Sisterhood of the Gaveling Pants

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Sisterhood of the Gaveling Pants.

Zoe brings the case against her sister, Mara.

Zoe has accused Mara of stealing her clothes, and she'd like them back.

Mara thinks Zoe should be more willing to share.

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.

Values are like fingerprints.

Nobody's are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Zoe Mara, 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?

Yes, I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he himself owns no pants, preferring instead the Samoan sarong known as lava lava?

Yes, yes.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman, nice lava lava today, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It's green.

Great lava.

One of the classic lava lava colors.

Yeah, it's Kelly green.

It's a little preppy, I realize.

But it's what we wear in New England.

I understand.

I think the embroidered whales are a bit much.

At least I'm not wearing Nantekuk red lava lava, which is truly over the top.

Zoe and Mara, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favors.

Can either of you guess the origin of the quote?

The cultural reference this week is a quote, and I sure quoted it.

Who said those words?

I'll say them again because it was short.

Values are like fingerprints.

Nobodies are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do.

Let's see.

Zoe, you have brought this case against your sister, Mara, so you're going to have to guess first on this one.

Hmm.

I want to say,

I feel like it's some president, maybe.

Maybe JFK.

No?

JFK?

Well, I heard JFK, three famous initials.

I'm going to put them in the guess book.

Now,

Mara, you have to guess something else.

Or the same thing, I guess.

guess.

I don't know.

I guess just for a difference, I'll say.

I don't.

You want to hear it again?

I'll say JFK2.

I really don't know.

It's always a smart one.

JFK II.

Jonathan Kennedy Jr.

is actually how we refer to him, not JFK2.

Okay, Jr.

I shall put it in and let me tabulate here and put it through the guest computer.

Beep, boop, bop.

Oh, all guesses are wrong.

The answer is Elvis Presley.

Oh.

You know what Elvis Presley said some things?

And why did I go to Elvis Presley?

Because this case involves stealing clothes and a dog named JFK Jr.

No.

Elvis.

Am I wrong on that?

No, that's correct.

You're right.

All right.

Who is speaking now?

Who just said

they both did their judgment?

Yeah, I I know.

We both answered, but yes, you are correct.

This is Zoe.

So, Zoe, you bring the case against Mara.

She is stealing your clothes.

What's happening?

Yeah, so basically, since I left

the homestead or the home to go to college, she has been taking

whenever I leave, she has been taking a piece of my clothing.

Is it a homestead?

No.

It's a house.

Is she stealing the bonnets that you would wear when you would play with your corn husk doll on on the prairie?

Basically.

Zoe, where'd you leave?

Where is home?

Home is in San Francisco, California.

Yeah.

San Francisco in California.

Oh, boy.

And you left the farm to go to the big city,

which is where?

I went to Emory in Atlanta for college.

And now you are.

Now I live in New York and attend grad school at Columbia in public health.

In public health?

All right.

Yes.

And what has Mara been doing since you left?

She goes and raids your closet.

She takes the clothes you left behind.

What's happening?

So what she's been doing recently is that she goes into my almost fully packed suitcase when I'm about to leave and takes a piece of clothing or a couple, whatever she wants, and then keeps them basically

either when she was living at home in San Francisco, when she was in high school.

And I was, I'm two and a half years older than her.

So that was for about two years before she left for college.

And then now whenever I leave, she takes those clothes, that clothing back down to LA with her when she goes back to college.

Mara, you're a mischievous sprite.

What are you doing?

Stealing one piece of clothing from her luggage before she goes back to graduate school.

It sounds like you're trying to not borrowing clothing so much as gathering a personal item to cast a spell.

Well, okay, so she leaves her bag open on the ground, just kind of like with her clothes sprewn everywhere.

And for like that week that she's home, I just like kind of like check out what she brought back.

And then if it's on the screen.

You're saying, because it's on the ground.

You're saying that the way those clothes were dressed, they were asking for it?

Kind of.

I mean, she doesn't seem to care if it's on the ground, I don't think.

Specifically, if they're sprung?

Yes, exactly.

If they're not in a pile, like neatly folded on the ground, I don't think that she necessarily has like much.

I mean, she obviously likes them, but I don't think she

is like super, like, she values them so much that she wouldn't mind if I borrowed them.

If she valued them, she wouldn't sprune them.

Exactly.

And then also, I think sometimes what happens is like I borrow something and it ends up looking really good.

I'm like, oh, this is a really cute outfit.

And I'm like, oh, I can imagine wearing this with other things.

So then I'm like, oh, I should take this down to LA with me so I can actually wear it to school.

What kind of items?

Give me a representative item of something that you've accused, Zoe, that you've accused Mara of taking from you that she perhaps still has.

