Lodging: A Complaint

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, lodging, colon, a complaint.

Katie brings the case against her husband, Britton.

Britton doesn't like spending the night at Katie's parents' house when they visit.

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.

When they answered the bell on that wild winter night, there was no one expected and no one in sight.

Then they saw something standing on top of an urn, whose peculiar appearance gave them quite a turn.

At once it leapt down and ran into the hall, where it chose to remain with its nose to the wall.

It was seemingly deaf to whatever they said, so at last they stopped screaming and went off to bed.

It came seventeen years ago, and to this day, it has shown no intention of swearing them in.

Please swear them in, Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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 when we are performing at SF Sketchfest, he will be staying with my wife's parents in Fairfax, California?

I do.

I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

Katie and Britton, you may be seated.

Jesse, I cannot wait to stay in Teresa's old room

with her parents when we perform at Seth Sketch Fest, which is a very difficult collection of mouth noises to make.

And we'll talk more about Seth Seth Sketch Fest later on in this program.

But for now,

for an immediate summary judgment and one of yours favors, Katie and Britton.

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

Katie, why don't you take a guess?

What's your guess, Katie?

My guess is that maybe Edgar Allan Poe wrote a Christmas poem that no one knows about, because that was kind of Christmassy and kind of creepy.

Edgar Allan Poe's secret Christmas poem.

Hey, do you know how my father-in-law, who does not listen to this podcast, I hope, pronounces poem,

Jesse?

Since we're talking about parents-in-law?

Poem?

Poem.

Wow.

And my wife and I have never been able to figure out where he picked that one up.

If you pronounce poem poem,

let me know.

Won't you by writing to Hodgman at maximfund.org?

But now, Britain,

it's time for your guess.

I have no idea.

Good.

Yes.

So I'm going to just guess that it's

some sort of Krampus poem.

A classic Krampus poem?

Yeah.

Krampus, of course, being the

Germanic and Scandinavian or just Germanic anti-hero of Exmus.

The behorned demon who comes to your house to punish the bad, whereas Santa comes to reward the good and take children and put the bad children in his little basket on his back and take them away.

That's that's what Krampus is all about, and I cannot wait to receive your emails about how I got the geography of Krampus mythology wrong.

Sorry.

Well, let me just put that into the guest book and tally it up here and run that through the algorithm.

Oh, you guys, all guesses are wrong.

But you know what, Katie, you were pretty close.

I have to say, I thought you almost got it when you started saying, it sounds like

Ed,

and then you went on to say Garr Allen Poe.

And I was like, phew.

Tonally, you are not wrong either, because it is sort of like an Edgar Allan Poe creepy Christmas poem.

Yeah.

But in fact, it is text from one of the most famous Edward Gorey books.

Oh.

The Doubtful Guest,

where a bunch of traditional Edwardian fancy pantses who live in a mansion and have some ambiguous relationship to one another are visited by a weird Muppet-like creature.

wearing a scarf and tennis shoes that

is weird and steals all their towels and does other bad things, but never leaves.

And I guess they do people like to say goodbye to this guest.

Now, the reason I chose this is, after all, this pertains to the creepy Christmas time that is your lives together.

And the debate over whether or not you will stay with Katie's parents over this Christmas, which is about to happen.

Well, as of this recording in some time, but as of the release of this podcast, any second now.

So we got to make this decision and fast.

Yeah.

Katie and Britton, you guys live in Brooklyn, is that right?

Yes.

We live in Flatbush.

Oh,

home of the King's Theater.

Yeah, pretty close to the King's Theater.

Cool.

Flatbush and King's Theater are really coming up.

Yeah.

And Katie, where do your mom and dad?

Yes.

And where do they live?

Where are you trying to force Britton to go visit them?

They live in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Is that where you grew up?

Yeah, for my teenage years.

All right.

And before that?

In Chicago.

And then we moved to Pennsylvania in middle school.

But both of my parents are from there.

Let's go back in time for a minute.

There you were in Chicago,

Big Shoulderville, USA.

The brigadoon of the plains, the great disappearing white city that only manifests itself when I come to visit it.

uh-huh you're about to go to high school in a couple years

and your mom and dad said guess what we're moving to allentown that must have been terrible it was very sad so why do you want to visit

this torture on britain

your husband of how many years um about four months oh congratulations We've been together seven and a half, but yeah,

we just got married in Brooklyn in September how many times have you been dragged out to Allentown to celebrate Xmas there Britton

probably

like four or five times okay I would like to reject that first of all I appreciate you taking an incredibly long time to think about that answer you might want to well might want to prepped that one

Katie was sitting across me telling me the answer with her fingers but it's not the right answer so

it's confusing so now there's a dispute about reality yeah

This is the United States in 2017 for a few more days anyway.

