Grass Action Lawsuit

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, grass action lawsuit.

Daniel brings the case against his fiancée, Bernadette.

They cannot decide what type of yard they'll have in their future home.

Daniel would like a large green lawn.

Bernadette thinks that's too suburban and boring.

She prefers a yard full of gardens and flowerbeds with some paths built in.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom.

This ad hoc tribunal of the National Academy is now in session.

President of the Academy residing.

On my right, Dr.

Maximus, Commissioner for Animal Affairs.

On my left, Dr.

Zayas, Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith.

Appearing for the state, Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Oh, bailiff, you had instructions to clean off the litigants.

The rags they are wearing give off a stench that is offensive to the dignity of this tribunal.

Clean them off and swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that his own lawn is composed exclusively of the original playing surface of the Houston Astrodome?

Absolutely.

I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

Daniel and Bernadette, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Even though I said residing instead of presiding, I still think you can get a guess in.

Bernadette, you have been brought here against your will by Daniel.

So you get to guess first or make Daniel guess first, which shall it be?

I will guess.

Oh, hey, Bernadette, let me just say right now, before you even guess,

I think it's awesome that you're guessing first.

Everyone always passes.

Yes.

It's the coward's way.

And already,

you know,

I'm not keeping score, but you're winning.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

My guess is the Spanish Inquisition.

Okay, that is a guess.

We'll put that into the guest books.

I certainly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Daniel, what is your guess?

Oh, since I sincerely have no idea,

I'm going to say an old episode of Perry Mason.

Old episode of Perry Mason.

Risky.

Goes into the guessbook.

All right, let's look at the big board and see where we are.

Bah, all guesses are wrong.

Bernadette, quick question.

Yes.

What role did Dr.

Zayas play in the Spanish Inquisition?

It was a minor role, I would say.

It was Torquemata's right-hand man.

Right-hand ape.

I read through the Dr.

Zayas part pretty quickly because I didn't want you guys to guess the origin.

But now that I I have said it more slowly, and maybe you can't, can either of you guess the movie that this is from?

Now that I've given you the hint?

No.

Planet of the apes?

Planet of the apes.

Daniel, you are either older or nerdier than your wife or both.

Are you married?

Engaged.

Engaged.

Engaged.

Okay.

Got it.

And how old are you, Daniel?

I'm 30.

You're 30.

Yeah, you're probably the last generation

who might recognize Dr.

Zayas.

I mean, that is information that is passing out of pop culture lore, I'm afraid.

You are going to be

a savage wandering in the wilderness like Charlton Heston in The Planet of the Apes, the original movie.

To be fair, Judge Hodgman, as a millennial myself who's never seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies except for that terrible Tim Burton one,

I will say that the inclusion of frequent allusions to Planet of the Apes in The Simpsons, which I presumably have to chalk up to Dana Gould, but 100%.

Yeah.

That's enough to keep it in my mind enough to have recognized the name Dr.

Zayas.

Yeah.

Dr.

Zayas is

the Dr.

orangutan.

He's the scientist orangutan.

who represents the establishment.

Chimpanzees want to give humans their rights.

Dr.

Zaius is like, nope, they're genetically inferior to us.

I'm going to cut his tongue out.

Dr.

Zaius.

Played by Maurice Evans,

who was also Hutch in the movie Rosemary's Baby,

which is my favorite Halloween-timey movie.

Now that we're a couple weeks past Halloween in the timeline of this podcast.

Bernadette, you never saw Planet of the Apes?

No.

Did see Rosemary's Baby, though.

Okay, good, right?

Yep, really good.

Did you like Dr.

Zaius in it?

Amazing.

Now, you guys have a dispute over what you're going to do with your lawn.

So why, you ask,

am I quoting from Planet of the Apes?

Indeed.

Thank you.

Thank you for that prompt.

Good improv.

Yes, and, well, here is the answer.

Yes, and we work at a TCBY.

If you had said, oh, that's from Planet of the Apes, Dum-Dum, then I would have said, yes, but can you name the character?

And then you would say, oh, it's the president of the Academy or the President of the Assembly.

And I would say, yes, that's true, but who played him?

And then you would go, oh, I don't know.

You win.

And I'm like, yeah, that's right.

I do win.

It was played by James Whitmore, a very famous American character, actor who played Brooks, the tragic librarian, prison librarian, and Shawshank Redemption, among many, many other characters.

He also was in an Apple ad that never aired, and I got to meet him, and he was the sweetest guy.

And I only learned just today that he was a member of Skull and Bones at Yale.

So if he were here and I said Skull and Bones, he would have to leave the podcast.

