Tux Evasion

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Tuck's evasion.

Rebecca brings the case against her son Parrish.

Parrish is a senior in high school and he refuses to go to his prom.

Rebecca doesn't want him to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime event.

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.

You've gone so far astray, I fear for you.

You really think I'm going to burn in hell, Judge John Hodgman, just for going to my prom?

I don't want to think about what's going to happen to you.

Sin knows you now.

It will find you.

Judge John Hodgman.

Your sin will find you, Bailiff Jesse.

And when it does, not even God or whatever can help you.

God or whatever will help me if I really need him or whatever.

Not if he or whatever doesn't love you anymore.

God or whatever loves everybody, Mama, even me.

I'm not your mama.

I'm your judge.

Swear them in, Bailiff Jesse.

Rebecca and Parrish, 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.

Yes, Am.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has been known to wear a tuxedo during the day rather than day formal?

I do.

Even despite that, I guess I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

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

Can either you, Rebecca, the mom, or you, Parrish, the son,

name the piece of culture that I referenced when I entered the courtroom.

Rebecca, you're the mom.

You start.

I'm going to guess it's Carrie.

Going to guess Carrie?

The movie Carrie based on the Stephen King book.

Okay, I got you.

I got you with Carrie.

Don't worry about it.

All right.

I just want to make sure you know that's my answer.

It's going to get all your bases covered there.

Carrie, I'm putting it into the guest book.

I got to say, Parrish, it's a solid guess from your mom.

What's your guess?

Well, I was going to say, I thought I was going to go first,

but I was going to say that that wasn't on my...

That wasn't on my collected list of possible quotes, and it wasn't my go-to, but I was, I actually did recognize it as Carrie.

Carrie or close enough to

what I know of it.

Carrie or equivalent?

Yes.

At first, my guess was going to be foot loose because they had all of that God talk in that prom movie, too.

And Parrish, do I understand that you had compiled a list of possible quotes that you already had in your head or on a piece of paper in front of you that I might go to?

Yes, it's alphabetized.

Jesse Thorne, what we have here is a Judge John Hodgman fan.

You understand what I'm saying?

This is a true fan.

That is the truth.

How old are you, Parrish?

I am 17, but I'm turning 18 this Saturday.

Oh, happy birthday in advance.

Thank you.

You are now

a legal adult, though I bet you are a wonderfully weird 13-year-old.

Tell me a couple of your other guesses.

Well, my go-to,

if it wasn't on my list of quotes, was originally going to be Pretty and Pink.

Mm-hmm.

Good one.

Let me tell you,

both guesses, very, very strong guesses.

I cannot say all guesses are

wrong

because it is from Carrie.

Either one of you want to take a swing at which of the three versions, movie versions of Carrie, that quote was from?

Oh, no, I only watched one.

Yeah, I was about to say, I'm going to be honest, I didn't know there was more than one.

Oh, there was one more.

No, no, I knew there was two.

I knew there was two.

I just didn't know there was a third one.

Still wrong, three.

Yeah.

The one with John Travolta in it?

Well, of course, that is the famous

first cinematic version of Carrie directed by Brian DePalma, starring Spissy Space.

That's not the one.

I love Sissy Spacecraft.

Of course, everyone loves Sissy Spacek.

I was going to guess that it's definitely not the latest one because I don't think that that, like, I don't think you tend to go for new things.

Which of the two latest ones?

Not the 2002 one.

Oh, no.

There was a 2002 one.

Which one is the right answer?

That's the one.

And all guesses are wrong.

I got you both.

Oh, no.

2002 television movie, Backdoor Pilot, commissioned by NBC for a possible Carry series written by none other than Brian Fuller, creator of Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, and one of my very favorite television shows, Hannibal, as well as American Gods, Brian Fuller, who follows me on Twitter.

And if he's a listener to this podcast, let me let him know that I am represented for acting by Joe Yao at UTA.

Brian Fuller, this message is for you.

And he can just email me at jesse at maximumfund.org.

That's right.

So unfortunately, we have to go ahead and record this podcast.

But I think it seems pretty fun because you both seem very nice.

Where do I find you guys in the world?

Tucson, Arizona.

Tucson, Arizona.

I like that place a lot.

Home of the Rialto Theater, correct?

That's correct.

Yeah.

Did you guys come and see me and John Roderick there in 2012?

Of course we did.

Good answer.

Good answer, mom.

But is my painting still on the side of the Rialto Theater in Tucson?

No, it has been replaced.

Okay.

Well,

sorry to break that news to you.

This was

a fun podcast.

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

No, it's been great.

They built a huge building next door, so it's in an alleyway now.

I mean, I don't know.

I haven't walked down there in a while.

Okay, listen.

What do I know?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I have here,

we should be doing this more often because I've now got actual mailers to send stuff from my office.

I'm clearing out my office here in Park Slope, so we got to do more contests.

Rebecca and Parrish, take five because you hurt my feelings and I got to deal with this.

Right here on my desk, I have one arm from a vintage 1979 alien figurine that popped off of the vintage alien figure that Adam Savage gave me.

And I'm going to send it in one of these mailers to the first person who emails me a photo of the wall of the Rialto Theater in Tucson, verifying whether or not not my painting of me by Joe Padget is still there, one way or the other.