Katie, how many times have you drugged Britain out to Billy Joel's Allentown?

I believe it was two or three times.

Why don't you guys know things?

You're not, how old are you, Katie?

I'm 35.

Okay.

And Britton?

I'm 31.

You should be able to remember.

How many times you spent Christmas together at Katie's mom's and dad's house?

Are you saying he's been out there two or three times total?

Just for Christmas.

All right.

And where did you stay when you visited there, Britain?

Okay, so

I think I've been there four times for Christmas Eve.

I don't care.

I don't care about the number anymore.

So, well, I'm thinking back and

we stayed I've stayed there for Christmas, I believe, twice.

Okay.

And then

two years ago I didn't go and then last year I went for the day only of Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

Okay.

I left the same day on the on a bus that I won't buzz market.

A classic day trip to Allentown because you hate staying over there so much.

Yes.

I'll let Britton answer that question.

Do you confirm that you hate staying over there so much?

I hate staying over there.

I don't hate anything else about Katie's parents for the record.

Sure.

Just the staying over and some other aspects about that.

I hear Mr.

Mrs.

Katie are wonderful, but why do you hate their house so much?

Okay, so

there's a few issues going on for me.

And I acknowledge that most of the issues are just me, not the rest of the world or Katie or her family.

That's fun.

I urge you to be very candid, and

you are going to get a fair hearing here.

Okay.

So one of the issues is that

if I were to stay there, it would be in Katie's childhood twin bed in her childhood bedroom with her childhood things around the bedroom.

And I'm 31.

So I don't want to feel like I'm the high school boyfriend who snuck in the window and is like sleeping over.

Is that where you have stayed before?

I stayed there twice, I believe.

Of course, there is no historical record.

There's no record.

We'll never know.

It's lost to time.

There's no way to figure it out.

This might have been as many as several years ago.

Yes.

I would say four or

five or two or one year ago.

Katie, do you agree that Britton has stayed in your mom and dad's house at Christmastime two times?

Can we say that?

I believe he stayed at my parents' house one time, and then one year we stayed at my sister's house, and she lives about 15 minutes away from my parents.

Okay.

So one year.

One year?

Can we just agree on a mutually acceptable reality in this country for two seconds?

How many times have you stayed overnight in Katie's childhood bedroom?

I say one time in the childhood bedroom, one time at my sister's house.

All right.

Do you accept that reality, Britton?

Yeah, I feel like there was a time I stayed there, but maybe it wasn't for Christmas, so let's just ignore that time.

Deep cut for the Judge John Hodgman listeners.

Is this house a gray house by any chance?

Okay.

When you stayed overnight in Katie's childhood bedroom before you were married,

were you staying in that room solo?

And if so, where was Katie?

Oh, no, we're both in the twin bed.

Okay, so one issue is it makes you feel like you're a high school boyfriend sneaking into his girlfriend's house.

Another issue is surrounded by toys, it's creepy.

And another issue is it's a twin bed and two people are sleeping in it.

Do I have all that correct so far?

Right.

Yeah,

there is probably one more outstanding issue if you want me to get into it now.

I do.

I'll allow it.

Okay, so the other issue is an overall,

at best, lack of excitement for Christmas and at worst, total rejection of everything involving Christmas because of a couple things.

One is that I was raised Catholic and I

don't appreciate it anymore.

And number two is that I didn't have the funnest or best

childhood with family events.

So there's a lot of feelings around the holidays that I would prefer to just not celebrate the tradition at all.

You just want to boycott Christmas altogether.

Right.

That's the

best case scenario.

I'm in the movie theater watching Star Wars on Christmas alone.

Ideally, you ruin it for everyone.

Right.

No, I don't ever expect to demand that Katie not go or anything like that.

You just want to abandon your wife and boycott Christmas privately.

You've already done it once.

Yes.

You took a bus out to Allentown.

You stood outside the front door.

You stepped inside for a second.

You said, happy now.

And then you turned around and you left.

Yeah.

And that was the compromise because the previous two years before that, he didn't come home at at all.

And then last year, the compromise was that he came in on the first bus and left on the last bus of Christmas Eve.

Scrooge.

But Katie's family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve mostly.

It's Christmas Eve heavy celebration.

Christmas Day, we don't do much.

Katie, you're not going to come to my courtroom and tell me you open your presents on Christmas Eve, are you?

Well, growing up, we opened family presents on Christmas Eve.

This is the sound of a gab.

Well, thank you very much, Britton.

Enjoy your boycott.

Goodbye.