Well, I actually just saw her this past weekend, and she gave me back a sweater she had had since January that was a blue, like sky blue sweater that she had taken from my suitcase that I had recently just bought with my own money.

So that was a particular

yeah, but Sally, it was on the ground.

Exactly.

Yeah, but on the ground, she means that my suitcase is open, zipped open, and then they're sitting in my suitcase on the ground.

If I'm only home for about a week or so, then there's no point in me sort of putting all of my clothing in my dresser, you know?

That's what she means by on the ground.

If you don't have the self-dignity to invest in a luggage rack to get that thing off the ground, then you don't deserve to have any clothes.

Thus spake Mara, apparently.

Mara,

why'd you take this blue sweater?

What is it, blue sweater?

Yeah, it's a sky blue sweater.

It was really cute.

And I thought, I was like, oh, I don't have a sweater like this.

I don't, I'm never seeing seeing my sister wear it.

So, like, maybe she doesn't even really like it.

And she leaves her bag open.

And she, I mean, sometimes she has clothes that are like in her bag or off her bag.

And it's just like, if it's really cute, I figure, like, it's not like I'm never going to give it back to her.

It's just kind of like I'm borrowing it for a few weeks.

And, you know, I gave it back to her this weekend.

Eventually.

Yeah.

Did you tell her you were borrowing it?

No.

No, I told her once I had it.

I have your sweater.

I see.

So once you had the sweater in your power in a different part of the state,

once you crossed county lines, there was nothing she could do.

Exactly.

How long has this been going on, Mara?

How old are you now?

I'm 20 years old.

All right.

So you're in college?

Yeah, I'm in college at USC.

Oh, okay.

But this goes back, it sounds like to high school, right?

I mean, this is high school stuff, right?

Yeah, and I mean, okay, in all honesty, my parents, like, always, like, we always shared hand-me-downs.

Like, my sister would hand me down clothes when I was a kid, and then I would hand me down clothes to my cousin, Naomi.

And so it was just, like, we always had, like, a sharing mentality of clothing where, like, you know, one person doesn't want anything anymore.

I can have it.

Stuff like that.

And the same thing was my mom.

Like, my mom will get rid of clothes and I might like them and then I'll keep them and stuff like that.

Yeah, well, but you understand you said the words get rid of.

When you say your mom gets rid of clothes, does that mean she hangs them up in her closet to wear later?

No, it means indicate an intent to get rid rid of.

Does your mom also sprune her clothes?

No, she doesn't.

Thus, indicating that they're available for secret theft.

No, she hangs her clothes up.

She actually has a closet for her clothes.

But like, well, okay, so an example, I was home last week, two weeks ago for spring break, and I went into like our armoire, which had like my mom's, like our downstairs armoire, which has all our jackets inside.

And I saw a jean jacket like that I hadn't seen my mom wear in years.

And I was like, oh, does she still want this?

And I asked her, and she gave it to me.

But you asked her in that case.

Yeah, well, because I figure it's her money that she bought it.

So I don't want to take something that she bought for herself.

But

so let me just make sure I understand.

Zoe's clothes are fair game because they're sprewn on the ground and or they were purchased without her own money.

And or she is the lone person in this family who has a sense of property rights and therefore, as the outsider, deserves to be punished.

I guess, yes.

Okay, good.

Blue sweater.

Once you had it in your power, then what happened?

Zoe, this is the incident that sparked this case.

Is that not so?

This is the incident.

So when Mara had the sweater in her, as her hostage.

Yes.

And you wanted it back, what happened?

So she...

She left

to go back to school during winter break a week earlier than me, and I hadn't realized that that she took the blue sweater.

So I texted her once I realized and was packing up my belongings to go back to New York that the sweater was missing.

So I assumed that it was Mara.

So I texted her.

She had the motive.

She had the opportunity.

Yes.

So I called her and said,

Where's my blue sweater?

Did you take it?

And she said, Yes, but the only way you're going to get it back is if you take 40 different photos of our dog Elvis for her to post on the Instagram that she has for our dog.

And now we come to the question of values.

The great sage Elvis said you express your values in everything you touch, including lifting a blue sweater, which I shall refer to as Bluey from now on,

and treating it as a hostage, and extorting from your older sister, Mara, the promise of taking 40 individual pictures of Elvis the dog.

A lot needs to be clarified here.

First, though, I'm going to go look at the evidence you submitted to me specifically of Elvis.

I'm going to tell you right now, you guys, Zoe and Mara.

Yes.

If Elvis isn't a cute dog,

not only am I throwing you both out of my courtroom,

I'm canceling this podcast.

Jesse, that's what we call a tease.

No, that's not a tease, is it?

