Hostile Fitness

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Hostile Fitness.

Heather brings the case against her husband, Joe.

Joe is too competitive with Heather's mother when she initiates challenges with him through a fitness tracking app they both use.

Because of this, he's chosen to opt out of her challenges.

Heather thinks these fitness challenges are a good way for them to engage and wants him to play along.

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.

And they took off their bracelets?

I suppose they did, Bob said.

Bracelets wouldn't have been much use to them in places like that, would they?

With no scanners to put them to.

Jesus said they did something called fighting.

Bob looked away and then back again.

Acting aggressively is a nicer way of putting it, he said.

Yes, they did that.

Chip looked up at him.

But they're dead now, he said.

Yes, said Bob.

All dead.

Every last one of them.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

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?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has people who exercise for him?

I do.

I do.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

Thank you, Bailiff Jesse.

Heather and Joe, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

Can either of you please name the piece of culture that I quoted from as I entered the courtroom.

Joe, you have been brought to this court by Heather against your will, so you may...

either guess first or decide that Heather should guess first.

What is your choice?

I'll decide that Heather should guess first.

Ah, the coward's way out, Joe.

But perhaps you'll get some information that will help you make a correct guess.

Heather, what is your guess?

I have absolutely no idea, but I'll go with Born to Run.

Born.

Is that a book about running?

To run?

I think that's a song about New Jersey.

Well, that too.

I'll take both.

Okay.

We'll put a rare double guess

into the guess book.

You know what?

I don't know if I'm authorized to do this, but I'm going to throw in Born to Add, the Sesame Street parody of Born to Run.

Sure, absolutely.

Triple guesses.

Yeah, it's a three-for-time guessbook.

It's a three-for.

Joe, it is now time for you to guess.

You may put it off no longer.

What is your guess, sir?

I have no idea either, but it sounds post-apocalyptic and Cormac McCarthy-esque.

Okay, so your guess is...

So you've decided not to guess?

Yeah, I'd prefer not to.

Guessing is futile in a society in which we eat babies?

Exactly.

Sorry if that triggered anybody.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the road.

A disturbing novel.

Really beautifully written, but really.

It's a more disturbing movie.

I did not see the movie.

Why would I put myself through that?

I don't know.

It's very disturbing.

Did you read the book?

No, I only saw the movie, and then I couldn't go anywhere near the book.

I won't even let it be in the same room as me.

The book, I have to say, Heather, is remarkable.

And I mean, he's an incredible writer.

Joe loves it.

And so, Joe, you've read the book.

My experience with it was, and I may have mentioned this on the podcast before, for the first 80 pages or so,

I was constantly screaming at the book, often on the subway, going, why are you doing this to me?

Why?

I don't have to read this, go through this intense emotional pain.

But then I think it's part of the aspect of the book.

So if you don't know, the book is about a father and son moving through a world that has gone through some huge ecological catastrophe, such that society has broken down and people live sort of in wandering gangs.

And the son and father are incredibly vulnerable throughout the book, and it's really hard, especially if you are a father.

And after a while, the horror, and I think it's designed this way, you get inured to the horror, as I imagine you would get inured to the horror if you were actually living through something like that.

And then you're reading along, and it gets worse and worse and worse, but you don't feel it as much.

It's a very weird literary experience.

And I ended up really loving the book until I learned.

that Cormac McCarthy wrote it after going on vacation with his son in Ireland.

His son, who at the time was 12, and Cormac McCarthy was 75 years old.

I'm like, oh, this isn't a universal story

about

father-child affection and terror and mortality.

It's a very specific story about the apocalypse that Cormac McCarthy is facing, that he's putting into all of our heads to make himself feel better, I guess.

I hope you feel better, Cormac McCarthy.

You made me sad.

The good news is that for a price, we'll also write your term papers for you.

Corin McMccarthy will?

You and I will.

Oh, yeah, right.

I wouldn't have Corin McCarthy write my term papers.

I would get an F for bad punctuation.

That guy doesn't put in an apostrophe in nothing.

And he would write nothing and not put an apostrophe at the end of it.

Anyway, all guesses are wrong.

Your Carl McCarthy's...

Your born stads, your borns to run, or you're borns to run, all wrong.

Although, I have to say, joe you got close because i was reading from a lesser known work

of ira levin who wrote rosemary's baby and the stepford wives this was his second or his i i don't know if it was his second novel i think i kissed before dying was first but it was the first novel that came out after rosemary's baby and it's called this perfect day

it was recommended to me

by the great singer-songwriter and friend of the show, Amy Mann.

And it's a terrific read.