Family presents on Christmas Eve and then Santa presents on Christmas Day, which we still do.

Do you participate in any traditional Catholic Christmas celebrations?

Things like celebrating all the days of Christmas or...

you know, often,

depending on where you're from in the world, baking a baby Jesus into a cake or any of those kinds of things?

No, not really.

My dad says grace before dinner, and then on Christmas Day, he invites all of us to go to church with him, and we all decline, and he goes by himself.

And

now that's a Christian tradition.

Yes.

What kind of church does he go to?

Were you raised Catholic too?

Yeah, Roman Catholic, yeah.

Okay, gotcha.

So you sent in some evidence written of this childhood bedroom.

Yeah, I was the one who sent in the picture.

Oh, excuse me.

I apologize, Katie.

Yeah.

And if I were you, I would not have sent this in.

It's bleak looking, but it's not.

It's in the bleak midwinter kind of thing.

Yes.

It's not a cozy guest room, I know, but it's not a creepy childhood bedroom.

Yeah, I don't see the evidence that Britton suggested that the bed is surrounded by all your little creepy dolls.

Yeah.

Those are all in the closet.

Even creepier.

I think it would actually be more appealing if there were more things in this room.

Yeah, it's very minimal.

Yeah, well, minimal would suggest that there's a certain style to it.

Yeah.

It's half empty.

Can I step in?

Hang on.

Let me describe how bleak this is.

First of all, blue wall-to-wall carpeting.

Yes, which I chose when we moved there when I was in sixth grade.

Well, I'll tell you that that's my favorite part.

I like the blue wall-to-wall.

WTW.

A small

wood-framed twin bed with a very, a very tan to Caucasian flesh-colored comforter.

Yes.

That was the twin bed that my dad had growing up, that frame.

And the

comforter is something that we've also had since I was a child as well.

I don't, you know, that's that.

Nothing in there is new.

Everything in there is new.

Even I have to object to your bringing up the family heirloom aspect of this because it will paint the wrong picture to the listener that this is somehow charming.

It's not.

When in fact it looks like a room in a murder house.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Well, the lighting also doesn't help.

Yeah.

Well, I can't see the light source in this photo, but I just presumed that it was a bear flickering bulb hanging from a cord.

It looks a little bit like if there were

Airbnb rooms in 1973.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

But then they got abandoned since 1973 and then put back up on Airbnb now.

Yeah.

Imagine a bedroom in Stranger Things, but half of the stuff was taken out.

It's a grim room is what I'm saying there, Katie.

I apologize.

I know this is a place where you spent a lot of formative years.

Well, it didn't always look like that, but I've moved out and it's just,

you know, the detritus of

life in there right now.

I'm imagining that when you moved out, all the flowers in the room wilted like in an animated film.

Well, this is damning evidence.

You can check it out, of course, on our show page at maximumfund.org or on our Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman, which is our Instagram handle.

And you guys can judge for yourself.

Guess what, though?

I judged correctly.

Let's take a quick recess and hear from this week's sponsor when we come back more about Britton and his feelings about Christmas.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Court's back in session.

You're listening to Lodging colon a complaint.

Let's go back into the courtroom to hear more about Britain's specific aversions to Christmas.

By virtue of this evidence alone, I might feel inclined to rule in Britain's favor,

not merely because it is unreasonable to ask two grown people to sleep in a twin bed together, especially married people who deserve a king bed, if that's at all possible.

But also, it's a grim space, not a festive, Christmassy space in the least.

No.

But Britain has gone even further.

Britain, you might have won this case handily if you had left it there, but instead you introduce a much deeper crux, which is that you hate Christmas.

Yeah.

And you express some trauma, childhood trauma surrounding Christmas.

Can you tell me, and maybe for the first time, Katie, about this?

Well, there isn't,

I wouldn't say there's like a specific Christmas incident, but I, so I coincidentally also had to move from Florida when I was in middle school to Pennsylvania because my parents are from Pennsylvania.

But the reason we left is because my parents split up and then

we, there was a couple good years where we lived with my grandparents and all the cousins would come over and that was awesome.

And then we got got ripped again when my mom got remarried to

my evil stepdad.

And he ruined everything involving family for me because it was just like three or four years of, it wasn't like,

you know, like Harry Potter or anything like that, or like

anything like horrible.

I was fine.

Wasn't making you live under the stairs.

No, no.

Well, actually, I did live.

We lived in his office.

Me and my brother and stepbrother all shared an office when we first moved in.

It wasn't a house big enough for us, but anyway, uh,

anyway, so I just, uh, every time there was uh family stuff from then on, it just was not fun at all.