But

as it happens, he's dead, so that's not going to happen.

Yeah.

And he also,

for many years, when you were but children, how old are you, Bernadette?

27.

27.

27, yeah.

You probably don't even remember that he, that this actor, James Whitmore, was in a long-running series of commercials for Miracle Grow, Plant, and Lawn Food.

That's how I got there.

All right.

But it was mainly just a Dana Gouldian opportunity to talk some Planet of the Apes again.

So there you go.

I don't think Dana Gould really needs an opportunity to talk about Planet of the Apes.

No,

I was manufacturing a Dana Gouldian opportunity for myself.

James Whitmore was also photographed on the set of Planet of the Apes reading a biography of Mark Twain while he was in full ape makeup.

And it's one of my favorite photographs.

And it led to one of my most favorite moments in my life at San Francisco Sketch Fest, I would say four years ago, when

Dana Gould

came to my show.

had full Dr.

Zaius makeup put on and wore a white suit and performed as Dr.

Zaius

as though Dr.

Zaius were doing a one-man show as Mark Twain.

It's online, everyone, and I encourage you to look at it.

I'll try to have that link for you by the end of the show.

That's a tease.

But now let's get to your debate.

Daniel and Bernadette, you are engaged.

You cohabitate somewhere in the world.

Where do you live?

We live in Des Moines, Iowa.

Des Moines, Iowa.

Fantastic.

And where is Des Moines in relationship to Iowa City?

It's west.

It's about, well, about almost a two-hour drive east from here to get to Iowa City.

Okay, gotcha.

And what goes on in Des Moines, Iowa?

What do you do there, Daniel?

Well, I am the network assistant director at a nonprofit here in basically downtown Des Moines.

Okay, that was pretty vague.

Bernadette, what do you have going on there in Des Moines?

I work for, I also work for a nonprofit working with homeless adults.

Well, thank you for being specific, and thank you for doing what I presume is good work.

When you say you work with homeless adults,

you're not rounding them up to be made into food cakes like Soil and Green or something.

No, no.

All right.

Hopefully finding them housing.

Oh, that's lovely.

Yeah.

I don't think I've been to Des Moines.

I've been to Iowa City and I like Iowa a lot.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

And is there a rivalry between Des Moines and Iowa City?

There's a

rivalry between Ames and Iowa City where Iowa State University and the University of Iowa are.

Yeah, no, I know that.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Des Moines is neutral.

Des Moines has no enemies.

That's its motto.

Absolutely.

And by the way, having just checked it out, the flag of the city of Des Moines is Cabonkers.

Yes, we love bridges.

Is that what it is?

It's a bunch of bridges on your flag?

Yep, it's a bunch of bridges.

That's fantastic.

It's almost,

it's very modern looking and almost as seizure-inducing as the flag of Maryland.

All right, enough flag talk.

Let's talk about lawns.

Holy cow, this really is an incredible flag.

We got to get Roman Mars on the line here.

Why are we talking about grass when we could be talking with Roman about this flag?

Children, if you're driving and listening to this podcast, pull over and look up the flag.

It's worth crashing for.

So

Daniel and Bernadette, Daniel, you bring the case against Bernadette.

You have a home in Des Moines

and you're trying to figure out what to do with your lawn.

Is that right?

State your case.

Well, we are, so yeah, we've lived together for a little over two years now.

And when we got engaged in June of last year, we were about to move to a new house that we were renting.

And so, we've been seriously house shopping for a little over a year now as far as what we're looking at for our future.

So, not the house that we're in now, but when we were house shopping, we quickly discovered that we agreed on the vast majority of the structure itself, like how many rooms, how many bathrooms, et cetera, et cetera.

You definitely want a roof.

That's ideal, yeah.

Yeah.

You're gonna want side walls as well, unless you want to go gazebo.

Yeah, that's the classy touch.

I call a gazebo a ventilated yurt.

All right, so you agreed on everything.

You had no fights over the fact you wanted walls and roofs and bedrooms and bathrooms.

But then

trouble in Des Moines.

What did you learn?

We got to thinking about the outdoor portion of where we would be moving and discovered that we completely disagree on sort of our ideal scenario for what the outdoor setting would be-the yard, or that you know, whether there's gardens, flower beds, gazebos,

anything like that.

We basically disagreed with each other on.

And how much yard do you have out front?

Well, we're renting a house right now with a very small yard.

So, what we're talking about is looking forward, like you know, maybe a year from now when we buy a house, what we're looking at, right?

Okay, and your vision is what

yes, I I like

wider open space, a larger, I mean, not a massive yard, but a larger green, trimmed, precision grass yard.

