Livin' That CALI415 Life

Welcome to a very special bonus edition of the Judge John Hodgman podcast, sponsored by our friends at Chevrolet. This week, we're tackling all matters of car-related disputes and queries.

And for that, we have brought in a special expert witness.

Hi, Judge Hodgman. Before we get to this expert witness, how are you, sir? Hello, Bailiff Jesse.
How are you?

I'm okay. I had some car-related issues today, but

maybe we should introduce our special guest witness before.

What happened?

Did you start driving it too late?

Well, that was the central. I'll give you the full rundown.
Once we introduce our special expert witness, she is a stand-up comic. She's a correspondent on No You Shut Up with Paul F.
Tompkins.

She was the co-host of the late and dearly lamented MaxFun podcast, Wham Bam Pow.

She is the star and executive producer of the upcoming CISO show Take My Wife.

She is an automobile enthusiast, as evidenced by her Instagram feed, which is exclusively pictures of her dog and cars she thinks are cool. Rhea Butcher.
Hello.

That is I, Instagram car photo expert. Okay, so here's what happened, Judge Hodgman.
Yes.

This morning. I'm ready.

The automotive court is ready to hear

your plea. And

We'll see about your ticket in a minute. Go ahead.
Okay, so my wife was out of the house last night. She went and got a hotel room with a friend to have a girls' night out.

And so I was with the kids this morning, and I was taking the two of them to the YMCA. where

I intended to do exercises while they colored in pictures of minions. What were you going to do? Were you going to lift a medicine ball? Or were you going to

get that? Yeah, kettlebell? Or were you going to put that thing around your waist and makes you go, bo, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Perhaps you were flipping tires getting ready for this podcast. Yeah, it's in 1920s, YMCA, so yes to all of those.

It's hard for me because you're a man of such

old and courtly style.

It's hard for me to imagine you in, you know, special space fabrics

running on an automated treadmill or something. Wicking materials do not evoke Jesse Thorne for me.
So the context to this is: I recently bought my first ever new car of my life.

And when I did that, it's also my first ever real dad car.

I made a rule. I thought back to, I had a friend when I was a little kid named Jody Scott, my best friend

when I was little from when we were born in hospital rooms next to each other. Nice.
And Jodi's dad, when we were like five years old, bought a...

I think that's creepy, but go on. This kid's been creeping on you since birth.
Bought a brand new

Andy bought a brand new station wagon when we were five years old. And the rule was you could not do anything in the station wagon.
Like you could not eat in the station wagon. No breathing.

So like, yeah.

Wait a minute.

A five-year-old bought a station wagon? No. His dad, Andy, bought a station wagon.
Jody's dad, Andy, bought a station wagon.

I mean, Andy does not sound like a name for a dad, so I'm with John on that one. It's very confusing.
He was in an Afrobeat band.

Was it a five-year-old adopted by a seven-year-old? Yes.

So he bought this station wagon, and he made these rules about what you could and couldn't do in it. And basically, the rules were you couldn't do anything in it.
And that was draconian.

At the time, as a five-year-old, I saw this as draconian.

He also thought it was weak of us when we played catch with a tennis ball instead of a hard ball. That is weak.
But we got aside with Andrew.

We were seven hours playing in the street, so we could have broken any of the many cars that were within three feet of us. Yeah.
So anyway. Not if you catch the ball.

First, wait, I just want to, can I just point out that we've barely begun our special episode of Judge John Hodgman because this story started out with why you were late to the podcast that just started, and then somehow it immediately got to the room in which you were born.

Well, we had to start from the beginning, John.

I presume that you were going to, John, go immediately to the fact that Rhea has already started jock shaming us.

It's one of the great pleasures of speaking to Rhea.

So, anyway,

the thing is, is I felt

this is a five-year-old.

It gets better, Jesse. It gets better.
It does get better. Thank you.
You're being bullied by Rhea right now.

It gets better.

As a five-year-old, it seemed ridiculous. And even as a seven and eight-year-old, it still seemed ridiculous.
Um,

then

one day when we were like college age, I ran into Jody

and he was driving that car.

It had like 200,000 miles on it by that point, or 150,000 miles. It was then, I guess, what, about 15 years old.

