Deep in the Misanthropy Hole

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Who, me?

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in Chambers this week, clearing the docket with me, as always, the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend,

Judge John Hodgman.

I'm glad you said your name because I did not know who you were for a minute.

You may notice that Chambers is a little

stuffy, smelly, and messy.

I am a little ill-bathed and over-bearded and a little confused and blinking in the sunlight because I turned in my book, Vacation Land, and

I don't remember what human contact is.

I mean, we've recorded a podcast since I turned it in.

Thank you very much.

But that was like within 24 hours of turning it in.

I had forgotten just how deep into the misanthropy hole I had gotten.

And as I was looking over the,

and it's not that I am a misanthrope.

I'm a very social person.

I like people.

That's why I do this podcast.

And obviously, I've been doing the podcast while writing the book, but I've not performed meaningfully in weeks and weeks and weeks.

And I'm just hiding out in my house and just being with my family and enjoying that.

I mean, it's practically to the point where I'm my wife.

So little do I want to see another human being.

Except for my wife.

That, by the way, is an inside joke, the audience of which is your wife and children, I guess.

Yeah, who will never listen to this?

We'll never hear it.

But the point is, I was glancing over the docket of cases that we have before us, and many of them have to do with social interactions.

And all of them, my default response was, well, no, just

don't go to that person's house ever again.

Like the etiquette about like what time to invite people, don't invite them.

So I'm going to try to get over it.

I'm also going to to try to clean up this place because it's gross.

The whole floor is, you can probably hear me kicking around.

It's like a double layer of empty diet moxie cans.

So I'm going to get it back together.

I'm ready to be back here with my friend Bill Jesse Thorne.

How are you?

I'm all right.

I can't see out of my right eye

having a weird optical migraine right now.

Oh, no.

Yeah, but I can see perfectly fine out of my left eye.

So,

you know, let's get this thing kicked off.

Well, between the two of us, to paraphrase the great Alan Rudolph movie, Trouble in Mind, starring Chris Christofferson, Jean-Vieve Boujold, and Divine

playing his only male-gendered role,

between the two of us, Jesse,

we're almost a whole person.

Well, let's see what we can do with this podcast.

Here's a letter from Vanessa.

She writes, my fiancé Mike and I invited friends over for a board game night.

Why?

Why did you do that?

Why didn't you just...

Okay, go on.

Board game night.

Got it.

I'm in.

The plan was made to have the get-together on a night that Mike typically works until about 8 or 8:30.

He suggested people arrive at 6.

I was surprised and assumed he was getting off of work early.

This was not the case.

Was it weird for him to invite people to our home two hours before he would even be there?

Yes, yes, of course it was.

Mike.

First of all,

the whole concept of having friends over for a board game night feels so remote to me right now.

But I know it's what nice, normal social people do all the time.

Do you ever have a board game night at your house?

I think we may have documented on this podcast that I am emotionally averse to board games because I get very upset if I lose and I feel very guilty if I win.

And so there is no

possible positive outcome for me in playing a board game.

And the whole time I'm obsessing over either how I can win or how bad I feel about how much I want to win.

For me, the only board game is Scrabble, and forehanded Scrabble is not proper Scrabble.

It is just one-to-one, specifically between me and my wife.

You've been known to live tweet your Scrabble games with your wife.

Yeah, we just got back into that.

But it became too depressing because she was destroying me too heavily.

And the reason that I don't like to play with other people other than my wife is that she and I are are pretty evenly matched.

One time we played a three-handed game with the great David Rees,

a friend of this podcast and the world.

And David

revealed that he had not played for a long time because he and his wife used to play quite a bit, and they had to stop because it was destroying their marriage.

And

it got so competitive.

And And they had made a rule in which it was an acceptable play if you were so frustrated to simply flip the board over and walk away.

Like that was okay.

They're no longer married, unfortunately.

But that game will live on in

my memory, my partial memory, because I don't remember the word that he played, but it was the only time I'd ever seen anyone get a bingo, that is to say, use all seven letters in his rack, thus getting a 50-point bonus just for starters, a bingo that hit two triple word scores.

