Divan Judgment

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm your summertime, fun-time guest bailiff, Monty Belmonte from WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts, in for Jesse Thorne.

This week, Devon Judgment.

Glennis files suit against her husband, Jim.

Glennis would like to buy a couch for their living room, but so far, she bank get no satisfaction.

Jim is not ready to dive in just yet and thinks couches are too uncomfortable.

He thinks a day bed would bring sectional healing to their living room and be more comfortable.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can settee this debate.

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

Oh, Monty.

I can't do it.

Who wrote that?

Wasn't me.

No, it was.

It was you, Monty.

It was.

Sorry.

That was,

I've never broken before the cultural reference before, but I had to.

All right, here he comes.

Despair came knocking at my door, and I let her in for a while.

She sat on the couch

in the end, smoking.

She said nothing.

Suddenly I felt tired.

I began to feel tired.

And all of the sudden the room seemed dizzy and dirty.

Despair came knocking,

and I let her in

for a while.

Make a pun out of that, Monty, and swear him in.

Glennis, Jim,

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 the Ottoman Emperor or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that all of his many, many couches are so precious to him that they're all covered in plastic like Minanas?

I do.

I do.

Thank you.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Glennis and Jim, you may be seated.

Before I give you a chance for an immediate summary in your favor, I want to say hello.

It's great to talk to good time summertime Bailiff Monty Belmonte.

It means summertime is here.

But I am frustrated because normally I would be talking to Monty in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts at WRSI the River or in the state of Maine from

WERU, our sister station up there.

But instead, I'm alone in my little room, my little chamber room here in New York City.

I got drugged back to civilization for a very good reason.

I get to do a little acting tomorrow.

But I miss my summertime.

I'm not on vacation.

Work, work, work, work, work.

Oh, despair came knocking and sat sat on my couch.

Now, but anyway, it's really nice to talk to you, Monty.

How are you?

How's everything there in Massachusetts?

I miss having you here.

It feels like not summer when I'm not with you in person, in the flesh.

We'll do that real soon.

But meanwhile, I got Glennis and Jim

sitting down over there on their whatever furniture they've got at the moment.

Glennis and Jim, for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors,

can you name the piece of culture that I

quoted directly and somewhat depressingly as I entered the courtroom?

Jim, Glennis has brought you to this court to face my obvious and, in this case, enhanced wrath.

You may choose to guess or force Glennis to guess first if you think you will get some benefit from that.

What are you going to do, Jim?

I'll give it a shot.

Give it a shot?

Yeah.

Okay, let's guess.

Is it, I mean, do I have to name a specific...

Can I just name a person?

Is that cool?

Why don't you make your guess and we'll just enter that into the guest hole and then

we'll check it out later.

Go ahead, make your guess.

My guess is Edgar Allan Poe.

Is that how that's pronounced?

I never knew that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

I always thought it was like Poe, but it's good.

It's good to know.

Good to know.

Yeah.

All right.

Put that into the guess hole, Monty.

It's in.

All right.

Glynnis, great name, by the way.

Much more interesting than Jim.

I agree.

What is your guess?

I am going to guess

it's from an Edith Wharton novel.

Okay.

Which one?

Pet Cemetery?

We'll say House of Mirth.

Oh, okay.

Didn't she write Pet Cemetery?

Yes.

Monty, I'm asking Glynnis.

Sorry.

All right.

I just read Pet Cemetery, so I just figured that must be what you were talking about.

All right.

So Monty put that guess in the guess hole.

Another answer has been entered into the guest hole.

No, guess hole.

It's a terrible name.

This is a whole new idea that the guesses are going into a hole, and then I will take the guesses out.

That's not going to work because it just sounds like guest hole.

Edgar Allan Poe!

That's the first guess.

And the second guess?

Edith Ward!

Yeah, and they should be in a hole because not merely both, but all guesses are wrong, though they were both

imaginative.

But neither of you guessed the famous and beguiling and

sort of tragic and inspiring, still living

singer-songwriter, Daniel Johnston,

who's

famous for writing very weird.

and somewhat upsetting and also sometimes very cheerful songs and recording them on a take the debt for a long time from his mental institution.

I don't know how he's doing now, but I hope he's doing well.

And if he's a listener, hello.

Hi, how are you?

That's one of his songs.

And the song itself was Despair Came Knocking.

And if you felt that my rendition of that song was weird and depressing, wait till you hear the music version of it.

It is not a chipper tune, appropriately.

And the fact is, there are, it turns out, also adding to my wrath, there are not many

good quotes or songs or movies or TV scenes that mention the word couch or sofa.

And which ones do are universally depressing, such as this one, or you can have the TV by Barry Manilow, which is just a litany of furniture that's getting divided between a couple and a divorce.

Wow.

You can keep the couch.

You'll need a couch.

That's a lyric from that one.

Wasn't enough.