It had been the family car that entire time, and it looked fantastic. Yes.
It looked fantastic because

I, my, I don't know, my parents never had a car when I was a kid. So like Andy Scott took care of business on that car.
And so when I got a dad car, I'm like, I'm going to be like Andy.

My children aren't allowed to do anything in here. Right.
So we're driving to the YMCA this morning. No eating, no playing,

no daydreaming. No thinking, yeah.
No thinking.

And

I was almost to the YMCA and I'm like, man, the car smells terrible. And one One of my kids wears a diaper, you know, so who knows what's happening.

You know, you never know what the bad smell is when you have small children. Sure, that's right.
And

yeah, anyway, long story short,

my long story short,

my son Simon just barfed all over my car.

He was okay. He was fine.
He was in fine spirits, which is why he had barfed silently and not said anything.

Anyway, I had to go through, I spent most of my day trying to figure out how you get barf smell out of a brand new car. What is the interior of your car?

Well, here's the thing.

It has a, you know, like a leather. Is it made of uncleanable terry cloth? No, it has like a leather or possibly leatherette interior.

The leatherettes are very high quality these days. It's kind of hard to tell.
Sure. But the problem is he was sitting on,

he was sitting on a like a built-in booster seat that has fabric sides, and it went into the so it like pops out of the regular seat yeah and it went down into the various crevices you're gonna have to take you're gonna have to take that booster seat and you're gonna have to throw it into a hole right you're gonna have to take that whole car and throw it into the grand canyon it's built into the seat that's the problem you can't do there's nothing you can do about it you're gonna need to sprinkle some baking soda down in there and then you're gonna need to pour some vinegar on it so it pops up like a volcano

clean that right out of there you know what i'm so glad you're here rhea because you have such practical advice that is also exciting and explosive. You know what I did? I'll tell you guys what I did.

I looked it up on the internet. I used an enzymatic carpet cleaner.
There you go. In there, did some scrubbing, and then I poured in some of that pet carpet dust that's in there right now.

And then when I get back to the house, I'm going to hit it with the shop vac. Hit it with that shop vac, and then if those don't work, I'm telling you, baking soda.

You've already started a great base of removal of disgustingness, and then baking soda should cut it. All right, this is the sound of a gabble.
I want order in this courtroom. Okay,

should we get down to the questions and cases here?

When Jesse said we were going to do this automobile docket, I was like, we got to get someone who has cleaned a lot of vomit out of a lot of cars and knows cars and loves cars and takes pictures of cars.

Oh, yeah. And

Rhea, your Instagram account is called.

You mean my handle? Yeah, your handle. Oh, yeah, my handle is just my name.
What's your name? R-H-E-A-B-U-T-C-H-E-R. And the

hashtag for my car series is Rhea ViewMirror. Very easy to remember.
Oh, my God.

The other thing about Rhea, which will make for an exciting special automotive docket of Judge John Hodgman, is that Rhea enjoys puns, and I do not.

And Rhea, and Ria, and I am a dad, but Rhea is the best at making dad jokes. I'm great at dad jokes.
Thank you, John.

It's fantastic. We spent such a wonderful time together on the Joco cruise

where you would just make dad jokes that

would make me wither in both contempt for you and jealousy of your skills. Here's the thing: Is Rhea a woman? Yes.

Does Rhea have children? No.

Is Rhea wearing Cleveland Cavaliers' throwback socks right now? Yes. That qualifies her as the number one dad in the room.
Yeah.

Hillary writes, is there any such thing as a customized license plate that doesn't reflect poorly on the owner in one way or another?

It's not a dispute, but it's an important

question of taste.

I have a strong opinion, which is correct. But before I

give it

to the world,

guest expert Rhea Butcher, what's your feeling on this?

I feel incredibly divided about vanity plates. I've tried to think of vanity plates for myself,

but unfortunately, my name just leads to, you know, jokes that I've heard my entire life, and I won't even go down that road. But

I saw one the other day that sort of changed my mind about vanity plates because there was a car in front of me at a light whose vanity license plate was simply Depeche Mode.

And then on top of that,

I mean, they abbreviated it, and I forget. I think it was MDE.

But then on top of that, their license plate frame was also, I'd rather be at a Depeche Mode concert.