And

front yard or backyard or both?

Well, both, ideally.

Uh-huh.

A nice green carpet is what you're looking for.

Yes, exactly.

You like mowing lawns?

I love it.

You don't have a lawnmower right now because you're renting.

You don't have to take care of anything.

No, we actually do take care of all the yard work around the rental house we have now.

Oh, not bad.

So you got a, what kind of mower?

You got a push mower or a ride along?

No, it's a push mower, a really old automatic push mower that is more falling apart every time I use it.

What do you mean by automatic?

It does it for you?

No, no, it doesn't even have the...

You got a Roomba?

You got a lawn Roomba?

Yeah, kind of, yeah.

Does it have a motor?

Yeah, it's a gas mower.

It's just,

I mean, I'm guessing probably 20 at least years old because it came with the property and I have gotten rid of my old one.

I'm thinking about buying a mower.

Would you have any recommendations?

Not right now.

I haven't had enough time to do research yet.

Okay.

You let me know.

I will.

And Bernadette, when I said a big green carpet, I heard you kind of go, Yeah.

Like, yeah.

You don't like that idea.

No.

What do you want?

Japanese rock garden?

Ooh, I hadn't considered that.

But what I want is flowers and vegetable garden and kind of, I guess, an organized chaos.

Maybe, you know, a little reclaimed wildflower area in the backyard would be nice.

Now, this is all hypothetical.

There's no, you don't have a property in mind at the moment.

No, but I had tried to do some of what I wanted to do in our house now because our landlords are very accommodating and let me do that.

Uh-huh.

And so

what did you get away with before Daniel got upset?

Well, I planted some tomatoes and okra that grew to be the, like to our roof, basically, and he didn't enjoy that so much.

I love planting things and then taking care of them.

I'm not super good at.

So I feel like that kind of offends Daniel's idea of a very green carpet.

And I like the overgrown bush sort of thing.

So you like to grow okra and then just let it take over?

Kind of, yeah.

Well, and then and cut the and use it, you know, too.

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

So paint a word picture for me now of the stalemate that you have reached in your yard situation, Daniel.

Are you happy with where it is now?

Or does this portend ill future for landscaping for you?

Well, I mean, as far as decisions we've made about the future,

I think we've not agreed on much.

The yard we currently have,

we had enough trouble with growing in it, period, because it hadn't been used in so long that it, you know, we've still got a lot of open space there.

But as far as what we've agreed upon for like the house we're going to buy coming up,

we've thus far agreed on next to nothing as far as what it's going to look like.

I guess what I'm saying is, what are you afraid of?

If Bernadette gets her way, what are you afraid is going to happen?

I think it's going to look more like what you would imagine a witch's house in a movie looking like, where you can barely even see the house.

And why do you fear that this will happen?

What has happened so far that suggests this will happen again and worse?

Well, to be fair to him, that one time those two kids came over and they ended up in the oven.

Yeah, that was a bad day.

Nice use of the passive voice there, Jesse.

They were put in the oven somehow.

I don't know.

Mystery.

There are a lot of questions about it.

We'll probably never know what happened.

Yeah.

She keeps replacing the fence with candy canes.

Why are you afraid it's going to look like a witch house?

Well,

I guess there's no precedent I have to say that that is going to happen thus far other than what her and I.

What are you talking about?

She handed you okra on a plate, literally and figuratively.

Okay, the okra thing, like I was in favor of planting the okra and the tomatoes in these corners of the house that she had them in, but they literally, they did grow to be the sides of the roof, and the okra itself were like baseball bats.

So

we used a lot of it, but some of it just got so overgrown that it was unmanageable.

And when I cut it down, I even got whacked in the head by one of them.

Did you ever open up one of those giant okras and discover a little miniature version of you in there that is getting ready to take over your identity?

No.

How do you respond to the witch house accusation, Bernadette?

See, I feel like this is part of the conflict because I would have zero problem with people thinking that our house was the witch house on the block.

I would be thrilled with that.

I like that aesthetic.

You want it to look like a crazy person living in a junkyard?

Well, maybe not a junkyard, but I like the witch thing.

If I can interject one thing here quick,

when we still lived separately, we used to walk to get coffee in the morning, and there was a house that she said actually looked like a witch's house in a movie, and she loved the idea that that came up for sale.

Yes.

So there is a precedent now that I think about it for her wanting a witch house.

Okay.

Paint a word picture for me, Bernadette, of what you, of your perfect, your perfect garden.

So

kind of like in the movie Big Fish.

Which I never saw.

Okay, then that's not going to be a very effective word picture.

You mean the moderately popular movie Big Fish from 15 years ago?