It is about a future utopian society, which of course is a dystopia, where everyone is exactly the same and they are drugged to a level of complexity and their movements are constantly tracked by a bracelet that they get

when they come to maturity and they wear that bracelet all the time.

And it monitors them constantly and tells them when they can eat and sleep.

Much like the bracelets we're all wearing today, everybody, it's happening.

Because a bracelet of a kind

is at the heart of this dispute.

Is that not right, Heather?

That is true.

So what's going on?

Joe's got a monitoring dystopia bracelet on, and so does your mom.

Yeah,

as well as many of our friends.

It's something that we participate in with several different individuals.

Do you guys live in a dystopian community?

A little bit.

Not too much.

If you go outside of Louisville, it's a little bit dystopian.

Louisville itself is good.

Louisville, Kentucky?

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So within the geodesic dome of Louisville, you are all members of the family and you are all equals, but everyone outside the dome is a mutant and an enemy?

Yeah, that's exactly correct.

Got it.

Sounds about post-apocalyptic as I'd like it.

I've never been to Louisville and I hear it's a wonderful town.

You should come.

You should do a show here.

It's fantastic.

Sure.

Will you and Joe be there?

We will, absolutely.

Oh, good.

You haven't come anywhere even close to us, so we haven't been able to come see you, but we would love to see you.

Well, I'll come do a living room show in your living room.

That would be fantastic.

We have a nice wood stove.

Do I have to wear one of your bracelets?

Yeah, we have an extra.

We could lend it to you.

One of us.

All right.

Anyway, let's stop talking about your wood stove and start talking about your problems.

Joe, what's the problem with Joe?

Well, Joe is a wonderful husband in many ways, but we purchased these bands.

I actually got one.

My mom bought it for me for my birthday in April, and then Joe really was a little bit jealous of my band, and so I got one for him shortly thereafter.

And

they're fantastic.

We participate in weekly challenges with a lot of our friends, and it's really motivating to, you know, get up and make sure you're moving enough.

But most of the people in the challenges, like myself, work office jobs where we certain days cannot get that many steps.

Joe is an English professor, and my mom owns a BMB.

So neither of them are tied to a desk all day.

So they will frequently have three times as many steps as anyone else in the challenge.

So they are really the only competition for each other.

And Joe doesn't like that my mom is so competitive because he is so competitive.

So

frequently he will refuse to be in challenges with her because he feels like he can't win.

And if he can't win, then he shouldn't play.

And I think that's ridiculous.

Okay, so just so just for people listening at home who may not know about this, there's a technology called a conformity band, or I call it a dystopia band, or a watch,

a techno watch,

a number of very popular brands, and you connect them to your body, and they monitor your heart rate and your motion through the 3D simulation we all inhabit called Earth.

And you count your steps, or it counts your steps.

and keeps a log of your every movement so that you can see how well you are scoring in life.

And we won't call it what it is because we don't buzz market on the show, but there are actually a lot of different brands of it now.

And it's for exercise and fitness purposes.

When you say that you guys do challenges, you set this up across the family, like you, Joe, your mom, who else is involved in one of the challenges?

There's a lot of our friends involved too.

There's actually an app that syncs with the band.

So you just like, you have friends on the app, and so you just invite them to the challenges, and it's all logged through your phone.

Like you can go and check and see who is, you know, who's doing what.

So it's it's paired with the phone.

And that way, so like how many people will be involved in a challenge in an ideal world for you?

I would say on average, it's about five upwards, anywhere between three and eight, usually around five.

Yeah, but who's involved?

You, your mom, Joe, who else?

A couple of my coworkers, a couple of our friends from back.

We used to live on the East Coast.

We live in Kentucky now.

But so some of our friends from there, a couple of our friends from here, just basically anyone we know that has a band, we'll invite them to the challenges and to be our friends.

I take it you don't want to use any of their names because within your dystopian cult, you all have the same name, which is Louis, and that's why you live in Louisville.

Exactly.

I see.

Okay.

So Uncle Louis and coworker Louis and coworker Louis B.

And Louisa.

And Louisa.

Right.

Okay.

And so how long will a challenge last?

There's different types.

So there is the weekly challenge where it's called like the work week hustle.

It goes from Monday to Friday.

But there's also a weekend challenge that is just Saturday and Sunday.

And then there's a daily challenge, which is just for that single day.

And what's being measured is how many steps?

Yeah, so how many steps you get within the time of the challenge.

And so what happens is at the end of the week, the person who wins the challenge, all of that data goes to the central supercomputer and it evaluates your comparative fitnesses and then it eliminates the least performing human.

Yeah, I mean, you basically just get a medal, but that might be happening in the background.

