Mommy Nearest

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Summertime Funtime Bailiff Monty Belmonte from WRSI 939 the River in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This week, Mommy Nearest.

Julie is filing suit against her mother, Amy.

Amy has begun attending the same gym and workout class as Julie.

Julie, however, thinks this isn't going to work out and wishes not to cross-train with their mother/slash-daughter relationship.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Who should start their own beach body pyramid scheme?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents the obscure cultural reference.

There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done.

One is called yesterday, and the other is called tomorrow.

So today is the right day to love,

believe,

do,

and mostly, judge.

Each day is a gift.

That's why it's called the present.

Don't dwell on things you can't change that have happened in the past, and don't try to predict what will happen in the future.

Just live and judge for each and every single moment.

Summertime, fun time, guest bailiff Monty Belmonte, swear them in.

Please rise very slowly.

Keep your back straight.

Now raise your right hand and Good.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, Richard Simmons or Jillian Michaels or

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that Judge John Hodgman has calves so well-defined and muscular that I'm tempted to make them into Ville Parmesan every time I see him in shorts?

Yep, I do too.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Julian, Amy, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors,

can either of you guess the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Amy, you're the mom in this situation, correct?

That is correct.

And you have been brought here against your will by your daughter, your mean, ungrateful daughter.

That is not so correct, but go ahead.

Okay.

The court stands corrected.

You have the option to guess the source of the quote that I gave as I entered the courtroom first or make Julie guess first.

Oh, Julie has to guess first.

All right, Julie.

I feel like I've heard it before, but I can't put my finger on who said it, so I'm going to throw out,

I'm going to say Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

That is a guess.

That is a guess.

Amy, do you have a guess?

Not even, but I'll say Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali?

All right.

Both, which is to say, all guesses are wrong.

I'm sorry.

Julie,

I admire your guessing.

I admire you both guessing.

But it would surprise me very much if you had heard that before.

Because I pulled this from a website

titled 14 Motivation Secrets from East 54th Street Soul Cycle Instructors.

And

specifically, the instructor in this case is Gunner, who is a woman and has no last name.

I also was fond, I was either going to do that one or

the Soul Cycle instructor, Drew Bereziewicz,

who said, Welcome to how it goes.

I started saying this with one of my best friends recently because it reminds me that there's no use complaining or being frustrated with a problem.

You've just got to decide how to proceed and then do it because otherwise you're just idling.

So

welcome to how it goes, you guys.

Let's get this going.

Are you guys ready to

sweat in this courtroom today?

Yep.

Yep.

I have to say, this is very high energy for this courtroom.

I'm actually out of breath now.

I'm sorry.

That was a little bit too up for me.

Joel Mann here at WERU.

Let's turn off all the lights and bring us down.

If you're sure.

That's right.

All right.

And

put on one of your favorite bands.

Joe Bird in the Field.

Joe Bird in the Field.

He's exactly so.

And Monty Belmonte, are you wearing your sweats or your yoga pants or whatever?

I have my yoga pants on.

No shirt.

Oh, boy.

That's pretty good.

And a headband, sweatband?

Wristbands, headband, all set.

Right.

Mid-torso band?

That's it?

Yes.

Right.

One of those gut busters.

It'll vibrate the whole time that I'm on here so you can see that I'm working my abs the whole time.

Okay,

I don't need to see anything.

It's a podcast, and I certainly don't want to hear your voice jiggle like that ever again because it was gross.

Sorry about about that.

Stop.

Julie, Julie, this is all about your fitness regimen

and the fact that your mom goes to the same gym as you and at the same time, and you don't want to see your mom at the gym.

Am I wrong?

Yeah, you are correct.

Where is your gym?

It is in the Bronx.

In the Bronx.

And you guys are in New York City?

Yes.

Okay.

You do not, how old are you, Julie?

I'm 25.

Okay.

You're a young woman out in the world.

Are you living at home?

I am.

Could you say that a little bit more loudly?

I am, yes.

Just say, could you say, I live at home with my mom?

I live at home with my mom, but I do pay her rent.

That almost makes it worse.