It was, I think he owned 200 points in that one thing.

So look, I'll talk about Scrabble all day long, just like you'll talk about baseball, but yes, I find tension in board game nights.

And also, Vanessa and Mike must not have children, right?

Because

otherwise, you'd just be playing Apples to Apples Jr.

or whatever.

I was just at the Goodwill and there was four copies of Apples to Apples Jr.

and I thought, should I get Apples to Apples Jr.?

Yeah.

Ow.

Yeah, that's a fun game to play with kids.

I'll buzz market that.

And the illustration on the cover of that thing is done by internet friend John Kovalik, internet cartoonist and dork tower cartoonist.

I met him in Madison, Wisconsin, when I performed there one time.

A really nice guy.

When he told me that he did the Apples to Apples cartoon on the top, I'm like, you're going to be rolling in card game money, royalties.

And he took out a $100 bill and ate it in front of me.

Here's the last part's not true.

So, yes, but the ruling obviously is

if you're inviting people to your home, do not invite them for a time you will not be there.

That is rude to your guests

if you're inviting them solo because they'll be wondering where you are, and especially rude to your fiancé Vanessa, who has to solo host them while you wrap up work.

That's not okay, Mike.

Come on.

Thank you.

This is the sound of a gowl in that.

Here's something from Rob.

My girlfriend Ann and I have been living together for two years.

When I cook eggs, I discard the cracked and empty shells into the garbage receptacle.

Anne places the shells back into the egg carton to be thrown away once all of the eggs have been used.

She also does this with sugar packets, but while annoying, I don't feel that my health or the grace of a benevolent and loving God or whatever is at stake.

Please order that she stop this heinous act.

Now,

hang on a second.

First of all, sugar packets don't come in cartons.

Yeah, that's what I'm not sure I understand that.

What does she do with sugar packets?

Maybe there's a box?

Yeah, she must be taking them out of one of those sort of dispensing boxes and shoving the paper back in.

Yeah, that I will just do a blanket ruling right now.

Get a sugar bowl.

Less paper waste.

A.

B,

you get to buy a sugar bowl.

I mean, come on.

I'm not a guy who ever uses sugar in anything.

But I got a sugar bowl.

It's a chance to express your taste in some way by getting a cool, nice-looking sugar bowl.

Have fun at the flea market.

Have fun on an online marketplace.

Yeah.

Don't be ripping up those little packs of sweet and low or equal or sugar or whatever.

Patronize a local pottery artisan.

Yeah, you know, why not go up to Maine, a state in New England, and look for some Rowan Tree's pottery.

Or go to the San Francisco Bay Area and look for some Heath pottery.

Two can play at that game.

Oh,

this is our board game.

Check mate or stale mate.

In any case, so now that we settled that sugar thing.

Jesse, have you ever seen someone do this?

Crack an egg, put it in the pan or whatever, and then put the empty shells back into the carton?

I've put the empty shell back into the carton temporarily simply because it's a place to keep it while you're cooking the eggs.

And otherwise you would have to put it on the counter and then it might make a mess on the counter.

But I would, there's no question that as soon as those eggs are off the heat, those shells are going into the trash or perhaps into the garbage disposal.

Well, that's a controversial thing.

You know, for a long time I thought you couldn't put eggs shells down the garbage disposal, but it turns out you can.

Someone wrote into Hodgman at maximumfund.org trying to take his spouse to court for putting too much stuff down the garbage disposal.

And I had come from a traumatic experience in my life where my wife once put down three boxes of Cheerios down the garbage disposal, and they swole up to a Cheerio tumor in our pipes.

And we had to have a man come and cut them out.

But then I did some research with the Insincurator Council or whatever.

And there really is very little these days that you can't dispose all, including eggshells.

And in fact, they even say the eggshells kind of sharpen the blades.

Who knows about that?

Don't put anything fibrous down there, like a whole artichoke or whatever.

That's probably a bad idea.

But I will say this.