The winner gets a medal, and the person who loses is pulped for food.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean,

it depends what time of year it is.

Sometimes they're fed to the lions in the Coliseum.

Right.

Well, entertainment is a basic human need, and Supercomputer will serve all of you in its own way.

And Joe, you're dropping out of these challenges.

Why?

Well, there's a few reasons.

I mean, Heather rightfully points to the fact that it's very hard for me to win.

One of these things that these step-tracking devices do is to tell you how many average steps you have per day.

And my average is somewhere around 16,000, and her mother's is somewhere around 21,000.

So

entering these challenges.

It's not that it's difficult for you to win, it's that your mother-in-law is creaming you.

She's, yeah, with

no kind of

thoughts about my feelings.

Well, how can you object to what is objectively true, Heather?

I should have submitted some evidence because that's not true.

They are usually like the challenges usually end with them being in a thousand steps of each other, which is less than half a mile.

It's a very close competition generally.

I'm not sure.

I agree with that.

Well, one of you is lying.

The community cannot stand for a liar.

Which one of you shall be eliminated by a supercomputer?

What I'll say is that there are definitely days where I get more, and then there are even

times where I do win.

The real issue is that, like she said, her mom owns a bed and breakfast.

She's obviously cleaning this, doing a lot of stuff around there.

So sometimes she'll get 30, 35,000 steps a day.

My top end is somewhere around 26 if we go for a long run on a Sunday or something like that.

So you don't want to play a game that you can't win?

Well, that's part of it.

I would say the other part of it is that when I almost invariably lose, another part thing that Heather has a problem with is that I'm not allowed to then complain about it.

So I have to, she wants me to kind of carte blanche do these challenges and accept them, knowing that I'll probably lose and then not being able to complain about it.

And that's not even, that's kind of like half my issue.

And the other issue being...

the social aspect of it.

I'm not on any social media.

I don't enjoy social media.

I don't enjoy the

part of it that the challenge parts of it.

That's not why I have the device.

And

yeah, so those kind of three things altogether is what is why I don't want to do them.

Well, what does social media have to do with it?

Other than you just want to be braggy like a hipster who says he doesn't have a TV.

Right.

So in these challenges, the device through your phone constantly reminds you of who's on top or who's not.

People say things and it tells you what they say and then they cheer each other and it's a lot of...

But you can turn those off.

You can turn the notifications off.

In your view, Joe, this is an equivalent of a kind of social media.

Exactly.

It's getting pinged and buzzed and poked and up-thumbed and all kinds of things all the live-long day while you're trying to profess some English.

Well, I'm just trying to

catch up on the reading you've obviously done that I haven't.

I'm not very well read.

I read that IR11 crazy apocalypse book, but that's it.

Got one up on me.

It's not a competition so long as I win.

Heather, what do you care if Joe is involved in these competitions or not?

Well, I care because, A, I do think that Joe enjoys it.

I think that sometimes he really likes the competitions.

Maybe not as much as he did.

We've had these for about six months now, so I think maybe he liked it a little bit more when we first got them than he does necessarily now.

But I do know my mom continues to very much enjoy it.

And

she enjoys beating her son-in-law.

Yeah, she does.

But she also just enjoys having the competition because she really doesn't know anyone else who gets anywhere near a step with her.

Like I always do the challenges with her, but she just, she actually does cream me.

Like I can't compete because I work in an office all day.

Heather, you're 100% loser in these things.

Yeah, I really am.

Sometimes I beat other office workers, but not other non-office workers.

Is it important to you, Heather, to beat your mom?

Such that if you can't do it, someone in your household has to?

No, I'm fine with my mom, Winnie, and I think it's good for her.

I think it encourages her and she makes her really happy.

So I'm fine with that.

Would you say that it's something for her to live for?

I do think she gets a lot of joy out of it.

I mean, my mom is a very competitive person.

She always has been.

I think that's Joe's problem as well.

So it's not that you want Joe to beat your mom.

It's what you want Joe to offer himself as a sacrifice to your mom every week so that she can feel good about herself so she won't lie down in one of her bed and breakfast rooms and fall asleep forever.

A little bit, a little bit.

I also think that, you know, my mom, so we live in Kentucky and we lived in Delaware before this.

And my mom has always lived in Arizona.

So my mom and Joe have never had a chance to live in the same state or be very close to each other.

So I think this is a good way for them to, you know, work on building their relationship when they don't get to connect in a lot of other ways.

Through active internet-enabled hostility.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that this was a long-distance step.

So you're in Kentucky.

Your mom's, where in Arizona is she?

She's in Cave Creek.

