Seating Arraignments

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, seating arrangements.

Elizabeth files suit against her friend Zach.

They spend a lot of time together, watching TV at Zach's apartment.

Elizabeth is unhappy with his living room seating arrangement.

She'd like him to add a chair.

He says the couch he has is fine.

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.

Do you enjoy excessive amounts of podcast listening?

Were some of the most enjoyable times of your life experienced with earbuds in?

Were your formative years nurtured by the electronic babysitter?

Are you annoyed by crybaby intellectuals who claim that podcast listening is counterproductive and a waste of time?

If so, let them know you're proud to be a potter.

Support Judge John Hodgman.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Elizabeth Zach, please rise.

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 he does not sit?

I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman?

Why did I get this standing desk?

I have not lost the weight that was promised to me, and my knees are locked, and I can't sit down anymore.

But you can, Elizabeth and Zach.

You may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the imaginary courtroom.

Elizabeth, let's start with you.

I Claudius.

Come on, Elizabeth.

I really can't.

It went by so quickly, I don't think I could.

Well, I appreciate your having I Claudius in the chamber just in case he came up blank.

I'm not surprised he came up blank.

But it felt a little pandering to me at the same time.

Okay, how about this?

Vacation Land by John Harkin.

That felt a lot of pandering.

Yeah, that's power pandering there.

Power pand.

I just assumed you were going to say a mountain goat song.

Oh, that's pretty good.

No, Elizabeth wins.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Thank you very much.

Bit.ly slash painful peaches.

I have put Elizabeth Guests into the guess book.

Zach, what is your guess?

Uh,

Dr.

Seuss.

Dr.

Seuss.

Put that into the guest book.

Probably the worst guess we've ever gotten.

I would say I'm not, look, I'm not judging.

Well, no, I say I am.

That's the name of the podcast.

Yeah, that's the worst one.

You know.

Worst one.

Dr.

Seuss has a familiar cadence

that was not represented in that quote.

You never knew it was Dr.

Seuss in casual conversation, perhaps?

Yeah, that's right.

Yes.

No, Dr.

Seuss is the worst guess because,

after all, I am not a fan of Dr.

Seuss.

I have nothing against him.

But if I were to quote a children's book author who is not Alice Provinson, it would probably be Margaret Wise Brown, who wrote the book The Wonderful House, which contains the line, all guesses are wrong.

The answer is

that I was quoting, or rather misquoting,

from a solicitation that was put into comic books in the late 1970s and other magazines by a cartoonist named Robert Armstrong soliciting

membership in the Couch Potato Club, couch potato being a term that Robert Armstrong trademarked and popularized in 1976, later illustrating the Couch Potato Handbook in 1983 written by Jack Mingo.

He is considered to be the originator and popularizer of the term couch potato for someone sitting around watching television for a long period of time at a time when this this was considered to be shameful rather than something you bragged about on Twitter, how much TV you binged.

That is why the term is no longer in use because someone who just stares at a screen all day long is considered to be a productive member of society.

Anyway, here we are talking about your living room, Zach, and your desires, Elizabeth.

You guys are friends, correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And what are your ages?

31.

32.

And you live in Los Angeles.

I believe I'm speaking to you.

You are located in Maximum Fun Headquarters, and the studio's there high atop the American Cement Building at Maximum Fun Headquarters.

Is that true?

Yeah.

I wish I were there.

I'm in Brooklyn.

It would be nice to see your faces and to see the face of my friends Jesse and Jennifer Marmor.

Instead, I'm staring down some corrugated foam in my dark office.

So,

Elizabeth, You are friends with Zach.

You guys watch a lot of TV together.

He's got a couch.

You want him to get a chair.

This is the nature of your beef.

Yeah, essentially, yeah.

Tell me more.

I want him to get a chair for a couple reasons.

Well, first of all, I think the whole thing is that Zach is not getting a chair out of spite at this point.

Oh, I'm sure that's the case.

And

I don't like sitting directly next to him.

It's like weird to turn my head and talk to him.

It can only accommodate two people at a time.

And I also like to lay down often,

which puts us in a weird, intimate sort of spacing where my feet are on his lap, and that's weird.

And

you're just friends.

You're just friends.

Yeah, which is why we shouldn't really be touching.

Right.

That's the common law of New England, right?

Where are you guys from originally?

New England.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

The forgotten part of New England, Connecticut.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you do listen to this podcast.

Yes, that's right.

One time I listened to the states and commonwealths of New England, and I failed to mention Connecticut, the nutmeg state.

I do apologize.

Accept that.

So you guys are both from Connecticut, but you've wound up in Los Angeles.

You're friends from childhood?

Yeah.

From high school.

Yeah.

Oh, okay, cool.

And there's never been anything between you guys?

Early, early on, but since then it's been like solely.

He's my, we're each other's best friend now.