I'll know the truth.

Send me that photo.

First email I get, I'm going to send you this alien arm.

And then we're going to give out more, more prizes every week from now on.

I've decided.

Boy, you really hurt me there, Rebecca.

I don't know.

What do I know?

I am an old lady.

The Rialto is for young hip kids who listen to the John Hodgman show.

Yeah.

Or Dead Kennedys, apparently.

Yeah.

Parrish saw the Dead Kennedys at the Rialto.

Parrish, you're like the coolest kid on earth.

And by the way, Rebecca, you're not an old lady because I got your ages right in front of me, both of you.

Okay.

You're both young.

What were you going to say, Parrish?

Yeah, I was going to say I was more there to hang out with the group of people I was with.

I had literally heard about the Dead Kennedys there.

But I saw one of my, not one of my teachers, but a shop teacher at my school there.

And I was like, hey,

I vaguely know you.

Everyone in Tucson is that kind of cool.

I like Parrish a lot because he's a high schooler who's going out with a bunch of his friends to check out cool bands and seeing cool shop teachers there.

He's a young weirdo after my own heart.

And as I gather from this case, Parrish is feeling he's too cool for school, does not want to go to the prom.

And his mom, Rebecca, says, oh, no, you must go to the prom.

Rebecca, tell me a little bit of the background here.

What's going on?

We have been talking about prom since last May.

So it's been a long conversation where I have wanted him to go and he's been reluctant to go.

However, I think it's one of those shared cultural experiences.

I mean, I don't want Parrish to go off to college and everybody's telling prom stories and, hey, I went and it was terrible and this happened and then we went to breakfast and then so-and-so threw up and then Parrish to say, oh, I didn't go to prom.

And then it's, you know, the conversation dies at that point.

You want him to have some good throw-up stories?

Well, he probably has good throw-up stories.

But yeah, Parrish is an amazing kid.

He's got great grades.

He's a varsity athlete.

He's kind to his mom.

He's amazing in every way, and he's worked very hard.

And now it's time for him to celebrate.

It's time to celebrate his accomplishments with his peers.

Parrish, why don't you want to go to the prom?

Well, first I'd like to say that I'm pretty sure we've been talking about going to prom for a lot longer since last May.

This has probably been years in the making.

And I don't want to go because I've been to school dances before and they're just not my thing for various reasons that I'll probably get into later.

And

I just don't think it's as necessary as my mother thinks it is.

And

there are so many other things I'd much rather be just doing.

What are you going to do?

When does prom take place?

When's this happening?

May something.

You don't even know.

Night.

May dark 30.

Yeah, that's exactly correct.

Rebecca, when's it happening?

I don't know.

What the heck?

Look, all right, guys, I know you live in Arizona.

I know you live in.

You've never laid back about that kind of thing.

I know you live specifically in Tucson, Arizona.

I know all you guys are doing is like staring out at the dead horizon, having a little cocktail at the evening and wondering where my cool son is throwing up tonight, and you don't care, but I need dates.

What if I were to rule that Parrish has to go to the prom with me as his date?

I need to know when, if it's even possible.

Maybe I could phone a friend.

It's in May sometime.

Yeah.

I think it's early May.

You're not going to save it.

You don't know.

It's not your fault, Parrish.

You're not supposed to know.

You're a teenager who doesn't even want to go to this dumb thing.

Rebecca, this is on you.

You should have been prepared.

Come on.

Mayna Calpa.

I'm sorry.

Boy, oh, boy.

What do you do there?

Rebecca, what do you do there in Tucson, Arizona?

I work in an amazing collection of global children's literature.

That's

only getting better.

Fantastic.

Do you mean you work in a library somewhere or you just have a storage compartment compartment somewhere in the desert that you just sit around in full of old Edward Gorey books?

Or you travel each day into the world of children's dreams.

I do.

I take story journeys into other worlds.

It's like a library, only we don't check out our books.

It's a research collection for pre-service teachers and teacher educators to

learn all ways of sharing global literature with young people.

It's also one of the largest international collections in the world, which she never mentions, but I think is pretty cool.

It's a spectacular collection.

Well, you know,

you don't have to brag about how big your collection is all the time, Barry.

It's huge.

Oh, whoa.

Just because your collection of children's literature is bigger than my single copy of The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey and my copy of Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm doesn't mean mine isn't a good collection.

Yours is great, but ours also includes original art from published picture books.

Your evasion.

It asked a simple question and you're refusing to let me get back to the case because you realize you lost at the moment.

You didn't even know when prom was.

Let's say for the sake, I'm going to look at the calendar.

I'm going to look at early May, just so that we have a date to look at.

Okay.

If it's May 12th,

I can't be there

because I've got, actually, I've got a wedding to go to on the 12th 12th and Mother's Day is on the 13th.

Is it normally on a weekend or what?

Uh, I would say it would be on a Friday or a Saturday, and probably towards the start of May, like in the single digits.

Oh, okay, so that's May 4th.

All right, I'm free that day.

Oh my god, you're gonna have a May the 4th prom.

Yeah, May the 4th be with you.

Exactly!