Yes, exactly.

Anyways, so

my ideal garden would be,

it would be loose, I think would be a good way to describe it.

It would be organic in its formation.

I would like the idea of like scattering seeds and like trying to make the earth just do what it wants.

Like I want to help the earth do what it wants to do in my front yard and backyard, side yard, also.

You would scatter.

I don't know a lot about gardening, but I don't think how it's done is you just scatter a bunch of seeds and see what happens.

That's kind of how I have gardened in the past.

Uh-huh.

What's your gardening experience?

Well, not, I mean,

not super a lot of gardening experience.

I do better when I start with plants.

I've been very successful.

People do think that plants have something to do with gardening.

That's probably true.

When I start with seeds, I guess, is where I run into some issues.

Well, apparently you're just scattering them willy-nilly.

When you say you're scattering seeds, do you just mean that you're blowing on dandelions?

No, that has happened.

But I have also purchased seeds and then spread them around, like flower seeds, zinnias I'm very fond of, sunflowers, a wildflower mix that I tried, that kind of thing.

But you're talking about a willy-nilly garden.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's not that you want it to

have a lush

and

nigh wild affect.

It's like you just want it to be wild.

I like the lush part.

You want baseball bat okras.

That did turned out in a little bit to be an accident.

Bernadette, are you interested in tending this garden or is part of your idea that by making it wild, it will tend itself?

I like the idea that it would tend itself.

That wasn't the question.

The question wasn't, do you like the idea that it would tend itself?

Of course, we all like the idea of a garden that tends itself.

I like the idea of a dinner that makes itself.

I do like gardening, but I would say I don't get out there to take care of it probably as much as like a regimented garden.

would require.

Not as much as the plants would like you to.

Probably.

Or Daniel.

The plants and and Daniel are unhappy with how I garden.

But are we talking about a garden that will be primarily a flower garden,

a decorative garden, or a vegetable garden, or a combination of all of those?

Primarily a flower garden.

With vegetable garden, I've learned, I know that that has to be a little more regimented, a little more planned.

And so to keep that a little bit smaller, learned that from my baseball bat-sized okra.

And

Daniel, are there other areas in your lives where this aesthetic difference makes itself known?

Like, for example, you know, like in the living room, you would like to have a neat and tidy carpet and she would rather throw a thousand fro pillows into the middle of the room.

I'll tell you this.

My two children under the age of six both really like the idea of a living room that cleans itself.

This sounds like I'm beating up on you a little bit here, Bernadette.

I'm not.

I just mean, I'm just trying to see if, like, is your aesthetic a little bit more

in terms of home decoration, a little bit more additive?

Like,

the books are decoration, and we'll put a pile of books here and some extra vases and some anthropology doodads over here.

Whereas this guy is just like, no, I want a clean empty room with a, and we all sit on the floor and we have shaved heads.

A more THX 1138 vibe.

It's a deep cut.

It's a moderately popular movie from 40 years ago.

I wouldn't say popular, important,

maybe.

Do you guys ever see THX 1138?

I have never seen it.

I have seen its sequel, American Graffiti.

It was George Lucas' first movie, and it's a dystopian film about a totalitarian society.

where Robert Duvall lives and wears a jumpsuit and his shaved head, and they all live underground.

And it's one of those movies that's like, you kind of see a couple of photo stills from the movie and a caption saying, this is George Lucas' first movie.

It's kind of important.

And you've basically seen the movie and you don't have to see it after that.

And so I never did until I was on the very first Jonathan Colton cruise all by myself in a cabin in the middle of an impossible sideways hotel floating on a terrifying abyss.

And I turned on the cruise ship television to their in, you know, they don't have it.

They're not getting TV from anywhere else.

Somewhere on the cruise ship, they put a DVD of THX 1138 on

a movie about a completely totalitarian, self-contained environment on a cruise ship.

It could not have been more perfect.

I've never had a better movie going experience except for watching F4 Fake at the Chateau Marmont on VHS.

But

that was an aside because I don't know anything about gardens and I find lawns boring.

So here's what I'm asking: Do you have an aesthetic difference that goes deeper than

just the few feet of cubic earth you have in front of your house, Daniel?

Yes or no?

I don't think so.

I mean, for the most part, the indoors we agree on just about everything, and we're both, you know, again, to use the term fairly precision about cleanliness and organization

for the most part.

So make an active argument, then, Daniel, for your vision of what the lawn should be.

Not just, I don't want my house to look like crazy people live here, like it's Grey Gardens or something.

Make an active argument for why you want a lawn, what you will gain out of it, how it will make you feel,

why your wife to be shouldn't torture you with giant vines and creepers.