I feel like we could say that.

That is cool.

That's awesome.

Since high school, you guys have been best best friends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

And so you go over to his house to watch television.

How often do you go over there?

Like at least once a week.

And you guys mostly just hang and watch your shows and your stories?

Yeah, we hang, we watch shows, we do, we cook.

All on the couch?

Like on one of those little sofa hot plates?

We cook and then we eat crouched over the only surface there is to eat on, which is the coffee table.

Right.

And what do you watch?

It's, you know, it's Netflix, it's movies, it's like random YouTube videos, whatever we feel like pulling up.

So you are literally Netflix and chilling.

We are literally Netflix and chilling.

That is correct.

So the problem is that Zach's apartment is uncomfortable for you, if I understand this, Elizabeth, because A, he's got one couch, which B,

makes you put his feet on his legs in an uncomfortably intimate way.

And C, see, now you're pointing out that he's only got some one coffee table and it's uncomfortable to eat your

foods that you've been preparing.

Yeah, I mean, I have to sit on the floor.

We cook a lot, so we're always like eating there.

You cook a lot, Zach.

I do feed you a great deal of food that I prepared

slavishly.

That sounded weird.

I do feed you a lot of food that I have prepared slavishly.

Are you sure that this relationship has not some weird role play?

Like,

our role play is that we pretend we're not lovers.

We pretend we're best friends, but with this simmering romantic tension underneath, and then we call onto podcasts.

I don't like the direction this is taken.

Yeah, this is

an uncomfortable direction.

Well, yeah, but I'm not the one who said, I do feed you a lot of food.

All right.

Let me get to the layout of the apartment here.

So your problem, Elizabeth, is that it's not comfortable for you to eat.

It's not comfortable for you to sit.

It's not comfortable for you to chat with your friend while watching because all he's got is this one couch.

You want to get a chair.

Like you want him to get like an easy chair, like an armchair, like a recliner.

What?

Any, any and all of the above.

I think it's just very empty and it feels like an adult should have

more than just what he has in his apartment.

And if he wants to entertain more more than one other person, someone has to sit on the floor.

And usually that's me sitting on the floor eating.

So you're not saying that he's not willing to invest in a TV watching chair for you.

You're saying he doesn't have another chair?

He doesn't have another chair in the apartment.

And not only that, there's no place to sit aside from the coffee table and eat.

Like there's no dining table with chairs.

I submitted some evidence.

I am going to go look at this evidence right now.

But while I review this evidence, Zach,

what this really is, is that Elizabeth is accusing you of being a bad grown-up.

How does that make you feel?

Like a sad grown-up.

Not like a mad grown-up at all.

No, not mad.

Enough with the Dr.

Seuss, Zach.

She's saying that you don't have a chair for a guest.

That you don't have a proper hosting situation, that you are not a proper grown-up.

And I want you to actually respond to this.

Okay.

I think there's more criteria to being a grown-up than being able to host people at your apartment.

And I think it's my apartment, and I like to live fairly minimally.

And it happens to be about an eight-foot-wide couch, which my six-foot-five roommate and I can very comfortably sit on together.

And multiple times, I've had multiple people, three and on occasion, four people, either all sit on the couch or sit on like a big fluffy cushion next to the coffee table very comfortably and I'll hang out, which I don't do very often because I really don't entertain multiple people very frequently.

It's usually just one person,

usually just Liz.

I'm now reviewing the evidence.

Thank you very much for your response.

And the evidence as submitted by Elizabeth, a few pictures, which you can check out at the JudgeJohn Hodgman page at maximumfund.org or on our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

And here's a lovely shot of the two of you just chilling out on this couch.

Elizabeth does not have her feet

pointed at Zach.

Rather, her feet are curled up.

She is lying down, but her feet are away from him.

And Elizabeth, you are on some pillows there.

And this looks pretty comfy to me, I have to say.

This looks like a pretty fun friend hang.

My legs are over the side of the couch.

I can't stretch them out.

I'm impressed, frankly, that he is sitting on the couch and it remains big enough for you to lie on the couch what looks like reasonably comfortably all the way to the knee.

Yeah.

There's obviously no such thing,

except in some kind of

madman's imagination, as a couch so big that you could lie on it without touching him while he sat on it.

And in the absence of that kind of couch,

this is about as big as it gets.

Well, a sectional.

You could have a sectional, and then I wouldn't have, I'd be

our own area.

I also want to point out that.

You could just get an Ottoman, if that's what you want.

Maybe.

Or a hassock.

Yeah, a Hassock is another possibility if you're biased against the Ottomans.

You're talking about,

just so that I understand, from a sectional point of view, you're talking about getting a couch that turns a corner, or are you talking about a couch that's got a chez long built into one end of it?

Well, I've definitely...

Because I've had both.

I've definitely sat on couches before where...

