Married to the Ghost of George Washington

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

How are you, Judge Hodgman?

I'm very happy because if my predictions are correct, this episode will go out on a very special day, February 22nd, George Washington's birthday, and my wife's.

Happy birthday, George Washington.

Oh, happy birthday, George Washington.

That's so sweet of you.

Did you know I was married to George Washington?

I had no idea.

Yeah.

The Washington estate

is very upset with me

having married the corpse of George Washington.

They say it's not legal.

Right.

But I say love cannot be stopped.

Love is love is love.

It's weird because I'm actually married to the ghost of George Washington.

That's why we're such great friends.

We can totally relate to each other.

You're a little stinkier than I am.

Well,

I will agree that my relationship with George Washington is more sensual.

Yours is more intellectual.

Let's get off this train and get on the docket clearing train.

I think we just created a truly special

animated sitcom for a cable network.

That's what I'm going to say.

Guaranteed seven episodes.

Here's a case that needs clearing from Dawn.

She writes, my husband, Mark and I have been blissfully married for 25 years, but we have a nagging bone of contention.

When making the bed, I contend that the top sheet should be placed with the pattern side down.

That way, when the covers are turned back, you see the lovely pattern.

Mark insists that the printed side should face up.

He even points out that the tag is hidden if it's placed the way he wants it.

I'm fed up with Mark's muttering and shaking his head every time we change the sheets.

Judge, help him see the the light.

First of all,

at the risk of sounding sheet racist,

all sheets should be white, period.

That is the way I feel about the world.

Or at least solid color.

No, I take it back.

All should be bleach-blindingly white.

In my life, all sheets are white.

But I appreciate that other people have different tastes, and I have seen some very tasteful, patterned, and colored sheets in my time.

And normally speaking, I would say that the person who makes the bed gets to make these sorts of decisions as to whether or not the fuller pattern side should go down or up.

But in this case, I'm not even going to say that.

I think Dawn's right.

I think you want to, if you're going to put some colors into your bed sheets, you want to show your colors.

You want to fly your flag, your pattern flag.

And yeah, so you want to put the pattern pattern side of the flat sheet down

so that when you fold it back, you can see it in all its glory.

And as far as Mark's thing about the tag, the tag should be at the bottom, dude.

Tag goes down the bottom.

Yeah, does Mark think that sheets aren't covered by a blanket?

Maybe not.

The folded down part should be the only part of the sheets that you see.

That's the part that's not covered by the blanket.

Yeah.

The rest of the sheets you only see, you don't see with your head eyes, you see with your with your skin eyes.

You just feel it.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you know what's the greatest?

What's that?

Clean sheets.

Oh, yeah, they are great, especially nice sheets.

I got some sheets that were recommended by

Buzz Marketing Alert, the sweet home.

My favorite website.

Go ahead, BuzzMarket them.

Yeah, I should have been listening to them all along.

None of those numbers on sheets are believable.

You can't even really feel sheets in the store because they're treated with a lot of facing chemicals and so forth.

So really all you have to go on is past experience and a guess unless you read those reviews on the sweet home.

And boy, do they steer you right.

Yeah, you know, the sweet home,

I got to say this, though, since you brought it up, and there hasn't, how far into this are we?

Nine minutes?

Yeah.

We haven't made a single New England reference.

So let me point out.

that the highest recommended sheets on the sweet home, it may be revised.

I'm not going to look at it right now, but it may be revised since the last time I look at it,

Are produced by a company in Maine called LL Bean.

And there was a little bit of a ruckus

because our president, Donald Trump, threw some praise slash shade at LL Bean on Twitter recently, causing everyone to say, everyone boycott LL Bean.

I want to clarify.

I talked to my man, Alex Steed, up at the Portland Press Herald.

a journalist up there, good dude, good blogger.

And he pointed out, no, no, no, no, no.

Linda Bean, who is like the granddaughter of the original Lyle Leverett

or whatever,

I believe.