Wasn't enough.

In any case, neither of you are right.

Both of you are wrong.

And now we will hear the case about your couch dispute.

Glynnis,

you are frustrated because Jim does not want to get a couch.

You cohabitate?

We do.

Okay.

Are you married?

We are.

We're coming up on our two-year anniversary.

Congratulations.

And you haven't had anything to sit on all this time while you've had this fight?

We have my old twin bed

from when I was not cohabitating with Jim.

And we currently use that as a sort of day bed.

Okay.

Where do you live?

We live in an apartment in St.

Paul, Minnesota.

St.

Paul.

St.

Paul, Minnesota is a lovely town.

Thank you.

The nice thing about St.

Paul that I've noticed the few times that I've visited is

if you ever want to know what it is like to be the last human on earth, take a walk through St.

Paul after 4:30 p.m.

Yeah, yeah,

that's that is that an exaggeration?

No, no, not at all, not at all.

It's downtown St.

Paul after hours is

you'll definitely get some quiet thinking done

because no one will bother you.

I think that's where Edith Wharton wrote the stand.

That's right.

That's right.

Exactly so.

Exactly.

Quite right, Monty.

Jim, you currently have a twin bed in your living room and have had for how long?

Maybe three years.

Three years?

Yeah.

That's when she moved in.

For three years.

Yeah.

In what universe is this acceptable?

And why?

I mean, it's acceptable.

Apparently, it's acceptable in the Jim and Glennisiverse.

What's going on?

Why don't you have something in there that is not a bed?

Well,

before she moved in, I did have a couch that I received from some friends.

But when she moved in, it was time to bid adieu to the couch because it was old and gross.

And she had that spare bed, which was, I mean, nothing else was happening with it.

And it was easy to move because small beds are easy to move compared to couches, especially into second floor apartment buildings.

And so

we kind of prettied it up a little bit and put some

many, many pillows on it, and now it works as a great day bed.

You know, no one sent me a picture of this.

Now, my first ruling is I want you to take a picture of this thing.

Not right now, but as soon as you get home.

Yeah.

I want you to take a picture of this thing.

Yeah.

And I want you to send it to me.

But before you send it to me, I want you to really look at it and

think about what it would be to be a normal human being looking at this.

Okay.

Okay.

Now, look, maybe I'm being extremely cruelle.

What are your ages?

I am 33.

And I'm 26.

Okay.

You're grown humans.

Yes.

Do you have income?

Yes.

Yes.

We both have.

well, good paying jobs.

Okay.

Okay.

I got you.

What do you do for a living, if I may ask, there in St.

Paul?

Dennis, I'm...

Be quiet, Jim.

All right.

I work for the state of Minnesota.

I work for the Department of Human Services.

Oh, okay.

A government position.

A government job.

Yep.

You probably get some good benefits, some retirement.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm like the...

I'm the most excited 26-year-old about a pension plan.

Well, the enthusiasm is oozing off of you.

Yeah, I know.

Well, can you just check the levels, please?

Because you're really,

your cries of delight are kind of peaking here.

I believe she's eligible for retirement next year.

And Jim, do you have, you have an income from a job?

What is your career?

I am an instructor for the biology department at a St.

Paul Community College.

Okay.

And

St.

Paul is not the most expensive city in the world.

No.

And they have furniture stores there.

Yes, correct.

So

is it extreme thrift that has led you to repurpose this twin bed as opposed to properly furnishing your living room?

I mean, we haven't even gotten to the point of what you're going to put in its place.

Because as far as I can tell, the dispute here is that, Glendis, you would like to get a couch.

sofa or whatever you want to call it.

And Jim wants to just replace it with another bed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were thinking like,

I mean, we're both going to get a house here pretty soon, maybe within the next year or so.

Well,

we're saving up to buy a house.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

And so, so, you know, I was saying that I would like a couch in the living room.

And

to answer the question that you asked of, is it extreme thrift?

That's a fantastic question.

It is not, but that is what everyone thinks.

And when we kind of, we told a friend about that we were going to, you know, present this argument on the podcast and she was like, she had not heard that Jim doesn't like couches.

And so then she, she said, oh, that's why you guys have that bed in the living room?

Like, like she just assumed that we either couldn't afford a couch.

or we were being extremely thrifty because we're saving for a house.

And how did it make you feel that your friend thought you were either weird or cheap or both?

I mean, it wasn't that surprising to me because it is a little weird having a bed as your main seating.

Unsurprised is one feeling, but if you were to probe a little bit more deeply, would you use a word like ashamed, humiliated,

delighted?

I mean, tell me more.

Yeah, yeah, no, it just, it kind of, I guess it was a little bit affirming too, because Jim,

Jim is not a fan of having a couch.

And I was like, see, this is what people think.