That's a cliffhanger.

Yeah, let's go to commercial real quick.

When we come back,

will this dog be cute?

Or will your favorite podcast after My Brother, My Brother, and Me and the Flop House be canceled forever?

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

All right, you guys.

You know that I am not a dog owner.

I previously owned cats and rodents.

That doesn't mean I don't know what a cute dog looks like.

And Elvis

is cute.

He's a cute dog.

It's good.

It's a cute dog.

Yeah, these are screen captures from Zoe's phone, who is taking pictures of Elvis, multiple, multiple pictures, and sending them to you, Mara, in desperation, hoping that this will secure the safety of Bluey.

And

why do you want all these pictures of Elvis, Mara?

I mean, he's a cute dog, but 40 is a large number.

Well, okay, so I go to school in LA.

I used to live at home with Elvis.

He's 15 and a half, so he's getting really old.

He's pretty old for what kind of dog he is.

What kind of dog is he?

Cute.

I know that.

He's a puppy.

Yes.

He's a puppy in my heart.

He's a Belgian Teverin.

So he's like a medium-sized dog.

Like, Belgian sheepdogs are supposed to live to like 14, 15.

So he's doing really well.

I thought you meant he's about to go.

No, no, no, he's doing really, really well.

He's happy.

And

he's got a little gray in his muzzle, and he's got a little lion-like ruff around his cute face.

Exactly.

He's aged well.

But

I think when I was just gone, like, I wanted to keep the Instagram going because I just.

Wait, wait, what's the Instagram?

It's Elvis the Classy Dude.

Okay.

So you have an

it's not that you wanted to just enjoy pictures of Elvis.

You have an Instagram going for Elvis.

Yes, and I want to keep it alive slash.

We had just started over winter break.

He got like 86 followers within like a few weeks.

I was hoping I could get it more.

Like that felt like amazing to me.

So I wanted to keep on posting regularly.

But I'm at home to take photos of him all the time.

And my mom works most of the day.

So it's hard for her to take photos of him.

So I was like, Zoe can make me like, get me 40 photos, which I can store as a bank of photos.

I can just...

So you were just trying to bank cute photos of Elvis for you to roll out on this Instagram feed that you attribute to Elvis, but is in fact, you have started this Instagram.

It's not that Elvis has 86 followers.

No.

You have 86.

He's not using his paws to post those photos.

He doesn't even know what an Instagram is.

He doesn't know that he's got a soul to steal from with a camera.

Yeah, I got those prepositions wrong, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

You want to be popular on Instagram, and you will use Elvis and your sister's sweater to get what you need followers.

But for

Elvis the classy dude?

Yeah.

In what ways would you say Elvis benefits from having more Instagram followers?

Thank you, Jessica.

Well,

I think one thing is that me and my family, we've always like personified our dog, as in like we imagine him being like the James Bond of dogs and so

me and my dad just have this ideal where Elvis is like a famous classy dog who has a bunch of followers who look up to him and I think this Instagram you and your dad yeah we bond on this we'll like we talk about Elvis a lot and so stand by I want to look up this Instagram

you're getting a big plug on my podcast this is probably why this is you're this long con you've been stealing clothes for years to get onto this podcast and now it's happening so enjoy it Elvis?

The classy dude.

But like, what is

Elvis underscore classy?

Classy.

Thank you.

Elvis.

The.

Well, it's Elvis underscore the

underscore classy underscore dude.

Oh, my God.

Was

Elvis underscore underscore the underscore underscore classy underscore underscore dude taken?

I think I'm just used to using underscores from high school to name things.

All right.

It's like naming documents on your computer.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, this better be a good Instagram account to justify three underscores.

I know.

Let's take a look here.

Uh-huh.

Oh, look at this.

Here's Elvis playing.

He's very classy.

Here's Elvis

smoking a cigarette in a long cigarette holder.

Here's Elvis playing Baccarat in Monte Carlo.

Here's Elvis in an Aston Martin.

He truly is the James Bond

of dogs.

And also, but Elvis looks like

maybe he has vision impairment in one eye.

A little cloudy.

He has cataracts.

He has cataracts.

Oh, makes him look tough.

He's pretty deaf now, too.

But he's still lovable.

Yeah, and on the plus side, got him his weed card.

Okay, so he's got 71.

You have 71 followers on behalf of Elvis a classy dude.

And that's a down tick?

You were sensing a down tick, so you got desperate, so you held a a sweater hostage.

Is that accurate?

Well, so I had gotten 86 followers over winter break.

I have my own Instagram, and I know that, like, you lose followers when you don't post things and stuff.

And especially, like, with dogs, because people only follow dogs when they're posting regularly, because who else is gonna follow a dog anyway anymore for any other reason?