Lois Lane Bean or whatever.

Ladies Love Bean.

Ladies Love Bean, yeah.

Exactly.

She is really into Trump, and she runs a lobster roll stand on the premises, but is only a member of the board.

And the company itself has no political affiliation.

And though she gave a whole bunch of money to Trump, that doesn't mean that you have to boycott L.L.

Bean.

That said, you can get sheets.

Whatever the sweet home recommends, go ahead and do it.

Even if they recommend that you buy from a war criminal.

No, don't do that.

I did buy, I have to admit, a Slobodan Milosevic blender.

Yeah, that's true.

It was weird that Nikolai Ceachescu, before he died,

is selling sham wows, but they were good.

And you know what?

If you need a set of cookware, you could do a lot worse than pole pots.

Quick note to our listeners, all of these people are historical monsters, super terrible people who caused real pain in the world.

Read their history and be wary against tyranny every day.

For real.

Let's move on.

Here's something from Gordon.

During the 2008 Summer Olympics, the U.S.

women's gymnastic team took the all-around gold medal.

I posted my congratulations on Facebook.

A friend then told me that I had spoiled the gymnastics final for her because she'd planned to watch the delayed telecast that night.

Can you spoil an athletic event in that manner?

Well, now I'm really annoyed because I hadn't gotten around to watching the 2008 Summer Olympics yet.

I have it taped and I was going to watch the gymnastics event tonight and now it was spoiled for me by my own podcast.

I would say this.

First of all, stop posting things on Facebook.

Second of all, stop reading Facebook.

Except unless you're reading the Judge Shen Hodgman group on Facebook.

That's the only good Facebook.

Sorry, Facebook.

The Flophouse group is pretty good.

The Flophouse...

All right.

You can use Facebook.

But here's what I'm going to say.

Though I have no interest in sport,

I do think I have become attuned to the sensitivity of people who aren't able to watch sporting events live.

And normally I would say, if you can't get around to watching a thing, then don't look at media that might spoil it for you because people, sports is one of the last things, the last bit of culture that people watch in real time, in a televised manner.

And that's the risk you take.

You go out there into the world after a sports game has happened.

The one exclusion I make, though, is the Olympics.

Because all the time shifting that happens, because it's often in another part of the world, and you can't watch it at that time, and you are trying to preserve it, or you're going to wait till the TV airs it later that day.

So while I do think that Gordon's friend should have been more careful and expecting to be spoiled, Gordon was not particularly sensitive

to this reality when he posted this thing on Facebook.

And so I find in favor of his friend, and I find against Gordon.

Bad Gordon.

Can we find have one more finding?

Yeah, of course.

Against the yay who's who buy the television rights to the the Olympics and then don't broadcast them live as all sporting events should be broadcast.

You know what, Jesse?

You are absolutely right, and I appreciate your bringing that up.

I, as a non-sports receptor person, wouldn't have thought to address that criminal behavior, but I think you're absolutely right.

Sports should be broadcast live.

Well said.

Not like a weird...

I can't even like they skip so much stuff that it becomes incoherent.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I sincerely have a really hard time watching the Olympics on television despite really liking sports.

In fact, I would say perhaps because I really like sports.

No, I would say, you know, and I would agree with you because one of the problems with the limps is that

it's a corrupt organization.

Fine.

We'll put that aside.

But, you know,

for American audiences, this has become entirely about narrative.

And so it has become a constructed reality show rather than what it was when I was growing up, which was this incredibly boring slash soothing background noise that was on 100% of the time,

day in, day out, night in, night out, of just weird sports unfolding in real time.

And I really missed that.

I really missed that real-time women's pentathlon.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So, boo to people who buy the rights to Olympics and don't air them.

them.

You caused not only Jesse sadness, but also Gordon got into a fight with his friend as a result.

So,

I find against them as well.

Here's something from Susan.

My husband and I are both academics.

I'm a PhD candidate, and my husband works for a research institute.