If you're not familiar with it, that's a Star Wars joke.

Parishes, Star Wars, themed prom

prom under the stars.

Oh, I love it.

Under the stars.

Under the death stars.

I love it.

Under the death stars.

That's an even better joke.

Hey, Parrish, you want this podcast?

Because I'm getting ready to retire.

So here's the question, folks.

If he's not going to prom, what else does Parrish have planned?

We'll find out after a quick recess.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Court is back in session on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Let's get back into the courtroom for more of tux evasion.

Okay, dude, why would you skip this incredible prom?

What are you going to do instead?

Well,

I have just started a weekly gaming group,

tabletop games,

like

tabletop RPGs specifically.

And we might be meeting that day

because we meet Saturdays.

Is that a Saturday or is that a Friday?

It's a Friday.

We already established it was a Friday.

Oh, I guess I didn't hear that.

My favorite part of that was: well, I have a new weekly gaming group.

And then there'd a long pause and say, just in case you're worried it's too nerdy, it's tabletop gaming.

Oh, well, he does have a regular DD group.

Yeah.

Oh, this is a separate group?

Yeah, I have a regular DD group Wednesdays, which is a club in the school I started.

And now I've started this other one, which is currently we're doing my friend's own-made system by him.

And

we're doing meeting Saturdays, but that doesn't matter because it's Friday.

You threw that into overdrive there when you're like, oh yeah,

it's not video games, okay?

It's tabletop games.

And then you're like, well, specifically, it's a tabletop game my friend invented.

Well, then there's the thing of

we've decided that it might even just be an experimental one.

So once we're done with the one my friend made, we're actually going to move on to one that I'm currently making.

So it's more of an art project.

Sure.

Parrish, your mom mentioned that you're also a varsity athlete.

That's not fitting into the picture that I'm getting so far.

What sport are you in?

Academic decathlon doesn't count.

Swim.

I'm a swimmer.

Oh, beautiful.

That's a perfectly nerdy sport.

Solitary sport of personal perfection.

I love it.

Yes.

What's your best

swimming thing?

I am a breaststroker through and through.

I am really good with the breaststroke frog legs, but but that also means I can't point my toes for any of the other strokes.

Gotcha.

No pointing toes.

Understood.

I understood all of that.

Sure.

And you're going to college somewhere?

Yes.

Where are you going to college?

We don't know.

Yeah, we don't exactly know.

Oh, you don't know yet.

Rise too early.

You didn't apply early or anything?

I applied early to one place, but I didn't get in.

But I've applied to other places.

I'm like, look.

Rebecca, Parrish.

Yes.

Smart guy, funny guy.

Has seen the dead Kennedys live.

Yes.

Breaststroke through and through.

Can't point his toes, but that's what makes him human.

A very, very vital social life.

He's got a bunch of different gaming systems going at the same time.

He's definitely going to college.

He applied early, didn't get in.

He's already been tested by life.

He's felt pain.

That's true.

Whole life so far.

Right.

I don't see why this guy should have to go to the dumb party.

Did you go to your prom, Rebecca?

I did go to both my junior and my senior prom.

Well, I don't want to talk about junior prom now.

Well, which was better, junior or senior?

They were both equally bad.

Whoa, all right.

Which was worse?

Probably my senior prom.

I had to work that afternoon, and so I grabbed a bite to eat at a fast food restaurant and contracted food poisoning.

So I spent the evening throwing up.

So you got your throw-up stories.

yes but but yeah yeah i blame mayonnaise rebecca you know you it's it's an emotional roller coaster with you because you come onto the show you're so charming and then you're like no you're your painting's gone off the realto and then you win me back with you're charming again you're like i hate mayonnaise like you're trying to get me to throw you out of court oh my god you like mayonnaise

Parrish, has she ever listened to this podcast before?

Does she know who she's talking to?

She's listened to it more than I have.

She actually puts this podcast on as she falls asleep.

Oh, well,

this one will wake you right up.

In fact, if you're listening to this now in the future, Rebecca, wake up.

Stop antagonizing me.

Hey, I have a really good recipe for mayonnaise cake, and I love it.

It's so good.

Mayonnaise cake is delicious.

Mayonnaise right before prom is not a good idea.

Now I'm vomiting.

So now we all have throw-up stories.

I'm trying to decide whether you're trying to force Parrish to relive

your own vomitous prom experience so that you have this bond with him, or whether you're trying to force him to have a good prom experience to make up for your bad prom experience.

Which is it?

I learned so much from my prom.

I learned how to wear comfortable shoes to fancy events.

I wasn't asked out to either prom, so I learned how to,

you know, rely on myself.

I think that I just went solo?

No, my junior year, my brother's best friend took me.

He was in college, didn't want to go.

And my senior year, one of my really good friends broke her date so that we could go together.

So I didn't go fully alone, but I did learn to let go of those expectations.

And also I learned to look like I'm having fun, even when I'm not having fun, which is an important life skill.

Right.

Well, you mean

you were able to pretend you were going to have fun when you were really felt like vomiting all over your comfy shoes?

Yeah.

Well, you know, when I got everything out of my system, then I felt great.

And I danced and I hung out with my friends and we went out to breakfast.