It's a little outside of Phoenix, about 45 minutes outside of Phoenix.

Okay, I'll take your word for it.

I'm not going to look it up right now.

It's a very nice little town.

It's by Sedon.

It's quite nice.

Not in Tucson?

No, about three hours north of Tucson.

She should take a ride down to Tucson and stay in the Hotel Congress and go see a show at the Rialto Theater and see if that mural, thy painting of me, is still on the side of the theater.

Oh, she should go see that.

She really should.

I don't know why your mom's so lazy.

Yeah, she's probably busy looking at the Grand Canyon or some other dumb thing.

Yeah, right.

No, she's like four hours south of the Grand Canyon.

She's between the two.

You know what?

She picked a terrible place to live because those are the two big things in Arizona that I know of.

And she's, well, I guess she's right in the middle.

Yeah, I think probably the real estate agent sold her on being halfway between the Grand Canyon, the world's greatest natural wonder, and then a painting that someone did one time of John Hodgman.

Those are the two things in Arizona, as far as I know, that are worth seeing.

I think there's also Ho-Ho Cam Park.

That's where the Cubs play their spring training games.

Oh, you're Go Cubs.

So, Joe,

there's a time difference between you and your mother-in-law, and that's part of your issue as well.

Right.

So

it's a three-hour difference, and

you have to sync your phone with the device, and then it updates how many steps you have.

And a lot of the times I'll update it and then miraculously pull into the lead for a moment.

And then I feel like she uses that time difference to then catapult past me.

Right, because she's three hours in your past.

Right.

She's gaming the rotation of the Earth to win.

Right.

And if I could somehow do a kind of reversal of the rotation of the Earth, like Superman.

Superman.

Right, exactly.

Heather, how do you respond to the fact that

your husband says your mother is a cheater?

I don't think, I mean, I think that he's right.

I think

she definitely does use the time advantage

or the time difference to her advantage.

I think that...

It's just, it doesn't matter quite as much who wins.

I think it's just a fun challenge.

Like, they're not, you know, supposed to be, you don't actually get a medal.

It's just a picture of a medal.

You don't get anything from it.

so I think that he should just enjoy you know the motivation to be a little bit more active even though he's already very active but just you know just enjoy the motivation enjoy talking to my mom enjoy you know being a little bit social even though he doesn't like I would disagree that it's like social media because there's only like between three and eight people there it's it's not like Facebook where you're posting it to everyone or anything like that it's a very small contained you say that he should enjoy a thing

but he's saying he doesn't enjoy it

Well, I wish that he would enjoy it.

I understand that's not a reasonable thing to ask of him.

So I do understand that this is something I'm asking him to do that he does not enjoy.

But I also feel like it's a very, very, very small thing to ask him to do.

I don't, my whole family lives out in Arizona, so we don't ever have any interaction with him.

So it's not like I'm asking him to do all this family stuff.

This is the only family-related thing I've ever asked him to do.

And what interaction is there other than

getting the number of steps reported to you?

So there's like a chat feature on the trash hand.

There's trash talk?

A little bit, sometimes.

Not really.

Most people are really encouraging on it.

It's more of like, oh, good job.

You got your step goal or something along those lines.

There's not too much.

There is actually, I think, a booing button or something where you can like boo other people, but for the most part, oh no, it's taunting.

Yeah, you can taunt other people.

But for the most part, it's very, you know, positive and not too much trash talking.

We're actually getting a taunting button installed on Judge John Hodgman

Technicians coming in next week.

Taunt, taunt, taunt.

Joe, are you getting online bullied by your mother-in-law?

No,

but she is very nice about winning, which makes me

suspicious that it's actually meant

good faith.

That's a joke.

I mean, she's a very warm person.

Heather's absolutely right.

Part of the problem may be that I've only actually met my mother-in-law maybe three times.

I think four.

Really?

Four.

Yeah, so we

met, as Heather said, in Delaware in grad school, and we've

been married now for two and a half years.

Congratulations.

Right.

So she the first time I actually met her was at the wedding or a few days before.

And so I definitely don't have a very strong relationship with my mother-in-law.

And that's part of what compelled me to come on the show was to to say that, yeah, I don't have a strong relationship with my mother-in-law and I should, and this is one way I might do that.

I totally see Heather's point there.

I guess when I got married, I realized that part of that agreement is to put the family, the community before the self.

And, you know, is this one of those moments where I should be doing more of that?

Is something I'm...

Was that really in your vows

to put the dystopian community above yourself?

No, but I think it's tacitly in everyone's vows.

I don't think marriage is about utter self-abnegation to the dystopian will of the whole.

I think it's about balancing your needs as an individual while widening your circle of familial obligation, contact, and duty.