Right.

So, I wanted to keep his followers.

I wanted to keep on building him, because

through this, we found like a bunch of other Taverans, which is not a very common breed.

And so, I just wanted to keep, like, you know, everyone seeing photos of him.

And I think the bank was just like kind of an idea, like whenever I'm not at home, I have photos to post and I don't have to worry about, you know, texting my mom for a photo because she hardly has time.

Yeah, I understand your thinking.

You got desperate, you took a sweater hostage, and you came up with a arbitrary number of 40.

Yeah.

And you said they can't be sequences.

I'm looking now at your text exchange.

Your demands increase.

Here's your sister taking pictures of Elvis while her plane is warming up on the tarmac to bring her back to graduate school.

She's going to take 40 pictures of the dog, and you're like, oh, by the way, don't make them one after the other.

Get them in poses.

I want them in poses.

She wants non-sequential bills here

and a plane to Cuba.

And meanwhile,

here's the text exchange.

Mara, they can't be sequences.

Zoe, this isn't a sequence.

Mara, I know.

I'm just saying for the next 38.

Zoe, look at what I just posted about Kamala Harris.

Begging for you, Mara, to recognize that she is a well-rounded human being who's more than just your dog picture-taking, sweater-providing machine.

Go like it, she says thirstily, please, with seven Zs.

This is a dysfunctional relationship.

Joey, has Mara always manipulated you in this way, little sister to big sister?

Has she always been a puckish, mischievous poke-a-stick-at-you sprite?

She always has been.

Yes,

i will allow it when we'd be fighting she would often blame me for starting the fight when it would often be her um there's also i will have silence there's also some previous evidence of her um sort of borrowing things that are not hers when she was in preschool my mom used to find pairs of scissors she would bring home from preschool in her lunch boxes and then my mom would collect them all and then bring them back to the preschool at the end of the sort of season well i can't unseal her juvenile record.

But since it's now in open court, Mara, do you deny that you would steal scissors, both righty and lefty scissors, from preschool and hoard them?

I do not deny that.

My parents used to give me yogurts, and the only way I could open them was with scissors.

And then I

go-gurt, so you have to.

Yeah, those like go-gurt pack things.

Oh, look, I already let you get your Instagram out there.

Now you're

now you're doing some sponsored content for go-gurt.

So I would take the scissors in my lunchbox to cut them, and then I

brought them home.

My mom would just collect them because it was such a hassle to bring them back every time.

Yes, yes, we know.

And she would return them seasonally.

We heard the story.

When you look around the physical world that surrounds you, Mara,

do you believe that everything is yours for the taking?

No, I don't believe that.

Does it ever occur to you to not take something?

Yes.

I don't take anything on my friends or my, like, someone who I

Your sister is not your friend?

No, I

Your words Your words, madam It's a different kind of relationship.

I would never take something of like a friend who isn't a sister or like

I I only take my sisters and my mother's clothing and I don't and I just because like we have a relationship where like we joke and you know I don't think she'd actually ever be mad at me and I figure like it's mom's money so she's buying it for us'cause like

you know, it's like the same thing yeah but then you run into the issue and it's my own money that I'm spending on it don't steal from your sister and don't steal from your mom

just because it's mom's money doesn't mean it's yours and anyway it's not mom's money but Zoe

I'm looking at some evidence that Mara submitted here

these photos were taken this previous week of my sister's room showing how messy she leaves it and depicting how much clothing she has that she just throws around her room and does not seem to have much care for.

And they also show that she does not seem to care about the clothes she does leave behind.

And I have a photo here, and all these will be available, of course, on the Judge John Hodgman page at the maximumfund.org website.

And there's a lot of spruning going on.

Clothes are sprung all over the place.

There are piles.

I mean, I got to say, you've heard how hard the court has been coming down on your sis.

And I noticed that you seem to feel no sibling desire to protect her.

You're just letting me tear into her, not saying, oh, no, that's too much.

She's just a child.

You're like, yeah, go.

Go, Judge John Hodgman.

But, Zoe,

this room is a mess.

Do you deny?

I don't deny it.

All right.

You're not accusing Mara of staging

this dresser with

not only open drawers, but

drawers opened different amounts.

One's closed in the middle, one's open a little bit, another one's open a lot.

And then you got

literally clothes hanging out of the drawers.

You know, this court is cuckoo crazy for condo.

Mari Kondo, the everyday magic of not leaving junk hanging out of your drawers and living in utter chaos all the time.

How did you think I was going to feel when I saw this?

What are you doing?

I would like to enter,

or at least say for the record, that my my mother staged that photo of the drawers out.

And she told me that this past weekend, that

she staged that and pulled out my drawers and then took a picture of it.