And then

there was continuing trauma when my dad, my real dad passed away.

And then, uh, sorry, just uh, it's fine.

It's just uh, all

um

family-centered uh holiday stuff.

And then you add the religion in typically turns me off instead of getting me like excited.

So, naturally, I tend to just want to ignore it completely

instead of trying to create a new.

So, my brother also went through a lot of this stuff, but he has a foster family and like celebrates with them and went the other direction and created like a whole new set of traditions.

And I went the other way.

So, your brother went to go live with another family?

We both got kicked out of the house when we were teenagers.

Oh.

Yeah.

At different times.

May I ask the circumstances?

I can't tell you why I got kicked out.

I was working full-time and was a

student.

And my stepdad wanted to, I guess,

im do some responsibility on me.

So I had to leave.

And then my brother got into...

He was a little, he dealt with things a little differently and lashed out a lot and got and was a little violent.

And

he got kicked out and then moved into the foster system.

I was already 18 when I got kicked out.

So technically I was 18, but it was like right after high school, whereas my brother was in high school and then he went into the foster system.

And one of the foster families was thankfully like really amazing and he's considers them his family now.

So he's created like a new set of traditions, which is, and I, and we've hung out with them, Katie and I, and, and they're really great.

But uh, but you want to avoid them too.

Right.

Not necessarily any other time of the year.

Same with Katie's parents.

I don't want to make a special thing out of Christmas because I don't think it's special.

Oh, no, I understand.

That's a hard story to hear.

It's very rare that

an evil step parent is truly evil, but that sounds pretty rough.

And I think that guy sounds like a creep, and I'm sorry.

I wonder if he listens to this podcast.

Probably not.

Probably not.

He's just probably looking at like stocks or something right now.

Well,

so you had some miserable times.

Katie, were you aware of this kind of misery that Britton went through growing up?

Yes.

I would hope that he would tell you his wife

and partner of seven years

sooner than he would tell me, a guy with a podcast that he's talking to for the first time.

I've been waiting since the beginning of Judge John Hodgman to tell this story.

Thank you.

You're just like, well, honey, we've never been on a podcast before.

Yes, I know.

I've been through the period where he became estranged from his family and all that stuff.

But I think, especially now that we are married, it's a chance to, you know, he has a new family now that he can

enjoy and spend time with.

On the other hand.

He's a grown-up and should be able to choose how he spends his time.

And if he has trauma associated with the holidays,

maybe he shouldn't have to relive that trauma.

It's a trigger, wouldn't you say, Britton?

Yeah, to some extent it is.

I don't want to make it more than it is.

It's not like I get

like I awaken in the night with like terror, night terrors or something.

But it's a profound, it's like a general discomfort.

the entire time.

And this is not every time I go to Katie's by any means but yeah I don't like um have pan attacks or anything but it's just a general uncomfortable and not fun

experience with the added um

kind of uh

religious overtones which are not um even as hefty as they were with my own grandparents or anything It's also there's like the consumerism and capitalism around a kid like waiting all year to get the best things.

And I grew up with those feelings and like there's good feelings attached to it, but it's also kind of trains you in a negative way, I think.

And what did your stepdad get you for Christmas?

Some new laser printer toner for you to put into the printer above your bed?

I got a duffel bag one year.

Christmas was definitely better when my parents were split up at grandparents' house.

That was awesome.

There were cousins everywhere.

But to be honest, though, my parents, when they were together and then my mom, when she wasn't with them, spent beyond their means to do that.

So it was like ultimately still sad because then they were just like going broke to do this kind of stuff.

And then we moved in with my stepdad.

It was a weird situation where he was wealthy and we were in a wealthy neighborhood, but he was super stingy, like a kind of a Scrooge type character.

Boy, oh boy, this is this is Dickensian.

I don't want to make it seem like my grandparent.

My grandfather's told me stories where like he grew up Italian-American immigrant, like he got an orange and that was like the best present all year.

It wasn't like that.

Like, we got stuff.

But to get this stepdad who's wealthy, but stingy and Scroogey and is tossing you a duffel bag into your pile of rags underneath the desk where you sleep.

I mean, I'm exaggerating, but I hope you appreciate that my exaggeration

is based in a real sympathy for you.

And

I can completely understand

why you are kind of Step Scrooge Jr.

who wants to say bah humbug to this whole thing called Christmas.

And so the duty of this court is to evaluate whether it is fair for you to do a personal boycott of Christmas and ghost, as it were, on Katie.

That's a reference to the Christmas Carol that Steve Cut.

And so let me ask you one more question before I turn back to Katie, Britton.

The year that you came for Christmas for an hour.