He's also planning to start a PhD soon.

I believe we should do everything we can to go paperless.

For my own work, I use an iPad, a stylus, and an electronic filing cabinet system to stay organized.

My husband says that reading on an iPad isn't the same as on paper.

He prints out all the articles that he wants to read.

Once he paid over $100 to have the articles of an online journal bound into books because he liked the aesthetics better.

Similarly, he'll purchase expensive academic books when there are free electronic copies available from the library.

I understand the nostalgic appeal of paper, but for a project as big as a PhD, he'll generate a lot of waste printing articles.

He also risks losing track of paper articles over the course of four years.

I ask the judge to order my husband to modernize his workflow, stop wasting paper, and use an electronic system for his research instead.

Uh, no, I won't so order.

Next.

Oh, do you want to hear why?

Yeah, sure, why not?

Because information processing

That is the taking in of language and ideas and the expressing of language and ideas is highly personal.

And brains are very different.

And they take in information in different ways.

And

while I appreciate your throwing some shade on your husband by saying, my husband says reading an iPad, quote, isn't the same as on paper.

It's not the same as on paper.

Obviously, it's not the same as on paper.

That's the whole point of an iPad.

Now, look, I use all different kinds of media to get ideas into my head, and a lot of it is screens.

I love reading books on my phone in a way that I never thought that I ever would, because now I can wake up in the, my favorite thing is to wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning when I wake up every night for no reason, and instead of staring off into space, because I can't turn on my light, because I'm married and I don't want to wake up my wife.

I can open up my e-book reader on my phone, which I have set to white on black, very dim, and just go through 30 to ⁇ you know, I could probably go through a whole Parker novel as the amoral bank robber that's the star of 39,000 novels by Richard Stark, an incredible crime series.

Love it.

But when I am trying to write a book, as in fact I am trying to do,

staring at a screen becomes incredibly fatiguing.

If I am researching, I would prefer to have printed out pieces of paper.

And sometimes I write on a tippy-tappy, and sometimes I won't get there unless I'm writing in pen by hand,

and sometimes I won't get there unless I'm walking around

and then stopping to write in a notebook, and sometimes I won't get the idea unless I'm taking a shower, which happens a lot.

And then I have the most brilliant idea in the shower,

and then I take out my iPad and I electrocute myself, or I don't do that and I forget the idea.

The point is, it's personal.

And your husband has to follow whatever path it is that gets him to this PhD.

Now, I appreciate that there is both waste and expense involved.

On the matter of

waste,

obviously he can mitigate his carbon footprint in this regard by buying exclusively recycled printing paper and being assiduous about recycling the paper after he is done using it and using, you know, do both sides printing, et cetera, et cetera, and do some research at maybe a website like Wirecutter as to which is the most ink efficient printer and energy efficient printer.

The reality is he's still going to be using less energy than you are with your pads and your styluses and your pencils and such.

It's trade-offs.

And then with regard to the expense

of having articles bound into books, that's just weird.

Don't do that.

Sorry, dude.

That's just crazy.

But, you know, I think taking advantage of the library for printed materials as well as electronic materials is equally valid.

You can go to the library and check out actual books.

That's fun.

But, you know, especially as he's processing all that stuff that he's getting from those articles, he may want to be making notes in the margins.

That may be just how his brain works.

And I'm sorry that you are married to a

mid-20th century dude.

But

such, that is as it is.

You are a creature of the future, and he is a creature of the past.

So put that in your stylus and style it.

Not the greatest, you know what?

Not the greatest diss, I'll admit, but we're all different.

Well, we'll come up with some better disses.

Plus, we'll have some listener letters about Christmas trees when we come back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

It's not style us, it's style you.

No, it's still no good.

Let's just go to the break.

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.

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.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we're clearing the docket.

By the way, Judge Hodgman, Max FunCon tickets on sale, maxfuncon.com.

Do you hear that whistle?

Yeah, what does that mean?

That means I'm excited.

Awesome.