I have only, it's really interesting that Rob writes to complain about his girlfriend Ann.

about this issue because I've only ever seen this done before, this thing of taking, cracking the eggs and putting the shells back into the carton and refilling that carton with empty, with, you know, with egg corpses, basically, and then throwing the whole thing away at the end of the day.

And it was in Seattle, Washington, and it was at the home of the mother of John Roderick, Marcia Roderick, does this.

And I remember remarking upon it, and I said, why do you do that?

And she kind of shrugged and said, I've just always done it.

And I tried to contact her before this recording.

I have not been able to make contact.

I will make contact and ask her if she has a particular rhyme or reason for doing it.

And in a future podcast, I will give you that rhyme or reason.

But if I were to order against Anne,

I would be ordering against Marcia Roderick.

And Marcia Roderick is one of the most impressive and incredible women I've ever had the pleasure to meet who raised children on her own, including man-monster John Roderick.

I mean the human Sasquatch.

While programming computers at a time where very few women did that, if she's going to do that thing with her eggs, then I'm not going to find against Anne.

No, sorry, Rob.

Also, don't live together without the protections of marriage.

People think I'm very puritanical about that.

I just mean to say,

don't jump into living together because it's a financial partnership.

It'll make it harder to get out of if you guys end up not loving each other forever.

That's all I have to say about that.

Jesse, are you still there?

Sorry, I went on a really long bunch of tangents.

It's always nice to hear about John Roderick's mother.

Oh, she's so wonderful.

As is John.

We'll have more decisions and who knows, perhaps more discussions of our friends' mothers when we come back in just a second.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're clearing the docket this week.

Here's a letter from Mark.

My friend Peter is a super sports fan.

I'm not, but I enjoy watching baseball sometimes.

I liked the Oakland Athletics for the eight years I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I could easily take Bart to the game, and tickets were much cheaper than going to a San Francisco Giants game.

Plus, I liked the green and yellow colors and the elephant logo.

After moving to Los Angeles three years ago, I bought an L.A.

Dodgers hat, mostly because I like the city of L.A.

Peter was livid.

He thinks one should adopt a sports team and stay committed for all of their life.

I ask that you tell Peter to lay off and accept that it's okay that I have a passive relationship with sports.

Well, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, you are a San Franconian.

Yes.

We're called San Francisco, but yes.

Okay.

You're a Frisker and you live in Los Angeles, but you have maintained your lifelong allegiance to the SF Giants.

Is that not correct?

Yes, as well.

Have I gleaned enough?

As well as my secondary allegiance to the Oakland Athletics.

Is there a rivalry between those two teams or pick one or the other and go no further?

There is a friendly rivalry between the athletics and the San Francisco Giants,

but

you know, there was a time when I was a child that the A's met the Giants in the World Series, the A's being in the American League and the Giants being in the National League in 1989.

And one of the most popular clothing items in the San Francisco Bay Area at that time was a baseball cap that was split down the middle, and it was green and gold on one side, and orange and black on the other side, with the logo of each respective team.

The Bay Area is a they are a people of peace.

Exactly.

It's not like other cities

or other regions with multiple teams, like New York or Chicago, where those teams are bitter rivals.

They're friendly rivals, but it's perfectly reasonable and acceptable in the Bay Area to root for both teams.

Now, I ask you this because I myself have a profoundly passive relationship with sports, such that I wasn't even sure that you, my dear old friend in Bailiff, was still, that you were a Giants fan, even though you've talked about it many, many times on the program.

When I asked you just now, I was like, is he?

I'm not sure, because every time he talks about baseball, I start checking Twitter or something.

That's just me.

So before I ruled on this, I wanted to get a sense.

So you say that it is okay

as a resident of San Francisco, as this person was,

to root for the Oakland A's.

But now that Mark has moved to Los Angeles and he puts on the Dodgers, is there a rivalry between the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants?

There is an intense and heated rivalry between the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants.

The rivalry stretches back

about 100 years at this point to when they were both teams based in New York City.

They moved to San Francisco and Los Angeles together in 1958.

And you basically would be hard pressed to find a more heated rivalry in sports, particularly, I should say, on the San Francisco side.