Affirming in the sense that your feeling of the profound wrongness of this bed was ratified by another human being because Jim has so thoroughly brainwashed you into his worldview that having a bed in the middle of your living room is normal?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know if he's thoroughly brainwashed me.

I mean, I am trying him before

the judge.

Okay.

I'm not totally there yet.

Jim, ha why do you hate couches so much?

There

is pretty much like no aspect of a couch that isn't better represented by a day bed, except for maybe your friends being weirded out, I suppose.

Well, you know, the the effect it has upon you and your beloved wife and how you are perceived by the rest of the world may be meaningful to you or not.

But you are saying intrinsically, there is nothing that a couch offers that isn't better represented by a bed.

A day bed, yes.

A day bed specifically.

And so that we're on the same page,

I think of a day bed

as essentially a twin bed

with some kind of frame on one side of it.

Yeah, yeah.

And maybe sometimes you got a trundle bed underneath that that you can pull out and lift up to make it into a double.

That's what I envision as a day bed normally.

Can I insert?

I actually looked up the definitions of day bed and couches.

I hope you

didn't look them up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary because even though Emily Brewster is our resident grammarian and lexicographer and friend, that dictionary, until they update their hot dog and sandwich opinion, is dead to me.

Okay.

Is Wikipedia okay?

Oh, yes, of course.

Okay.

All right.

Wikipedia says that a day bed is a cross between a chaise lounge, a couch, and a bed.

It's the

chimera of couch.

It's like if you took all the bad parts of a couch and got rid of them and replaced them with better things.

Tell me about the bad parts of the couch.

Yeah, there's a there's so many.

I don't know how anyone tolerates couches.

Well, here's the thing, Jim.

A lot of of people do.

A lot of people do.

That doesn't mean we have to settle.

I think we can do better as a people.

You're saying that the vast majority of people living in traditional Western culture homes are deceived by this evil piece of furniture.

Well, maybe not deceived.

They just don't know any better.

I've seen the light.

Well, yeah, but I bet you they also have beds.

I bet you they actually compare couches and beds every day through usage.

But do they do they do they though?

Because like the idea of it is so apparently crazy to people.

Well Jim how about you you list it out okay

all right well first of all thank you for the assist Glemnis you're welcome couches are not

super comfortable

like if you're sitting in a couch especially a couch as it gets older tends to kind of eat you where eventually you're kind of your your rear end is kind of being sucked into the back of the couch the padding usually gets worn away so that your knees end up being higher than you're behind and it's not a it's not a very good it's kind of a slouched over

experience uh-huh also the whole like cushion experience is just bad like Not only do you constantly have things like seeds and whatever falling in those crevices that eventually have to be suctioned out.

But like having separate cushions, especially like if you're laying down or want any kind of support, they're just not there.

And probably, first and foremost, worst thing about a couch, if you happen to be over a certain height, the fact that a couch has those like bookending armrests make it very uncomfortable for laying or anything like that, which is a majority of what happens in our living room is mostly a laying down of some kind.

Right.

Do you have a bedroom?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

This is not your studio apartment.

No.

No.

All right.

What is your height, Jim?

I'm about six feet.

So a little bit taller than average.

Sure.

And

when you're using the piece of furniture in the living room, yes.

How often are you lying down versus

sitting up?

Give it to me in a percentage.

Almost always lying down.

I would say, I don't know, what, like 80% of the time.

I'm looking at Glennis for confirmation.

I don't.

Glennis, do you confirm 80%?

I mean,

yeah, I'm going to go with Jim's 80%.

That sounds fine.

So, right now in the world,

you have a living room with a twin bed in it.

Yes.

And if 80%

of Jim's usage is lying down in that twin bed.

I would say 80% of the house usage is laying down.

I would say 99% of Glennis' time in the bed is lying down.

All right.

But Jim, I'm going to tell you right now.

What you mean to be saying is lying down.

Yes.

You lie down.

You do not lay down.

Yes.

Yes, you're correct.

Wait till Emily Brewster hears this.

Unless Glennis has become unconscious and you have to pick her up and lay her down.

Because you lay something down, you lie yourself down i think and hope i'm correct boy oh boy i can't wait to get my emails this week

in any case uh a little pedantry for you there jim

but uh so 80 of usage the point the point is jim you're lying down on your bed in the living room Where is Glennis during this?

Are you guys cuddling up together or does she have to go sit in a hard backed chair on the other side of the room facing the corner while you're luxuriating?

I almost never get to use

the day bed.

Yes.

The current twin bed.

Bed bed, we'll call it.

Yes.

It is almost always

being used by

my better half, we'll say.

Glennis.

Right?

That's who you're talking about, your wife.

Yes, Glennis.

There isn't some extra wife in here.

There isn't some weird St.

Paul marriage thing that I don't understand.

Okay.

So, Glennis, you are the one who's lying down all the time in bed.

Yeah.

Is that so?