Did you ever read that Christmas story?

It was like eight hours.

It was like a full work shift.

When you spent eight hours at your in-laws on Christmas Eve,

what time did you leave?

So

I think I took like a

what to like Port Authority at like nine or something.

And I get there and

at like 10.

You know, I know that specificity is the soul of narrative, but this is too specific.

Oh, okay.

So I left around 8, I think, was the last bus out of town because it's like a holiday schedule.

Did you make her drive you to the bus station?

Yes.

Yeah, I don't have a license, and so I can't drive or anything.

Okay.

Katie, had you guys exchanged presents at that point, or was it in the middle of dinner you had to drive them out there?

Um, yeah, we had already exchanged family presents, and then he left right after that.

After dinner, yeah, after dinner.

And when you got on that bus back to New York City, leaving your beloved behind in the parking lot of a bus station and basically skipping the the rest of Christmas.

How did you feel, Britain?

Do you feel better than if you stayed over?

I feel better than staying over.

I feel a little bit sad.

I definitely am aware that it

feels rude and incomplete of an experience for Katie.

Katie's parents have never expressed anything like that, but Katie definitely says that it feels like I'm not getting the full holiday in.

Well, I'll ask Katie how she felt about it, but I want you to describe your feeling when you're on that bus going home leaving christmas in the dust

oh okay so i look forward to sleeping in and pretending like uh the next day is like any other day of the year

you felt but you're saying you felt good you felt relief even though it was obviously not not ideal son-in-law behavior it was worth it to get out of dodge

yeah i'll be honest and say yeah thank you i appreciate your honesty katie how did you feel driving Britton to the bus station to send him off into

the Christmas night alone?

Yeah, I just feel like it's a little rude to just come.

It's, you know, from our house to Allentown, including trains and buses and all that stuff, it's about three hours trip.

So he takes three hours to get to my parents' house and then stays from noon to eight and then takes a bus three hours back home.

And it just uh okay, again, I don't need the timetables here.

I think we understand.

I think, Judge Hodgman, that we have some listeners who are interested in the timetables.

That's true.

They're probably there now with an unfolded map of Pennsylvania telling me, Shut up, John Hodgman.

I have to hear this.

I'm trying to design a board game based on this case.

Six hours of travel for six hours of visiting just seems like absurd and that he is, you know.

It's obviously absurd.

It feels like he's doing what he is actually doing, which is avoiding hanging out with my family for Christmas, which I would like him to do.

Well, wait a minute.

Do you feel that he's avoiding hanging out with your family or do you do you feel that he's avoiding Christmas altogether?

Um, well, both.

Does he avoid hanging out with your family in other circumstances?

Uh, he does not usually come home with me when other times when I come home.

So yes.

And

do you dispute that, Britton?

I don't go as often as I probably should.

I don't particularly like going out of, I like being in New York City or

cities.

I don't like hanging out in the suburbs.

It's like

not fun for me.

But you understand that part of this new thing you're in, marriage, means doing some things you don't feel like doing.

Yes.

Yeah.

You had to talk your way into that one.

Well, I totally, I understand, but my feeling is, well, this is going to sound bad, but I guess I should just say it because I've said it to Katie before.

My feeling is that I.

Don't hide from me whatever you say to Katie.

I don't,

specifically with Christmas, I don't

have,

I don't bring her to family stuff, and I don't expect her to to skip her family stuff to be alone with me.

So instead of that, I would just rather do nothing.

But this isn't the case for every like birthday or holiday.

I understand that I should like up my game in terms of going to hang out on certain special occasions.

I'm just trying to evaluate whether this court needs to carve out Christmas as

an emotional trigger point for you that you can excuse yourself from,

or whether it's the case that you just don't want to go there at all because it's always going to bother you and you're always going to come up with a reason why you feel uncomfortable doing it.

And whether you're actually asking to be abdicated from all family visits.

I'm not asking for that officially.

No.

Only tacitly.

Unofficially, there's a pretty strong suggestion.

Yeah, the twin bed comes up a lot whenever, like for my niece's birthday, I'll go home and visit.

And then Britton brings up the twin bed and then we don't, and then he don't come with me.

Yeah, well, Katie, you know, you're really offering him a lot of ammunition with that twin bed.

Is it possible for you to

invest maybe in conjunction with your parents or even on your own in some new furniture to make that a more comfortable guest room for a couple?

I'm not against that, but it just seems like

a little extreme for one day of the year.

Like, I only want Britton to spend one night a year at my parents' house, and that's Christmas Eve.

And as for the twin bed discussion, when I first moved to the city, I lived in a six-floor walk-up in Chelsea, and my room was the size of one twin bed and one dresser, and that's what I had.