Because it makes

what you're saying to yourself and the world is, I can afford to pay some rent,

so I could maybe move out, but I'm not going to.

Well,

but it's hard, right?

I bet you don't pay her market rent on an apartment in New York City.

Not even close.

Not even close.

Are you living in your old room?

I am.

And was it your idea to pay your mom some rent on your old room to sleep under your old Sean Cassidy posters or whatever it is?

No, it was my mother's.

All right.

And when, and how long have you been living there?

Since I moved back from since birth, basically.

Yeah.

But you went to college someplace?

Yes, I did.

Where did you go to college?

I went to college at Boston University.

Boston University, another very expensive city.

Yes.

And what did you do at BU?

I studied human physiology.

And is that for like a

moving towards a medical degree or like a sportsy athletic degree?

It is moving towards a medical degree, but I have since

sort of left that in the wayside because I realized a little too late that it wasn't what I wanted to do.

What are you doing instead?

English romantic landscape poetry?

No, I work with dogs.

You work with dogs?

Yep.

What do you do?

Train them to kill?

Currently, I am a shift supervisor at a doggy daycare.

Oh, that's lovely.

Do you think you will continue working with dogs?

I hope to.

Becoming in what capacity?

I think the hope is to sort of move up in the company that I'm working with and learn the ins and outs of how the business works and then apply it some other way on my own or with a partnership later on in life.

So, taking care of dogs.

You want to have have your own business, your own doggy daycare, or something like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

And how does your mom feel about that?

She thinks it's pretty cool.

All right.

Pretty cool.

You know what?

You are pretty cool, Amy.

You play it very cool.

I have to.

Like, you really, you really have a very late, like, a real.

Like, I kind of like,

is your mom Patty Smith?

Is that what's happening here?

here?

No.

Okay.

No, but I read her and admire her.

Yeah, she's the greatest.

And

do you want to know something?

I don't like to brag, but I went thrift shopping with Patty Smith in New Mexico once.

Yeah.

Wow.

We were both at a conference, and I had been through this town before, and I knew that there was a good vintage slash thrift shop.

And

I was going to it with my wife, and a friend and an acquaintance of ours said, Where are you going?

I'm going thrift shopping.

I said, Oh, I'm going to come.

Hang on, let me get my friend.

And her friend was Patty Smith.

Wow.

So we had to go over there.

And I was so self-conscious about it.

And I didn't know what to say to Patty Smith.

And it didn't matter because Patty Smith is comfortable with silence to a point that I have never encountered in another human being.

Just utterly happy not talking or being talked to.

And

a thing that I will never forget is I started worrying that Patty Smith was getting bored and wasn't happy there and wanted to go back to the conference.

And I am a caretaker by nature.

And I didn't want to bother her

because she was just sitting outside the store on the chair of a 1950s sort of kitchen.

chair and table set, like a sort of retro-y set that they were selling.

And she was just sitting there as as the sun was going down, just kind of staring off into space.

And I said, Excuse me, Miss Smith, would you like me to get a card to take you back to the conference?

And she said,

no, I'm just sitting here.

The end.

That's a really nice story.

And it's in keeping with what I took from reading Jess's Kids.

I mean, there's a piece about her, and she's so fascinating.

I mean, she's

well, just to have that level of comfort, to be able to just like, no, I'm just sitting here.

And she was perfectly comfortable being utterly by herself in whatever mental world she was in.

And when it was time to go back, she would go back.

There was nothing to worry about.

That was profound cool.

She was total cool.

One time, Patty Smith swore at me and a radio co-host of mine when we introduced her at City Hall Plaza in Boston at a big outdoor concert because she didn't want to be introduced.

So she can be loud too.

And then she swore at all the press, and it was awesome.

I love her.

Yeah, she's the greatest.

I mean, this is just, I'm not saying that she's like this all the time, no, but she has different modulations of cool.

She's the coolest.

Totally.

And you know, any mom who can be so laid-back and cool about the fact that her daughter just took a degree in human physiology and now wants to run a kennel for the rest of her life, that's pretty cool.

Cool, mom.

How much do you charge your daughter for her room?