Joe, how much is your objection to this about having this ongoing relationship with your mother-in-law?

How much of it is about the fact that it's an adversarial relationship?

And how much of it is about the fact that the relationship happens in this social media-like form that beeps and boops in a way that you don't like?

And how much of it is about you not wanting to lose?

I mean, I think it's definitely the second part of it.

It's totally virtual, and

it's not, to me, in my mind, an authentic way to spend more time with my mother-in-law and get to know her.

It is, and like you said, it is adversarial.

I don't, I mean,

I guess I'm competitive, like Heather says, but I don't enjoy competition.

It doesn't make me, it makes me anxious in certain ways.

And I don't like that that's...

I mean, maybe you gave me a way to express that, but it's that the relationship I'm forming with my lover-in-law perhaps is predicated on this adversarial thing

is part of the problem.

Do you have an alternative in mind?

I mean, I guess I could call her once in a while or be a human.

I don't know.

That would be your preference.

I think so.

Let me understand

the communication that's going on on the social aspect of these competitions.

Are you texting each other, Heather?

Are you forming words from your brain or are you just pressing various prompts such as taunt, thumbs up, medium thumbs up?

There is like a cheer and a taunt button, but most of it is like texting.

Like it's like a

texting thing.

And your mom is obviously too busy to come on this podcast.

What else does she have going on in her life?

Mostly just running the bed and breakfast.

She's in Alaska right now, helping some friends renovate their house.

But that's mostly, I mean, she runs the bed and breakfast mostly by herself, so that takes up all of her time, but it's just not

time station.

She sounds like a remarkable, busy woman who's got a lot of interaction with other humans all the time.

Bed and breakfast guests coming in and out, going up to Alaska to help renovate a house.

Why do you think she needs to hear hear more from her dumb son-in-law?

Well, I think that, you know,

she really has enjoyed the time that she has spent with Joe, and she does want to get to know more.

And I think also

she really doesn't just enjoy having the competition.

I think if there was another person that we were friends with that got anywhere close to those amount of steps, it wouldn't be that Joe's presence or absence would be so noted.

I think it's because he is the only one that gets anywhere close to her that, you know, she cares about it more.

You're talking about getting someone else, like a steps husband,

a secret step-spouse who can give your mom a run for her money.

Heather, I need you to be real with me for a second here.

Sure.

I'm sure that Joe loves you and the two of you have a happy marriage, so I'm going to stipulate to that.

Does Joe like interacting with anyone else socially in any other context?

In other words, is his claim that this is about not wanting to have his phone go beep real and he actually is a social and gregarious guy in real life or does he just not want to talk to anybody?

No, so he talks to like there are multiple people that he either texts with or like

chats with through a popular email service that has a chat feature.

He

there's multiple people that do not live here, friends from grad school mostly that he communicates with on a very regular basis.

I would say

if not every day, every other day at least.

And there's probably about three or four people like that.

And then he's a social guy generally.

I mean, he's not some sort of, you know, like antisocial person.

He is a very kind of, I wouldn't say gregarious, but definitely not antisocial.

So I think

I understand why he doesn't like social media, but he's definitely still a social person.

So you're saying he keeps in touch with his friends, so why doesn't he talk to my mom all the time?

Yeah, a little bit.

Do you have any sisters or brothers, Heather?

I do.

I have three brothers.

And are are they nearby?

They all live out in Arizona as well.

Oh, I see.

And Joe,

do you have sisters or brothers?

I have two younger sisters.

And where are they in the world?

One is in New York and one is in Baltimore.

Where are you from?

I'm from Baltimore.

You're from Baltimore.

All right.

So, Joe, if I were to find in your favor, Are you offering to call your mother-in-law, like, what, once a week?

Get to know her better?

Um,

I don't think my mom would actually like that.

She would like to

be sure.

I think I'd be more likely to text her.

Yeah, um,

she would prefer that.

Yeah, um, I actually don't have a problem

with

doing the challenges, I just want to be able

to kind of tap to not do it if I don't want to.

Um, I would be happy with doing

75% of the challenges or something, but Heather wants me to do 100%.

How many challenges come up in your life,

say, in a week?

So many.

So, usually, like Heather said, there's the week-long one.

We normally do that.

We normally do the weekend, and then sometimes daily challenges.

So, two per week, sometimes three or four.

Who sets these things up?

Who initiates the challenges?

Oftentimes, Heather, and she'll invite both of us.

Got it.

Heather,

why don't you just let everyone have their lives and not be fighting all the time for steps?

So if I don't set the challenges up, my mom will frequently set them up.

