No Acquitting for Taste

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bill if Jesse Thorne.

This week, no acquitting for taste.

Opton brings the case against his girlfriend Kelsey over the decor in their new apartment.

Optin wants to go modern and classy.

Kelsey says that would be boring and wants furnishings that are more quirky and unique.

Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom.

Long ago in days of yore, it all began with a god named Thor.

There were Vikings and boats and some plans for a furniture store.

It's not a bodega, it's not a mall, and they sell things for courtrooms that are smaller than mine, as if there were courtrooms smaller than mine.

Unnamed store, just some oak and some pine, and a handful of Norsemen.

Unnamed store, selling furniture for college kids and divorced men.

Everyone has a court, but if you don't have a court, you can buy one there.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

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

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he abhors all furniture?

I do.

Yes, I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

Obden and Kelsey, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I sang, I dare say, beautifully, before walking into this courtroom.

Kelsey, you have been brought into this court against your will by Obden.

You have the choice to either guess or make Obden guess first, but you will guess.

I'll make Opten guess first.

I think she's playing playing this game, Jesse.

I think she's really playing this game

at a next level.

Obden, you got it?

I unfortunately, no, I'm going to guess it is some sort of commercial for a furniture store.

Okay, I'll let that be a guess.

Kelsey, what is your guess?

My guess isn't any better.

I think it's probably something mocking IKEA commercial.

That is a guess.

And both guesses are...

Well, one guess is wrong.

One guess is

mostly wrong.

And therefore, I will say all guesses are wrong.

Of course, the song that I was singing is called IKEA.

It is not an official IKEA song.

And we are going to discuss IKEA in this.

in this case because it comes up in your petition and is we are in no way sponsored by ikea as i think it will become clear as we go forward

They would not pay for this one.

The song is called IKEA.

It is not an official song of IKEA.

It is a song by my dear friend and friend of this court and maximum fund, Jonathan Colton, a singer-songwriter.

And it's an amazing song that you can get at his website, jonathancolton.com.

That is a plug.

And of course, when I'm singing Unnamed Store, I would be singing IKEA.

Very funny song.

Not a direct pair.

I don't think that IKEA does any television advertising.

I don't even, I don't, I think they don't need to anymore.

It's the biggest furniture retailer in the world, and they're certainly not sponsoring any podcasts.

And they certainly have got quite a bit of your money.

Isn't that so, Opton?

I would say so, yes, Judge.

All right.

So here's the situation.

You,

and correct me where I'm wrong, because I want to make sure I understand this case.

You and

Kelsey have moved in together.

Correct.

Where do you live?

live?

Arlington, Virginia.

Arlington, Virginia.

I don't know that place very well.

Is it near DC?

It's one metro stop from the first DC metro stop, so it's extremely close.

Got it.

And you two are unmarried.

Correct.

And

you know this court's position on unmarried couples cohabitating?

Yes, I do.

And that's fine.

So it's established law.

If you've not listened before,

the court takes the position that people can do whatever they like, but to our mind, and

that's I'm using the courtroom we, to my mind,

cohabitating without being married is

all of the dull drudgery of marriage, including sleeping with each other's farts all the time,

and all of the excitement of becoming a financial partnership without any of the protections that marriage affords you thereafter.

But it's your choice.

I've gotten a couple of angry letters lately from long-term cohabitating partners.

And to them, I say,

if you feel that I've insulted your lifestyle, I apologize.

I'm not talking about adults.

I'm talking about young people moving in together.

And even then, I could definitely be wrong.

Are you guys happily living together?

How long have you lived together?

Not very long, but pretty happily.

And how did you meet?

Kelsey?

We actually met at our old work in San Francisco.

And what was your old work?

It was.

Sounds like you're making it up now.

I'm not, but it was the federal government, and I don't know how specific we're supposed to be, but.

It sounds like they're in the CIA.

Yeah, in the CEAC.

It sounds like you're assessed.

It's not quite as cool.