No one's accusing you of not having experience sitting on couches.

Where, you know, one person stretches out on the sectional, like on the part that juts out, and then another person can sit or lay down on the

long side.

On the one.

Yeah, so you're talking about a chez long, like a jutter outer, like an extra leg thing

poking out into the middle of the living room.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've had two of those, and they're terrible, but that's just me.

I almost got one of those.

I actually don't mind the idea of having a sectional with like kind of a chaise section, but I didn't get that.

I got this, and now it's there.

Okay.

And how long has this investment been in your life?

A little less than two years.

It's actually the first time that I ever had to buy furniture, really, because I lived in New York for a long time, and you tend to move apartments a lot, and a lot of them are furnished, or you use the old furniture.

And so this is the first time, as at least a partial grown-up, that I've had to buy furniture.

You're a full grown-up.

You're in your 30s.

Yeah.

You don't get to claim partial grown-upness.

As discussed in my book, Vacation Land, Truth Stories from Painful Beaches,

it is very easy to maintain a kind of stunted adolescence well into your 30s when you live in New York because New York basically keeps you in a state of perpetual economic anxiety.

And

it's designed to make you feel like you're living in glorified dorm rooms all the time.

Zach was moving from dump to dump,

sitting his keester down on left-behind easy chairs.

Now, this is his first big boy couch that he bought himself, and his best friend Elizabeth is saying, not sufficient for my needs.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's sponsor.

We'll cover more evidence from the case when we get back.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at maximumfund.org, and they are all your favorites.

If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic.

Just go to maximumfund.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know?

that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

The brace short ribs, made in, made in.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But made-in isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional.

And as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common.

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N Cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Court's back in session.

You're listening to seating arrangements.

Elizabeth wants her friend Zach to add more seating to his living room.

He says the couch is plenty.

Let's Let's go back into the courtroom for the rest of the evidence.

Zach, you sent in a picture of

a dog Gigi.

Oh, that's me.

I sent my dog a picture of my dog, Gigi, in, because I know you like cute dogs.

Oh,

excuse me.

This has nothing to do with Zach.

This is your cute dog, Gigi.

She's also uncomfortable with the whole situation.

It's cute that she's uncomfortable, though, to be fair.

Let the record show that she is adorably uncomfortable, but she has got one cute little paw up on her little pillow that is made to look like a big slice of pizza.

She's pretty cute.

But you're trying to bias this court against Zach with cuteness.

It has nothing to do with the case.

I'm throwing this picture out.

Okay.

Hang on.

First, I have to print it out.

There we go.

I'm going to take it out of the printer and

bye-bye, GG.

Now, Zach, you have now submitted a picture.

You have a picture of the same living room and the couch in question.

But what's interesting here is this is a different angle, and all of the warmth and best-friendly intimacy and comfort that is conveyed in the initial photo that Elizabeth submitted of the two of you sitting on the couch watching one of your favorite stories.

You've got your feet up.

She's kind of sprawled out over there.

There's some throw pillows and blankets around.

The photo that you submit, it looks like,

how should I describe it?

Superman's Fortress of Solitude, if it had shag carpeting.

Thank you very much, Jesse Thorne.

It is antiseptic in its plainness.

All of the pillows have been rearranged perfectly.

All the throws carefully draped.

There is nothing on the floor but this coffee table and this media console that has a fairly medium-sized television on it.

This wall-to-wall carpeting, and then nothing.

There's nothing on the walls.

There's no decoration whatsoever.

Judge Hodgman, I have to correct you here because I'm looking at the same picture.

And when you say there's nothing on the walls, there is

one roughly dinner plate-sized mirror which inexplicably is roughly two and a half feet above the ground.

Well, I think that it's been propped on a mantelpiece for a fake fireplace that has never been used.

Is that right, Zach?

It's pretty much a fake fireplace.

It has been used a couple of times, but it's like a little gas thingy.

At any rate, yeah, the mirror is probably.

Okay, it's a little gas fireplace, right?

And it didn't occur to you that you might hang this mirror up.

You just propped it up

on the mantelpiece.

It was kind of like

snap decision.

You added that tiny mirror before you took the photograph to add warmth to the room.

I went out and I bought a mirror.

What's most striking about this picture of Zach's room to me, aesthetically, is not the absence of a chair, but rather the fact that probably the brightest color in this entire room, other than white, is

light maple veneer.

That's the most vivid color.

There may be some navy blue on this throw blanket, but it's hard to tell.

That might just be black.

Yeah, you've got a lot of beige going on in here.

Your commitment to the single palette of non-color is just,

it's admirable in this way.

The room is so antiseptic and uncharming

that it looks like the worst Airbnb that I would ever.

I would be like, ooh.

It looks a little bit to me like a model home if

some burglars had broken in who for some reason were only interested in accent pieces.