You couldn't see me jump up and tap my heels together, so I had to do that.

When is it?

We're looking at June 9th through 11th here on the West Coast in Southern California, in Lake Arrowhead, California, and Labor Day weekend in the Poconos on the East Coast.

Both of them are going to be equally spectacular, and we hope we will see you at one of them.

I don't have a lot to plug because I'm hard at work on Vacation Land, the book version of my one-man standing up, talking, and telling jokes show that you may have seen across the country last year.

I'm really excited for it.

It'll be coming out this fall.

But I do have one exception.

I will be hosting Trivia Night for Cheaters at the Bell House on March 14th at 7.30 p.m.

What is Trivia Night for Cheaters?

Well, it's a regular trivia contest, except you can purchase all kinds of cheats,

little hints and

shortcuts and ways to beat your opponents.

All that money that you pay in to the cheat bank is donated to 826NYC, which of course is the great tutoring service.

that's been going on in Brooklyn, New York for many, many years, started by Dave Eggers out there in San Francisco, where it began as 826 Valencia.

It's an incredibly wonderful place that offers one-on-one tutoring for high school and middle school students here in Brooklyn.

Just they drop in and they get some homework help.

I've been proud to be a part of the organization for a long time, and this has been routinely a lot of fun.

Trivia Nights for Cheaters is again at the Bell House on March 14th.

You can get details at 826nyc.org.

Form a team, buy some cheats, and have some fun for a good

Here is a case from Jenna.

Okay.

When giving food to homeless people, my friend says we should give only healthy food.

He says it's harmful in the long run to give them things like fast food or chips.

I argue that's ridiculous.

If you're starving, then any food is better than no food.

Neither of us are particularly healthy eaters, so it's also hypocritical of him to force a health food agenda on the needy.

Well, this is a thorny issue, as all issues of whether and when to give to people who are asking for food or money in a public space are.

I would say that, you know, as someone who lives in New York City, this is and now has lived in New York City for almost 25 years, this is a big issue on the subway.

People will come through with

various sad stories.

various obvious levels of

poverty, and making various specific requests, sometimes for money, sometimes for food.

The New York City subway system would ask you to not give to anyone

because they don't want to promote this from happening at all.

But of course it's unavoidable and it happens all the time and sometimes it's more prevalent than others.

One of the things, if you live in a place with a large homeless population,

to appreciate and understand that homelessness is caused by a lot of different things.

And sometimes there is hard luck.

Sometimes there is,

you know, someone escaping an abusive situation.

Sometimes it is mental illness, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed.

And sometimes it is addiction that is at play.

There have been times in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, a specific time, when there's a guy who sits out asking for money quite a bit.

when my wife offered him a bagel that she had bought and he said, no, thank you.

Not interested.

And what can you do but walk on?

There was a woman who came on the subway just the other day who it was the most, after 25 years of living in New York, seeing people ask for help on the subway, I'd never experienced anything like it.

She spoke to everyone as though they were a little baby and she would go up and go, are you going to help me today?

Are you?

And it was magical and I immediately, immediately gave her a dollar.

I couldn't help it.

It's hard.

It's hard to determine what is the correct thing to do.

Sometimes people don't want food.

Sometimes people just want money.

Sometimes people are beyond your reach of help.

I will say this.

If you want to help,

probably the most effective thing to do is to give money, food, or your time as a volunteer to your...

local homeless shelter,

particularly, I think, those shelters that are offering shelter to people

and their children who are escaping tragedy, fire, abusive relationships, or whatever,

and anyone.

I think that's probably the most valuable thing you can do,

in my mind, and or give money to an organization like City Harvest here in New York City, which

takes surplus food that is generated

by all the many, many restaurants in New York City and redistributes it to shelters and food banks and charity kitchens all over the city.

That's cityharvest.org if you want to give that a try.

I tend to donate there.

But that said,

what you choose to do is based on your own conscience and if you have excess food and wish to donate it directly to someone who is asking it for you on the street or on the subway, yeah, just give them the food that you have.