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, in the mornings, I'll lay down then, like, eat my breakfast while sitting on my stomach and reading the news on my phone or whatever.

All on the bed in the living room.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's all that we have.

If we had a couch, I would do it there.

Jim seems to think that it would be impossible to lie down on a couch.

It's not impossible.

It's just worse.

Okay.

Are you lying down because it is a bed as opposed to a couch?

Like the medium is the message here?

Like it's a bed.

We must lie down.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Sorry, Hodgman.

I just couldn't help it.

No, I appreciate it.

That's a very, very, well bailiff, Monty.

Thank you.

And so the answer, Glennis, is

you think Monty is onto something there?

I think so.

Yeah, it just seems more appropriate.

You're saying that because you have a bed in your living room

and

no other furniture to speak of,

that that is leading to this deviant behavior and you would prefer to normalize.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It would be nice

to have an armrest, you know.

Like if you had an exercise bike in there, all you would do is cycle the whole time in your living room.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm very tempted to just say that you guys got to throw that bed out the window and

and your only furniture is two treadmill desks

that are facing each other, and you just have to walk slowly towards each other

while eating TV dinners.

But you have to acknowledge that, look, you said an armrest would be nice, and by the way, that's an invention that I enjoy a lot.

Well, I mean, so an end table serves that purpose fine, I think, or a pillow.

Would you like me to put that into the guest hole?

We're never going to use that term again.

Okay.

The guest hole is going into its own hole.

It's hole of perpetual forgetting.

Yeah, I got you.

I got you on that, Jim.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm trying to talk to Glennis here for a second.

I'm actually trying to do a job for you.

Okay, Glennis.

Yes.

Whether or not this is your conscious, unconscious choice, or the horrible telepathic will of this demon bed, you're lying down a lot.

I am.

And there is no question

that while armrests are cool, I mean,

all cool kids have them,

a bed is better suited to lying down.

than almost any sofa or couch.

I mean, that's not what a sofa or couch is primarily designed for.

So

why not give in and admit the gym is right and just maybe even get a double bed?

Put it right in the middle.

California King.

Yeah.

California King, right in the middle of your living room.

Put the TV on the ceiling and never have anyone over because you have effectively left society.

That's actually a pretty cool idea.

Yeah, I figured you'd go for that, Jim.

Yeah.

Well, let me ask you, my question was rhetorical, obviously, Glennis.

Uh-huh.

It started out real, but it ended up rhetorical.

Do you guys ever watch TV together?

Yes.

Yeah.

And how do you do that?

We have one chair next to the day bed, so there is at least one more piece of furniture in our living room.

And sometimes it's usually like one of us in the day bed and one of us in the chair.

Do you split it 50-50 or who's usually in the bed?

And by the way, this is not a day bed that you have, right?

This is your old night

It's my old bed, yeah.

Yeah.

This is not, I mean, a day bed is its own mutant thing

that

you may or may not get, depending on my ruling.

But right now you have a night bed in your, in your living room.

And what I'm asking is, when you watch TV together, who is more often sprawled on the nightbed?

I'll have to be honest and say that it's usually me.

Okay.

So it's you, Glennis, who normally is lying down

on and

you lying down on your side?

I usually lay on my stomach.

On your stomach?

Yeah.

Give me.

So is the bed pointed into the middle of the like?

Where's the TV?

What's going on in your lives, you guys?

Run down the geography of your living room for me.

Yeah, okay.

So

the TV is

horizontal to the

or wait, no, sorry.

If I'm laying on my stomach, I have to turn my head to the left to see the T V.

Okay.

So

the TV is,

let's say,

it's very hard to describe, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

The bed is in couch position.

That is to say, it is not pointing at the TV, but it is.

The long part of the bed is facing the TV, not the short part of the bed, right?

Yeah.

Right.

okay and the chair tell me about this chair jim yeah that it's just a padded chair it's okay

is it upholstered yes it is is it fully upholstered yes uh-huh okay

does it is it from a place is it from a a store

you can name the store

we got it from my mom because she was redecorating so we got it i got you yeah what does it look what does it look like what is the upholstery is it a pattern it's like a velvet.

It's like

a tan velvet color.

Kind of a gold color.

Yeah, gold.

And it feels velvety.

So

old nightbed and mom's chair.

Do you have a coffee table?

Yeah.

Or just like a milk crate?

It's a nice.

I made it with my dad.

It's a really nice coffee table.

Oh, that's nice.

Oh, so you're a handy fella?

My dad's a handy fella.

Oh, okay.

And he made it out of a milk crate.

He saw the idea on Pinterest.

Do you have lamps?

We do.

We have a floor lamp and a mounted lamp on the wall.

Okay.

All right.

And Judge,

can I say, so I am

okay with having it, like when we have a house one day, right, hopefully we will have a main living room and then we will have sort of like a family room in the basement.