And then I feel like it's more notice that Joe doesn't join it when she sets them up.

So a lot of times I'll try to circumvent that by setting them up myself.

I think that Joe is maybe a little bit more inclined to join them if I set them up, or at least that if he doesn't, it's not quite as obvious that he didn't join her challenge.

So your answer is you will use every manipulative opportunity to trick Joe into being a part of this thing.

Yeah, basically.

Okay.

She's honest.

All right.

You know that people lived for a long time without having virtual video games on their wrists all the time.

Yeah.

I actually said that.

I was like, why don't I just get rid of the thing?

No, you must be part of the group.

You must be part of the group.

You might as well stop taking your sedatives.

You might as well grow out your hair again and stop wearing the jumpsuits.

I do think he really enjoys them, though.

But why?

Why do you think that when the words coming out of his mouth are, I don't enjoy this?

Well, so I don't think he enjoys the challenges with my mom, but I do think he enjoys having the bracelet generally.

I mean, we went, we were going on a walk the other day, and it was just like down the street, like just to a store, like a couple blocks away, and he didn't have his bracelet on.

And he stopped and said, oh, wait, I have to go back and get my bracelet just to log.

Like it was maybe 300 steps.

Like, and this was just last week.

He just didn't want to be taken by the drones that patrol you guys for

behavioral anomalies.

Joe, let me ask you this question.

Okay.

Do you want this thing on your wrist?

I mean, I honestly do enjoy it on my own terms.

It doesn't bother me.

I actually do.

Since when are you allowed to have your own terms, mutant?

Get out of the dome.

Right.

I do enjoy it.

The part of it that I don't enjoy is, like you said, being in the dome.

I'd like to be able to wear it if I don't want to or not go on a challenge if I don't want to.

There are aspects of it I do like because when you get a new step goal or it tracks how fast you run a mile, that's part of those.

It's like, you know, I beat my old best.

There's evidence of improvement.

I enjoy that aspect of it.

You know, I'm an avid runner and weightlifter of those, what, solitary pursuits of personal perfection.

Oh, you took film words away from me.

Exactly.

So I enjoy having reflected back at me some evidence that something's changed.

Or, you know, I think in some ways that's why I became an academic too, because the CV is kind of the same kind of thing.

So when you look at this, this interface, I'm like, oh, well, it also tells you you if you've walked a thousand miles or something,

you've walked the length of New Zealand.

I enjoy those aspects, but those are largely personal.

Right.

What is your field of study

in English?

I'm a medievalist, so I study anything from Augustine through Chaucer.

Right.

So you're bent over your illuminated manuscripts by yourself all the time.

I'm a Philistine, right?

Yeah, I got you.

All right, Heather, if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me order, Joe?

Well, so when Joe says he enjoys it so much, like to actually accept the challenge like you just hit the button and you can turn off all the notifications so you really don't have to ever look at it again.

It's not something that he has to really interact with.

So I would want you to rule that you know maybe not for my challenges but whenever my mom invites him to a challenge that he accept it because I think it's a small token just to make my mom happy and it's not too much to ask of him.

I think I've heard everything I need to.

I'm going to go deep into my underground bunker where those of us who are allowed free will continue to party and enjoy the luxuries of real food and water and air.

And in a moment, I'll be back with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Heather, do you really think this is the best way for your husband to interact with your mom?

I don't think it's the best way.

I think that it's, you know, one of what should be several ways, but I do think it's something that, you know, they interact a lot more than they did before having these bands.

So I think it's moving in the right direction.

Joe, would you rather interact with your mother-in-law, perhaps, in a silent, cloistered room in a library, both of you sitting next to each other, reading manuscripts silently while wearing white gloves?

Could separately chant how we feel.

How do you feel about your chances, Joe?

I came into this kind of thinking.

I would lose.

You seem like such an optimistic guy.

No, I mean,

I think Heather

is right, that I should make more of an effort to be close with my mother-in-law, and this is one way I could do it.

So,

yeah.

Heather, are you as optimistic as Joe is pessimistic?

No, I feel like pretty pessimistic as well.

I don't think that went as well for me as I thought it was going to go.

I thought that I was completely right, and I still think I'm completely right, but I don't know if I made my case as strongly as I could have.

So, I feel a little

pessimistic.

We'll find out in just a moment whether we've met our Judge John Hodgman goal for everyone to lose.

We'll be back with Judge John more Judge John Hodgman 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.

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

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

Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

Let me ask you a question.

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I have a little carbon steel skillet.

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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 coming back to my beloved Made-In Entree bowls.