I mean, San Francisco, of course, always having a chip on its shoulder as the little brother city of the West Coast, and Los Angeles having a reputation well earned in sports for not really caring about anything.

Although a few years ago, a Giants fan attending a Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium was assaulted and nearly killed.

So it is an intense rivalry, about as intense as any other in professional sports in the United States.

I mean, there are certainly other, you know, the Cardinals and the Cubs, but,

you know, it's about as hot as it gets.

So do you think it's possible that Peter, the Super Sports fan, is trying to protect Mark from,

I don't know, the danger of changing sides?

Like, maybe he'll wear that Dodger's hat, but go to a baseball game, and he's afraid that Mark will forget where he is and start rooting for the Giants and get clocked over the head with a baseball bat.

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is, and this is something that we've talked a little bit about on the show: there is a rather intense

set of emotional, unwritten rules about sports fandom.

And I think that ultimately Peter is offended at the idea that Mark could discard his fandom

for a new fandom and particularly a new rival fandom.

Because

part of the

emotional thrill of sports is that by picking a team, you sort of cast your lot.

And so

when the team is bad, you suffer.

And by suffering, when the team is bad, you earn the good times, which is, you know, why everyone hates Yankees fans.

Right.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, switching up, even I, a non-sports person, feel that just switching up for the heck of it.

Or because you like the hat or you like the city that the hat represents,

that feels

a little glib

if you're going to be going to bases ball games.

I mean, I don't know if Mark is even going to bother to do this.

But I don't think, Judge Hodgman, that Mark's friend Peter would have been upset if Mark had moved to Seattle and started going to Mariners games.

I'm going to project onto him, because I know plenty of Bay Area sports fans, that this is about the fact that Mark became a Dodgers fan, not about the fact that Mark started going to and enjoying games in other cities.

I mean, if I,

as a San Franciscan who lives in Los Angeles, if I lived in Houston,

I would be glad to become an Astros fan.

I mean, first and foremost, I would always be a Giants fan.

If the Astros were playing the Giants of the A's, I'd root for the Giants of the A's, but I'd be glad to wear an Astros cap and go out there and root for the Astros.

But because I live in Los Angeles, there is a moral imperative that I not root for the Dodgers.

Well, you know, I think I'm going to defer to the expertise of my bailiff and his obvious passions.

And while I obviously support everyone's right to not care about sports, in this case, I'm going to tell Mark to take that dumb hat off.

No, you can't wear a Dodgers hat just because Bailiff Jesse Thorne might get upset by it.

It's wrong.

If you really want to be passive about sports and not care, get a Hartford Whalers hat, get a Quebec Nordeek's hat.

Get an extinct.

It doesn't have to be extinct hockey.

Get yourself a Montreal Expos hat.

That's my recommendation.

Yeah, get a Montreal Expos hat.

That's what I order.

The sound of a gavel speaks to that.

Hey, guess what the name of the elephant, the mascot of the Oakland Days is, Jesse?

I bet you know.

What the name?

You're talking about Thumper?

Stomper.

Stomper?

Wait, Thumper's the rabbit from

the Disney movie.

Yeah, you know why they named him Stomper?

You know why he's so famous?

Because elephants love stomping?

He's the only non-human to performed in the now decades-old off-Broadway show Stomp.

Judge Hodgman, you know about the San Francisco Giants' legendary mascot, Crazy Crab, right?

Oh.

Mentally ill crab, you mean?

They couldn't do crazy crab today if they wanted to.

And there wasn't anything particularly mentally ill about that crab.

Except what was the deal with him?

They hated him.

So you were supposed to hate him.

Yeah, in the darkest days of the San Francisco Giants franchise, the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the team was genuinely woeful, they brought in Crazy Crab.

You know, mascots were the sort of mascots that we see, like the Philly Fanatics-style mascot, were relatively new.

And they brought in the crazy crab as an experiment in having the mascot be an antagonist rather than a protagonist.

In that he would fight the team?

You were supposed to hate and boo the crazy crab because he hated the giants.

Now, that is something I can get behind.

That kind of

extra narrative would bring me to a

baseball field any day.

Here's something from Dan Tan.