And that is just a one-two punch of a winner right there.

That is not something that you just buy off the shelf at the license plate frame store. Not at all.
That is not a My Son's Name Is Also board type situation.

Yes,

that's a custom plate frame. Absolutely, it is.
Custom plate, custom frame. All depeche mode.
Yeah.

I think that once you go that far,

you're clearly being driven by an impulse that no podcast can stop. Absolutely.
Generally speaking, I think

that I associate vanity plates with people that I would rather not know.

I'd rather not know you. That's your license plate, Frank.

I don't think I would ever get one until they actually can put a hashtag on them. Maybe you can put a hashtag on them.
I feel like you can because number one, people think that's not.

I saw

one on the way here. It was Johnnyka,

but with an heart instead of the O in John,

which I can

also a symbol. So my theory is that it means that John loves Hanukkah.

Well, then you can definitely have, I mean, you're basically getting emojis on there now, which is the next step, of course. Yeah.
Like Depechmode,

I saw a license plate, the vanity plate, that almost... That changed my thinking for sure.
I'm not sure whether for more negative or more positive,

but it's a New Hampshire license plate. And

I know that you can put a hyphen at least because it had a hyphen. And then it said

T-E-R-P-C, hyphen terpsk, or terpsk.

I'm like, what is that? And it took me a while before

I realized that in New Hampshire, you can get a license plate that has a big picture of a moose on the left-hand part of the license plate. So it was moose terpis.

Wow.

Wow.

It really was like that person did a lot of work.

They very cleverly figured that out

that you could incorporate the design of the plate into your vanity plate to make your terrible dad joke. Wow.
They must hate their day job. And it was a real thinker.

And by the time I had thunk it out, I had

missed my exit.

So

I think that there's an argument that could be made that they are pointlessly distracting to other drivers. But I will say, when I was looking up the license plate, I discovered two things.

One, you can have an ampersand, and two, someone else had taken the same license plate, and they did ampersand, squirrel.

Oh, geez. Wow.
And I kind of liked that one. It's kind of like moose, ampersand, squirrel.
Is this the part of the show where I admit that I used to have a custom license plate? I believe it is.

Yeah, my first car

was

Chevrolet El Camino.

I didn't learn to drive in high school because I'm from the city, and I just, you know, there was basically because my parents told me that not only would I have to buy the car, I would have to pay for all the insurance and gas plus the added insurance.

Even if I didn't buy a car, I would have to pay for the new insurance costs to each of them for their separate insurance policies. Serious.

So I'd never learned to drive until I was like 20 and I was at college in Santa Cruz, and I just wanted just nothing more in the world than to be out of Santa Cruz as often as possible.

And it was kind of hard to get out of Santa Cruz on the bus. So I bought an El Camino and I had a license plate that said Cali 415, C-A-L-I-415, being the area code of San Francisco.
There you go.

Why did you decide not to continue down that dark path? Well,

I sold that car with the license plate. Right.
And the thing is, is in California. Because you realized that you were a grown-up?

It is so hard. It is so hard to get anything.
Like, there's a machine on the internet in California where you can just type in combinations of letters and see if they're taken.

And you could sit there for an hour just typing in everything that you can think of, and you will never actually achieve a successful

untaken vanity license plate. So, you're telling me that my dream of having the vanity license plate R-S-T-L-N-E is probably not going to happen because I live in California.
It seems likely.

It seems likely that it's spoken for. I mean, we've got a producer, if only she was looking it up right now.

I have thought about, you know, recently I've thought about my car is black in color.

And I have thought about, I think you can pay a little bit extra, and you can, these days in California, and you can get old-timey. Oh, you can get those black plates.
You can get black and yellow

license plate, which is what California was until like the 70s or 80s. I wondered about that.
Throwback plates. Oh, and and then get hashtag TBT on that.
They're stamped out.

They're stamped out by prisoners in like classic horizontal stripes

prison outfits. Right, exactly.
In summary, I'm going to say

not any one of us likes it.

I would never get one.

Getting one is drawing attention to yourself in a way that I consider to be inconsiderate to other drivers. No one likes your cutesy jokes.