So the prom wasn't just about what happened to prom.

It was all of the stuff that happens before and all of the stuff that happens after.

And

I did all of that with my friends who then, you know, I didn't see again until my 20th reunion.

So,

you know,

Parrish, your mom makes a good case.

You know, prom is a milestone in many a USA teenager's life.

There's a reason that there are so many movies set around prom.

You know how many there are.

You've got an alphabetical list of them

because it is a deeply emotional rite of passage that is more than just a party, but the anticipation, the inevitable disappointment after all the anticipation, the vomiting all over yourself for whatever reason, and then the recovery and camaraderie of recovery over sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches in the morning or whatever your breakfast treat might be.

Why don't you want to participate in this rite of passage?

Well, because

I've.

So I am of the opinion that

things are a lot more static than people think they are.

Like, um,

I think that high school is the same as middle school, is even the same as elementary, it just gets marginally bigger.

And the same I feel is true of any sort of school dance.

And I've been to school dances before, so why would just the biggest, fanciest school dance be any more appealing to me?

It's just like trying to like hand me a pile of garbage and just put a fancy hat on it.

I still don't want it.

I'm sorry.

Parrish,

maybe I'm missing the context here.

Are the two of us lying side by side in the wilderness gazing up at the stars right now?

No.

Seems like that would be the perfect theory to share in that context.

You know what it seems like?

It seems like the perfect kind of conversation to be having in a dawn parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, eating a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast burrito with your friend after after prom.

Yes.

Well, then that's all.

Oh, this is bull, man.

It's just another party.

There's just another dawn.

Every day is the same.

We're cosmically insignificant.

Come on, let's go roll some dice.

Are you suggesting that he's shooting crap in the alleyway in the morning after prom?

No, he's rolling up his new character.

He's rolling a charisma roll.

Oh, I got it.

I apologize to all nerds for my misinterpretation of that dice rolling reference and also for saying Legos was the plural of Lego when apparently Lego was the plural of Lego.

You want to start that?

You want to give another tsunami of letters?

Come on, stop talking about that.

Parrish, you sent in some evidence of the terrible time you had at previous school dances, which are just like every other dance.

Let me take a look at

the evidence that you sent in, Parrish.

These are photographs that will obviously be available available on the show page at maximumfund.org and double, obviously, on our Instagram page, which is judgejohnhodgman at Instagram.

So this is, according to your note here, pictures of me going to winter formal and not enjoying myself.

Here is a photo of, I'm presuming you, I can't see your face, because you are leaning up against a wall in your suit with your top hat

shoved over your eyes in the classic, I am bored out of my mind, that I'm going to take a nap position.

Yes.

And then there is another photo, which is a little bit more mysterious.

It's a photo of

what looks like a semi-formal dance.

I guess this is the winter formal from last year.

But the photograph is taken from outside the room, through a window, a bunch of teenagers enjoying themselves, and whoever is taking this photo from outside the room is peering at them through a window from the darkened outside as if they were a lonely hobo or a serial murderer in a Friday the 13th movie.

I presume that's you taking this photo?

Actually,

so that photo was taken from inside the gym where all the music was going on.

Oh, okay.

Peering into a room where the food was.

And you can sort of see in the window,

I guess it's a bit of a Where's Waldo.

You can see me sitting down just unscrewing and rescrewing the top of my cane.

I think it would be an important, it would be important for you to know that I'm the photographer.

I'm that serial killer.

Yeah, in both

cases.

So he's Jason Voorhees and you're Mrs.

Voorhees.

Yeah,

I was chaperoning the dance and

dragged him there.

Oh, so you dragged him to this winter formal?

I did.

We had a Japanese exchange student staying with us.

They do not have these kinds of dances, or she did not have those kinds of dances at her school.

It was very important for her to go to.

She felt it was really one of the most American things that she could do while she was here in the United States.

So I made everybody go.

By everybody, you mean the entire class?

Who do you mean?

Parrish?

Both my children and my exchange child.

Okay.

Parrish, would you please explain to the court what you did after that party?

Afterwards,

my sister and I went with

a friend of ours who is the female swim team captain.

And we went to her house and we messed around playing ping pong.

Would you say that you had a good time, Parrish?

Remember, you're under fake oath.

At the

after party,

to sort of give it a name,

I did have fun, but the question is, did it necessarily counsel out the boredom?

That would be a yes.

You had fun.

Does Parrish have difficulty admitting having fun in general?

Is he contrarian about other stuff than this, or is this the specific thing?

Oh, yeah,

yes, contrarian all the time.

Give me some more examples.

Well, I could give a lot of examples.

Just when you catch him in a logic question, he doesn't want to necessarily.

He signals that he's been bested, but then he can't admit it.

I can't give you a specific example.

How does he signal that he's been bested?

He just turns over and shows his belly.

Yes, exactly.

He chuckles.

He gets a big, broad, even if we're having a very tense conversation, once he,

something switches in his mind and makes him think a little differently, yeah, he, he can go from, you know, angry or intense to very happy.

Like

he smiles straight away.

So you could tell when you crack that smile that he he knows that he, but he, but he holds on to that correctness, even though he knows that he can't, that he's not right.