And that's when Britton and I

first started dating.

So he didn't have a problem with sharing a twin bed for the two years that I lived in a shoebox.

Yeah, but you were children.

Now you're grown-ups.

Just because you experienced torture in the past doesn't mean you have to replicate it by choice now,

unless you simply don't have the means to help your parents buy

maybe not a king bed, but at least a queen.

I mean, I don't think you're going to win this case on, well, he slept in a twin bed with me before, therefore he should always be willing to do it.

I've seen the picture of this room.

Everyone's going to go to the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page and they're going to to see what I see.

Maybe I should have photoshopped it a little bit.

I have a question, Britton.

Is part of your objection here the fact that when you're staying in your wife's family's suburban home,

as a non-driver particularly, you are essentially unable to have your own space or leave under your own power?

Yeah, that's a part.

Like a little bit of it is like the restriction of like kind of we get picked up by

one of Katie's parents and then we're just in the suburbs kind of and they let us they let Katie use the car sometimes but

and sometimes part of Christmas is like going to Katie's friend's house and stuff and we do have like a car that we can use but it's definitely a little bit

Feels a little bit claustrophobic and I don't mean that in like a real clinical sense.

I don't actually have an issue with that, but it definitely feels a little bit that way.

Katie, has there ever been discussion of visiting your family and either renting a car or not staying in their home?

Britton has brought that up,

but I have not talked with my family about that because

for me, it's

we can stay at my parents' house for free.

It already costs the

for both of us to go to take the bus is over $100.

So it's like kind of expensive to get there.

And then once once we're there, we have to like have them drive us to a rental car place to rent a car for a day and then drive us, like then we go to a hotel.

It just seems like a lot of extra work and money and time when we could just stay at my parents' house for free.

And you want to stay with your parents, right?

Yeah.

Katie, you love your parents?

Yeah, they're great.

You have a good time with them.

You guys have a lot of traditions.

Yeah, I mean, it's like a very casual Christmas.

Like only my sister and her family, my brother and his fiancé come over.

Like, we don't have like tons of people coming in and out.

It's not like a super party atmosphere.

Like, we eat dinner, we do presents, we watch Christmas movies.

What do you watch?

Like, Die Hard?

Christmas vacation.

And

you better not be saying a Christmas story.

Because you already opened some presents on Christmas Eve.

If you like that movie.

Well, it's on tour for 24 hours, so it usually makes its way in there somewhere.

What did i just say katie i'm not gonna lie to the court what's your relationship with your in-laws britain um it's good katie's family is very they're they've always been very nice to me i have no issue hanging out with them they're actually when we when i did used to take katie to my family my family's house i used to prefer going to hers because we actually just like watch Seinfeld or like hang out and eat and it was actually much funner.

So it is like

fun to hang out with them.

And I, you know, I do

like spending time with them.

Okay.

One more question, Britton, before I go into my chambers.

Have you had, and I asked this respectfully,

have you had any therapy?

Yeah, just a little bit, but not like on a consistent basis.

But I have talked to a therapist before, yeah.

When was the last time you were in therapy?

um probably like uh

two years ago one year ago in that range are there any numbers that you're firm on yeah is it possible to find a therapist who specializes in timelines

it kind of fizzled out and i don't kind of remember when it stopped and then like i didn't have insurance for a while and like things changed in our lives but yeah it was um i think it was like 2015 to 2016 in that Okay, so fairly recently.

But you guys both have careers now.

I mean, obviously you're still young people.

It doesn't sound like you're rolling in cash, but do you have insurance now?

So I had kind of like a more steady career and then I split off to start my own thing.

So

I went without insurance, but now I'll be going on Katie's.

And Katie has like a steady career.

And

so going forward, it's going to be a lot easier to access some of that stuff.

I know what you want.

If I were to rule in your favor, Katie, you want me to order your husband to stay with you one night a year in your dingy old bedroom?

Yes.

Specifically, Christmas night a year.

Yeah, Christmas Eve night.

Yeah.

Obviously, and in your favor, Britton, you obviously don't want to spend Christmas Eve there ever again.

That's yes, but I actually also submitted evidence and had like

a compromise proposal that kind of was already mentioned by Jesse, actually.

You sent me a bunch of Airbnb links.

Yeah, so I looked at some Airbnbs and hotels that are some within walking distance, some driving of Katie's parents, and would

be interested in having our own space for the night, not spending the whole time there or anything, but...

being able to kind of separate just for the night and go back and stay over under those conditions.

Right.

And then maybe I would also be interested in exploring the idea of like changing Katie's bedroom.