Well, I think...

When you're talking about the outdoor aesthetic of a house, I think the more, again, the more green, the more precision the yard is, I think the more inviting or communal it looks.

I think it has more functionality, especially for like when we're talking about having children and having room for them to play sports, since I am a sports fanatic and played all the sports growing up.

All right.

I find in Bernadette's favor.

Thank you very much.

That's the sound of a good idea.

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned that.

But you raise a good point.

A lawn is a practical play space for kids.

And

do you think you're going to have kids, Bernadette?

Or just 100 cats?

Maybe both.

Maybe, yeah.

It's a possibility for children.

But I don't think that it's fair that children all have to play sports.

What sports does Daniel like?

Soccer, football, baseball, basketball.

I don't know.

Am I leaving anything?

Do you put soccer at the top of that list?

He loves soccer.

That was a sport I played through college and everything.

Oh, okay.

All right.

I'll take it back.

I'm sorry.

Sorry I made fun of your sport.

So you're already looking forward to having children and using your beautiful big old green carpet lawn as a drilling field

to instill.

More like a recreational field.

Yeah.

As a parade grounds.

for you to instill in them through rigorous training your worldview about soccer.

Yes, absolutely.

Gotcha.

You know, it's terrible for lawns.

Sports?

Soccer.

Yeah, soccer, as my parents can attest when I was growing up.

But I also significantly destroyed my mom's flower beds when I was growing up playing soccer and basketball too.

Is that a threat?

It's a subtle threat.

If Bernadette plants some tulips, you're going to get your cleats all in them.

The kids' cleats.

When do you think you're gonna have kids daniel you're not married yet well we've we've talked i mean we're we're basically looking at finding a house and getting married right around possibly the same time next year um but so we've been talking about anywhere from about two to four years we would we would seriously consider having our first child so why not let your wife have a couple of years of witch house before she has to settle down and and become a mom to sports zombies that you're going to raise.

well I because I think once it gets started unless we were to move again I think once the witch house gets started there's no going backward on it

I think she would probably fall in love with it and we would already have the reputation in the neighborhood as the witch house

Bernadette yes

Daniel also raises another issue which is curb appeal

you you watch HGTV Watch the Property Brothers?

You know what I'm talking about.

No one wants to buy a witch house.

No.

That's okay.

I don't want to move out of the witch house.

This is going to be your house for the rest of your life?

Absolutely.

I wish I could see this movie Big Fish and understand what your vision of a garden is.

Overgrown, I think.

Overgrown.

And why do you like that?

Well, because I don't like yard.

Like, I like gardening.

I like tending plants, but I don't like cutting lawns.

I don't like spending a lot of time doing, like, I don't know, it seems like an awful lot of time to spend doing something that stays the same all the time, that you want to stay the same all the time.

Are you concerned that a lawn, a big old-fashioned American suburban lawn, is going to mark your home and your life

with a kind of

suburban banality that doesn't reflect you?

Yeah, I'd say that's fair.

Yeah, I think I got it.

Do you think that your husband, to be, Daniel,

is pining for a kind of suburban down-the-middle dadhood that he either had in his youth or wants for some other reason?

Yes.

That was the soft, sighing yes.

of a crux being found.

Did it ever occur to either of you that you could get a house that has a backyard and a front yard?

You live in Iowa.

Yeah, but also in Des Moines itself, the yards, like the part of Des Moines we live in, is not actually, there's not that much yard space at any of these houses.

So our backyard right now is, it's, you know, small to medium size, but our front yard is very, very small.

So

what neighborhood do you live in?

South of Grand?

Do you live in South of Grand?

Do you live in 4th Street, the 4th Street neighborhood?

No, we live in the Drake area.

Drake University.

Okay.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Those are the two neighborhoods that were mentioned on the Des Moines Wikipedia page.

Ah.

Oh.

Fancy.

Are you guys going to take part in Des Moines Beer Week or the Blue Ribbon Bacon Fest?

Des Moines Renaissance Fair, Festa Italiana, Festival of Trees and Lights, World Food and Music Festival, I'll Make Me a World Iowa, Oktoberfest, Wine Fest, Imagine Eve?

We've done some some of those.

We've done some of those, yeah.

The biggest

festivals and events.

Yeah.

Every weekend, it seems like.

Is there an area of Des Moines where you could have a front yard and a backyard?

The further you get toward the suburbs, the further west in Des Moines you get, the more the yards become larger and greener.

And do you have a problem with moving out that far?

I do.

A little bit.

I like to be close to my job because I like to get up as late as humanly possible.

And so, and I also like to bike to work.