I think giving any food is fine, but your friend's social engineering ideas, I think, is really small bore thinking in terms of what is a much larger issue, which is the multifaceted and very thorny issue of homelessness in general.

And refusing to give someone a pack of Fritos because maybe you'll see them next time when you got an apple isn't going to address the issue in any way whatsoever.

I would say, to paraphrase what you're saying, that

Simply put, that person is in a much better position to decide whether it's worth them compromising on eating food that is unhealthy than you are.

They are also an adult-thinking human being who's capable of making a decision on that front.

So there's no need for you to make that decision for them.

Well said, Jesse.

And do you take issue with anything that I said?

Because it's a very challenging issue.

You grew up in San Francisco, which has a very, a very large population of trans and homeless people, right?

Yeah, of of course.

I mean, I grew up, I mean, it's one of the most famous and significant homeless populations in the United States because of the

unique combination of a reasonably strong social safety net,

reputation as

a city to which people may come for opportunity, both economic and social, and

relatively mild weather

and extraordinarily high housing prices.

So it's a real perfect storm to generate homelessness.

Yeah, I mean, I would agree that

clearly the most

effective way to serve homeless people is by giving money in significant amounts to groups that do direct service to homeless people, whether that's

a shelter or a food bank or an organization that places people in permanent housing,

organizations that do treatment, organizations that serve people's health needs on the streets and so on and so forth.

That said, doing so does not preclude you from

giving people food or money on the street.

And while I think it is perfectly reasonable to suggest for the

Transportation Authority to suggest

don't do that on the subway because

it's a place where

people don't have the opportunity to move away if they don't want to engage with somebody, for example.

And I think that there are, you know, reasonable restrictions on panhandling.

You know, generally speaking, if you are moved to give to someone, it will be a net positive.

You know?

Yeah.

If you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a life of extraordinary privilege

relative to someone who's living on the street.

And so, you know, even if it is the worst case scenario, that person is an addict.

As my dad used to say, even junkies got to eat.

And my dad used to, to be clear, my dad has been homeless and

spent many years going to veterans AA meetings,

which were predominantly homeless.

And I went with him for years when I was a kid as well.

So

it is what it is.

I don't blame anyone who doesn't give

in person.

But like, Yeah, I mean, just remember, like, these are people capable of making their own decisions.

And, you know, it's worth respecting that.

I mean, at the very least, you have to acknowledge that these are people.

Yeah.

You know, and they're going through stuff that you're not going through.

Here's something from Justine,

who, by the way, 12 years old.

Thank you, Justine, for taking the time to write to us.

I hope she's not asking me for money or food.

She says, I have a case for you.

I want to get my ears pierced, but my dad won't let me until I'm 18 years old.

My mom's fine with it, though.

I'd like your your help.

Thank you for your time.

Justine.

P.S.

My mom is the Nicole who told you about the Macintosh apples with salt.

She loves her show.

So does my dad, Steve.

Well, Justine Salty Apples.

Daughter of Nicole Salty Apples.

And also Steve No Fun.

Steve, I don't know how to tell this to you.

I'm going to explain to you.

That what I learned again, as I do every year, as time moves forward in one direction.

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday.

She is 15 years old.

She could very easily, I think,

very easily and successfully move to another city and live there and never speak to us again.

And do great.

She is effectively a grown-up.

The fact that I get to spend time with her at all is testament to the fact that she's interested in it, and I'm glad.

I like her.

Your daughter is not 15 years old.

She's 12 going on 13.

But she's moving well past that area where you can say what body modifications she can make.

And frankly, getting your ears pierced is not a big deal.

I think 13 is a perfectly fine time to get one's ears pierced.

And asking her to wait until she's 18 is something you might want to reserve for a neck tattoo.

or cutting off her leg and replacing it with a peg leg.

Those are the serious body mods you've got to ask your child to wait on.

