here's a question from Trevor.

When passing the collection plate in church, If there's a few-seat gap between two congregants, I think it's the passer's responsibility to stand up and bring the tray to the receiver.

My wife says both should stand and meet in the middle.

What say you, Judge Hodgman?

Wow.

It's a classic church fight.

Oh,

we have so many fights about church in this podcast.

It's almost a cliche.

Who gets the aisle seat on the pew?

Is it communion way for a sandwich?

My husband has come up with a new technique to swing the censer.

Is it okay for him to just grab it from the priest?

Or my husband says church is a waste of time because he is secretly a divine being and everyone should be coming to him to hear about his ideas for turning my vegetable garden into a hole full of BMX bikes.

Classic Classic Judge John Hodgman material.

No, this is the only time I've ever heard of someone getting into a dispute with their spouse about proper church etiquette, and I'm glad to have it.

It's very interesting to me.

I did not grow up going to church.

I'm a double-lapsed Catholic.

Both of my parents stopped practicing before I was born, but I would go to masses and stuff for holidays or for weddings, and occasionally I would drop in on an Episcopalian service from time to time just to check it out.

I find it very peaceful and thoughtful and regenerative in a lot of ways.

And

it occurs to me that whatever your house of worship, wherever you go to pray, prayer, worship, is a moment of peace and quiet and reflection and ideally selflessness.

And it is valuable in that regard.

It is a moment for you to meditate on selflessness and especially to meditate on kindness.

And so, yeah, stand up and hand the collection plate to the next person.

Don't make that lazy grandma come to you.

Get up there and be nice and hand it over.

Boy, oh boy, Trevor's wife.

Go easy.

Peace be with you, but mostly with me.

That's what Trevor's wife says.

No, go with God or whatever, you guys.

Enjoy church.

Have a good church.

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 is too

nor too big.

Well, some cases are probably too big.

We probably wouldn't want to try a murder.

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

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