Now, this is just going to give her more evidence, evidence, but I disagree on that statement.

Normally when I laugh during an argument, it's because I've thought of something funny that I shouldn't be laughing at during an argument.

Well, okay.

Let me just say that her accusation of me being contrarian is precisely wrong.

Her accusation of me fighting back logically is logically untenable itself.

That's the thing, is if someone accuses you of being contrarian, you can't exactly fight it, because as soon as you fight it, you prove their point.

That's what makes it such a beautiful accusation.

Yeah, heads I win, tails you lose.

Yeah, but just because it is a logical fallacy doesn't make it not true.

Let me tell you this, Parrish.

Let me tell you where you got me, though.

Your mom interrupted you at a critical point when you said, if you look carefully, you can spot me sitting down and just twisting off and on the head of my cane.

Yes.

Dude brought a cane to his winter formal.

You can see it on the big picture of me.

It's like popping out right near my knees.

Yeah, I know.

I could see it there.

And you also, and I should have been able to spot you because you were wearing a top hat.

Anyone else wearing a top hat and bringing a cane to your winter formal?

No.

So in that picture, too, the stalkery.

Hang on a second.

Hang on a second, mom.

Listen to all you 13, 14-year-old weirdos.

I know you're out there.

I know you're listening.

Check out the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page.

This is how you do it.

This is how John Hodgman did it.

Well, and that's the thing: is that

I,

for reasons that my mom and I have decided not to discuss on here, thought that I would just have to go to winter formal, so I brought out my best.

Now I'm out of outfits, so if I go to prom, I'll have to bring like my other cane and like a dock worker hat instead, a flat like newsie cap.

Don't use wardrobe excuses on me, Parrish.

You got to come at me with some more substantive beef.

Question: Do you have philosophical differences with the idea of prom in general?

No, I just don't think it's for me.

Two,

historically, prom has not always been accepting to non-heteronormative couples.

There are several controversies within the, I mean, throughout time and within the several past several years.

And it's also not always, prom has not always been accepting to non-white heteronormative couples.

Is your desire not to go to prom a protest of this trend in the promenade tradition of American culture, which suggests that prom was invented specifically to socialize men and women, especially young white men and women, to be heteronormative in all their behavior and was defined explicitly to exclude people who did not fit that description?

Is this a protest movement?

Yes or no?

If I say yes, will that help my case?

You should probably say yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Good enough, but you still have something to answer for.

Hold on.

It's not good enough for me.

Parrish,

you're just scared to go to prom.

No.

Only a contrarian would say no.

I know what it's like to be a scared nerd.

We all know what it's like to be a scared nerd, all of us here in the Judge John Hodgman community.

And I know what it's like to be the kind of

verbally facile

theory spewer who retroactively justifies

fear by making up some kind of complicated set of rules.

Like all dancers are the same.

And I've already been to one.

I've been to several.

I was going to also mention I went to...

So over the summer, I went off and I took some college courses.

And you just went off.

You just went off and took some college courses.

Well, I went to Stanford and I took eight credit hours of classes.

Well done.

Thank you.

And

while there, I also went to another dance while there.

And I didn't really enjoy that either.

But a funny story about there was at one point someone joked about me bringing dice, and lo and behold, I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out some dice.

Sure.

Parrish has a story about a dance.

Yeah.

Yeah, he uses dice as a pocket square.

Parrish, it now has been established that you have attended dances before.

You say they are not your thing.

You say you don't like them.

What do you not like about them?

Why do you not like them?

Okay, so I actually have a list for this.

Really?

Yes.

It's alphabetized.

You may proceed.

So for one, I'm

not really

much of a dancer.

I've never had much appeal towards it.

You're good with the frog kick, but you can't point your toes.

I gotcha.

Yeah, yeah.

A second thing is: I don't like it, it's gonna make me sound like a total hipster and/or jerk, but I don't like most

modern popular music.

Keep going.

And then, in fact,

if music is particularly

loud, stereo, and

rough,

it has a tendency to give me a quite bad headache.

And that can even be as small as, like, in our car, my mom and sister will sometimes play music real loud.

And if it's coming out of the back speakers, I'll get a headache.

So normally I sneakily turn it off.

You prefer something gentle, like, I don't know, I'm trying to think of an example.

Like the dead Kennedys or.

Exactly.

Fake news.

I want to hear the rest of your reasons, Parrish.

I have one last reason, which I was also going to mention earlier, but the time for it passed is none of the, like, my friends...

Well, all of my friends are in a similar opinion to myself.

And all of my friends have parents who are willing to let them skip.

So if I go, I'm going to have to go with some like acquaintance level ones.

Okay.

So, all your friends that you go to the Dead Kennedys with, they're not going to this thing.

Oh, the people I went to the Dead Kennedys with don't even go to my school.

Okay, but you know what I'm talking about.

Your friend group,

your cohort.

You're the only one in your cohort who's even getting pressure from mom to go to this thing.

My mom's shaking her head, but it is true that none of their parents are pressuring them.

Well, they're pressuring them, but they're not forcing them.

And they're not ones to break.

Who's in your group?

What are their names?

There's my friend Danilo.

He's a longtime friend of mine.