But Depeche Mode gets, if you're going to do it, do it Depeche Mode style and

not only get a vanity plate, but a vanity frame. Then if you're that committed, then I will allow it.

Can I tell you the one that I have found the most charming in all of my life that I'm hoping Ria will back me up on because she's such a baseball fan?

San Francisco and New York Giants legend Willie Mays, arguably the greatest baseball player of all time, was known as the Sayhei kid.

And he was famous for always driving a Cadillac with a license plate that said Say Hey. I mean, that's just beautiful right there.
I think Willie Mays gets a pass for a lot.

I mean, say Hey, Willie Mays gets a pass on that. Yeah.

Here's something from Jay. I'm a college student, so are most of my friends.
Most of us have cars. Every time we go out to do something, we have to decide whose car to use.

Oh, what a, what a, what an embarrassment of cars. How hard your life must be.

I'm in college and we all have cars. All I can think of in my California public school that I went to is just how excited you were if you had a friend with a car.

Like if you knew one person with a car who could get you out of Santa Cruz, that's like all you wanted in the world. Just one person with a car and a parking pass so you didn't have to take that bus.

I went to a commuter college, so everyone had cars at my college and no one lived on campus. It was odd if anyone lived on campus.
The good news is you weren't obliged to have any friends. I was not.

And I barely did.

Okay, right college years. So Jay says, I think that the person who has the idea for what we're doing should drive us.

My friend Dylan thinks it should be on a strict rotation, and we should all contribute equally.

While this may seem fair in quotes, it has no bearing on the real world where you have to accept the consequences of your actions, like using your gas and losing prime parking spots.

Can you tell Dylan he's wrong? See, this is the thing.

I'm probably, I probably will, but let's talk about it a little bit before we get into this. First of all, this is one where I would say, where does this person exist in the world?

Because

if they're at a college where they all have cars, then parking cannot be the problem that he suggests that it is.

Or at least he hasn't had the trauma of parking a car in a major city where that's actually losing your spot is a big issue, right?

So he must be talking about prime parking spots in the massive dorm parking lot or something. What do you think, Rhea?

I agree. I mean, it's probably because he did say prime parking.
Yes, that's a quote from his question.

So, he's not talking about losing a parking space that then you have to park miles away from your home or not park at all. He's just talking about,

I like the spot. I can see my car from my dorm.
And, like, that's not

a real sacrifice. Rhea, here's a question for you.
Yes, John. Let's say we're in college together.
Yes.

Which,

by the way, is going to be our great new TV show. In college together.

College pals. Grown-up college pals.
Grown-up college pals.

And

we decide, and let's say we're all three of us in college together. And we decide we are going to go to the movies.
And Ria, you offer to drive, and we say thanks.

And the movie theater, it takes a

how much gas,

let's see, you start with a full tank. How much gas do you burn before you start feeling like we ought to be giving you some money for gas?

To me, I feel like if you burn more than, let's say, a quarter of a tank,

that's when you say, like, here's some money for gas.

Or you offer to purchase that person's entry into the thing that you're doing. So

if you're going to a concert, maybe not the ticket to a $30 concert, but you buy them a drink or a shirt or something like that. Or you pay for the parking or you buy the movie ticket.

You pay the tip at dinner. Exactly.
Or you buy them dinner. But these are college students, so they don't eat.
Their dinner would probably be a bag of Fritos. But

I believe these college students are purchasing Iron Man dinners at Denny's. Sure.

Yes. So, first of all, Jay,

you're wrong on two points. One, parking is not an issue in your life, I've decided.
Not knowing anything about where you live.

And two, you're quite right that

everyone should be conscious of the gas that is being burned by the person who is being nice enough to drive.

Now, to your issue, I think the person who has the idea for what we're doing should drive us.

So basically, you're saying that

that creates a negative incentive to suggest things, right? If driving is seen as a hardship,

then someone might have a great idea of some dumb place to go, and

they won't suggest it because they don't feel like driving. Or one person loves to drive, and he will be, or she will be the only person who ever gets to suggest things.

But there is a certain amount of, there's a certain amount of logic to it in that I think, as Jay describes it, the person who is suggesting the activity is, in a way, the host of the activity.