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

Utopias

are formed

when someone

believes they are absolutely right

and have figured out the absolute right way to live

and believe

that deviation from absolute rightness

is deviance

and an error that needs to be corrected by persuasion, force,

or regular transdermal mood-altering drug treatments.

I don't know what's going on in your house, Heather,

but

what began as a joke reference to dystopian societies has now become very real for me in this courtroom.

I agree with you

that if your loving and beloved husband has only met your mother half a half a dozen times or whatever it is,

that he should get to know her.

And it probably gives her pleasure to get to know this person who is

such a big part of her daughter's life when she's not too busy having fun with her friends in Alaska and actually remembers you for a moment.

I'm sure she enjoys remembering that she has a son-in-law too.

And I absolutely agree that when she initiates

a challenge

on your family conformity bracelet ring,

that the polite thing to do is to go, yes, mom.

and let her have her fun destroying you all with her incredible vibrancy of life and active lifestyle.

But what really touched me as we were speaking about this was Joe's

expression

that marriage is about

the destruction of self and the giving over of all identity to the family,

which truly sounds like a cult.

I'm not saying, Heather, that you are the charismatic personality that has brainwashed Joe into thinking this, although you do seem wonderful, and I am ready to join at any moment.

Please give me my new name.

But I must

correct you.

Not because I know what is absolutely right,

but I offer only my experience,

having been in a marriage for longer than you, and having known a lot of married people for whom it has worked or it hasn't worked.

Marriage is not about

giving over your own preferences, your own desires, your own interests, your own introversions

to live in service of the marriage and the extended family.

You are an individual within a community.

You are not a number within a system

that demands complete subservience.

Just because

you're all wearing bracelets does not mean you don't still have your own names.

And I feel now that this has become, even though I was inclined to rule like, come on, Joe.

If your mother-in-law says, let's have a run, you got to say yes, because

that's a filial and law duty but now that I understand that this is a simple

a simple plea for personal freedom from a brainwashed slave

I have to step in and put an end to this before it leads to cannibalism or any of the other excesses of any utopian experiment, which invariably leads to dystopian discord.

And so I am not going to rule in your favor, Heather.

I'm sorry.

I mean, and the reason is that, yes,

in life among friends and among spouses, there are absolutely things

that people should enjoy.

My wife should enjoy the novel A Game of Thrones.

That's a truism,

but she doesn't.

And even though she can't explain why she doesn't enjoy it, I can't deny that she doesn't enjoy it.

And I can't force her.

I mean, this is the bedrock principle of the Judge John Hodgman podcast, which is people like what they like.

And indeed, that is why the Judge John Hodgman podcast, it's been acknowledged by many publications, is the last bulwark against autocracy on this earth.

It is a human right of Joe's

that when

his bracelet goes beep, boop,

sometimes if he feels like it, he can go beep.

And sometimes if he feels like it, he can go boop.

He still has free will.

He expresses what he enjoys and what he does not enjoy.

He knows what he enjoys and what he does not enjoy.

It is his right to enjoy the things he enjoys and to not enjoy the things he doesn't enjoy, even if you think he should enjoy them.

So while I encourage you, Joe,

to be mindful

of politeness and maybe every now and then give your mother-in-law a thrill by letting her kick your teeth in, steps-wise, once again,

I still find in your favor, I also encourage you to start texting her and develop a close relationship.

with your mother-in-law.

Learn about her adventures, learn about her BNB people, you know, make human contacts, and then

you will have a real human connection with your mother-in-law that

probably better than your wife's connection with her because she's just chasing her through bracelet contests.

And then you'll really win.

That'll be the ultimate victory.

So Heather, you're adorable, but you're a tyrant.

You must be stopped.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Heather, this is near total defeat.

How do you feel?

I'm okay with it.

I do want Joe to have free will, so I think that he will be mindful and try to be polite to my mom despite the ruling, but

I do think he should be able to do what he wants.

Maybe you should design some kind of special clothes that everyone in your family wears.

I think we should.

I'll send you guys a pair.

Okay, great.

Joe, how are you feeling in victory?

I feel good.

I mean, I think that the judge and what Heather just said is right, that I should make more of an effort.

And I think there are ways to do it much more authentically than through a conformity bracelet.

What are you planning on?

I have to get her phone number first, but I'll

give her a call when she gets back from Alaska.

If only someone you knew had her phone number.

Got it, right?

Well, I wish the two of you the best of luck.

Thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

podcast.

Well, another.

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.

Thrilling case comes to its conclusion, Judge Hodgman.

Jesse, may I offer you a perfect food disc?

It's a wafer.

Oh, thank you very much.

And look at this.

It complements perfectly my flowing robes.

It's food to match your rank in society.