And so I am fine with having a

bed

basically in our basement

because that's like where the family stays.

But I think that a living room is pretty much the most public space in a house.

And so that's why I'm insisting on a couch to be in the living room.

Do you feel self-conscious when entertaining?

A little bit.

I mean,

especially now that I know that people think that we're just too poor to have a couch,

right?

Well, when you do entertain, I mean, do you have people over?

Yeah.

I just threw a surprise party for Jim because he got tenure in May.

Oh, congratulations, Jim.

Yeah.

Thanks.

How was the surprise party?

Were you surprised?

I was absolutely surprised.

What was the story that was told to you to get you out of the house?

Or did you just come home?

I went rock climbing with friends.

So when you came home, what happened?

I opened the door and a lot of coworkers and friends shouted surprise, and I was genuinely surprised.

And were they all in a big cuddle puddle on the bed, or what was going on?

Surprise, we have nowhere to sit.

I mean, it would have been...

I mean, there there were people sitting on the the day bed it's not a day bed it's not it's a bed day bed you're right

this is going nowhere until you guys acknowledge to the world and to yourselves yeah you have a bed instead of a couch okay okay great got it just i just want us to all to live in reality for a second Okay, it's time for this.

Projecting a future day bed onto your bed bedbed

Bed is not couch.

Hot dog is not sandwich.

Noted.

Thank you very much, Guest Bailiff, Monty Bel Monty.

Your Honor, can I say something?

You may.

I will say that the one person that seemed to love the day bed, or the I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the bed.

I'm about to throw you both out of this court.

You're going right into the guest holes.

No, I said never again, Monty.

Sorry.

Sorry.

So the one person who loves the bedbed is is whom?

Yeah.

The one person that loved the bed at that surprise party was a four-year-old.

Yeah.

Was he or she jumping up and down?

Yeah.

On the bed?

Yeah.

She loved taking all the pillows off and just like having a grand old time on it.

So is the whole family up against a wall?

It is up against a wall.

Okay.

And you have pillows

sort of strewn about to create

phony and movable armrests.

And

yeah, I had to put a lot of pillows to make like lump, to make it, you know, have like lumbar support.

And then like Jim complains about all the pillows.

And I'm like, well, I have to make it like this in order for it to seem like a couch.

Right.

And

so in effect, even though I just yelled at you.

Yeah.

I mean,

what Jim is suggesting as a replacement is another version of this.

A twin bed

that is at essentially twin bed height

that you can add bolsters and pillows to in order to replicate some aspects of couchdom.

But if you were to sit

in the bed bed now like it were a couch,

You can't lean again.

How many pillows can you have that you're actually leaning against pillows?

And do you have your feet on the floor?

No, because

it's too wide.

So you're like, basically, you have to scoot back.

And then your calves are like at the end.

Or at least for me with my height.

Yeah.

Jim,

how do you feel when you hear that your wife Glennis feels a measure of

embarrassment and social awkwardness because you have a bedbed instead of a couch or even a day bed.

I guess I measure that against the joy that the bedbed or future daybed would bring to our lives and kind of make a judgment call.

Well, do you mean our lives or your life?

That's what I don't understand.

I mean, you've already said that she's using this thing more than you are.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

You're sitting in mama's tan chair.

Yeah, I know.

I wish I could get some of that bedtime.

It's great.

You totally can.

Can we also henceforth call a future day bed a tomorrow bed?

No.

No, we may not.

That goes into the tomorrow hole.

There are a lot of holes.

There's a lot of holes in this one, let me tell you guys.

Glennis.

Yeah.

Do you want me to rule

that you get a couch tomorrow or when you move into your new home?

When we move into our new home, I can wait.

I can wait.

I've already had that bedbed for three years, so what's another year?

What's another year?

That's very reasonable.

Jim, why is it so imperative that a couch never enter your new home?

Uh I'm not

sure I would say never.

I just think that it would be unfortunate.

if that happened.

Like,

our future would be compromised?

What do you mean?

No, it just wouldn't it wouldn't be as it wouldn't be as comfortable a home for me to be in.

Go on.

That's all I got.

I wouldn't be crushed if we ended up getting a couch.

I would just be...

I would just be disappointed.

In your current situation, you have a bed instead of a couch that you have modded out to be a kind of day bed.

Yes.

You don't use it as much as Glennis, but you would like to use it more.

Yeah.

And your principal dedication to this concept is so great that even though Glennis, who is the one who's using the thing more,

wants a couch,

her desire should be ignored so that you can continue to enjoy,

to not enjoy this thing.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty much it.

I would love to have more time with it, but.

You would love to get more time on the bed.

Yes, or the future bed, future day bed.

I would like to object because I did not know that there was such a desire to have more time on the day bed.

Well, I'm glad you guys have finally gotten to the crux

of the issue here, which is that Jim wants some bedpike time.

Do you like sitting in mama's tan chair?