The originator of the activity. Exactly.
And I think I can understand Jay's logic by

that means, that the person who is suggesting it is

saying, I am responsible for this. This is my idea.
I am the progenitor of this.

And that doesn't I don't wouldn't see it as precluding other people from driving, especially if they had, for example, more seats in their car.

You know, always in college, somebody is driving an inherited minivan.

And, but, you know, if

the absent that, I don't think it's a bad rule of thumb. I definitely see as a basic point of decency, if I've decided, hey,

we're going to go all, we're going to all go out to, where do college kids go? The malt shop? Yes. Hey, there's a new malt shop in the next county.
They don't go for malts, though.

They go for phosphates. Right.
Egg creams. Yeah.

There's a new

swing dance parlor and phosphate counter. Have they got rock candy? Yes, they do.

Ooh, worthers.

They have throw. Hey, I just heard of a place that's got throwback cane sugar-only Moxie across state line.

Let's go over there for a pop. That's what they said.
What do they say in Cleveland? Pop.

Pop. Right.
I'm trying to make you feel comfortable. Solidly pop country.
I don't know. It's weird.
You know what they say? That's actually what it says on the sign that says, welcome to Cleveland.

Welcome to pop pop country. Come to Cleveland.
Solidly pop country. Solidly pop country.

They used to say it a tonic in New England, meaning any kind of soda or pop. Now we've all just fallen under the soda empire.

Let's all go get sodi pops across the state line.

I don't feel like driving. Would you do it, Bob? That's, I think, fair.

Bob, would you mind driving if I if I chip in for gas money to go to my on my pop run? That's fair, I think, too. I mean, here's the thing.
This isn't a hardship to begin with.

I don't see why, I don't see having a simple,

reasonable negotiation among friends over who's going to drive based on who's more inclined to drive or whether how large the party is compared to the car, who's feeling like it at that moment, who's not feeling like driving.

This is all shifting terrain.

So I don't see why you need need to either have a hard and fast rule that the person who suggests has to drive or create some insane chore wheel like Dylan has in mind, where it's like this,

it's your turn now.

Even though we're all going to go to the state fair, we're all going to get into your hatchback or whatever. I think I like the idea of this.
I like the idea of like

a logic, like a wall-sized logic flow chart slash chore wheel that would be necessitated by Dylan's crazy plan. Yes.
That this group of eight friends who do not always go everywhere together.

Of course. Right.
Yes, none of them. It's taking it.
You have to take into account so many variables to get an actual rotation that would not allow for anyone to game the system.

You would have to include tread depth on everyone's tires. You're going to have to give me the spark plug clearance.
When was your most recent tune-up? How good is your fuel injection?

Do you have fuel injection? I don't know what you're doing. But yes, go.
Side curtain airbags. What's going on? Who is going to

mileage? Simple things. Do you use your tachometer? I want to know all of this.
What kind of radio do you have going on? Do you have a radio at all? I want to know. Yeah, because I know.
Distance.

If I'm a college student in 2016, there is no way that I'm going on a trip of longer than 15 minutes with anyone whose car radio does not accommodate the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Exactly.

Jay, I hope you were taking that all down,

all of those criteria,

because either you're going to create an algorithm where you can punch in the destination and it will keep track of who drove last and whose car is in better shape and that way you're going to even out all of it

or you're just going to have to figure it out talking to each other because I don't like either of your dumb solutions. So there it is.

Here's something from Molly. I've just bought my first car.
Any judgely advice?

Well,

what do we think here? Is it Molly, this is the first car that she's owned, but she's been a driver for for many years? Or do we think that she's a young driver who just bought her first car?

What are we going to go with? I'm going to say that she is like a young adult. I think, if I'm going to guess, I'm going to say she's 23 years old.

A 14-year-old? No, like a 23-year-old. Like maybe she was.

A John Green reader. She was driving her parents' car or whatever.
This is her first car that she paid for.

Long-time driver, first-time buyer. Yeah.
All right. I guess I would start by saying, if you were driving your parents' car before, obviously you treated it like garbage.
Don't do that.

Rhea, what else would you suggest? I would say don't go too crazy with air fresheners. That is a fool's errand.
They never smell good.

You become immune to it, and then people get in your car and you're like, are you like, I don't even want to be friends with this person anymore. This is disgusting.
It will make everyone sick.