I don't have time for their whole character sheet.

Neither him nor his girlfriend want to go.

They both are a similar opinion as me that it's not really necessary.

Okay.

Then my

friend Pedro probably isn't going.

Okay.

I I regret opening this can of worms.

This is not the Doughboys, and you are not Mike Mitchell.

We will not simply be listing your high school friends on this.

Okay,

that's good because I was kind of running out.

I tend to form a small amount of good friendships.

I think I've heard almost enough to make my verdict, but I just need to clarify a couple of points.

Parrish, you turn 18 on Saturday.

Yes.

All right.

Do you have a special person in your life, a girlfriend, boyfriend,

we don't use labels anymore, kind of other?

No.

No.

Is the

dating/slash sexual aspect of prom, is that intimidating to you?

It was to me.

Not really.

Okay.

So when Jesse Thorne says you're scared to go to prom, you say, no, I'm not.

Is that true?

That is true.

I am not a scared of going to prom.

Okay.

And then one other question.

What are the bad kids kids from out of town who took you to Dead Kennedys going to be doing that night?

They're prom types.

No, they're not.

I don't think they are.

Your mom's been hanging out with the Dead Kennedys and she says they're prom types.

They saw Pretty and Pink.

They know.

I don't think the people I went to the Dead Kennedys with are would go to prom.

The Anderson Colbs?

Yeah, I don't.

Oh, they would.

Totally.

They don't seem like ones to.

Yeah, they would.

And they would be fabulous.

I think you're just trying to get them in your favor.

I don't think they would.

Hang on.

Don't worry.

I'm going to interrogate your mom now.

Rebecca?

Okay.

Yes.

Who are these Dead Kennedy kids?

What did you call them?

The Anderson Golds?

Well, yeah.

I hope they don't mind us talking about them in public.

No, no.

So they're...

More than one of them?

They're two girls.

Two girls, and they took him to see the Dead Kennedys?

Well, I would, yes.

They went in a group.

They were part of the group that went to see the Dead Kennedys.

And why are the Anderson Golds going to be fabulous at Prom?

I just can't imagine them.

They have a great sense of style.

They know how to have fun.

Their mom is like the most fun.

She's a Berkeley kid and knows how to

just knows how to enjoy herself.

Parish would say that he only has a couple of friends, but we have been, because he was overly influenced by one of your old podcasts.

But I would say that they have a larger extended friend group, and all of those kids are fun kids who I can see going to prom.

You're referring to the friend ranking episode of the podcast?

Oh, yes.

I wish you hadn't done that.

An episode of the podcast for the benefit of the at-home listener where a woman presented a sort of post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario that she was attempting to live in which she ranked all of her friends and was completely transparent about the rankings.

Of how close she felt to them.

Yeah.

Right.

That's what Parrish was saying when he meant acquaintance level one.

That's exactly right.

I was also going to say about the Anderson Colbs,

I did realize that I do think that they might be likely to go to their own prom, but that's because they go to a school where the graduating class is like 25, I think.

So their prom isn't going to be so much a prom as it is like a party with everyone they know.

Which prom is going to be cooler, their prom or your prom?

I don't know, probably their prom because it's going to be smaller.

What?

That's less.

You go to the best high school in all of the world.

There is going to be nothing cooler.

I go to a pretty cool high school.

I think my high school is cooler than theirs, honestly.

But I do think a smaller prom

would probably cost less, which is one of my issues with current prom.

And is this coming out of pocket for you?

No.

Okay.

But

Rebecca,

I just have a couple more questions to ask you, and then I'm going to have to move on to my verdict.

If I rule in his favor, how will you feel?

Oh, well, so, you know, honestly, that's why I contacted you is because I wanted a non-biased third party.

In the past, when parish has absolutely refused to do a thing, I allowed him to do that.

And I'm an Episcopalian, and confirmation was a big deal for me and my family.

and um when it was time for him he chose not to do it and i let him do that and it had real world consequences when he became a freshman who couldn't interpret english texts

one text the kite runner i didn't realize that a rooster crowing represented judas so um

so if i can let go of confirmation to be fair he could have gotten that from the sparks notes if he really wanted but go on

uh you feel you feel he owes you one

No, I know, but I feel like if I can let you, you asked me how I would feel if you ruled in his favor.

And I'm saying if I can let go of confirmation, I could definitely let go of prom, but it's time for, you know, Parrish to

embrace his own thing.

And he still has to, you know, there's still shared cultural experiences that we have.

And this is one of them he should cut loose and celebrate.

Make your final plea.

Make your final, of course, safely.

Yeah.

What do you think?

He's going to drink too much Jolt Cola?

I don't want him to eat mayonnaise and barf all night, but

I do want him to play prom.

You malign mayonnaise on my podcast again.

He can go to prom for 30 minutes, an hour.

It's not like he has to invest his whole self and his whole being into prom, and he doesn't even have to dance once he's there.

But beforehand, to dress up, to have some photos taken, to live the miserable half hour with the loud music, and then to go hang out at his with his friends and and play and you know maybe hit up the pinball place maybe you know get a breakfast sandwich after sure um i think that that's around town in your in your in your buick roadster

or or the sock hop yeah whatever whatever how however that experience falls on his shoulders i think you know he should be open to that Is this photo that you submitted from your own prom, Rebecca?