We'll get to this gym thing in a second, but I just like talking to you guys.

$500 a month.

Yeah, $500, that's a pretty good deal.

Can I move in?

We're running out of room, but we can talk.

All right.

Who else is living at home with you?

Julie's turtle, Frank.

Uh-huh.

How much does he pay?

Not enough, not nearly enough.

I might be cool about Julie.

I'm not as cool about Frank.

Yeah, tell me the story of this turtle, Julie.

A couple years ago, when I was still in Boston, it was my birthday, and I came home for my birthday because it was Marathon Monday, and I had a three-day weekend.

And I

was like, Ben, what did you get me?

He was like, I don't know.

I have some turtles.

You want some turtles?

And I was like, what?

You mean like candy or like little ceramic turtles?

He was like, no, like live turtles.

I was like,

okay.

And so then my mother was very kind.

This is your boyfriend?

No, this is my brother.

Oh, this is your brother.

I was going to say.

Sorry, I missed that.

Is your brother Jeb Bush?

No.

We were talking about him handing out turtles last week.

Oh.

Yeah, no.

And my mother was very kind and helped me drive up back to Boston after.

I was done being at home and took the turtles with me.

There were two originally.

One of them unfortunately passed away within about a month of owning them and the other one's still kicking.

Those little green things that are supposed to die within the first week or two.

Well this one's like three, four years old and about a foot big?

It's not a foot and it's like eight inches.

That's a big that's a big turtle.

Yeah.

You take them for walks on a leash?

No.

In fact, when my brother gave them to me, he thought they were both going to die within a month.

That's your brother.

Happy birthday.

Here's something you don't want that's going to die.

The brother that gave her the turtles is the owner of the gym we both go to.

Boy,

this is turning into a really wonderful family sitcom.

So your brother,

is he your older brother or younger brother, Julie?

Older brother.

Older brother.

And he owns a gym.

Does he live at home?

No, No, he lives with his girlfriend not too far from home.

Right.

And he owns a gym in the Bronx.

Now, normally

we don't like to mention name brands because

we don't want to give any more attention to those big corporations.

But

this is his own gym, right?

Is it a franchise of a larger chain or is it his own thing?

It's sort of a franchise.

It is?

Yeah, the whole CrossFit deal is a franchise.

It's his own gym, though.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But it's a CrossFit gym.

Yeah.

Okay, gotcha.

Does it have a name?

Yeah, it's called Spite and Dival CrossFit.

Spite and Dival CrossFit.

Look it up, everybody.

And maybe you'll see Julie and Amy working out side by side,

if I so order it.

Maybe even handcuffed together.

Oh, God.

Julie is the spite part of it.

Yeah.

Julie, your mom is driving you and your turtles up and down the East Coast Coast for no reason.

She's letting you live at home in your old room for only $500 a month.

And you've been doing that now for a couple of years, it seems like.

So

why you want to be mean to your mom and say, get out of my face while I'm CrossFitting?

It is because

it's only a certain time that I don't want her to be there.

It's in the morning.

My brother has morning gym time, which is an hour between 8.30 and 9.30 usually.

And I work

the closing shift at my job for the most part.

So

I would say three to four days a week, I can only go in the morning.

And in the summertime, since my mom is a teacher, she doesn't have...

a schedule where she has to be someplace in the evening and she chooses to go in the morning, which is all hunky-dory except for the fact that, you know, when you're lifting heavy things, there are some noises that happen that that i don't particularly want to hear from my mother um

and there are um saying your mother grunts

i mean we all do there's no getting around it um

but also i like i made this morning's class i made friends in that class and it became an area where i can de-stress and lift heavy things and yell and not have

to deal with my mother who as much as I love her and adore her and think that she's an amazing mother,

she can be a little stressful sometimes.

And sometimes I just want to get away from her.

And the morning class, three to four days a week, are the only times that I can.

And now she's

getting all in my business.

So you're like in CrossFit, and you're like, mom, I'm talking to my friends now.

Don't embarrass me.

Pretty much.

Talking to my CrossFit friends.

Yep.