Dan Tan, sorry if I mispronounced your name.

I have a dispute with my husband about the meaning of white lie.

I contend the expression means a lie that is said to be polite, but is predominantly not for the benefit of the liar, like, no, you don't look fat in that dress.

My husband says that a falsehood said for the liar's benefit that still spares someone's feelings is a white lie.

For example, rather than telling someone you find their dinner parties to be boring, you say, I would love to come to dinner that night, but I have a previous engagement.

In my opinion, this is simply a lie.

What say you, Judge?

Oh, I'm sorry, Jesse.

I was just going deep, deep down the Wikipedia page of baseball mascots and getting a little creeped out by the dead doll's eyes of Mr.

Red, the baseball-headed mascot for the Cincinnati Reds.

I apologize.

I apologize, Dan Tan,

because this is actually a subject that is interesting to me.

Because

for as long as I have known my wife, she has quoted to me on the subject of lying from

Adrian Rich,

the poet and essayist.

And

I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have the exact quote, but we lie when we believe that our own truth isn't good enough.

And it's really been a gut check for me every time I've been invited to someone's house for dinner and I don't want to go.

First of all, I want to respect that there is, I think Danton points out a very important distinction between a harmless lie that is used to protect another versus a equally more or less in the scheme of things harmless lie that is used primarily to get yourself out of a dinner invitation or serves you in some way.

That's an important distinction to make.

And I feel that in the pantheon of lying, those things are distinct.

And I think that if you are being invited to a boring dinner that you don't want to attend,

on a gut level, I just feel like you need to let your own truth be enough, which is not to say, I'm sorry I cannot attend because you are boring to me.

You do not need to go out of your way to be hurtful to people.

But nor do you need to deceive.

Every time you deceive, I think you do a little bit of damage to your soul.

So let your own truth be good enough and say, I am sorry, I will be unable to attend.

And then offer no further explanation.

Because you also have

the right to decide how to spend your time.

And

disposing of evenings with dinners that are not for you

shouldn't be an obligation unto you just because someone else had the idea to do it.

This is the misanthrope in me coming out.

And I'm sure everyone who's ever invited me to a thing and I said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to do that,

is really mad now at me.

And I'm sorry.

But you just have to trust that I am disposing of my time the best way I know how, maintaining a balance of attention to my family, to my work, to you.

to my other friends, and to the fact that I'm dying and I won't be here forever and I don't have all the minutes in the world that I wish I had.

Let your own truth guide what you do.

And if you don't want to go to that thing and you don't have a better explanation than I don't feel like going,

then quietly but firmly say, I just won't be able to attend.

I'm sorry.

And if they push you on it, well, then you might have to conversation with them about how they're boring, but you love them anyway.

I don't know.

What do you think, Jesse?

Am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong.

I'd like to get invited to something sometime.

Jesse, would you like to come to dinner at our house next time you're in New York?

I would love to.

What a joy it would be.

I'm sorry, I won't be available to join you, but have fun.

I should show up at six.

You'll be there by nine, right?

Oh, but you know, I do know from the time that you came and stayed with us, you made an incredible macaroni and cheese casserole.

Macaroni and cheese.

Oh, my gosh.

Did I make that at your house?

You did.

And when I came home, you were taking it out of the oven, and you were wearing an apron, and it was the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life.

You were beaming with pride.

My children were salivating with hunger.

Everything smelled great, and that apron, as everything does, looked great on you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's a t-shirt.

Someone illustrate Jesse Thorne standing with an apron on, holding some macaroni and cheese.

Boy, oh boy, I'd needlepoint that and put that on a primer on the wall.

Well, what happened?

Where am I?

I'm thinking about macaroni and cheese.

We're going to take a quick break.

When we come back,

we will finally satisfy the internet and deliver some listener letters about cats.

Hooray!

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne, wearing that apron right now, smelling that macaroni and cheese smell wafting through the offices of Maximum Maximum Fun HQ.

It was some years ago that this happened and I wish to repair that lapse in my hospitality and hope you will come over soon again.

But what's the secret to the Jesse Thorne macaroni and cheese?