And the farther out you go, the harder it is to commute to where it is that I work.

Okay.

And what about you, Daniel?

Do you have a problem moving into one of those larger suburban yardy areas?

No, that's, I prefer that, actually.

I mean, not that I don't like.

living in sort of the center of Des Moines right now, but I mean, I envision when we do buy a house soon that it is going to be further west, if not West Des Moines itself, or, you know, a nearby tiny suburb called Windsor Heights, which is, it's actually close to where her parents live.

And there is plenty of yard space there.

Oh.

We're in a debt.

You know who I've not ever dated before?

Who?

Your fiancé.

I've never met him before.

I've not been dating him.

I don't know him at all.

Seems like a nice guy.

I've not been a part of this relationship, but even I know what it means to move.

What's the name of that neighborhood again where your parents live?

Windsor Heights.

Windsor Heights.

Doesn't he hear what he's saying?

Doesn't he hear the youth that he's trying to steal from you?

What does Windsor Heights mean to you, Bernadette?

If you were to move to Windsor Heights, what would that mean?

Oh, I'd become my parents.

Yeah.

But that's also also her home.

I mean, she grew up in Windsor Heights.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where are you from?

Daniel?

I grew up in Ames, basically at Iowa State University.

You have big lawns there?

Yeah.

Until I moved out of my parents' house when I was 17, we pretty much always had a nice-sized yard.

Yeah.

All right, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go

crawl into the hole that I dug out under the berm in my front yard where my secret hideout is.

I'll come, I'll make my verdict and I'll be back in a moment to tell you what it is.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Bernadette, how are you feeling about your chances?

I'm a little, oh, I don't know.

I'm cautious, but I'm confident.

You know, when I read this case description, my presumption was that you wanted to put in a garden,

not just let everything

go wild and die.

Well, do you?

I want a garden, but I want it to be wild and crazy in the way that I want it to be wild and crazy.

And you want someone else to take care of it.

Kind of.

Daniel, how are you feeling about your chances?

I feel pretty good.

I feel like I might have understated some of my points, but no, overall, I feel like I'm going to at least come away with some kind of win here.

Do you know how lucky you are to even be having this conversation?

I live in California, Daniel.

I live in California.

If you put in more than three square feet of grass, you're essentially a murderer.

Yes, yeah.

I'm familiar with that.

I don't know.

There's this guy.

He listens to the show, I think.

He works down the hall from us named Dwayne.

We hired Dwayne to fix up our yard.

He did a nice job, and he did it with stuff that you don't really have to take care of except for maybe once a month or so.

Maybe there's an alternative, you two.

Just a yard full of cacti.

I like that.

Yeah, succulents.

It's not succulents.

It's just native-y stuff.

I don't know how plants work.

Seeds.

That's why I hired Dwayne.

Native grasses.

Yeah, we just scattered the seeds and then let it die.

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

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

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

Let me ask you a question.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

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

You may be seated.

Yeah, Jesse, I was listening from my secret hideout in my berm.

I actually did not probe the drought situation in Iowa.

Because, of course, in California, in Los Angeles, especially, and throughout California, actually, I should say, the drought is a very serious issue, and lawns are very controversial.

Is that a thing that's happening in Iowa, you guys?

I'm not going to change my mind, but I'm curious.

Okay.

We do get at times, obviously, in central Iowa, huge amounts of rain throughout the spring and summer.

And actually, part of my point was that the yard is much better for water management and water conservation than a yard full of, you know, willy-nilly plants.

How so?

It's better for runoff.

It's better for it doesn't pool up against the house or anything like that.

So it's better for the interior as well.

It takes less water to keep everything alive.

Maybe I did change my mind.

How about that?

Native sentences.

They're native for a reason.

This is sentencing now.

This is verdict and sentencing.

Okay, okay.

Sorry that I invited you guys to be part of my monologue.

But you're both wonderful.

I will say this.

I saw when I was in L.A., Jesse, with David Rees, host of the great Election Profit Makers podcast, we walked by a lot of alternative lawns.

in Atwater Village.

Lawns that were not grass, lawns that were rock or succulents or just paved over.

But the one that I loved the most was it had to have been 200 tall Roadrunner cartoon style cactuses

just obliterating any view of the house.

I mean, talk about a witch house.

This was a southwestern witch house.

It was like the cactuses were bursting at the seams of the fence.

It was fantastic looking.

And I highly, I mean, I don't know whether you can support this kind of thing in Des Moines, but

I recommend it.

It was a good look.

You guys are engaging on

a new path in your lives.

You're going to engage on a path together.

Whether you know it or not, you're going to have to share that path.