What are your CrossFit friends' names?

There's Rita, Kev.

What up, Rita?

Nikki?

You've got to know they're my friends too, by the way.

They are.

Nikki calls my mom mommy.

Everybody in the gym calls my mom mommy.

What is CrossFit again?

That's where you lift a heavy rope up and down?

Is that that thing?

Exactly.

Yep, it's legalized torture.

Because I want to be clear on what's going on here.

You guys aren't like

you're on one treadmill over there and you're on the other treadmill over there.

In CrossFit, you're all kind of hanging together, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like a team workout, and sometimes you share equipment at the same time.

Right, it's a class.

Yeah.

And you do all different kinds of things.

You lift the rope and then you jump off the thing, and then there's running, fencing, and horseback riding.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You could open your own gym, it sounds like.

Yeah, well, look,

got me out of the dog care business.

Got me a place of my own.

And so you're all doing the same thing.

Could your mom beat me up, Julie?

I don't know.

I don't think she would want to, but she could probably lift you up off the ground.

Oh, this is sounding better and better.

What do you teach, Amy?

Art to high school kids.

Well done.

What high school?

In the Bronx.

Everything's within walking distance.

That's lovely.

Yeah.

So I'm, you know, I'm enjoying my summer by going to the gym at a time that I liked, I have the most energy first thing in the morning.

Right.

You're not doing this just to bother your daughter.

No, not at all, but I think she thinks I am.

No.

No.

I just think you're not taking into account the fact that it does bother me.

Well, Julie, look, I don't know what time it is where you are, but up here in Midcoast, Maine, it is Friday, August 26th.

Summer is about over, and your mom's going to go back to work.

Isn't that going to solve this problem?

For the summer, but it's, you know, I have vacations and then the summer is going to roll around again.

And it's an interesting...

These sound like threats, ma'am.

You could easily have gotten me, you easily could have have gotten me to rule in your favor just by going like, yeah, the problem's going to solve itself.

And you keep the vacations to yourself, and then you spring those on her later.

Oh, well, I don't even think there's a problem, quite frankly.

At least I don't have a problem.

But I think it's fascinating to me that while I certainly understand that Julie is troubled by my being there, that that is strictly her problem.

It's not my problem.

I mean, I'm fine with her being there.

Right, but shouldn't you take your daughter's feelings and thoughts into account every now and then?

Every now and then.

I have since she was born, and I am taking them into account in this particular regard.

And you're just ignoring them.

Yeah,

you're considering them and dismissing them?

I am respectfully disagreeing with her that she has a right to tell me when I can come to the gym.

Right, from your point of view, she's trying to order you out of your own son's gym.

That's right.

Does he come around?

Does he come around?

Yeah, he's there.

You know,

he's my coach and my daughter's coach.

He's the coach.

Wait a minute.

He's a coach of both you guys?

Yep.

Yeah.

He's embarrassed to have both of them in class.

Yeah.

How does he feel about it?

I'm sure it's all money to him.

He is sensitive to the idea that I don't want my mother there because he will send her to the other side of the gym and make sure that I don't interact with her at all, especially in the morning.

So we do share equipment, but usually I'll work in with somebody whose weights are closer to mine and not my mother's weights.

Well, why is that solution unsatisfactory?

Because my mother comes to annoy me and talk to the person that I'm working with.

She talks to Nikki, her other daughter?

Yes.

Her Paniwani daughter.

Nikki is a six-foot-tall policeman, but yeah.

Oh, okay.

She's stealing all your friends.

She's stealing all your

cool mom is stealing all your cool friends.

Yep.

And your, and your bro is like, go over there, mom.

Pretty much, yeah.

He doesn't mind me being there.

Let me ask you a question.

How much of your mother's money do you pay your brother to work out at his gym?

None of it.

I don't pay my brother money dollars.

I pay my brother in working for him, essentially.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

How are you working for him?

I thought you were at Doggy Daycare.

Is that also his business?

This guy has got his hand in everything.

Gyms, Doggy Daycare, the black market turtles.

I help him clean up after the last class if I am there in the evening.