But are you saying to me that, I mean, I'm not going to look at all these Airbnb links because

convince me that there's, that there's lodging around.

There is.

Are you saying that if you guys were to stay in a hotel room or an Airbnb or something else,

you would go there for Christmas Eve?

Yeah, I would be willing to try it out.

Yeah.

Okay, I think I've heard everything I need to make my decision.

I am going to click on one of these Airbnb links, rent myself a room in Allentown, go over there, think about my decision, and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Katie, how are you feeling about your chances?

I really feel like it could go either way.

I'm regretting a little bit not adjusting the lighting in that picture.

I mean, I know I wouldn't have done much,

but it might have given a better view of what we're working with.

Britton, how do you feel about your chances in the case?

I definitely went in thinking that I had very little chance because I'm continuing the tradition of like the weird

husband who wants to scheme out of things.

But maybe I feel a little bit better after going through everything with the judge.

Britton, I feel like I've been hard on you, and I just want to express that to the extent that I have been, it's only because I identify with your situation.

My own beautiful wife

was raised a suburbanite and I an urbanite

and

her family is

almost absurdly functional.

relative to my own family.

And apparently they never think to escape from family situations, which is all all I ever think about.

But I also have had the experience of being in your position and having

time and trust and a fair amount of therapy change my feelings about it in ways that I could never have recreated

through, you know, running away.

Yeah, I totally understand that.

And deep down, I think I really actually actually kind of want that to be the end result of all of this.

But

I'm going to fight it out for now.

Stick and run, baby.

We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say when we come back in just a second.

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 listen.

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 Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

So in hearing this case, I've made some gestures to a few mental health keywords, trigger and PTSD.

And I want to be very clear that A, I am not a therapist.

B, we are constantly reminded,

especially these days, to not diagnose profound personality disorders or other mental dysfunction from afar, no matter how apparent it seems.

So to those of you who are in the mental health community, either people who offer treatment or are in treatment, please understand that I am not making any diagnoses here, but I'm simply trying to be sympathetic to a situation that I think is clearly painful for Britain.

That was rough, what you went through, Britain, I think.

And I feel like I've only begun to hear a little bit about it.

And so I am very, very sympathetic to the bad associations that you have

with the holiday and with the feeling of being entrapped by family, even a nice family, where you are powerless to leave and make decisions for yourself.

Now, that's also the definition of marriage to some degree, being powerless to leave or make decisions for yourself because of your adoption of another family.

And I will say that while your offer to explore

other lodging options is a generous compromise, is clearly a non-starter with Katie.

She doesn't want to go, she doesn't want to go to those Airbnbs

because she wants to stay at her mom and dad's house because she loves it there.

That's what she loves.

She loves.

She wants to go stay in her old room.

That's not going to change.

And so, you know, really, this does come down to an issue of: can you tolerate

the

psychological immersion therapy of sleeping in that twin bed over over Christmas Eve in order to make your wife happy.

Marriage,

or to quote Peter Cook from The Prince's Bride, Mauage,

is all about hard compromises.

And even though you guys have been together for a long time, the situation is different now that you're married.

It would be unusual for a husband to visit his in-laws at Christmastime for an afternoon when his wife is going to spend at least a night there.

It is equally unusual, by the way, for a wife to insist upon a spouse staying at her parents' house when it is within their means

to hire lodging nearby that would make the spouse much, much, much more comfortable.

And it is especially unusual to insist that a spouse stay in a twin bed.

I would not only say that is unusual,

it is cruel and unusual.

I do feel that the money that you might spend on Airbnbs

might not only land you in an equally depressing bedroom, yet to be seen,

but also might be better invested in other things.

And that money, I think, would be better invested in co-payments

for some more therapy around this issue.

Marriage is a big transition and it brings out a lot of emotional stuff.

And it eventually does require you to put your comfort aside to some degree in favor of the other.

And that goes both ways, obviously.

But in your case, I think it's a very special case, Britton, that you have some very specific bad associations with the holiday and with suburban family traditions that have nothing to do, I'm sure, with Katie's parents, who seem like, I'm sure, are lovely people, but still keep you from enjoying the day and keep you, I think, from growing past this problem, which is what you deserve to do.

You also need to learn to drive.

If you don't want to feel claustrophobic in life, I know how to drive.

I just let my license expire.

All right, well, then get that license back.

Let that license back because you're stalled, dude.

You let your license expire.

You're not going forward.

You got to process these feelings so that you can enjoy the holiday with your wife and make a new future together

and i think that you need to get into that bedroom eventually

and have that be okay

and i think you need to process some of these changes that are going on in your life as you take on this new role as a a member of a legal financial partnership called spousal arrangement and also to deal with this thing that would that is very important to Katie's life

and should not be traumatic to you.