Everyone can go check.

this out on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org or our Instagram, JudgeJohnHodgman, and decide for yourself whether my and Bailiff Jesse's rather cruel descriptions of Zach's home and hearth are justified.

But in the meantime, just looking at the layout of the apartment here, we got two walls, couch is directly against one long wall, TV is against the opposite wall.

And then there's an alleyway of pale wall-to-wall carpeting between them.

Where would you see this chair fitting in?

To the right of the couch facing like where the television is.

So, or you know, like it would be cornering off basically where the, that mirror is.

It would be in front of that.

And it would be facing the TV or facing.

No, it'd be like, it would be like perpendicular to the TV.

So it would be facing, it would create like a little corner, I think.

So that people could talk to each other.

Right.

And that's where you would force Zach to sit in his own home so that you could lie down on this whole couch yourself?

No, actually, I've been thinking that I would be the one in the chair because I'd like have my own little pod and section that I wouldn't be,

wouldn't be bothered, I guess.

And then if we're going to eat food too, I could like balance it on my lap at least instead of put it on the coffee table.

Because then Zach puts his feet up on the coffee table.

It's in that photo.

Oh, yeah.

No, I saw that in the photo clearly.

Which is monstrous.

No, he can put his feet up on the coffee table.

Next to his plate?

Next to his plate, next to where people eat.

Look at his feet.

I know.

It's not for me, but it's his house.

What makes you think that you can redecorate his own house?

Because this is the nature of our relationship.

Tell me more.

Tell me more about the nature of your relationship.

Zach, just, I don't, I feel like

it feels like this is my place to help him.

I think he's living in a little bit of a state of arrested development.

I feel like you feel like your housing is kind of temporary.

And I just want to, I also want to just help you kind of settle.

I don't think you've really settled.

And I'm really happy that you're here.

I'm glad that you live here, and I don't want you to ever leave.

So I want you to be bogged down with lots of furniture and responsibilities so that you won't.

Now we're getting to the core issue.

The crux.

Yeah.

Some good cruxing going on coming out.

Liz's fear of being alone.

I'm going to walk over to my couch and take a little nap while you guys finish this podcast.

Zach, do you feel emotionally encumbered by the acquisition of things?

I tend to, yes.

Including home goods.

Yes.

Would your ideal state be to live in an extended stay America

where you get free breakfast every day?

I do like hotels.

My ideal living state is just kind of like a formless white void with nothing.

One comfortable seat, one television, and a well-equipped kitchen.

I don't like having too much stuff.

Do you like having a friend?

She's okay.

I will be clear.

I love Liz.

Liz is like one of the more important people in my life, which is the only reason I'm even entertaining this ridiculous,

ridiculous argument of having her redecorate my bedroom.

Hang on it.

Hang on, Zach.

I will overrule your objection.

I'm not sure that it's that ridiculous.

Initially, I thought, yeah, no, there's no way that Liz can force you to get a chair for her own comfort.

But you're living a very spare lifestyle, and there's some emotional stuff underneath it.

Oh, it's so true.

It's so true.

What does the minimalist style mean to you?

It's just comforting for some reason.

I don't really know where it comes from, but for whatever reason, if there's just too much stuff around, whether it's decoration or a little tchotchkes or whatever, I just, just, I always have felt more comfortable just like physically and like emotionally and aesthetically, just in very sparse environments.

So that's kind of what I went for.

How do you feel about Elizabeth's house and how do you feel about the way she's decorated her house?

Well, as far as decorations go, she can do whatever she wants.

It's her place.

Also, I think a lot of her decorations have like a lot of sentimental value for her.

Whereas I don't have a lot of physical things with sentimental value.

I don't think the question was whether Elizabeth

is allowed to decorate her home as she sees fit.

It was, how do you feel about the way her home is decorated?

I don't like it.

I mean, it's not my style aesthetically.

Just describe it.

Just use your own words to describe it, being as specific as possible.

Insufficiently brutal.

Okey-dokey.

He doesn't like that there's a futon.

And the futon is, I think that's your biggest problem.

Well, Elizabeth, I don't like that either.

Come on.

You're the one who's trying to be the grown-up here.

I know, it's my roommate's futon that he insisted on having.

I would like to hear from Zach what he dislikes about where you live and how you live.

I mean, I don't dislike that much about how Elizabeth lives, but I think just like

in terms of just like what don't you like about her decorations?

We already heard about the futon.

I want to hear from you.

It's uncomfortable.

Does she have too much stuff?

There's a lot of stuff there.

Again, it's hard for me to cast too harsh of a judgment because I know this stuff means something to her.

And it's not like, oh my god, like the skin of my retinas is burning.

Like, it's fine.

It's not stuff that I have to like have in my apartment.

It's her stuff.

But the real problem is that it's not super physically comfortable for me to sit on the futon.