I usually help him set up things and I've organized fundraisers that he's had, and I've funded sort of merchandising efforts that we've had in the world.

Millennial barter economy.

Amy, do you pay your son to work out at his gym?

Absolutely.

Money, right?

Real dollars, yep.

Yeah.

Your mom is an art teacher at a public high school, and she pays her bills.

Kids these days, right, Amy?

Yes.

You are right to agree with me there.

And my curmudgeonliness.

So once the school year starts again, you're going to be there all

by yourself again, Julie, is that right?

Yeah, I'll be going in the morning, and it'll be the regular morning crew minus a couple people who come to the school.

Invaded your space.

They happened to work in schools.

Yes.

And you would want me to, if I were to rule in your favor, you would want me to order your mom to stay out during the hours

of, what, 8?

What time do you work out?

It's between 8.30 and usually about 10 o'clock, but on the days when I can only go in the morning, I would like her to go in the afternoon, since she does have that option.

Look,

you need to make a stronger case to me.

to deny your mother, who is an art teacher in a public high school who pays her bills, the right of agency and free movement within this society.

So bring it on.

What is it about your mom being there that really gets your goat?

Okay, so I've explained that it's sort of my de-stress area, and

I

want to be able to express myself in the way that I would in the gym via lifting up heavy things.

You feel self-conscious about grunting in front of ma?

Correct.

But also,

there's the aspect of she is my mother, and I feel like my mother should be able to hear what I'm saying,

take it into account, and adjust as needed, and not basically, when I tell her, because I've told her many times, this makes me uncomfortable, go, oh, oh, that's too bad.

You can come too, like, and make it seem like there's...

something inherently wrong with me feeling uncomfortable about being in the gym with my mother at the same time.

Wait a minute.

How do you

how do you express your when you say to your mom, I don't want you to come, what's the situation?

You do you take her aside, you talk to her at the gym?

No, it's usually beforehand, it's usually the night before, and I'll be going to sleep.

Let me hear, let me hear what you say to her, and then I want to hear what she says to you.

Okay, uh, mom, are you going to the gym in the morning?

Yep.

Why?

Because that's when I like to go.

But you can go in the afternoon.

Julie, use

today as an example.

Like, you wanted to go this morning, and

you didn't end up going because I said I was going to be there, too.

Yeah.

So it's,

I get that she doesn't.

She'd feel much more comfortable if I wasn't there.

And I think the essence of this is her believing in her heart that as her mother, I should take her feelings into consideration, not just take them into consideration, but

beyond acknowledging them, that I should give in to her discomfort by backing off and going away.

That's, I think, the essence of this.

Mama found the crux.

And why is that wrong?

Why is she wrong?

Why is Julie wrong?

It's not a matter of wrong.

I just, I don't think that that is, it's a solution, but it sort of feels like I'm enabling her.

Like, oh, you're uncomfortable.

Well, let me fix it for you.

Right.

By going away.

All these kids with their safe spaces.

Yeah.

Like, how do you deal with a situation that doesn't feel comfortable?

Do you just back away from it?

What if it was somebody else that was at the gym that you didn't like being there?

Like, we don't always like everybody that we have to come in contact with.

What do you do?

Do you stop going to the gym?

Or do you make accommodations for yourself and

figure out a way to block out the other person somehow?

Amy?

Yes.

Serious question.

Do you want a podcast?

I learned some valuable life lessons from Amy right then.

Did you?

Yeah.

Amy,

you know, you can have this podcast.

I'm ready to go.

Yeah, but my summer's almost up.

I got to go teaching.

You want to take my teaching job?

I'll trade.

No way.

No, thank you.

What's on the lesson plan for this year?

You're going to be doing some

painting, sketching?

Actually, we're doing,

I teach ceramics and painting as an elective in the high school.

It's kind of cool because I get to teach exactly what I do on my own time, too.

So I'm pretty lucky.

So you're a ceramic artist in your own time?

And a painter, yeah.

And a painter.

Fantastic.

So, look, the only reason that I would ever bar you from

going to the gym when Amy was there was

if I got the impression that you were doing it to bother her or get under her skin or on purpose to annoy her.