I will take credit.

She staged it?

Yes.

Why would she do this?

The property brothers were coming over.

I will take credit for the closet.

I know my closet is a mess.

Credit is not the word you want.

Blank.

Your closet is a mess.

Yes.

But you're saying mom came in.

Yes.

And opened up those drawers.

And her motive was to make you look bad and to make Mara look good?

Yes.

Did mom always like her best?

Is mom and Mara teaming up against you?

Sounds like

mom is staging messes.

And dad wants more Instagram photos.

And Mara's got them wrapped around her finger.

Are you the odd person out in your family?

I think they realize that Mara has a weaker case than I do.

So they were trying to give her a little

boost.

Is that something that they would typically do?

I mean, I think they usually try to keep it fair between us.

I mean, one thing, my mom definitely asked Mara to return my clothing.

a lot.

She tries to mediate, but

you understand that she is

interfering in the due process of fake internet justice.

She is.

Mara, do you dispute that your mom

has dirty fingers in this case?

This is fruit of the poison tree now, all of your evidence.

As far as I know, there is no Elvis the dog.

That's just your mom in a dog suit, for all I know at this point.

No, I mean, she didn't tell me that she was doing this.

It wasn't until it wasn't, I think Zoe talked to her about it.

Because I just told Zoe, I I was like, I have some good evidence against you.

And my sister was like, where did you get the evidence from?

And then I was like, oh, mom sent me pictures of your room.

And she probably talked to my mom about it.

But I just had text to my mom saying, can you take pictures of Zoe's room for me?

And she's like, wait a minute.

You are younger sistering it so hard that you're going to say that it's Zoe's fault that your mom faked evidence on your behalf.

Maybe.

Is it my fault?

Did I do this somehow?

No.

Do you take responsibility for anything, ma'am?

I do.

I literally just texted my mom asking for photos of Zoe's room.

I didn't do anything wrong.

I didn't say make it look messy.

She just intuited that's what you wanted.

I was like, I need it forced.

I just texted her and I think she just knew.

How did you learn that she had made it messy?

You didn't learn it just now.

Zoe told me.

And I still wanted to use the photos.

Do you guys have any other siblings or is it just the two of you?

Just the two of us.

But our brothers are, I mean, our dog is our brother.

Just the two of us, except for our brothers.

Elvis is your brother?

Yes.

Oh.

So if you were to, Mary, I want you to be honest.

Okay.

What's everybody's rep in this family?

Like, how would you, like, you're the sister who blah.

And Zoe is the sister who blah.

And where blah is your own words and not, please don't say blah.

That would not be good podcasting, and we're not vampires here this isn't some dracula show yeah

in fact i hate draculas well jesse they don't give us much choice they want to suck our blood i know i've heard them say it yeah never trust us never trust a dracula it's like the first thing you should teach your children

never trust a dracula or mara's mom that's the second that's the second lesson

i guess i guess also technically zoe's mom though she doesn't act like it all the time

all right mara So you're the sister.

Zoe's the sister who is she the goody-goody?

Is she the brain?

She's the brain.

She's the brain.

Is she the no-fun.

No, she's she has fun, but she's the brain.

She's very smart.

And you?

I'm the stealer in the family.

I just take

it.

You're like that monkey from Dora the Explorer.

Yeah, swipe or no swipe.

You are.

Yeah, you're a swipe.

That's a fox.

Yeah, that's a fox.

Boots is the monkey.

Oh, sorry.

If you were a parent at a certain period of time, there's no way that that trauma did not imprint itself on your brain forever.

No, my brain is full of dino trucks-related trauma.

Yeah, that's you're a different generation of parents than me.

So you're the self-admitted swiper, no swiping.

Got it.

Yeah, well, like, not stealing stuff.

Like, I borrow, like, I'll be wearing my mom's jacket, and my mom will be like, is that my jacket?

And I'll be like, yeah.

And then I will give it back to her.

So I just have like this, they just know me as like the person who borrows their clothes.

And what would you have me order if I were defined in your favor?

Because my mind is very open, actually.

I've just been bullying you for fun.

You're the, she's the brain.

You're the swiper.

I'm the bully.

I guess that anything that she leaves behind from college is just mine to borrow.

I will give it back to her, but like not to get so mad at me when I borrow something

or, you know, just to realize, like, I'm going to give it back to her.

And if she really wants something back, I would give it back.

Like, she just has to tell me, like, in all honesty, I want this back, not be like, jokingly, like, oh, I want this back.

So, if I were to rephrase that, what you would like me to order Zoe is to just shut up about it already.

Yeah.

Come on.

All right.

And also to establish a hierarchy of wanting it back.

Yes.