You'll no longer get to do whatever you want in your own lives.

You're going to have to share

your bed and bathroom and toothpaste and lawn and foyer and all this annoying negotiation that's going to go on

because people decide that they have to live together.

And so far the negotiation has gone pretty well.

It sounds like.

But you guys have hit upon this landscaping issue that I really think represents two different styles of emerging adulthood.

And both, of course, are fueled by the toxic impulse that is nostalgia.

Because Bernadette, you want to hang on to your youth before you become your mom.

You have an idea of a wild organic bohemian garden that if you had your own place in your own life, it would be all your choice.

And you perhaps are feeling some anxiety about having to cede some decisions to this other human in your life.

You want to hang on to that before you, you don't want to go back to, what is it called, Windsor Heights?

Yep.

Yeah, I can't, it's so banal, I can't even remember it.

No offense, Windsor Heights.

I'm sure you're a wonderful community.

And Daniel, meanwhile, wants to go, he also wants to go back.

He wants to go back to his own childhood, to his own suburban upbringing, and he wants to have the kind of house and be the kind of dad that I...

I'm guessing was an important part of his growing up.

And he's not even a dad yet.

His nostalgia is rushing forward to middle age as quickly as possible.

And, you know, either approach is fine, especially since you live in Iowa.

I mean, you know, those of us here

who live in hyper-dense cities, one of which, in Jesse's case, has a drought issue, like, you know, we don't...

We're not allowed to let landscaping be an expression of our inner anxieties and ambivalence about growing older.

It's not even an option for us.

But you have a whole range and whole realm of expression outside your homes and space that we can't even dream of.

Even in Des Moines, I betcha.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe it's all built up in Des Moines.

The obvious solution,

I mean, it's the obvious solution is you got to get yourself a house

that does both.

Just like that meme on the internet, get yourself a man or a woman who does both.

You've got to be young and old at the same time.

You've got to indulge your middle-aged fantasies while hanging on to your youth.

You've got to

grow together

while also growing a garden that reflects both of you.

And that means Daniel's got to have some green carpet space.

And Bernadette, you got to have some wild space.

All you need is a front yard and a backyard.

You just pull a mullet.

Business in the front, party in the back,

curb appeal maintained.

Everyone gets what they want.

But to do that,

your husband-to-be is going to kidnap you and take you back to your wretched hometown

and turn you perversely into your mother.

So

here's the deal.

Here's what's going to happen.

You can't have everything, either of you.

Can't have it all.

You have to compromise.

If you want to still live in the cool neighborhood where you're living now,

is it cool there around Drake University?

It's around the university, right?

It's got to be kind of cool.

Sure, yeah.

You like where you live?

I do.

Yeah, Bernadette, right.

Doesn't get a lot of lawn, does it?

Doesn't got a lot of yards.

No.

You want to live there?

Then you get to live in Coolsville,

but you got to let

Daniel turn your lawn into a middle-aged man's crew cut

and build a terrarium.

You want a big old crazy weirdo yard, then you've got to find a house that's got a front yard and a backyard or a front yard and a side yard or whatever, and then you guys flip for it as to who gets which.

Although you'll sell your house better if you if you have a manicured lawn out front, I'm telling you.

And that doesn't necessarily have to be Windsor Heights,

but that would be the sacrifice because, you know, and

this sounds unfair to you, Bernadette, because I'm with you, right?

I don't want to live in Windsor Heights.

You heard me.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

I do.

And the fact is, under this arrangement,

Daniel is getting what he wants either way.

Either you live in Coolsville

and he gets to manicure the front yard,

or you live in

Squaresville and you both get what you want yard-wise.

He gets what he wants either way.

It's kind of gross.

I got to tell you.

I guess I'm ruling in his favor.

It's kind of gross how I'm presuming white men get whatever they want.

But I think that that is the trade-off that if you want to, you will be getting what you want, which is you're living in the neighborhood that you want to live to.

Because what he wants, that he will not be getting, he wants to move back and become his mom and dad as quickly as possible.

And you're going to hold his feet to the cool fire.

So Bernadette, since I think that this is essentially a ruling in his favor,

right?

Yes.

I'm going to throw you this option.

You get to choose where you guys live.

All right.

You hear what I'm saying?

I'll take it.

All right.

But he gets to tend his garden.

All right.

Because, you know, that's, he'll need to walk around with his mower and his beer

and think about how his wife controls his life.

Just like a real 1950s dad that he wants to be.

But you'll show him you'll have such a crazy flower box.

You're going to have a time of your life.

Absolutely.

I will.