Like many of the weird dads we've had on this show

do things specifically to annoy their grown children.

Really?

Yes.

But you don't sound like a weird dad.

You sound like a cool mom,

Julie.

Am I getting tricked by your mom?

By your cool CrossFit mom?

Because is she actually,

can you present some evidence or at least a compelling anecdote about how she's really doing this just to bother you and harass you?

She does like to test her limits when we are at the gym at the same time and come up to me and say, oh, what are you doing?

Oh, what are you doing?

And poke fun at the fact that she knows she's not supposed to come over and talk to me, but she does it anyway.

Wait, she's not supposed to come over and talk to you because

your brother told her not to, because that's the rule.

Yeah,

I didn't even know there was a rule.

Julie, I think you've shown up at the gym about maybe one and a half times since the summer started.

That's not true.

When I've been there, when I have been there.

Now, mom's gym shaming you.

Wow.

Julie, your mom has laid an accusation at your feet.

Are you not a regular gym goer?

No, I am.

I do go regularly when I can and in the mornings.

I've gone in the mornings in the past with her.

I've gone to even afternoon classes in the past with her.

And

the thing that bothers me is that she has the option to go in the afternoon where she can use the energy that she has in the morning to go swimming or to go take a run and do her exercise in the morning that way and then go to the gym in the afternoon, which she's clearly used to doing because she does it during the school year, and

let me be able to go in the morning and have my safe space.

I have two follow-up questions for you, and then I'm going to be ready to render my verdict.

So, or think carefully before you answer.

First,

with doggy daycare, work with a lot of dogs.

What's the best kind of dog?

Oh, that's hard.

I would say

just general dog dog, like mutt

combination of so many other types of dogs.

We have one dog in particular that's a mix between a lab Brador retriever,

a golden, and a German Shepherd.

And he's like just a giant mush.

That's amazing.

That's exactly what I had written down here.

A lab retriever shepherd mush.

That's good.

That's in your favor.

You may win this one by combat.

Next question.

In your old room, you obviously don't have Sean Cassidy posters up.

What do you still have there from high school?

What's on your walls?

From high school?

Or

what's on your walls now?

A painting that I made when I was in college.

And

I think, oh, and a little Picasso print that I have.

Is it a painting of a llama?

No, it's a painting of a baby bird and like a mother bird.

Oh, nice.

Oh, my gosh.

Thematically appropriate.

Yes.

And there's a baby bird saying, get out of here, mom.

I'm throwing you out of the nest.

And is the mama bird going, it's my nest.

I made this nest.

I taught you how to paint birds, baby bird.

And it's like, whoa, that is then.

Is the baby bird painting a painting of two humans who are fighting on a podcast?

And it's just like infinite recursion?

I wish I was that talented.

Amy, I do have one last question for you.

Your daughter says she doesn't like to grunt in front of you.

What does one of her grunts sound like?

Can you do an imitation?

You know what?

I can't because I pay no attention to her in that regard.

I mean,

not sitting, I'm not there to listen to my daughter grunt, quite frankly.

I'm there to work out.

It's just grunty white noise to you.

It's exactly.

All right.

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

I am going to go

into my medicine ball hut and throw these weights around for a while and really get up a good lather.

And then I'll be back in a moment and tell you my verdict.

Please rise at the knees and lift Judge John Hodgman off the ground, Amy, and escort him out of the courtroom.

Julie, Amy, first of all, Amy, I believe you might be Patty Smith.

You've got that same sort of sitting outside thrift shop looking off into yonder making poetry in your head kind of cool about you.

But Julie,

are there particular grunts that your mother makes that particularly annoy or embarrass you?

Well, so there are two exercises that come to mind.

There's hip thrusts, which is where you sit sort of parallel to the ground and have a barbell and you basically hump the air.

Don't want to be around when she does that.

And also kettlebell swings.

Have you tried not grunting, Amy?

Not possible.

I have tried.

I try breathing instead of grunting, but you run out of breaths.

Just tone your dry humping down a little bit.

If that's the compromise here, I don't know.