Following the recipe.

And whose recipe is it?

Is it a family recipe or one you found somewhere?

Actually, I usually use past Judge John Hodgman guest expert Alton Brown's recipe.

It's great.

Sometimes I'll add a little extra cheese and I usually

very careful to use a sharp cheese.

I mean, it's cheddar, it's macaroni and cheese, for flavor.

But yeah, I pretty much stick to Alton Brown's recipe.

The main thing to do is make sure you temper the eggs so that,

you know, so they don't cook.

Temper your eggs, everybody.

Temper those eggs.

Oh, yeah, and put the shells back in the carton where they belong.

Here's something from Jamil.

I'd like to bring my boyfriend Jake to court regarding our sleeping arrangements.

Eight months ago, when we moved into our first apartment, we went to Ikea.

It's like the whole world isn't listening to me about this.

It's like everyone thinks they have their own lives and their own free will.

All right, so they moved in together.

Eight months ago, I hope everything's going well.

Go ahead.

Now they're sharing things and they're buying things together.

And guess what's happening?

Conflict.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Jesse.

Eight months ago when we moved into our first apartment, we went to IKEA and chose the cheapest queen bed they had.

Now I'm realizing it was a poor investment.

The mattress has a huge slump in it that primarily affected my side of the bed.

Jake doesn't really understand the issue as he is a rock-solid sleeper.

I've been plagued with sleeping issues my whole life and would like to either invest in a quality mattress or switch sides of the bed.

Jake doesn't see mattresses as an investment but remains unwilling to let me sleep on his side of the bed.

I'd like to settle this dispute and find a solution to my sleeping woes.

Yeah, move out, Jimmy.

Move out.

Break up with this creep.

Get out of there.

Get your own house and your own bed.

First of all, which one of you

said, I know what we'll do.

Let's drive to Ikea to get a cheap queen mattress.

Everything about that is wrong.

Now, I still, I enjoy IKEA meatball.

I'm not trying to run them under the bus, but you listen to podcasts.

All podcasts are doing every day is offering to ship you mattresses, right, Jesse?

Yeah.

We have an arrangement.

This is essentially a wing of the mattress industry.

Yeah.

You don't need to go to IKEA to get a mattress anymore.

You don't need to go to a place.

A.

B, those Casper mattresses, they're good mattresses, right, Jesse?

I have and love a Casper mattress.

Look, I'm not trying to turn this into a live read for Casper, but I just find it astonishing that anyone who listens to any podcast, including this one, doesn't already know that you can, whether it is Casper or a competitor, you can get a mattress shipped to you through the mails in some kind of space age capsule, and you open it up like an inflatable raft on an airplane.

It blows up to the proper size or, you know, unfolds unfolds in whatever way.

And you try it out, and then you've got like 30 days,

and then you can send it back.

Like, you don't need to do what you did.

What you did was dumb.

Second,

you do not skimp.

Jake should know, you do not skimp on mattress.

That is entirely an investment.

And you guys are paying the price now for investing unwisely, A,

in the cheapest mattress you could afford, and and B,

look, I don't know the circumstances of your life, but it is settled law in this court that if they can afford it and they have the room to support it, couples should be in a king bed.

Queen is not, I don't care how much you love to cuddle.

You're two human beings

who are spending five to eight hours a day

reconstructing their own bodies through sleep, the most important and solitary

personal health phase of our existence.

And you don't want to skimp on that.

And the fact that you are asserting to Jake your need for a better sleeping arrangement, and he is saying

tough,

suggests that dude's a creep, and you got to get out of there and let him sleep in the sag.

I hope it works out for you guys.

But truly, Jake, if you're listening to this, you're going to share your life in your bed with someone.

You have to listen to what they're saying,

especially in an era when we have so many, many, many sleeping options.

Now I'm tired.

I'm going to go to lie down on my bed of nails.

I'm glad you're out here ordering sag sleeping.

We got some really great cat photos in response to some past episodes.

Yeah.

We're posting them all on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org, and of course, on the Judge John Hodgman page at Facebook.

There's some truly spectacular stuff here.