Like, either she wants it, sort of, or she really wants it back.

Zoe, you would like me to take a harder line with regards to your clothing?

Yes.

I would like her to ask me whenever she borrows something and to have sort of a limit of time that she can have something.

And then I would also like to set up some sort of ceremony where we go through her closet and I take back anything that's mine that she's taken from me.

Basically, those would be my three criteria.

And also, you do some ayahuasca.

And obviously, this has to be done in the nude just to create a baseline of clothing.

Yeah.

And you're going to have to bring in a hand drummer.

In this ceremony, it's called the becloaking.

In this ceremony,

we take the sacred medicine and acknowledge that we are born nude and will die with our clothes having rotted away from us.

So we'll die nude eventually.

And all clothing exists in all planes of existence.

And every piece of clothing is owned by you, me, Jesse,

mom, dad, Elvis,

in all perpetual states.

And then slowly, one by one, you will lay claim to the clothing that is yours in this plane of existence for this moment in time on earth.

Is that the ritual you want?

Exactly.

Because I am ready to order that.

That's the ideal.

Why do you need to have a ritual?

Why don't you just go in and take your stuff back?

You're the big sister.

Why are you letting her walk all over you?

Because I don't want to get,

I don't want to do the same thing back to her that she does to me.

Mara, listen to this nerd.

Right?

Am I right?

Classic older sister.

I don't want to stoop to your level kind of nerd.

I got it.

As soon as I do that, then I'm no better than her.

Exactly.

Are you afraid of confronting your sister?

I'm not afraid.

It just becomes a logistical issue because I'm not going to go down to LA and go to her closet, you know?

So I would agree to, she drives up to go home for summer and winter break.

That she fills her car with all the clothing she has taken from me, and then we have some sort of giving back ceremony at home.

Oh, so this will be a one-time reset?

Yes.

Mara, if I do order in Zoe's favor, is there anything that you are dreading returning, something you really hope to hang on to of Zoe's?

Yes.

There's this like black skirt I have that I've had of hers since my junior year of high school that I don't think she would even wear anymore if she had it.

I think Zoe knows which skirt it is.

She's an Instagram photo of me wearing it.

Anyway, I love that skirt and I wear it a lot.

So I hope that.

Was that evidence submitted to this court?

I think so.

It was.

All right, I'm going to take a look at this black skirt.

It's very simple.

There's several photos here, all captioned by Zoe.

Photo one, that blue and white striped tank top is mine.

Photo two, that skirt is a massive one.

That's the pink dolphin one, right?

Yeah.

We'll let the listeners figure out what that means themselves when they go to the masculinefund.org and the Judge John Hodgman page to see the pink dolphin photo.

That skirt she is wearing is mine.

The shirt she is wearing is mine.

And so which skirt is this the one that you're wearing outside or?

Yes, outside.

I'm sitting.

That's the one you want to keep, best of all.

Profitably.

All right.

And how long have you had that one?

Since junior year of high school.

So that's quite a while.

Yeah.

She hasn't asked for it back.

Zoe, do you want that skirt back?

I would like it back.

I would think about whether I actually would wear it again.

And if I don't wear it again, then I would be willing to give it back to Mara.

But you can't say for sure you haven't had it for at least...

What year are you in in college, Mara?

I'm a sophomore.

So, you know, going on four years, you haven't seen this thing.

Yes.

And you need to have it in your hand to determine whether or not you still want this skirt you haven't worn for four years?

Yeah, because I don't even remember what it fits like or what it looks like on me.

So it'd be nice to try it on again and make sure that I don't

want it again.

Is that the item you want back the most?

No.

Oh, not even that.

What is the item you want back the most?

I actually saw it in her

suitcase this past weekend when I was down visiting um her in LA

and it's a blue and like navy blue skirt with white small flowers on it um that I bought myself that I would really like back.

Why don't you just take it back?

Because I don't want to do the same thing that she does to me.

Even though it's mine, I feel as if that it's similar, similar behavior for me just to take it back from her.

In all fairness, I kind of hid it too in my bag.

As soon as she saw it

and she called me out.

I was like, okay, I'm going to hide this now.

But she still had, it was there.

She saw it.

Yes.

I mean, I appreciate your standing up and doing the right thing and pointing out that once you got caught, you tried to hide the evidence in order to hold it for longer.

But Zoe, you still had, you had that chance to reclaim your props.

I did.

I think I've heard everything that I need to.

I'm going to go into my walk-in armoire, which has a secret door to another world in the back of it.

And I'm going to make some snow angels in Narnia while I think this over.

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

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Mary, you've been extensively bullied by the judge.

How are you feeling right now?

Okay.

I mean, I have a feeling I won't be one in my favor, but I guess there's worse things.