It's fine.

I mean, it's kind of like it's like a third of a couch

so i think i would be happier if i had a couch but

who knows i can't i guess i can't know until i get a couch if i get a couch all right i think i've heard everything that i need to in order to make my decision uh i am going to uh

go into the furniture showroom that is my chambers and i will uh sit around on a lazy boy recliner

and then I'll come out and render my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

I guess rise from your living room bed.

Glennis,

would you be open to getting a couch in the bedroom?

Like instead of the living room?

Yeah, I mean, if the bed is in the living room, why not put the couch in the bedroom?

That's true.

I mean, I guess if it was a really huge master bedroom, I could see a small couch in there.

That'd be fine.

And Jim, with the same sort of idea behind it, since most people, when they come over for a party, end up spending most time in the kitchen, would you be willing to have a day bed in the kitchen, but a couch in the living room?

Daybed in the kitchen, but a couch in the living room.

Yeah, because then people could lie down in the kitchen uncomfortably, where they're usually gathering instead of the living room where they ostensibly gather, but actually usually don't.

I can't answer that question without experiencing the day bed in the kitchen scenario.

I think I would need to be there.

I think it would be a bad idea.

Probably a bad idea.

And now, Jim, just as an aside, as a biology instructor at St.

Paul Community College, is the biology of having a couch anything that's factoring into this?

Because

the way that we in the Western world sit is allegedly not good for the spine, and the lying down, the reclining is more ancient of a tradition.

Does that factor into your decision making at all?

Absolutely, 100%.

Yes.

That has not been brought up once, I will say, and the judge is not even here to hear this.

So I think that you should have probably brought this up at a more appropriate time.

Yeah,

I'm not even in a position to hear what was just said.

And even if I were, I wasn't paying attention.

What was it?

What was it that you just said, Monty?

That the biology of lying down is actually better for the human spine than the biology of sitting in the sort of, I guess, Western way on a couch or on a chair.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

I didn't hear it.

I'm still prepared

that, you know, with Glynnis' original intent here, that Jim is ready to full-on go Grandpa Joe from Charlie in the chocolate factory and just lie down wherever he goes.

But we'll be back in just a moment with Judge Hodgman's decision.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

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

Grandpa Joe from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Now, there would have been a cultural reference that would have been great.

There's a world of hatred towards Grandpa Joe on the internet, that he is a lazy freeloader who is faking his injuries until Charlie himself gets a golden ticket and then tries to capitalize on Charlie's good luck.

Yeah.

Or, you know, out of pure greed, because he also wants chocolate.

Right.

I have to agree with the internet on that one.

Yeah, me too.

That's a weird old man who jumps out of bed for a chocolate bar.

Gross.

Love that song, though.

All right.

So Glennis and Jim,

you may re-recline, as it were,

while I render my verdict.

One of the precepts of this court, of course, is people like what they like.

And it's never been quite tested in this way.

Because clearly, Glennis,

you like lying down in your living room.

Not only do you like reclining,

and there is definitely furniture that can help you recline,

but as I gather, you like lying down in a very specific way, which is on your stomach,

while watching television and hanging out with your husband and

generally doing the kind of couch activities that one does in the living room,

which...

I have to say would be very challenging to do

on a traditional couch of any kind.

And it is the case here

that, in some ways, your husband is looking out for you

because he knows that if you are going to use your sofa as a bed, there is no better sofa than a bed.

And yet, you want a couch, it sounds like,

primarily to

feel a part of civilization and to be unjudged by your friends and colleagues as the sad poor weirdo who's still sleeping in her twin bed from before marriage that's now in the middle of the living room.

Because of your fear of social opprobrium, meaning harsh criticism or censure,

you are trying to normalize, and let's face it, that would be more normal for you to have a couch in your living room than what you have now,

or even a day bed.

And so, there is an element to this court's yearning,

which is to tell you,

follow your lying-down bliss.

Like what you like, own it.

And should anyone out there

criticize you for it, maybe they're not your friends.

Maybe

you should set up your living room the way,

and this was the first thing I thought of,

the way Emperor Augustus and his family enjoyed their living room time on the iClaudius miniseries from PBS in the 70s.

If you haven't seen it, and I gather from your deathly silence that you haven't.

It is a miniseries set in ancient Rome during the reign of Emperor Augustus, played by Brian Blessed, and his

lame stepson,

Claudius, played by Derek Jacoby,

and

his villainous wife, Olivia, played by

Sean

Sian

Phillips.

I don't know how to pronounce her first name, but she was also in Dune.

Look, this is one of my favorite things.

Patrick Stewart's in it.

It's amazing.

It all looks like it was shot in someone's basement with a torchiere lamp aimed at them.

It looks so cheap, and yet the acting is so incredible.

And you believe that ancient Rome exists in that basement rec room at the BBC.