I love getting your guys' letters, and I appreciate them.

But it's always fun to get a letter from someone who has just heard a podcast, in this case, episode 264, Paul and Order, regarding a guy named Chase who wanted to take his cats out on a leash, but his girlfriend Martha opposed.

And you're like, oh, I got to send you this picture of this cat that I saw.

And I don't remember anything about this episode at all.

Like, it's so far in the past for me.

And all of a sudden, I'm just getting these weird, not out-of-context photos of gigantic cats in strollers, which is what I got, which is almost even better than remembering the context.

So what did they say?

They said,

I took this photo in a small town on the central coast of California.

And

when someone says small town on the central coast of California, I presume it's about a weird thing.

It's got to be Santa Cruz.

I just, you know, people aren't doing weird stuff in San Luis Obispo at the same pace they are in Santa Cruz, the same rate.

You got to keep your money on the safe side, you know, make the safe bet it's Santa Cruz.

This guy takes his cat out on errands around town in a stroller with no leash, probably because there is not a leash that would fit this cat.

It's the biggest cat I've ever seen.

And he's posted a picture of a baby stroller

with the area where you had put a

like a baby car seat, you know, the kind of convertible stroller, is flat.

There's just a pillow there and an enormous orange cat.

Yes, this marmalade beauty, this gigantic bruiser of a cat.

It is a gorgeous cat.

Oh,

this is one of the most exciting photos I've ever seen.

And what amazed me, because when I heard that the cat cat was the largest, it was like, you know, the largest, one of the largest breeds of cats is the Maine Coon cat, named for the state of Maine, a state in New England, Jesse.

Right.

This is not a Maine coon cat, though.

This is just a big old American shorthair, orange tabby markings, just loving life in the scroller.

And I highly recommend you go take a look at this photo.

It is on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org.

I took the liberty of making a little shorthand, a bit.ly,

for future reference.

If you ever want to get directly to the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org, you can go to bit.ly/slash judgejohodgman, all one word, all small letters.

And you can see this photo, which was submitted not by they, but by Marin,

M-A-R-E-N.

And I don't know whether that person uses what pronouns that person uses, but I call that person they just because I forgot that person's name, and now I remembered it.

Marin, thank you.

We also got a note from Kurt, who wrote in response to a docket letter from episode 297 about shaving cats.

Kurt sent a picture of his cat, Bruce.

He says, Bruce highly recommends a shave.

He hates the process, but loves the result.

He looks like a bear cub now.

Yeah, this was another amazing photo to get, having completely forgotten the context of the conversation.

This is just a big old fluffy black cat who has been shaved,

not totally, but such that there's

a gray fuzz

around his midsection and belly.

So he still has his big fluffy hair around his head and his legs, but the rest of his body now looks like

sort of like this gray modeling clay.

A little bit like if you took some sculpe and made a sculpture of a chinchilla.

Yeah.

And it looks like Bruce's tail has been trimmed as well, except there's a big fluffy pom-pom at the end.

Ah!

There should.

I didn't even notice that.

Kurt.

Kurt, look, I appreciate your sending this in.

I appreciate your having a copy of my book in the background, although it's hidden by another book for some reason.

And I also just noticed, this is a very complicated image, because in the lower right, I've just noticed that Kurt, presumably, whoever's taking the photograph, is also holding a sandwich in frame for no reason.

Like an animal trainer.

Yeah.

Like an animal trainer who's trying to train Dagwood Bumstead.

Maybe he's trying to get Bruce to look at the camera with the sandwich and he's going, it's not a hot dog.

It's not a hot dog.

And then there's an unplugged printer in the background.

I mean, this whole world that you and Bruce share is a little bit of a hot mess, Kurt.

But if you guys are happy together, eating your sandwiches in bed and shaving each other, I can't order against you.

Well done.

We also have a letter in response to the dispute, pleading the fifth from the recent Live in London episode.

Will wanted to pass his name on to his future child, who would be the fifth person in the family to have the name.

His wife, Jess, was opposed.

Judge Hodgman ordered that they name their child with Jess's last name as the first name, Hodgman as the middle name, then Will's surname.