And now, Julie, you feel more uncomfortable grunting in front of your mother than these strangers or just people that are at the gym?

I never work out in front of people ever because I don't want them to see me grunting and sweating.

I would work out in front of my mother or my family.

Yeah, no, I'm opposite.

I don't.

All right.

Well, we'll be back with Judge John Hodgman's decision right after the break.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and look how physically fit he looks.

You're oiled up like the Togo flag bearer from the Olympics.

I just did a push-up.

So

it sounds, look, obviously I'm in love with your mom, Julie.

Me too.

As is

all of the listening audience.

I was not so fond of all that talk about dry humping that was going on while I was out of the room.

It's just exercise lingo, Judge.

Yeah, well,

you talk to Julie's mommy with that mouth?

I would even grunt in front of her with it.

You can.

Yeah.

No grunting.

No, no, no grunting.

I'm sorry I opened that door.

If anything, you're going to find some way to turn grunts into puns, the worst.

But, you know, as much as I am

in adoration of Amy,

I do see where you're coming from, Julie, because

you are trying to start an independent life in this world, and

you are trying, and you have

challenges ahead of you that

a lot of people who are older than you didn't face.

The job market is much worse.

Rent in New York

is insane compared to when when I moved there, proportionately.

It's gone out of control.

It's a challenging world for someone who graduated from college two to three years ago.

Would that be about right, the right timing?

Yep.

Right.

And it's it's and

because the job market is what it is and because living in cities is so expensive,

it's hard to create an independent adult life for yourself

in the same way.

And

for all those people and cranks who decry kids living at home during this transition, you know, shut up, you guys.

It's not for lack of trying.

It's not the same.

It's not the way it was

25, even 10 years ago, I think.

And for all of my sort of eye rolling about safe spaces while we were talking about

this, I actually, you know, the concept of a safe space, that is to say, a place where you,

particularly in college, where the expectation is that you can learn with a reasonable expectation that you are not going to be

harassed

or assaulted physically, verbally, emotionally.

That's a real and necessary thing.

And that's absolutely what college should be providing.

Not a CrossFit gym.

CrossFit Gym is not a college.

And a gym is a microcosm

of all of the

gross,

sweaty

human density

that is living in a city like New York.

You are going to be bumping up,

maybe even humping up against all kinds of

people in the world who do not care about you in any way.

You're going to be hearing their grunts, you're going to be smelling their smells.

You grew up in New York City, so you know this, right?

This is what it is.

You know,

the reality is that while assuring a safe space, and obviously

your brother's gym can and should be a safe space insofar as you should be free from harassment and assault.

But in truth, you can't be free from, in a CrossFit class, from the world's terrible smells, gross gestures, and disgusting grunts.

Part of the fitness experience, particularly class-oriented fitness experience, is

getting over your discomfort with your own physical gross body, learning to not be bothered by sharing it and its sounds and smells with the world around you and appreciate that we are all just grunting meat at the end of the day.

And

attempting to

bar

your mom, or in this case, a U.S.

citizen who happens to be your mom

by using sibling

in order to not have to listen to her noises or have her listen to your noises because it weirds you out is just not part of being an adult.

I sympathize.

You see your mom a lot.

Of course, you want your own time.

Absolutely.

But that's the sad part about being a grown-up is you got to buy your own time.

You got to make your own time.

You got to make your own places.

You got to go other places.

You got to get to a place where you don't have to work out in your brother's gym

unless you really want to in exchange for

picking up towels or whatever.

If you want that solitude, you got to live alone.

And that's not where you're at at the moment.

And instead, you're in this wonderful world living with your mom, cool mom, and hanging out with cool bro.

and living this beautiful little sitcom in this CrossFit, which I could probably pitch a lot more successfully than the other TV show I tried to pitch this year.

I wish I had heard your story before.

You missed incorporating a turtle into it.

That would have been the game changer.

Oh, yeah.

And she's got a pet turtle to boot sold in the room.

In life, what you want to be is Patty Smith.

I think that's true for everybody.

It takes real discipline.

I mean, I think she was born with Effortless Cool.