Don't spend any time with that. And also, get regularly scheduled oil changes.
Yeah. Do not forget the oil change.
Become familiar with your vehicle. It takes like 20 minutes.

What are the skills that you think every driver

with regard to basic maintenance

should cultivate and have, not just out of need, but out of basic self-respect and fun?

Out of basic self-respect and fun. Number one, you should be able to put air in your own tires at any gas station that has it.
Always have quarters in your car. Have a tire gauge.

Very fun and easy to use. The little thing pops out.
It makes me happy every time.

I love that. It makes me feel like I just cooked a chicken.

It's like one of those desk toys that you squeeze and the aliens' ears pop out. Yeah, exactly.
Stress clown.

So you should be able to do that. You should also know how to change.

And may I say

this is something that I learned. Know what your tire recommended tire pressure should be.
And if you don't know, look inside the door of your driver's side door. Inside the door.

Yep. It's printed right on there.
When I discovered that they were actually trying to give me information

that I could use practically in my life, it was very exciting for me. It's very exciting when you realize it's printed right there on the door.
What a perfect metaphor.

Yes, so tire pressure. You should also know how to change your own windshield wipers.
That's a very simple project that you should do regularly.

And in concert with that, you should know how to fill up your windshield wiper reservoir. Very easy to do.
Also, learn how to properly close the cap on your windshield wiper fluid reservoir.

Don't be a big muscle man, Hulk Hogan, on that thing, and slam it shut. Just close it.

The nice thing about doing your own windshield wiper reservoir is that then you can get like, you can like look on the internet and find out like what the super dope windshield wiper stuff is instead of like the generic stuff that they give you.

And you will not believe how clean your windshield will be with one squirt of that stuff. So great.

You can kid out with special super washer fluids? Yeah, exactly.

It's like the difference between using a brand name household cleaner and local generic brand LA's totally awesome cleaner.

And what about the car battery? I think the battery is sort of a tough thing because you're talking about electronic stuff, especially with newer cars.

So I recommend having a basic knowledge of where your battery is at in terms of its lifetime.

But I wouldn't recommend being somebody that's just changing your battery unless you have an older vehicle that it's a little bit of a simpler connection, just because I wouldn't want anybody shocking themselves with a car battery.

And no matter what it is and no matter what car you drive, there is a heavily accented guy on YouTube

who will show you exactly how to do whatever it is. God, it never even occurred to me to go to YouTube to learn all this stuff.
Now I'm very interested. Anything else, Rhea?

I would say, you know, just make sure you get gas money from people who ride in your brand new vehicle with you. Yeah.
Your car is

not just a wonderful conveyance, but it's a magnificent deadbeat detecting device.

Indeed, it is. You're going to quickly learn

which of your friends are stand-up friends and which are

stowaway friends. All right, Judge Hodgman.
Time is short. We're going to get into the lightning round.
Here's something from Joe Nell.

My husband Billy usually drives our two cars while I usually ride in a carpool to and from work. Hopefully he drives them at different times.
Billy is a stay-at-home dad.

He drives the kids around and runs most of the errands. While I drive on the weekends, I often find an empty gas tank on each of the cars.

When Billy goes to the gas station, he only fills the tank part way. We can afford a full tank.

He just does a partial fill because he's running late or he's bored or he doesn't like the other people at the gas station or it's hot outside or whatever.

I would like a judgment that when he visits a gas station, he must always fill the tank. He should also never leave the car with an empty tank.
Rhea, would you agree with me that Billy is a monster?

I agree that Billy is a monster. Sounds like a monster to me, judge.

Monster it is. Let's move on.

Always fill your tank, everybody. Fill the tank.
If you are the stay-at-home whatever, it is part of your duties to make sure the cars have gas. That is part of my duty.

Absolutely.

If you are driving someone else's car and you leave it empty. Or do you have two vehicles per family and you drive them both?

You're removing all the gas from them and you don't like the people at the gas station, so you cannot fill them.

Put the gas pump in the car, put the locking mechanism on, clean the windows, keep yourself busy, buy a Snickers bar, come back out, it's done.

Don't top off, put it away, don't get the gas on the car, put it away, fill them, go back home. That's it.
Rhea mentions a good point, too.