But I think Nicole's salty apples is just right, as moms often are.

And I'm sorry that your daughter is growing up, but that's true.

Also,

your rule about no dancing until she can afford her own house, also unreasonable.

So you're going to have to just let her go a little bit on this one.

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 Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We actually got some follow-up letters from episode 292, Conifer Emp Tor.

Do you remember this case, Judge Hodgman?

Of course I do.

It was a pretty magical case.

Michael.

It was Matthew and Michael.

They live in the Boston area, if I remember correctly.

That's in New England.

Right.

What county?

It's either one of the folks or the sexes.

Got it.

Norfolk or middle sex or undersex or you know what I'm saying.

Matthew and Michael disagreed whether they should get

what I was calling

a live tree, but that's wrong.

That's real or natural tree.

We're keep using the artificial one.

Michael was afraid that if they got a natural tree, it was going to burst into flames at any moment and attack their cats.

But we heard from Lila, who wrote in with a few tips for Michael and anyone else with these concerns.

She wrote in, I initially got an artificial tree because I was scared that the cats would ingest the natural tree.

Why that was Michael's concern.

And according to Lila, turns out cats love eating fake trees, which is really not good for them.

Cats aren't going to try to eat everything is the thing.

Whatever is going to cause you the most concern, once they sense that, that's what cats are going to do.

She also mentioned that there are additives that one can put in the water, such as bitrex.

I guess we're going to buzz market that right now.

This would make the water unattractive to the cats.

None of those cats ever got sick from drinking tree water, though.

I also will say, Jesse, that I recommended a tree stand that was recommended to me by the Sweet Home, that website that we love and buzz market all the day long.

Yeah.

It offers two advances over tree stands of the past.

One, it uses a kind of clamp mechanism, a single lever clamp mechanism to grab the tree.

which was incredibly effective in a way that I couldn't even possibly believe.

And two,

the water reservoir is covered, so that's another way to keep, you know, you don't, the cats can't get at that water.

Well, I also have to say that, quote, for the paranoid person who wants a natural tree, at many tree lots around where she lives, one can get the tree sprayed with a fire retardant.

My father got me a smoke alarm ornament a few years ago.

It looks like a shiny ball, but has a sensor and a 9-volt battery inside.

I like that.

There's also a guy working on a treetopper that doubles as an automatic fire extinguisher called the Guardian Angel.

Pretty good.

Yeah,

I love all this technology that might stop trees from catching on fire, but

in my many, many years of experience, no trees have ever self-combusted, and if you keep,

what do you call it, a fire extinguisher nearby, I think you'll be fine.

And if you're going to go away for a while, get an in-home home monitoring camera and stare at your tree from your phone all day long.

That couldn't have been the only letter we got about Christmas trees, was it?

Oh, goodness, no.

Okay, well, thanks, Lila.

What's the next one?

Well, you were talking about how a neighbor of yours when you were a kid used to put lit candles on the tree.

Yeah.

And Ava wrote in because she grew up doing this.

She says, I come from Germany.

We always had real candles on our Christmas tree.

I was fascinated by your musings about the fragility of life, which were triggered by seeing insane people have fire in a tree in their living room.

She says, through all of the 30 years of real candles, we never experienced dangerous situations.

Well, technically, outside of the continuous 30 years of dangerous situations of having

open flame on a flammable thing in their living room.

She experienced dangerous situations, but not dangerous outcomes.

Yeah.

Even though I'm usually a very anxious person, the fact that this could be dangerous never even occurred to me.

While having real candles is more the exception than the rule in Germany, it isn't completely unusual.

Your thoughts about this and how strange you found it was very interesting interesting and a bit funny as well.

She sent us a picture of her tree, which we're going to post on the website, and it really does look quite beautiful.

It's truly magical.

This reminds me, though, of my wife who attended a liberal arts college on the East Coast.

I'll go ahead and say it.

Sarah Lawrence.

My wife went to Sarah Lawrence and her dorm burned down, I want to say three times in one year.