I did this partly for Elvis.

Oh, did you?

Because he's going to be excited and directly benefit from the new Instagram followers.

Or just the fact that

hopefully now Zoe will send me photos anyway.

Did you consult at all on your case with my wife's younger sister, Fran?

No.

You might have learned something from the time that Fran borrowed my wife's running shoes, returned them caked in mud without saying anything, then got mad when my wife was disappointed.

Zoe, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling good.

I feel like I said it all I needed to say

and that the judge fully understood the case.

And I don't think Mayor maliciously takes my clothing.

I think it's more that she doesn't have any expectation of me actually

reprimanding her about it so that she feels more willing to have a little sticky hand in my closet.

Can we work on this ceremony you're planning together?

I've already in my head added a candle lighting element

and

and hand drums

hand drums is all at our house in san francisco zoe

yeah i was thinking a little flute too like uh you know the flutes they have that are like accompany the yeah like a pan flute like a blow across the top pan flute yeah that is a good idea and we're gonna need some ecstatic dance

well 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, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lollum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

You may be seated.

You know,

sometimes the best way to help people understand the wisdom of my rulings is to tell a little story.

And if I've alluded to this story before on the podcast and forgotten, I apologize.

It's a story that's very meaningful to me, and I tell it quite a bit.

One time, we did a live Judge John Hodgman show in San Francisco, where you were from, and it was at Sketchfest, as we do every January.

And after the show,

there was a party.

And there was a party at Adam Savage's workshop.

Adam Savage of the Mythbusters, a friend of the show and a friend of the Earth and the people of Earth.

And we all went over to his nerd cave to hang around all of his

prop replicas that he's been making of Blade Runner pistols and Captain Kirk chairs and full-size Admiral Ack bars and stuff, and have a relaxing

beer.

Guess what?

It was all guys.

What a surprise.

There was one woman there, though, and she had with her a beautiful, fluffy, corgi dog.

And I like a corgi.

And everyone was gathered around this corgi, and the corgi's owner, this woman.

And I said to somebody, who is that woman?

And the other guest of the party says, no one knows.

She's just here with the dog.

Like, what do you mean?

That dog was invited to this party.

It is a celebrity dog of Instagram.

That is Chompers the Corgi.

And I said,

Oh,

I'm a real live human with self-awareness and the ability to speak English.

And I've been on television, and you're saying that this dog is more famous than me?

And the gentleman of the party said, Yes.

And so I went, and sure sure enough, Chompers the Corgi, three times as many followers as me, John Hodgman, star of Pitch Perfect 2

on Instagram.

This Mara is a famous dog on Instagram.

This is what Elvis only dreams of.

And the moral of the story is

instagram.com/slash chompers the corgi.

No underscores.

On to the next crime.

Once, there was an older sister visiting her younger sister who held in her heart grievance because her younger sister, even though they're close in age, the younger sister was the perfect millennial.

She lived in a completely property-fluid universe

where labels such as mine or yours are meaningless, and whose appreciation that other human beings deserve courtesy and respect was thrown out the window in service of taking what she wants, wondering why everyone has such a hard time about it,

and then uses

it all in service of trying to make a dog famous on Instagram.

This is the definition, as far as I can tell, of millennial behavior.

And poor older sister, who's only a couple years older, was cursed with rather tragic and and outmoded,

dare I say, generation X ideals,

a sense of right and wrong and wounded pride that nothing is going their way.

And it's all due to forces beyond their control, the darn boomers.

And yet they are so smug in their sanctimony that they will not stoop to the level of others because they don't want to be emotional bankrupt sellouts as their moms and dads and now this next generation coming up underneath them.

Oh, and did I point out that the millennial in this fable also is so comfortable with sponsored content that they took over a celebrated podcast to buzz market a dog?

And then she went to visit this younger sister.

This is one of the Grimms fairy tales, by the way.

And she saw one of the pieces of clothing that she wanted back that had been taken from her.

And she reached out her hand and she paused and she said, No.

The right thing to do

is to appeal to a similar Generation Xer.

He will understand.

Maybe someone on the grayer side of Generation X, to be sure.

But we'll take this to a podcast and make a whole big joke out of it.

Irony.

You're a 90s baby at heart, older sister.

And I say that you failed yourself and your generation by not taking back what was yours.

What Mara is doing

is unacceptable by any measure of conscience,

etiquette, internet law, and the real laws of men and women in this earth.

She's stealing.

And she is using all kinds of goofy justifications.

Basically, it amounts to, I telepathically sensed you didn't want that piece of clothing.

I knew I wanted it.

And it's all mom's money anyway.

And

nothing matters, and everything is hilarious.

And that's wrong.