If you're a parent, you don't ever want to be in a position where you've got a sudden emergency and you need to be somewhere fast. Absolutely.

You've got an eighth of a tank because you don't like the look of the guys at the gas station.

I'm pretty sure what Billy is doing is just driving the cars until they run out of gas, leaving them on the side of the road, and just going and getting the other car. Terrible.
Right.

And I think, Jesse, you raise a really important, a really good point as well, which is... If you're using someone else's car, filling the tank is not merely a gesture of courtesy.

It is one of the best feelings a human can have. Absolutely.
Okay. Filling up someone else's tank.
Here's something. Moving on.
Here's something from Andrew. Is a driverless car a robot?

Yes. Yes.
Okay. Yeah, that's obvious.
Here's something from Rachel. I bring this case against my dad, Jerry, and younger brother, Andy.

I believe that the oldest sibling should be granted the right to sit in the front seat when it is open, while Andy thinks that calling shotgun is enough. I'm in college

and not at home most of the year, as I am off doing whatever is so unimportant that I think about this a lot.

So, I don't think it should be a problem for my brother to give up the front seat when I'm home on breaks.

My dad claims to be disinterested, but when I asked his mother, who sat in the front seat of their car growing up, she said, my dad, the oldest sibling, without question.

My brother and I need your help before we both have to sit in the back. Rhea, what's your take on this one?

My take is that, yes, she does get shotgun given that she does not live in the house anymore and she is back as a visitor and a guest.

And the visitor/slash/guest gets to choose the seat they sit in in any vehicle. What if the brother is tall? He has to sit.
He can sit in the middle. The middle back seat

is comfortable. You're not tall.
Not in modern day cars. You're not tall.
I'm not tall. I'm tall for a woman.
You're mid-sized. You're a mid-sized person.

I would say, you know, luxury full-size.

Yeah, you're a luxury full size. I'm a luxury full-size.
Thank you, John. That's what I thought.

I am feeling, well, you know,

I am feeling

initially I had misheard this and I didn't realize that Rachel was the older sister.

I thought that this was an older brother and a younger brother dynamic, in which case I would have said Andy, the younger brother,

has

a huge mix of feelings because suddenly his older, the dominant brother, is out and Andy is the oldest child in the house and has this brief window of opportunity to really have his parents all to himself

and

is understandably feeling empowered to be able to grow up to the point of sitting in the car and that the older brother should be happy enough to be off at college and

have the

and should have the grown-up decency to appreciate that Andy is going through his own transition in life and should deserve some respect.

But now that I appreciate that the older sibling is an older sister and it's a younger brother, the dynamic is very different. Andy's just trying to be a jerk to his older sister.

And I agree with Rhea.

One last thing before we leave. It's been so much fun to have you here, Rhea Butcher.
I enjoy your car expertise very much. And Bailiff Jesse, you know how I feel about you.
Oh, thank you, John.

It's my pleasure to be here and to be a witness.

I received a very interesting letter through the electronic mail at hodgman at maximumfund.org, which you can always write me with your thoughts, comments, suggestions, and cases.

And in this case, a fellow named Nick O'Brien wrote in with a rather long list of car

advice that we will post on the website.

both car maintenance and driving advice, based upon his expertise as the program coordinator for automotive technology at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville, I believe it's actually pronounced. He has advice on warming up your car in the winter, whether or not to do it.
I won't spoil whether he decides what he says.

Proper air conditioning use, whether to use the fresh air versus the recirculate, clearing snow and ice before driving, and this is the one I really want to just leave you guys with.

Fast lane etiquette. He says something that is profoundly non-controversial and really important to listen to.
The primary purpose of the far left lane is passing.

Cruising in the left lane is not only rude and entitled, it often leads to clusters of traffic and encourages frustrated drivers to attempt to make up for lost time by speeding. Agreed, 100%.

Don't drive in the passing lane.

But here is this, and I wanted to get your opinion on this, Rhea. He says, Mr.

Professor Nick O'Brien of Carology, if someone is driving in the fast lane and you wish to pass another person in the fast lane, you get behind a car who's just sitting there in the fast lane, not driving and not getting out of the way.