That is from my senior prom when I was sick.

Yeah.

Everyone check out this photo of Rebecca and her date and her sensible shoes at Judge John Hodgman on Instagram and the Judge John Hodgman page on maximumthum.org.

I'm going to go into my under-the-sea decorated chambers and ponder the spinning glitter ball and be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Parrish, is there even like a different cool thing you could do while you're not at prom?

Like spend the night on a real sailing ship.

I'm just brainstorming.

We don't get those a lot here in Tucson.

That's fair.

Rebecca, how do you feel about your chances in this case?

I think that the judge typically

rules in favor of autonomy.

And so that makes me nervous.

But since it's a fake court and 18 is an arbitrary number coming up that was in the real court, so I'm not, I'm, I feel like, you know, Parrish's job is to be a student as long as he's under my roof.

He's still a high school student.

And so

he's got a job to do that way.

Like I'm the boss.

So I really don't know.

It's 50-50, but I hope he,

Parrish's sister is here with us today and she wants him to go to prom.

I want him to go to prom.

His father wants him to go.

And I think it's not just a matter of his.

own autonomy.

I think it's a larger picture.

There are other people involved who want to see this happen.

And on top of that, you know,

he is only an adult on paper.

He's still a kid, and he still needs to experience a lot of the world.

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

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

So my wife and I went to high school together.

In fact, we went to my prom together.

She was, at that point, graduated.

So I was in the lucky position of getting to go to prom with a college woman.

And And boy, did that

make my top hat and cane look cool.

But

we grew up together-ish.

I mean, she came to high school halfway through my experience there.

And we were part of a large group of friends who bonded together because we didn't want to ask anybody in the world out and didn't want to be asked out by anybody.

Until my wife, she was not my wife then, obviously.

It was not an arranged child marriage, but my wife and I figured we were meant for each other and we ruined it for everybody by pairing off.

That's all just a little bit of background to say that my wife and some of those friends from high school, we still hang out a lot and we still do the same stuff that we did in high school, which is sit around a kitchen table and drink and talk about movies.

And one of these times during our adulthood, we were talking about movies, we're talking about the movie Cool Hand Luke.

And in Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman is in prison and he accepts a challenge to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs within an hour.

And he has his own throwing up story, spoiler, because he can't do it because it's disgusting and it's gross.

In telling this story, my wife, who had never seen Cool Hand Luke, said, I could eat 50 eggs in an hour.

And everyone said,

no, you can't.

I said, of course I can.

And I'm like,

what are you talking about?

How would you do that?

She said, well, I would just eat one egg and then another and then another.

And I would just eat 50 eggs in an hour.

And for years, she maintained this idea that she could eat 50 eggs eggs in an hour.

And at one point, she said it would be the same as eating, you know,

50 heads of iceberg lettuce in an hour.

Like, you couldn't do that either.

The concept that these eggs would have a cumulative effect within her body, that egg one

would be different from egg six, would be different from egg 25, would be different from egg 30.

which I think would probably be the most any human could get in within an hour, was unknown to her.

See, her point of view is,

I've eaten eggs before.

I ate that first egg.

I ate the fifth egg.

I ate the tenth egg.

All eggs are the same.

Why should I even bother to continue to eat eggs?

There's no difference.

See how I'm drawing this together there, Parish?

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't like where it's going.

Why don't you like where it's going?

Because after the 50th egg, you barf.

Yeah, barf in celebration because you're at the prom.

You're at your senior prom because senior prom isn't like those other eggs you ate.

Senior prom is a different egg.

It's a different egg because it is the culmination, not just of all the dances that you've gone to, but all the years that you have spent with your friends in this town.

Not even your friends in the same school.

I don't want to hear about

my friends go to different schools and blah, blah, blah.

I'm just talking about the place that you live.

through the bulk of your childhood.

If you're not an army or military brat, as they say, if you've had a stable childhood childhood more or less in a single town and you're going to go away to college, right?

Then this party is not.

I don't want to hear about how I'm going to go.

You know what I'm talking about.

When you, that morning, I don't want to hear any contrarian stuff from you and any logic.

Stop it.

What I'm saying is when it's dawn in that parking lot after this particular party, And you're eating that breakfast burrito and you're talking about how life is meaningless and you're nothing in the cosmos and every day is like every other day and you roll those dice to roll a character sheet.

You're not just playing another game, you're creating a new character for yourself.

It is inevitable, perhaps it is purely socialized, perhaps it is utterly arbitrary the way our laws are constructed and the way that we've organized our lives.

But the fact of the matter is, you are going through a transition in your life from one phase of your life to another.

You are becoming a legal adult on Saturday, and then a couple of years later, all of this is going to be behind you.

So, the question before this court is: are you going to honor that?

We have parties to honor transitions.

We have parties at weddings, we have parties at funerals, we have parties at

Sweet 16s, we have going away parties, we have coming back parties.

Parties can be dance parties, parties can be any kinds of parties,

but they are the coming together of people to honor a transition in life.

And

I'm sorry,

but Danilo and Pedro sitting in their respective homes, that's not a party.