But for those of us who are not born Patty Smith, it takes real discipline and effort

to be able to sit

and be at peace with whatever happens in the world around you and not

give a fart

about anyone else and not give a fart about what they're thinking about you

or your farts or your grunts or your smells, you know.

And

in life,

you don't want to be John Hodgman

worrying about Patty Smith.

You want to be Patty Smith worrying about nothing.

Or at least that's what I took away from that story.

Your mileage may vary.

And so with regret, you know,

though I appreciate your alone time, you're going to get your alone time back when your mom goes back to school.

But while you have this time with your mom, enjoy her.

Enjoy her grunts and smells.

You know, she's not wrong that the job of a parent is not to make a child comfortable, but to prepare a child for the discomfort that is out in the world.

And what better way to prepare that child than grunting near her and

stealing all her friends?

So obviously I find in favor of cool mom Amy.

Best of luck to you and Frank, Julie, but you're out of luck.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom, Julie and Amy.

Julie, your mom is benediction.

She's addicted to you.

She's your root connection.

She is just trying connecting with you.

She works out barefoot.

She's heading for a spin class or whatever she's doing, but now you're going to be in there with her all the time.

How do you feel?

I mean, I kind of expected it, and

I think I've been hanging around people who have been sort of on my side.

And it's nice to hear somebody who's not just my mom being like, no, I'm not going to enable you saying, no, she shouldn't be enabling you.

And Amy, have you given any consideration to the fact that maybe you could lay off a little bit when you're in the CrossFit gym with her and give her a little bit of space in the gym.

Stop grunting.

Stop grunting.

No, you can keep grunting if you need to grunt.

You can't let that in.

It's not healthy.

Can't keep it in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, I admire my daughter for

challenging me in this way and asking me to participate in this process.

And I got something out of it too.

And

respecting, you know, your children, your friends, people in your life and their opinions and their feelings is kind of an important thing to do.

So

yes,

there's always room for me to be more

caring.

Amy, you are the world's best mom.

And even though you're not my mom, I want to give you a Mother's Day card.

As inconvenient as it might be for me.

And I'll take it.

I'll happily accept it.

Let me just jump back in here and say, Amy, if this is all a a ruse and you're actually the weird dad of moms, and you just tricked me, you just tricked me into thinking you're the greatest mom when, in fact, you're just doing this to bother your daughter.

If you ever, if you ever, here's the thing, here's,

Julie, if you ever get the sense, a gut sense that your mom is coming, walking up to you just to bother you and rub this verdict in your face,

then

you can say

these safe words.

Judge Sean Hodgman says, I deserve not to be harassed by you, mom.

And thank you for saying that because, you know, I am human.

And she would do it.

You know, I am human.

That's all I'll say.

And, you know, what can I say?

No, here's what you do.

Here's the safe word.

I'm just sitting here.

That's the safe word.

Just stare off into space and just say, I'm just sitting here.

Well, Julie and Amy, thank you both so much for joining us on the Judge Sean 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 Law.

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.

Thanks, fun time, summertime, guest time, bailiff, Bonty Time, Belmonte Bailiff.

Always a pleasure, Judge John Hodgman.

Pleasure is mine, and I will see you soon in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts.

There were only a handful of tickets left, so by the time you hear this, they may all be gone, but I'm excited to see you in my hometown.

Why not check johnhodgman.com/slash tour

or go to your favorite ticket scalper and buy them for $9,000.

It's like a Hamilton ticket.

It's exactly.

I have one ticket that is for sale for $9,000.

I'm just going to hold it back in case someone really needs it.

You can see Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorne dispense live justice in London on September 24th and September 25th.

Tickets and more information can be found at maximumfund.org or johnhodgman.com slash tour.

If you'd like to submit a case to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, you can do so at maximumfund.org maximumfund.org/slash JJ Hoe.

If you want to email us, it's hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Thanks to Eric Rapp for naming this week's episode.

Thanks, Eric.

Our engineers this week were Joel Mann at WERU in Blue Hill, Maine.

Thanks, Joel.

And the Cutting Room in New York City.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks for listening to the JJ Hoe podcast.

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