But what's going on is that she's acting like a teenager, which she was until about two seconds ago.

Wholly,

emotionally, sociopathically appropriately for a teenage younger sister.

And you need to defend yourself.

You don't don't need me to solve this problem.

You need to take back what's yours, Zoe.

Because

a time will come when Mara puts aside childish things,

including all the clothes that she stole from you.

You know what?

Maybe that time won't come.

Maybe she'll be the perfect millennial.

She'll be a 20-year-old brain forever.

But it might be a time when she matures and realizes I'm not a teenager anymore.

I got to respect other human beings

and not use my sister as a salvation army store for my own amusement.

I'm going to tell you something.

You're going to be sad when those days are gone.

When she's not looking to steal stuff from you,

because it is, in her own sick way, an expression of affection for you.

But for now,

I cannot find in Zoe's favor.

because Mara is leaving this stuff around for Zoe to correct on her own.

This is between the sisters, Kay.

It's a Godfather reference.

I bet Zoe gets it, and I'm sure Mara goes, is that a movie or something?

We actually just watched Godfather 2 on Saturday.

I'm in the cinema school, so I have to watch stuff like that.

You're in cinema school.

Perfect.

The fact is, Zoe, I think that you need to exert some big sisterdom here and express love back to her the way she is expressing love to you by stealing this stuff back.

Do I want there to be a ritual where through a haze of hallucinogens, you redistribute this property?

Of course I want that to happen.

But this court not only has a commitment to being fair,

but it also has a commitment to being occasionally surprising and counterintuitive, just because everything is hilarious.

Sometimes I like being a millennial, too.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Why do we have to decide?

Can it be both?

In this case, yes.

I order Zoe

to not be more open-minded about ownership, which is what Mara wants me to order.

Oh, I order Zoe

to go in there and take back what's yours.

Go visit your sister,

bring a big bag, take it.

Go through all her stuff.

That's the ritual.

I think it would be fun for you guys to hang out a little bit too, but I also authorize you to do all of this in silence.

And then just spend the afternoon there taken back and then going away.

And Zoe, protect yourself against this emotional predator.

Mara,

I find in your favor, but I order you, you know,

listen to my story about underscores and the the one else.

I think if you go through it, you might find some lessons that are applicable to your life.

But in the meantime, I find in favor of Mara.

The clothes stealing must be answered by sibling justice, not this man's court.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Zoe, was that the decision you were expecting?

Um, not exactly, but I'm not opposed to it.

Um, I think that I like the idea of going back and being a little bit more forceful with taking my clothing back.

Um,

yeah.

I'm sad about that there won't be a ceremony, but that's okay.

We can do it in silence.

Are you interested in maybe rounding up a posse to help?

Possibly.

I'm just saying, I'm done taping in about 10 minutes.

I think it would be fun.

Mara, how are you feeling?

Really good.

I'm happy to have to get those clothes back because I can wear them still.

So I'm happy.

And I don't think Zoe will be coming to LA for a while, so I'm not that worried.

By the time Zoe gets back, will you have hidden them?

Probably.

Buried them in a backyard in a trunk.

Exactly.

I know places in my room that she does not know, so I can find those places.

You understand that I'm giving Zoe the right to ransack your room.

Okay, I guess that's, I mean, I'm not happy about that part, but I'm happy that I get to wear them until she's going to ransack my room, which is not going to be for a while.

Your whole room is going to be strewn.

Strewn?

Strewn.

I don't remember what the word was.

Zoe, I've been reading this series of books about a robber named Parker, and every time he goes and ransacks a house, he always sticks a knife into the bag of flour to make sure there aren't any diamonds hidden in there.

So that's just a tip for you.

I'll make sure to go in Mary's room and stab all of her bags of flour.

Yeah, all her paper sacks of flour.

I don't know what the look, I don't know what college kids are into these days.

Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

In a moment, swift justice.

But first, thanks to Mike Frost for naming this week's episode Sisterhood of the Gaveling Pants.

If you want to name a future episode, be sure to like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook.

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

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.O.

We love to read about what you think about the show.

And you can check out the Maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this week's episode.

Our show was recorded by Paul Ruest at Argo Studios in New York City, our producer, the great Jennifer Marmer.

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

Crystal P.

Wants to know from Judge John Hodgman, can a zip-top bag ever be accurately referred to as a sack?

No,

and here's the reason why.

You can't easily pierce it with a knife when searching for diamonds.

A sack?

First of all, a Ziploc bag would be terrible for hiding diamonds in in because it's clear.

A sack has got to be either paper or fabric of some kind, not plastic.

So ruled.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho or email them to hodgman at maximumfund.org.

As you just heard, no case is too small.

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

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