I do find in Daniel's favor with the caveat that Bernadette gets to choose the neighborhood in which they live.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Bernadette, what do you choose?

I don't know.

The pressure is so many.

Choose now.

Choose now.

There's so many options to choose from.

I don't know.

Choose, choose.

Choose, choose, choose, choose, choose.

East Eastside.

Yeah.

Daniel, how do you feel?

I feel good right up until she said Eastside.

That was never part of the negotiation.

Whoa, what's Eastside?

Sorry, it's the over by the fairgrounds.

At the Iowa State Fairgrounds is the east side of Des Moines, and it's

got character.

Not my favorite.

I love this compromise.

A compromise.

You know, it's a good compromise when the marriage is unhappy.

No, what?

That's not sure.

that's how you say it.

Well, thanks to both of you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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 Long.

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.

Judge Hajmi, you don't even have any grass, do you?

You're lucky to have a place to put a barbecue.

Do you want to know something?

We have a little outdoor space here in New York City.

And there was...

there was once a patch of lawn on it, about the size of a large quilt.

And the person behind left an old manual mower, and I would mow that lawn, and I loved it.

And then my wife said, I want to make this into a jungle.

And she did.

It's a beautiful, lush, wild jungle, but I do miss my patch of lawn, and maybe I should have recused myself.

But too late.

Justice is done.

The die has been cast.

That's right.

I just forced them to live in East Des Moines.

Who knows what that means.

I want to remind Judge John Hodgman listeners that a bunch of Max Fun shows are coming to Chicago, Illinois, for the Chicago Podcast Festival, not least of which is my own show, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, which will be ⁇

I'll be interviewing Andre Royo from The Wire and Empire.

I played Bubbles on the Wire.

Bubbles.

Charmer.

And one of my favorite stand-up comics, Dwayne Kennedy, will be there, among others, including MaximumFund.org's own Lady to Lady podcast, who will be opening for us.

So go to maximumfund.org.

You can find all the information on that there.

And Max FunCon is coming up.

At least ticket sales are coming up.

We're going to do MaxFunCon West and East in 2017.

And tickets go on sale the day after Thanksgiving.

I will also be moving around the country on the 10th of November, which may or may not be tomorrow, depending on when you're listening to this.

I will be appearing in conversation with Seth Mookin at MIT.

That's the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Oh, that's one of the best technology institutes.

That's right.

It's really up there.

I'll let you know after I take a look around, see how it matches up to the Fashion Institute of Technology.

So the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City is called...

Let's get into this.

Yeah, I just think it's one of the most assertively weird and beautiful things that they're like, we're the Fashion Institute of technology I love it there's also a fashion institute of technology here in Los Angeles and I will say this something that they have that I bet MIT does not have is a super dope thrift store I bet you that's absolutely true FIT has a boss thrift store after I'm in MIT I then fly directly to Seattle Washington on November 11th to perform Vacation Land my well-received one-person talking and comedy show, which I will then perform once more, and I think perhaps the last time this year, on November 17th in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley.

So if you're anywhere near those places and you want to come see me, I hope you will.

It's better when you're there.

All tickets and details are available at johnhodgman.com slash tour, T-O-U-R.

Our thanks this week to Jennifer Small, who named this week's episode.

If you want to name a future episode, well, it's fun and easy.

Just follow us on social media, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, and follow John and I on Twitter, at Jesse Thorne, and at Hodgman.

Our thanks also to John Pemble in Iowa at Iowa Public Radio, who engineered the show there, and to our pal Lindsay Pavlis right here at maximumfund.org, filling in for the honeymooning.

Jennifer Marmor, our producer on the program.

Thanks also to Christian Duenas for lending a hand.

And thanks to Stacey Molsky, who for some reason has been sitting behind Lindsay this entire time.

Not sure why.

Creepy.

Yeah, so there's that.

If you've got a case for Judge John Hodgman, go to maximumfund.org slash JJ H O.

think about your life what are the problems how could you sort them out on a podcast well if you even got half an idea go to maximumfund.org slash jjho and type it into the form there we'll make it happen for you all your dreams will come true everything will be fixed your life will be better you'll have a lawn and a jungle Yeah, maybe you want a stranger to tell you where in Des Moines to live, and then you have to do what he says.

A stranger who's never been to Des Moines specifically.

All of your problems will be solved if only you write in to maximumfund.org J J H O.

No case too small, some too medium, but we still read them all.

And by we, I mean I.

So I like hearing from you.

So, right.

Yeah, let's make it happen, folks.

Uh, we love you for listening.

Thank you so much.

Um, thanks to everybody who tells their friends about the show, that means a lot to us.

Uh, and we will talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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