And the way they would all hang out and have their dinner and social conversation time is they would all lie on beds, often, and you're going to like this, Glennis, on their stomach.

Yes.

Smart people.

They basically had a like, and perhaps this is historically correct sex decoration, or just someone at the BBC had the good idea, that they laid out all these twin beds in basically a U-shape and draped them with a bunch of pillows.

And then there were a bunch of dates and figs everywhere that they were always munching on while talking about who was going to get married to whom.

Another alternative is a variety of beanbag chairs.

I mean, you could just have hammocks.

I don't care.

If you like the way you live your life, you should do it that way.

As Monty Belmonte pointed out, a couch is a pretty rando cultural assumption that has nothing to do with the human body necessarily.

And there are many, many cultures that don't have them.

And you could embrace that.

Like what you like.

lie where you want to lie,

but don't lie to yourself or anyone else

because you have a bed in your living room.

Don't lie and say that you don't.

Own it.

But the other problem is, the stuff that you are owning is no good.

Essentially, your living room is right now cast-offs from previous lives.

This is the thing I don't like.

I don't like the fact that you are a grown man and a grown woman

who have incomes,

who are

living on cast-off furniture still.

This is not your first apartment out of college.

Even though this is not where you will end up,

this is your home.

And some of the discomfort that is being felt here, I think, is the fact that you're living this cobbled together life.

You do not thoroughly own what you are doing in there.

Because if you were to put a bunch of Tatami mats and throw pillows around and get rid of all furniture, that at least would be a conscious decision.

This is how you live your life.

And your friends would know this is, oh, that's that weird couple

that has a bed in their living room or whatever.

Right now, what's going on is why aren't you guys moving on with your lives and buying furniture that is meaningful to you instead of

using your old bedroom bed as a phony fake day bed you see what i mean yeah yeah

i definitely do i appreciate the need for thrift

and for that reason i'm not going to order you to go out

uh and buy all new furniture tomorrow but i do order you

to

save your money and buy this house so you can put this whole sordid lifestyle behind you and instead move forward, making conscious decisions about your furniture, which is the decoration of your life.

It is the place, this is one of the places where you will spend the most time.

You deserve and require within your means to surround yourself with furniture and decoration that makes you actively happy.

Now, I would argue that watching TV while lying down in your stomach

with your head craned awkwardly to the left or to the right in order to see the TV,

it's hard for me to understand how that would make you actively happy since that seems like a depressive act.

And I don't even want to imagine you having a snack in that position because that seems like the most depressing thing of all time.

But if that's...

But that's not me.

It's not my living room.

It's your living room.

But

I order you to buy this new house and then get rid of that twin bed or throw it into a spare room

to give mama's tan chair back to mama,

accept no one else's cast offs, and within your means to curate your home with the furniture that you actively like and deserve.

And whether or not you choose to rejoin society

or as you say, traditional Western culture, and put a couch in your new living room.

I order you also to go to a number of different furniture stores and try out a bunch of different couches.

Because I suspect, Jim, that your opprobrium for all of couchdom has something to do with a bad experience you had with this old couch, your ex-couch,

that you threw out when Glennis moved in.

And it's one of the most important parts about starting a new relationship that you don't let old relationships affect your new relationship.

You got to throw this ex-couch out of your mind and heart as well as out of your house.

Because I don't know what went down, what went wrong with you with that old couch.

There are a lot of couches out there, dude, and a lot of different couch technology.

And what what you describe about the discomfort of couchdom, I think you are going to be, if you can get over your blind prejudice, you'll be amazingly surprised.

And it may be that once you get out there in the world and start

test driving different kinds of couches, ottomans, armchairs, side chairs, all of that stuff.

You may find yourselves falling in love with a piece of furniture.

And it might be a couch.

And it might be one that you can lie down on comfortably, even lie down on your stomach comfortably, or do what you can't do now, which is comfortably cuddle together and watch television.

I will never,

ever,

ever allow you to have a day bed in your living room, though.

Those things are monstrous mutants that I've spent too many bad nights in guest rooms on.

They are the worst of all worlds.

The usually

metal

railings and backboards of those things actively hate your back.

They are terrible beds.

They are terrible couches.

And they will have no place in your home.

If you want a bed in your living room and are willing to accept that you will not be able to entertain any kind of sit-down cocktail party of any kind,

but that living room is just for you and that makes you happy, you go for it, but own it.

Get a bed, get a couch, do anything.

But do not get a day bed and get rid of the stuff that you have now and start actively curating your lives as soon as you move into your new house.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Jim Glinnis.

Seems to me the solution here is get a pull-out couch.

It's a couch with a bed hidden in it.

And then when you want to lie down, you're watching TV as together, just you two.

You can sleep on it.

And then when...

Friends come over for a cocktail party, push it back in there.

Nobody even knows.

Overruled.

Overruled, Monty.

Just checking.

No hybrids of any kind.