However, she will often sit on the futon and then I can sit on like the like fluffier armchair.

that she has.

But it's, you know, it's not like perfectly set up for me to comfortably watch TV there, which feels like the same.

So far, what I've heard is that there's an armchair in Elizabeth's house and then her roommate's Futon.

Elizabeth, have you ever heard the phrase, people who live in chairless homes shouldn't throw chairs into other people's homes?

Doesn't seem like you're particularly well kitted out either.

I have more seating than needed, actually.

We also have a wing back chair that rarely gets used.

Oh, that's true.

It's in the corner.

And then there's a little dining table with a few chairs.

Yeah, we also have a dining table with chairs that people can sit and eat.

And we have bar stools.

You can sit at the kitchen and eat.

Oh, that's great.

I like that we're listing every type of chair.

I'm realizing now there's actually a lot of seating services in this apartment.

Do you have any ergonomic kneeling chairs?

No, no, no, not yet.

Not yet.

Why don't you grab that wing back and bring it over to Zach's house and just throw it in there?

I wouldn't be opposed to it.

I'm deeply opposed to that.

Why don't you like that wing back chair?

Insufficiently rectilinear.

All the above.

I don't know.

It doesn't really fit my aesthetic.

It's also, it happens to be one of Gigi's favorite places to sit.

And

also, I have a roommate as well.

And so I don't think I can make any unilateral decisions.

How does your roommate feel about the fact that you have no other seating other than this couch?

Yeah, who's your roommate?

Mis Vandereau?

I wish.

Just somebody with tiny round eyeglasses, please.

Someone with tiny round eyeglasses in an incredibly spare aesthetic.

Yeah, well, what's interesting about my roommate's situation is he has actually brought up the idea of having a chair a couple of times.

We've never really like moved on it.

It doesn't seem that important.

And he's also like almost never there.

He's a consultant, and so he travels at least Sunday through Thursday.

And sometimes, and actually coming up soon, he'll be gone for like three or four months at a stretch.

So I don't think he's got like a super duper strong opinion, but I wouldn't want to add anything without asking him all the same.

So your roommate is a consultant.

He's going away all the time, and he says in his Mis Vandero voice, I wish you would get a chair.

And then he goes away and he comes back and he says, Oh, you did not do it again.

No.

That was a pretty amazing Mise Vandero, by the way.

I've never heard Mis Vandero, but I'll take your your words.

It sounded exactly like what John just did.

Exactly.

Liz,

you know that if I were to order in your favor, you would have to pay for this chair, and it would have to be a chair that Zach feels good about.

Can you afford a Zach-style chair?

Absolutely not.

I mean, I would go Havzies with him.

So you're not willing to buy him a chair.

No, I want him to do it as an adult man himself because he knows it's the right thing to do.

For you.

And you.

I think.

And America.

So let me get this straight.

If I were to find in your favor, Elizabeth, I would compel

Zach to go and buy a chair that is comfortable enough that you will come over and sit in his clean room.

In his beige, germ-free clean room that looks like

where Robert Duvall used to hang around in THX 1138.

But it would be on him to buy it.

Yeah, it would be on him.

It would be like an armchair, an easy chair, like an Ames chair or something that fits that aesthetic that I think he would really enjoy.

Like a Le Cor Bussier bench.

A piece of plywood painted black.

I will put a black piece of plywood in my house if that's the rule.

Oh, now

you're excited about that.

I can tell.

Liz can sit on that.

Zach, does that sound fair to you?

Defend yourself.

Okay.

No.

Tell Elizabeth, your friend,

how you feel about her trying to force you to spend your money on something you don't want.

I don't think that's fair.

It's my apartment.

It's my money.

It's my aesthetic.

I'm there.

I can't do the math, but infinitely more often than she is.

It's where I live.

It's the only place that I've ever really tried to nest and start to feel comfortable as an adult in.

And I go over to her house all the time.

And I'm more than happy.

That's what a nest is.

It's messy.

It's what birds make out of pieces of plywood they've painted black.

Yeah, a nest is a round, cozy bundle of garbage a bird threw together.

Elizabeth, it's none of your business.

It's none of your business, right?

This is what Zach is trying to tell you in best friend code language.

And I'll go to her place.

Well, yeah, you don't want to go over there.

That place is weird.

I don't like that futon house.

What's wrong with that, Elizabeth?

Why are you making emphatic silent gestures right now?

Oh, because he was talking over the judge, and I was trying to get him to not interrupt.

That's why.

That's the last time I'll allow you to pander to me in this courtroom.

First, you say, I, Claudius.

Second, you send me a picture of a cute dog, which I threw away.

And now you're trying to say, like, see, judge, I know what you like.

I know you don't like people to interrupt you.

Well, that's right.

I don't.

But I'd rather have someone honestly interrupt me than try to game the system

for her own comfort in someone else's home.