It is permitted to quickly flash your headlights to signal the driver in front to get out of the way. That driver's responsibility is to get out of the way without taking offense.

Have you ever been in the fast lane and have someone pull up behind you and flash their lights at you? Oh, I've been on both sides of that equation. And what is your opinion?

And my opinion is that is absolutely the etiquette of the fast lane. You are because

horns are useless on the freeway. And so the light is the most easy way to do that.
And I have had people flash their lights at me and I get right out of the way.

And I've flashed lights at people and they do not get out of the way. So then I slow down in the fast lane.
Or I get out of the fast lane because it is the passing lane.

And then I just let them mess everything up. And I drive on by saying, I did it right.
I'm doing it right. I have long loathed those people.

I don't travel in the fast lane. You understand? I use it to pass.
But then there are some people who just pull up right behind you, even as I'm passing another car to get out of there. Absolutely.

And they start flashing their lights. I think those people are monsters.
They are monsters. Whom do you agree with? Rhea Butcher, me, Nick Lowe, or Nick Lowe.
I mean,

musician Nick Lowe, Nick O'Brien, or Bailiff Jesse, with regard to using headlights to tell someone to get out of the way, flashing of headlights to tell someone to get out of the way.

Maybe we'll put together some kind of poll, or you can talk about it in the comments. Right, Jesse? How do you get to those comments and everything else that we use to end the show?

Well, hit up maximumfun.reddit.com. Like the Judge John Hodgman page on Facebook, and join the Maximum Fun group on Facebook.
And of course, you can tweet about the program with the hashtag JJHO.

JJ Ho, our show produced by Julia Smith, edited by Mark McConville, made possible on this very special episode by our friends at Chevrolet.

And if you have a case for Judge John Hodgman on any topic, automotive or otherwise, go to maximumfun.org slash JJHO, maximumfund.org slash JJHO, and submit it there. No case too big or too small.

We consider them all, and we're grateful for your help in making this program. And Rhea Butcher, where can we see you in the future? You can see me on CISO this summer in Take My Wife.

You can also see me as a correspondent on Know You Shut Up with Paul Ep Tompkins on Fusion Network.

And I will also be debuting my first stand-up album this summer, August or September, on Kill Rockstars Records. Congratulations indeed.
It's so good.

It's such a pleasure to have you here, and I hope you will come back. Absolutely, John.
Thanks for having me.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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

Well, you know that the pros love to use Made In because it's pro quality cookware, tableware, glassware, everythingware.

We're talking about Tom Calicchio, Brooke Williamson, the pros, but many, many other people who are not professional chefs, but avid home cooks, like maybe Jesse Thorne and maybe me, Judge John Hodgman, love made in too.

Judge Hodgman, I was at a store the other day. I saw some made-in stuff.
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You were at a store and you saw some made-in stuff

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The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Aura Frames. Now, John, as we sit here and discuss this right now.
Right.

My mother, Judith, yes, has just entered my

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Oh, let me say hi to her. No,

she's in the house. It's like 80 feet away.
But the good news is she's always connected with my family, not just when she's in my house, because of the aura frame that I gave her.

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It was full of pictures of family members that she loves.

All I have to do, if we take a cute new picture of, let's say, my dog Jr.,

I'm mostly taking pictures. Sorry of my children.

All you do is hit that send button, that same send button on your phone that you would use to text message it to somebody, and you can just shoot it straight into an Aura frame.

Honestly, I'm thinking about getting an Aura frame right now just dedicated to pictures of your dogs. Yeah, I think that's a good call.

Mabel's in there looking all little and cute. You know how much you love sending photos to your friends and family, things that you see, people that you know, things that you do.
I mean, you love it.

It's a gift that you give every day, probably. But I mean, no one loves to look at their phone to see those photos.

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It's delightful.

I was just saying to my wife as a whole human being in her own right, why have we not given your dad an aura frame? Guess what we're going to do? Sorry, I don't mean to spoil the secret, Brad.

You're getting an aura.

This is good news for you and for Brad.

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Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
No, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long. I don't know what a Josie Long is.

And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.
She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.

She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones. I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I?

Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast, Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother. This is musical theatre, not a Parisian bordello.
Simply go to maximum fun.org.

I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

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