Choose the way you want to live your life and live it.

You can't, you can't.

No.

What about sectional sofa like I have in my living room, Judge John Hodgman, with a really long section that is very easy to lie down and sleep on, but has a normal couch part attached to it?

Perfect.

A perfect.

That is not a hybrid.

That is a sectional sofa.

Sectional healing.

Oh, you mock.

Harkening back to my original joke at the end.

It was not merely a pun, but also a callback.

Double terrible humor, but I accept it since it is perfect.

Yeah, this is what you guys are missing.

When I say no hybrids,

those kinds of double-tasking furnitures, for lack of any kind of eloquence at all, but any furniture that double tasks in that way, whether it's a day bed or a sleeper sofa, those are fine for guest rooms for occasional use as either a sofa or a bed, because those things that try to do two things that way don't do either very well.

But a sofa that has a Chez Long attached to it, that might be a perfect solution for you.

Whatever it is you pick, though, actively pick it because you like it and own it completely.

And I don't want to hear any more discussion about it, and I certainly don't want to hear any more puns.

This is the double sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules, that is all.

I didn't know it was called the Chez Long.

I thought it was Shay's Lounge.

That comes from

the Tom Waits song.

Step right up.

Yeah.

Well,

Tom Waits does some funny things with language.

A slipper that's been at-large under the Shay's Lounge for several weeks.

But it is Chez Long, meaning long chair.

Chez Long.

I like it.

But this is again the sound of a gavel.

Third gavel.

It's like the Republican National Convention all of a sudden.

There's gaveling going on all over the place.

I refuse to endorse a day bed.

Vote Vote your conscience and get a double-wide hammock.

Jim and Glynnis, how do you feel about this ruling?

Jim?

I'm for it.

I think he's got a great hypothesis.

I'm willing to test it out.

And just as an aside, you know, it seems like you're into the utilitarian use of things.

Pants,

they don't make any sense, but they're part of the cultural tradition of our part of the world.

Have you ever worn a dress and thought maybe I should wear dresses all the time?

Because I have, and I think that every time I wear a dress.

this would be so much easier.

I have thought that, yeah.

All right, well, that's something else to look forward to there, I guess, Glynnis.

And I just think,

your name is beautiful, and I'm wondering where it comes from.

Is it any relation to Glynnis Johns, who was in original Mary Poppins movie?

And maybe you can be the Glynnis in Mary Poppins 2, starring Lynn Manuel Miranda, only because I wanted to get a Lynn Manuel Miranda reference in.

They really should cast me.

Yeah, no, I was named after my grandpa, who was named Glenn.

And so, yeah, it's a little less exciting.

Sorry.

And how do you feel about this ruling?

I feel good.

I was surprised.

I feel like,

I mean, I'm not surprised, but I feel like the judge really hit the nail on the head.

I feel like

he's got a very good point about how our life is kind of a lot of things.

thrown together and maybe that's the set maybe that's the more central issue than having a a bedbed versus a couch in the you'll start your own life together with your own new furniture and get rid of the Grandpa Joe mentality.

Right.

And I'm all for that.

I like this ruling.

Well, thank you both for being 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 Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Summertime, good time, bailiff time, guest bailiff, Monty Belmonty.

What a pleasure to have you here this summer again.

It's still the beginning of the summer as far as I'm concerned.

And yet I am already thinking towards fall,

you and I,

along with regular Bailiff Jesse Thorne, of course, will be appearing in Turner's Falls at the Shea Theater.

And I hope that everyone within the sound of my voice who knows anyone in the Pioneer Valley will direct them towards that event because it will sell out.

It's nearing sold out as we speak.

So don't hesitate.

And we are weeks and weeks away.

There's not a bad seat in the Shea Theater.

It'll be a fun, intimate event there.

But I do have a little piece of news regarding the tour, which is that Philadelphia, which had been sold out,

has now added a whole bunch more seats.

And so those are selling briskly as well.

They reconfigured the seating to get more people in.

And I suspect that one will sell out pretty quickly too.

But if you were in Philadelphia and you saw sold out before when you went there, go check it out again.

All tickets for the Judge John Hodgman Live Justice Tour with live cases in many northeastern cities with special guests and all kinds of good time, fun time, guest bailiffs and so forth.

All those tickets are available at johnhodgman.com slash tour or at maximumfund.org on the judge john hodgman page or the live events section of maximumfund.org you've got no excuse not to go and click a link and find uh find a ticket for you

Okay, Monty, who do we have to thank for this week's title?

Thanks to Danny Lewin for coming up with this week's case name, Devon Judgment.

To suggest a name for a future case, like us on Facebook, we regularly put out a call for submissions.

If you have a case for the judge, submit it at www.maximumfun.org/slash jjhoe.

This episode was engineered by Johnny Evans at Minnesota Public Radio, and our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks for joining us for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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