You should work towards getting past it.

Katie, in the meantime, you got to kit out that bedroom.

It's got to be better in there.

A lot better.

It is not fair, no matter what kind of garbage shoebox you lived in when you first moved to Soho or whatever it was.

You know that the settled law in this court is that a married couple, if it is within their means, should have have a king-size bed.

But it's my parents' house.

Yeah, guess what?

It's time for you to say to your parents, this is killing my marriage.

I'm a grown-up.

My husband is a grown-up, and he's struggling with this.

You need to let me help you

make this a room that will be not only more pleasant for me to come visit in, but any other visitors you might have.

Because look at this picture of this room on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram account, Mom and Dad.

This is what you're putting out in the world.

You don't want this.

So all that money that you're saving by not spending on lodging right now should,

in my opinion, be divvied up and spent on therapy and better bedding and better decor in that room and better lighting.

And in the meantime, though, I'm going to say.

that

because of this court's conviction that Britain's discomfort with Christmas and Christmas traditions is real and not just casual husbandly monstrosity.

I don't think you have to go this year, Britain.

Sorry, Katie.

I think this is the year where I want you to stay home and be by yourself and think about if this is the way you want life to go.

Because I think that's a dark place

to know that your wife is spending Christmas Eve with her family out there and

you're alone in your apartment here in Flatbush getting visited by ghosts in the middle of the night because you want to bah humbug it.

I think you need to go through this process and go through that dark place

and then start out the new year right and try to work towards getting back there next Christmas.

This is some heavy stuff that I just laid down on you guys, but the fact is I'm a little worried Britain's just literally going to go watch Star Wars and have the time of his life.

Me too.

That still, I think that, you know, if you want to sit this one out, you may do it, but it's on the caveat that you got to get some help.

You got to get a driver's license.

And, Katie, you got to, you got to make that bedroom better.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Britton, how do you feel?

Initially, it was exciting to hear that the

judge ruled in my favor, but I'm already starting to get scared about the repercussions of this.

You mean like getting emotional support for yourself?

No, not that part.

The dark ghosts alone at night on Christmas Eve.

Katie, how do you feel?

Um,

feel okay.

You sound really convinced.

If only there was like a like a bedding mattress purveyor that advertised on podcasts,

you would know where to turn.

Well, Britton, Katie, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

That's it for another Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Now, before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Chris Heemdinger for naming this week's episode, Lodging Colon a Complaint.

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

And you can also take a look at all of the dozens and dozens and dozens of amazingly terrible episode name ideas that we have there.

It's just a delight every week.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ H O.

And if you want to chat about the show, go to maximumfun.reddit.com to do so on Reddit.

This week's episode was recorded by Josh Feinstein at Angry Lamb Studios in Brooklyn, New York City.

Our producer on the program is the great Jennifer Marmer.

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

Here's something from Catherine.

I think that white holiday lights appear classier, less garish, and more grown-up than multicolored lights.

My husband thinks multicolored lights are far more exciting and fun.

Who's right?

Well, I am a white holiday light person.

Although my mother's family and my father's family were all colored holiday light persons.

persons.

And I think to some degree there could be regional differences, and I also think that there can be class differences.

And because ultimately it comes down to liking what you like, I will not venture into this fray.

Although I will express my preference, I think they're equally valid.

What I really prefer though, and what I order you guys to compromise on, I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Live fire candles.

As long as you're bringing a real Christmas tree into your house, as I order you to do, and inviting fire hazard of that kind, you might as well go all the way and put fire on it.

My neighbors growing up, the father of whom was born and raised in Denmark, had live fire candles on their tree.

They would light them.

It would be the most gorgeous thing you would ever see.

They would stand by with pails of water and sand and look at this gorgeousness for a while, blow them out, and then go have dinner.

That's the way to do it.

Sorry, I can't resolve your marital dispute, but that's all I have to say on this subject.

Here's something from Kevin.

When either my brother or I feel like a casual phone call has peaked, we immediately hang up with no notice.

We find this hilarious.

My sister-in-law thinks it's rude, even if we only do it to each other.

Are we good?

Click.

I just hung up on you, Kevin.

This is the best weird brother thing ever.

Yeah.

Sorry, sister-in-law.

That's awesome and really funny.

As long as they're doing it to each other and it's the joke that they share, it's fantastic.

Even as an only child, this is like the one time as an only child I wish I had a brother to hang up on when the conversation is peaked.

Well done, Kevin, and Kevin's bro.

That's it for this week's episode.

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

Remember, no case is too small.

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

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