Yeah, that's actually a fairly common tradition.

I think it's a bit of a regional thing.

I think it's kind of a southern thing that the first child receives the birth name of the mother as his or her first name.

And then obviously it's a tradition for everyone to give their children the middle name of Hodgman.

Everyone knows that.

But Carter took issue with this idea and ruling.

Shall I read it or shall you, Jesse?

I can can read it.

Yeah.

My name is Carter Carter, although I was born Carter Duarte.

Carter is my mother's last name, Duarte my father's last name.

My father left my mother when I was a young boy, so both my sister and I wound up reverting to my mother's given name for our last names, thus Carter Carter.

I've spent every day of my life since then being called upon to explain my strange name and suffering the rudeness of well-meaning strangers.

I've adjusted to it, but it's a tremendous nuisance and one I would not wish on anyone.

While it's not fun to plan for divorce, in this case, not doing so puts an undue burden on the child to live with the consequences of his parents' poor foresight.

I would respectfully suggest that you modify your ruling to account for the distinct possibility that the child might find itself in the same position I did.

Well, Carter, Carter,

let me just say I'm sorry that you have suffered,

but it is impossible to protect children from the undue burden that is the consequences of their parents' poor foresight.

Every child lives with that.

And in your case, you got a really awesome name.

Carter Carter is awesome.

Yeah, it is really.

Sorry, you don't like it, but that's great.

Yeah, it's cool.

Very cool.

It's like an action hero name.

Yeah, it's an action hero.

And you know what you want to do is William Carlos Williams it.

Just put something, use your middle name.

Then it'll be even cooler.

Yeah, that's true, too.

Carter Carlos Carter.

Maybe not that one.

Carter Hodgman Carter.

That's probably your real middle name.

Yeah.

Ford Maddox Ford.

Great name.

Are there any others?

No, those are the two that I can think of.

You know, it put me in mind of my aunt Gail,

who

was.

Gail Gail?

Well, she was born Gail Chase, my grandfather's name, but my grandfather was a somewhat problematic figure in the life of my mother and her sisters.

And so,

and my Aunt Gail was herself quite the militant

1970s-style lesbian feminist in a very awesome way.

And so she decided she was going to change her last name, but she realized that if she changed her last name even to

my grandmother's maiden name, she was still perpetuating the patriarchy.

And so my grandmother's name was Rita, and my aunt Gail is to this day known as Gail de Rita, which I think is a very beautiful name and was a great choice to honor my grandmother, who was a really amazing woman.

I love it.

Yeah, exactly.

Carter Carlos Carter.

And Carter Carlos Carter is good.

Yeah, you know, we all bear the scars and our names and psyches of our parents' poor foresight.

We can't be protected from everything.

We just have to make the best of what is given to us, in which case, sometimes you're given a double helping of Carter.

Yeah, I think you'll be fine.

Yeah, unless your middle name is like Jigglypoof or something,

or really any Pokémon,

you're going to want a Digimon middle name

so it's classier.

I knew I should have named my children Syduck and Charizard.

I think we cleared the docket, Bailiff Jesse.

My kid's middle name is Pog.

Ha!

Well, Bailiff Jesse, thank you for bringing me out of my shell and back out into the world

to clear this docket, but I think we have dispensed all the justice there is.

Well, congratulations, Judge Hodgman.

If you've got a case for Judge Sean Hodgman, submit it to us at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or by emailing hodgman at maximumfund.org.

And hey, it's funny that our London case came up.

Please mention if you happen to live in London, England.

Why?

Well,

wink, wink, wink.

Maybe announced by the time this comes out.

I honestly don't know.

But in the meantime, wink, wink, wink.

If you live in London and you have a dispute with someone else who lives in London, please make a point of letting us know.

Wink, wink, wink.

Wink, wink, wink, wink.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ H O and check out the Maximum Fun subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com for discussion of this episode.

Always some fun and actually really pleasant and polite

cartoon frog-free discussion of the episodes there at the Max Fun Reddit.

Special safe corner of Reddit, maximumfund.reddit.com.

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