Elizabeth, I'll make the case more strongly than Zach, who's a nice, friendy friend, will say it.

But it is Zach's place.

He can furnish it however he wants.

It's none of your business.

Stop talking about it.

How do you respond to that?

I think that's the obvious argument, but I think in this particular scenario, everybody knows the right thing is to get a chair.

Because I don't see see how your life is going to deteriorate suddenly because you have a chair.

I think it will improve things.

He's nodding, by the way.

And absolutely, it is none of my business.

I'm aware of that.

It sounds crazy to impose that on him.

But I think we both know the right thing to do.

Sometimes a friend has to be all up in your business, Zach.

So obviously, if I were to find in your favor, it would be tell Liz buzz off.

Yeah.

Sometimes friends need to tell friends to buzz off.

I have a variety of seating options for me in my chambers.

They are calling to me now.

I'm going to bring my buttocks in to sit and ponder Thinker Style by Rodin sculptor and consider my verdict.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Zach, do you have a favorite type of chair?

You have the eyeglass frames of a man who has a favorite type of chair.

Thank you.

Actually, not really.

I just like really comfy seating.

So

if the judge were to rule in Liz's favor and I had to get a chair, if push really came to shove, it would just be a chair that kind of matched the aesthetic of the couch, which is just kind of like...

fluffy and comfy and you know unfortunately beige i do however like the le corbusier chaise lounge My dad actually had that growing up, so I really appreciate that.

It's not the most practical seat in the world.

We should explain that your dad was a tertiary character in a 1970s Woody Allen film.

Basically, yeah.

Yeah, that's correct.

Liz has met him.

Yes, she knows.

Liz, what's your top chair?

I think you should get an Ames chair.

For the low, low price of $4,000.

Well,

you can get it.

We can go to the flea market or something and find a knockoff one.

I'll find you one.

I go to Rose Bowl, PCC, Long Beach, Santa Monica.

And then we can go shopping for a chair and that'll be fun.

You'll pay for?

We'll talk about it.

How do you feel about your chances, Liz?

I don't know.

I really thought I would have a clear idea of how it was going to go and I really don't.

And I think that's okay.

Zach, how do you feel?

You know, if the universe is an orderly place, then I feel like it should be a no-brainer.

I should be able to furnish my apartment however I want, but I don't know.

I think the judge can do whatever he wants.

I have no idea.

We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this 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 listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So, let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lawman.

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 I couldn't help but overhear,

Elizabeth, you suggested that

Zach and Ames chair.

So for those of you listening along, Charles and Ray Ames, E-A-M-E-S,

and if I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, I don't care, were a married couple, American designers, famous for their mid-century modern, very clean line designs.

The Corbusier

Cheslong, the LC4, is also a very famous modern design by the Corbusier.

It's a big old thing of leather and or cowhide and shaped steel that looks like a dentist chair in the movie Brazil.

That's how I'm going to say.

Yeah, that's fair.

Just so people know what we're talking about, but Elizabeth, so that I understand, is there a particular Ames chair that you're referring to?

Because they did design a number of different kinds of chairs.

I think that the classic lounge one,

that's the one that comes to mind when I think.

I didn't even realize.

I thought it was just that design for her.

No,

they have some like molded plywood side chairs and molded plastic side chairs, but you're talking about the big the honker, the big leather and and bent plywood

like armchair, easy chair with the ottoman, right?

Yeah, she's talking about the classic lounge chair, the classic lounge chair, which is a thing of complete beauty.

And in either case, whether it's the LC4 or the Ames classic lounge chair, we're we're talking thousands of dollars for this piece of furniture.

Or something that style.

It doesn't have to be that exact chair.

You were compelling him to buy.

I mean, I can take you to my friend Ivan, who works at the DWR in Pasadena, and he'll probably give you a price break, as he would any Judge John Hodgman listener.

Oh, I'll be there in five minutes.

You're still looking at a chair that retails for $3,800 plus dollars.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

Just so I understand what you're demanding of Zach.

Zach would happily spend that on a chair if it was something he wanted and no one else was pressuring him to buy.

He would 100% spend that much money.

Well, I know I'm supposed to be delivering my verdict here, but Zach, let me follow up Elizabeth's comment with a question.

Is your minimalist aesthetic due to

a budgetary issue?

Or do you have the means to get a moderately

or maybe even extravagantly priced armchair if you really loved it?

I could probably spend like

without really hurting myself, like let's call it 500 bucks on some sort of chair.

I could use a credit card to put a few thousand dollar like chair in the mix, but that doesn't feel like a grown-up move to me.

Right.

Well,

it's definitely putting yourself into credit card debt that you cannot afford is definitely not a grown-up move.

And this is all about, I have to thank you, Elizabeth, for finding the crux so early on and sparing me that particular chore.