You know, we're both increasing our ranks in society by traveling the roads of this great nation, entertaining its good people.

Jesse Thorne, where are you going to and how can I see you?

Well, I am going to be, along with a couple of other Max Fun podcasts, at the Chicago Podcast Festival.

It's the weekend of November 17th at a variety of theaters

in the Chicagoland area.

November 17th, I will be appearing along, doing Bullseye, along with our friends at Lady to Lady, another Maximum Fun podcast.

And on the show, I will be interviewing Andre Royo, the wonderful actor from Empire, and also

legendarily, he was Bubbles on the Wire.

Oh, yeah, Bubs.

Bubs, and he's such a fun, cool guy.

Like, he's just a delightful guy.

And one of my absolute favorite stand-up comedians in the entire world is going to be doing a set, a guy named Dwayne Kennedy.

He's not the most famous stand-up comedian in the entire world, though he's, you know, he's been on Letterman and all these different things.

But man, is he funny?

Like really genuinely one of my favorites in the entire world.

I always enjoy learning about a new stand-up with whose work I am not familiar, and I will check him out.

Unfortunately, I cannot join you that weekend, the Chicago Podcast Festival, because I will be performing on the 17th in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

as part of the ArtsQuest Music and Arts Festival there in the Lehigh Valley area.

I'm really looking forward to it.

And you can get tickets for that, of course, at johnhodgman.com slash tour, where you can also get tickets for my performance on November 11th when I'm bringing Vacationland, my one-man storytelling haha show, to Seattle, one of my favorite cities on the earth.

And you can also learn about an appearance that I'll be making at MIT the night before, November 10th, while I'll be in conversation with Seth Manookin, just talking about comedy and stuff.

All those details are available, of course, at johnhodgman.com slash tour.

I hope you will check it out and maybe attend one of them because it is better when you are there.

Yeah, this is going to be, this is a couple of fun things.

And I'm also just going to mention here, just on the DL, and I'm going to download.

I'm going to ask Judge John Hodgman listeners, you know, keep this close to the vest, okay?

But if you live in the Chicagoland area, we got something coming up for you.

I know what you're saying.

Jesse, is it going to happen in February?

Yeah, sure, it's going to happen in February.

And I know what you're saying.

Usually in February in Chicago,

you like to be outdoors enjoying the wide open spaces.

Yeah.

Like your frozen lakes and your frozen noses,

your frozen horses.

What we're doing, you guys, it's going to be the John and Jesse Outdoor Chicago sopping wet 5K barefoot fun run.

Exactly.

But yeah, keep your eyes open for that.

We're about to announce it.

And of course, Max FunCon and Max FunCon East tickets are going to go on sale on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

So get ready for that.

All kinds of exciting stuff coming up.

Yeah.

And I look forward, let's just say, I look forward to being in Chicago in the cold.

And I also want to say our producer is Jennifer Marmor, the newly married Jennifer Marmor.

I went along with some of my colleagues here at MaximumFund.org to Jennifer's wedding here in Los Angeles.

And her husband, Shane, is a wonderful, lovely, charming, very funny and talented guy.

He's just a delight, and the two of them are just a wonderful pair, and we couldn't be more happy for her.

So congratulations to the happy couple.

Congratulations to them both, and I'm so glad they were able to give up their own personalities and merge and give themselves over to the Commodore 64 that's going to run their lives forever after.

Speaking of landmarks in the Maximum Fun family, I got a text.

that Travis and Teresa just had a baby girl.

Yeah.

Congratulations, you guys.

We're working on developing her new podcast.

Her name is Barbara Lee.

It's already more popular than this one.

Yes, exactly.

Congratulations to Travis and Teresa.

And our thanks this week to Lindsay Pavlis, who's been running the boards, and Christian Dueneus, who helped set things up while Jennifer's on her honeymoon.

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

We looked at them all.

We're looking for cases, Judge Hodgman.

We need cases.

Yeah, the case bank is getting a little low.

If you don't have a fight, start one.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well,

don't start a fight just to get on a podcast, but think about the fights you're having now and whether they work for a podcast.

I bet you they would.

Go to maximumfund.org slash JJHO and tell us about it.

We'll decide.

Don't worry.

Oh, is this too small?

Is this too big?

Is this too whatever?

Tell us about it and

we'll call and chat and we'll figure it out.

I like getting your mail, so please write on in.

Hashtag at JJHO on Twitter.

Go to maximumfund.reddit.com to talk about this case on Reddit.

And like Judge John Hodgman and join the Maximum Fund group on Facebook to talk about it on Facebook.

All of that said, I think we're done.

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

Goodbye.

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