If you had come to this court to say, I have a moral and philosophical objection to

my school's prom because they're not admitting LBGT people or something,

or

I have a problem philosophically with the idea of prom in general, or my friends are doing something else that night that is more interesting to me.

This seems like an empty gesture.

I would rather do something more meaningful, such as X, Y, or Z, where X, Y, or Z are three interesting options in alphabetical order, then I might be inclined to find in your favor.

But you have offered none of this.

And what's more, you went to winter formal in a top hat with a cane.

Sir, you have too much style to stay home on prom night.

Now, am I ordering you to go to your high school prom?

Sorry, mom, no.

But I am ordering you to go out on prom night.

I'm ordering you to get dressed up.

And you're going to, you, so much part of life, this is only gets more intense the older you get, is to find out where the party is.

And the party on prom night in your town is a prom.

You got to check out a prom at least.

I'm not ordering you to go to your prom.

I think you should breeze through it, check it out.

If it confirms everything you hated, fine, then go find where the party is and go to the real party and stay out all night and have a good time safely.

But I'm not going to order you to do that.

I am going to order you to go to the Anderson's Colds prom.

I'm not sure if I'm invited to that.

That's what makes it even more imperative that you go.

You're going to crash the prom.

Oh my God, I love that story.

You have to honor this transition in some way.

And if it's not trashing Anderson Cold's prom, I don't even know if I'm pronouncing their names correctly,

then it's check out your own prom for a while or go out all night.

But you got to stay up all night for sure in a party situation wearing either a top hat and a cane or some other type of incredible outfit.

I have many canes.

And you got to let your mom take a picture of you.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom in triumph.

Rebecca, how do you feel?

I am astounded.

I love the verdict.

I think it's way to go, Judge John Hodgman.

This is worth all of the hours we listened to him in the car and at bedtime.

I'm sorry it was such a burden to you.

I'm super glad.

Well, I mean, okay, I should say it's worth the one episode where you turned my son on to this gritting of his friends.

Parrish, how do you feel?

Good about most of it, maybe like two-thirds.

It is making me consider like fancy D ⁇ D party, which would be amusing.

Rebecca Parrish, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And Parrish, good luck in your epic party night.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In a moment, we'll dispense Swift Justice, but first we want to thank Allison Peltzman for naming this week's episode.

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

Follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Jesse Thorne, and John is at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ Ho.

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And you can check out the Maximum Fun subreddit to talk about the case at maximumfun.reddit.com.

This week's episode recorded by Jim Blackwood at Arizona Public Media and here in Los Angeles, recorded by our brilliant producer, Jennifer Marmer.

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

Here's something from Noah.

My wife chases our cat around the house.

I think this is weird/slash cruel.

Who's right?

You are.

Don't chase cats.

I mean, it's hilarious.

I can appreciate why she does it.

It's fun to scare cats.

Because you know what?

There's nothing better in life than seeing a cat that has been in any way embarrassed or humiliated.

It's one of the great things in life.

And I tell you, you know, Jesse, we adopted a cat.

We adopted a Maine coon cat because we have become stereotypes.

A Maine coon cat is from Maine.

It is a huge cat as a breed.

This is a smaller one.

She is

overweight and unlike any cat I've ever owned, she is a real dum-dum.

She has just vacant look in her eyes and doesn't understand what's going on most of the time.

And it is the most hilarious thing in the world.

And I enjoy nothing more than coming home and seeing her kind of staring off into space.

And I say, hello, dummy.

And she goes,

and then I go, oh, you know your name.

So mean.

It is fun to be mean to cats, but do you know what?

I'm being mean to a cat.

It's not nice, but I know the cat doesn't understand what's happening, and I pet the cat and I feed the cat and I make the cat feel comfortable.

It's so dumb, it doesn't know I'm being mean to it.

But your wife's cat sure does know it's being chased.

That's too mean.

You've gone too far, Noah's wife.

Stop scaring that cat and being weird.

I have two dogs, as you know, Judge Hodgman.

I know.

And I love to pick up my dogs.

Jen can tell you I love to pick up dogs because I love to pick up her dog when it comes to the office, much to its consternation.

And my dog, Coco,

which is my favorite dog,

basically my favorite living creature,

she will sort of allow me to pick her up and she sort of likes it.

She'll sort of relax into me, which is part of what's nice about it.

But she also doesn't really want to be picked up.

And I will admit that I have regularly been known to kind of stretch my arms out in front of me, pointed towards my dog Coco, and then lumber towards her saying, dog Frankenstein, dog Frankenstein eats dogs, eats dogs.

Oh, no.

Picking up dogs that love you is hilarious because it's a different kind of thing, right?

Because they're not parasites like cats who just want to leech off you for warmth, but they do really want to be near you and they love you.

But there's something about when you pick them up, they're like, ooh, this is too close.

Yeah, they're like, this isn't, this is good, but it's not what I had in mind.

I mean, I definitely wasn't, I'm not saying don't do this, but I am saying, I don't know.

It's so,

do you have any chicken?

Yeah.

Don't take pleasure in animals confusion.

And I should probably not call my cat cat a dum-dum, even though it's really funny to do it.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case too small.

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

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