This is about

Zach's growing up.

Zach has had a delayed adolescence because he lived in a bunch of dumps in New York City, and now he is buying furniture for the first time in his adult life.

And, you know, the question is: when we look at this

spare,

sad, haunted Airbnb,

Zach would say that this is an expression of his adulthood,

whereas you, Elizabeth, say that it is an expression of his refusal to accept adulthood.

Because on the one hand, Zach is buying and decorating his apartment at his own pace and in his own minimalist style.

But Elizabeth, you're saying

that there are certain things an adult needs to have

in his or her home, and that is more than one seating option.

Elizabeth,

I have to say,

listening to the seating options that are in your home

made me almost

hyperventilate and have a panic attack

because too many kinds of mismatching uncomfortable seating options.

She didn't even mention the beanbag chairs and the papa san.

Yeah, right.

Do you also have like a hanging wicker chair?

You got bar stools.

You got one leather wingback.

You got a hassock.

You got a futon.

One of those Huey Newton thrones.

Oh, yeah, one of those big Rattan peacock thrones.

What you have going on, all those different chairs jammed in there, that to me is like the apotheosis of junkie dorm room first apartment aesthetic, and you need to get rid of all that junk.

Wow.

No one wants to sit on a bar stool ever unless they're at a bar, which is where I need to get soon, by the way.

So I'm not sure whether I can really trust Elizabeth's aesthetic in interfering

with

Zach's world, Zach's incredibly pure, spare world of scrubbed surfaces.

And the other thing, Elizabeth, that that undermines your case

is that you are invested

in helping Zach grow up.

But the greatest gift of being grown up

is the ability to be generous.

Being a grown-up and having some security from a job.

You guys both have jobs.

Yeah.

Yes.

Sorry.

Did you not want to admit that you had a a job?

Yes.

And you guys aren't making money hand over fist.

Zach's saying 500 bucks for an easy chair, and that's a low end.

I mean, furniture is expensive.

Well, I was thinking like IKEA, but sure.

Yeah, I knew you were going to get it in there at some point.

Everyone needs to know this couch came from IKEA.

I looked it up.

Got it?

Do you get your IKEA discount now, Zach?

I will say this.

If you got...

an Ames classic lounge chair in there, you know, maybe used, maybe secondhand, maybe from a flea market, maybe

a knockoff or something like that.

But if you got one of those guys in there, I think it would look great in your apartment, and I would come over and sit in it.

I like that chair.

I've never been able to pull the trigger to get that chair.

It's too indulgent and probably too indulgent for you right now at this stage in your life, too.

But I will say this.

If you went with Jesse and somehow got some discount LC4 Le Copusier thing, that's a weird chair that I would hate to ever be near because it looks like it's going to attack me while singing German songs.

But

it would totally fit in with the weird psycho killer

nest, pleasure-through pain nest that you're creating over there.

And here's the thing: what I'm trying to say is that you're both young people who have jobs, you're both adults, but in this kind of hazy transitional world, because even though you're in your very early 30s,

your lives, it seems to me, still follow the shape of people in their mid-20s.

You have roommates.

You got to be careful about your money.

You're hanging around watching TV shows all day long.

There's simmering, will they, won't they, romantic tension, going back to high school.

I mean, you know, if you put in some mock turtlenecks and some slope-shouldered overshirts, I'd feel like I was watching an episode of Friends.

I'm not going to say you both need to grow up because you're growing up at your own pace.

But the tests of adulthood,

one of them is having a chair for a guest, because that is an expression of generosity.

And another test of adulthood is

having

the means or being willing to make the sacrifice to be generous, to buy something for someone else they can't seem to buy for themselves.

So, whose

growth

is this

court going to enhance?

Which of you will this court force to mature?

It's a hard one to consider because, after all, Zach makes a very clear and perfectly understandable point.

It's his apartment.

But I'm going to say this, Zach.

This pains me.

If I didn't know

that you don't have a kitchen table or any other chairs,

that information had not been given to me, I would have found it in your favor in a second.

Because I was going to say initially, Elizabeth, just pull in a chair from the kitchen and sit in that.

But you don't have any other chairs, dude.

It's not okay.

That is not acceptable grown-up behavior.

And I believe you deserve the chair closest to your dreams.

And now we know at least two different styles of chair

that are sort of in the ballpark of what you would like, kind of mid-century, modern, comfortable chair.

I think you would love to have that chair.

And what Elizabeth is going to do to facilitate this

is she is going to research.

She's going to do all this stuff.

She's going to call Jesse Thorne, go out to estate sales, go to flea markets.

She's going to be taking pictures of chairs and sending them to you.

And eventually, I'm going to say within six months, no, let's say a year.

You have a year to get this done.

You're going to approve one of those chairs and she's going to pay for half.

And obviously, you're going to be approving of the price as well.