And the reason was because of people with open flame in their dorm rooms.

Yeah, well, all right.

If you're a college student, you shouldn't have a natural tree with candles on it.

I'm going to presume those were the open flames that you're talking about in the college dorm, right?

That was probably, that was probably what was going on was a lot of people with Christmas trees with candles on them.

That was the only reason you would need to light a match in a dorm, right?

Yeah, well, certainly at Sarah Lawrence.

Yeah, or maybe to char some kale.

If you were at Bryn Mawr, it might be to

light a little fire under your cauldron for your coven meeting.

Not a joke.

It happened.

But yeah, I mean, yeah, the fact of the matter is, whether it is a natural tree with phony lights on it or a natural tree with actual candles on it, none of this is natural.

You are bringing kindling into your home.

And if you're putting real fire next to it or you're putting your tree right next to a fire, obviously there's a hazard there.

Life is not without hazards, and maybe these are hazards that are best navigated by non-college students, but adults who have time to look at this tree and marvel.

And it's, oh my gosh, this photo is so glorious.

It is really nice.

So it reminds me of my father-in-law's attitude towards highway safety.

My father-in-law has a very simple plan that he revealed for staying safe on the highway.

And that is, I just won't have an accident.

And while this is ridiculous, and you can't control everyone on the road, there is a certain amount of sense to this, into making the decision that I am going to drive down this road and not have an accident, because there is a lot you can control in your own behavior if you decide to do it, such as

you know, driving the speed limit, not speeding, being extremely wary about moving into blind spots,

using the sensors of all your cars, not texting, not talking on the phone, all these things that my father-in-law does, and especially keeping distance, as much distance as possible between you and every other car on the road safely.

That is to say, treating everyone else on the road and in the world as a threat, something my father-in-law does not just on the highway, but everywhere else in the world as well.

And so if you light your tree on fire, or light the candles on the tree on fire, and you say to yourself, I am not going to let this thing burn my house, I'm going to stay sober and watch it and revel in its beauty.

Probably you won't have a fire.

So these things do involve risk, no matter what.

There's risk involved in everything.

All I'm saying to everybody as we go into 2017, make a decision.

Don't have an accident.

Be careful.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast, produced by the great Jennifer Marmer.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Judge Hodgman, let's just say I'm one of the kind people listening to this program and I've got a dispute that might be a good one for the judge, whether it's on a docket program or on a regular full in-court episode of Judge John Hodgman.

What should I do?

Should I just write it on a piece of paper, slip it into a bottle, put a cork in it, and throw it in the ocean?

That's probably as effective as anything else, but you could.

No, there's a very effective way, a very easy way to do it.

And if you've listened to this before, you probably know it, but it bears repeating.

There's a form you can fill out at maximumfund.org slash jjho, or you can email me at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

If you fill out that form, guess what it does?

It just goes to hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Whatever is more convenient for you, it all comes into me.

I review every email I get.

I love hearing from you.

I file them into the podcast pile, into the docket pile, into the New York Times magazine pile.

And I try to respond to as many of the non-case-related emails as possible, even if it's just with a simple thank you.

I hope you understand that that thank you is coming from me and I mean it.

Thank you.

I love hearing from you.

And obviously, we couldn't do the show without you.

So I hope you'll consider getting into a fight with a friend or a loved one and letting me tell you who's right and who's wrong.

Hashtag it JJ Ho on Twitter.

Follow us on Twitter at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne.

Join that Max Fund group on Facebook.

And you know, there are local maximum fund groups sprouting up all across the country.

It's not just the enormous one that Jeremy Jeremy runs in New York, runs like a cruel dictator.

There's ones all over the country.

So search on Facebook for maximum fun and where you live or max fun and where you live, and you'll probably find some great people who live near you.

You can also like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook.

That's where we usually post requests for case names.

That's your chance at immortality.

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

Bye-bye.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned.

Listener-supported.