So you have a year to grow up, Zach.

And Elizabeth, you also have a year to grow up.

Oh, no.

Being a grown-up means being able to be generous with your time, with your thoughts.

And so you're going to give it, at the very least, your time and consideration, Elizabeth, to helping Zach find a chair that will suit his needs as much as your sprawling needs.

And then, when Zach approves of it, you're going to pay for half of it.

And that way, you will remain ambiguous best friends forever.

Also, Zach, you need to get a kitchen table or something.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Zach, a chair is in your future.

How do you feel?

With the one-year timeline and Liz paying for half and me getting to approve the aesthetic and the price, that feels reasonable.

What's going to happen when it's month 11 and three quarters?

Snap decision.

So you're just going to lean it on the mantelpiece?

Is that what you mean?

Yes, whatever you get.

Elizabeth, how do you feel?

Good.

I'm glad we got to at least make fun of Zach a little bit, which was a big part of this for me.

And

I think that it was a fair ruling and

I look forward to it.

I look forward to the research.

that I'm going to get to do.

Are you comfortable with the fact that this is going to cost you a couple hundred bucks?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's worth it.

Because

I care about our friendship, at least a couple hundred bucks worth.

And for me, it's worth a couple hundred bucks to make Liz do chair research for 11 and a half months.

Right.

And to get me to shut up finally about this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm glad that the true crux of this has revealed itself, which is that you're both happy as long as you have spite towards the other.

Yeah.

Well, Zach, Elizabeth, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

It was a pleasure to have you here.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Before we get to our swift justice, we want to thank Graham Stanton and Felipe Sobrero for naming this week's episode Seating Arrangements.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, just

go to Facebook and then type in Judge John Hodgman, then click like.

That's how you do that.

We put out our calls for submissions there.

You can also follow us on Twitter.

I am at Jesse Thorne, J-E-S-E-T-H-O-R-N.

John is at Hodgman.

And you can hashtag your tweets about Judge John Hodgman.

Hashtag J J H

O.

I always love hearing what people have to say.

You can also chat about it on the Maximum Fun subreddit, which is at maximumfun.reddit.com.

This week's episode recorded at Shea Hodge and Maximum Fun World Headquarters overlooking MacArthur Park.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks, Jen.

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

Noah of the Bat Brothers.

Oh, hi, Noah.

What is the limit of acceptable personal items at an office?

Also, the type of personal items.

I have a few transformers on my desk.

I want to be clear.

I don't have any transformers on my desk.

Noah from the Bat Brothers has transformers on his desk.

I have baseball cards on my desk.

Sure.

I don't like how Noah is being a little coy about the number of of Transformers.

I think specificity should be the soul of that narrative.

I'm also interested in whether these are childhood transformers for Noah or whether these are contemporary Michael Bay transformers.

Look, I'm going to tell you straight up.

I don't like transformers.

Didn't like them in childhood.

I don't care about Michael Bay ones either.

I think I don't find anything interesting about a truck that can turn into a robot.

But...

I was sitting here going like, what would be a scenario in which having a few, a tasteful number of transformers on your desk would undermine your professionalism?

And you know what?

I can't think of one.

I was like, well, banker, no, that'd be fun.

Have transformers there.

Social worker, everyone would be happy with that.

That kids would love to see those transformers.

Priest, that would be the coolest priest of all time.

Forget it.

Look to God.

The desk is your terrain, which you may decorate as you see fit.

As long as it does not interrupt your workflow, you shall put as many transformers as you wish.

I myself enjoy on my desk a molded plastic figurine made by a German company that is a silverback gorilla holding a samurai sword.

He's got one cyborg robotic arm, one cyborg robotic leg, and his other non-cyborg leg, his foot is wearing a sporty tennis shoe.

It's fantastic.

My only caveat is that you are sending a message to the world from what you put on your desk.

It is your terrain to decorate at will, as I say, but if you have, let's say, more than 60 transformers, people might stop giving you high responsibility jobs.

Well, that's good news for Noah and good news for the Buster Posey autographed baseball that sits immediately behind my chair.

This is sent in by a listener, by the way.

A listener who works for a ball club sent me that.

You know what I would say, Jesse Thorne?

What's that?

If you felt comfortable taking a picture of your desk or work area and posting it on our Instagram account, I'll clean up my own desk and take a picture of it, and then people can see how we decorate our desks.

Yeah, I'm on board for that.

Because I admire your beautiful less is more aesthetic when it comes to your workspace.

And I would like to emulate it.

That's it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org JJ Ho or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

We'll see you in San Francisco in January, and of course, across the world, and all the ships at sea on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Do we really reach all the ships at sea?

Yes, it's compulsory.

Whoa,

that's amazing.

Compulsor C.

Goodbye.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and Culture.

Artist-owned.

Listener supported.