But yeah, so we met at work and we both kind of bonded over being returned to Peace Corps volunteers.

Ah,

oh, I see.

In different places.

Peace Cool.

Peace Corps.

Right.

I'm tapping the side of my nose, just so you guys know.

Oh, no.

All of the stereotypes that come with that, I guess.

Do you mean to say you were both in the Peace Corps, not together,

but

you met when you came back stateside, and now you currently work for a branch of the federal government that you cannot name?

Yes, now separate branches.

Luckily.

Luckily, we don't still work together and live together because that would be entirely too much.

That would be against the federal law.

Maybe.

If one of us is in the supervisory position to the other one.

Oh, I see.

And

where were you guys stationed in the Peace Corps?

Bobten?

I was in Bulgaria, Eastern Europe.

And what were you doing in Bulgaria for peace?

I was a community and organizational development volunteer.

I worked with a couple of non-profit

youth, teaching them parliamentary procedure and that sort of stuff for student government.

I see.

And that's a good story.

Kelsey, where were you stationed and what did you do?

I was in Rwanda, and I mostly was a teacher for computer science.

Isn't that

thank you?

Thank you both for your service, let me just say.

And Obden,

I detect a very beautiful accent.

Indeed.

Thank you for calling it beautiful.

I think it's really cute, too.

Yeah.

Were you born in the United States?

I was not.

I was born and lived in Iran for most of my adolescence years.

Got it.

Okay.

And then you emigrated with your family.

Correct.

So you're an Iranian-born person who spent some time pretending to do stuff in Bulgaria for the federal government.

And now you've come back to work in an unnamed capacity for an unnamed federal agency outside of DC.

Got it.

Summed up beautifully.

I think I understand.

No, it's lovely to meet you both.

And Kelsey,

I presume you are also a first-class computer hacker.

Well,

okay, no more talk.

No more talk.

Because

I want to live to see my children before the podcast is over.

And I know the federal government is listening.

And I have a few drones outside my window right now, which is a weird coincidence.

Anyway, so, but you are two young federal agents in love.

Yes.

Outside of DC.

And

this is a dispute over the decor of your new apartment.

Obtin, what is the problem with the decor?

So our apartment is in a high-rise tower, and there's a lot of them around here, around where we live.

And it's very modern-looking and sleek.

And I want the furniture and the decor of the apartment to reflect that and be very sleek.

mostly new furniture.

I understand the

climate compact of having a new furniture, but I think it's worth it because it's our first apartment together and it'll be nice to have nice things.

Not that we can afford many nice things, but as much as we can.

And Kelsey, I'll let her some of her own argument, actually.

You know what?

You're the best litigant we've ever had on the show.

Thank you very much for doing that.

Kelsey, just

shorten to the point, and then he hands it off.

You guys are going to live very happily together, even unmarried.

What's the problem with sleek and modern?

I think that it's hard to call just basic IKEA furniture sleek and modern.

It's basic IKEA furniture.

Just because it's like black and white colored and a little bit boring doesn't make it either sleek or modern.

And who bought the furniture?

Apton bought it all.

Oh, excuse me.

Well, we paid for it together.

He just picked out.

all of it.

Wow.

What were the circumstances of that?

So busy lifestyle.

I have already finished my graduate degree, but Kelsey is currently in law school and working full-time.

So once uh, she moved to uh DC before me a few months, like three months before me.

Right.

And so when we decided to move in together and I moved out here, I had more free time, so I picked up all the furniture, and she said she doesn't care as long as whatever I pick, it's fine.

And so I picked it and we paid half enough for it.

Yeah, see, now Kelsey, you're learning the wisdom of the Judge Sean Hodgman law.

You are halfway into a bunch of furniture you do not like.

And if something were going wrong in your relationship, you're going to have to split up that terrible furniture.

Oh, he can have, if it's over, he can have it all.

I won't even miss it.

Kelsey,

when you imagine your perfect room and the vision board of

your mind,

what kind of extra stuff you want to have in there?

Well, so

like more unique things, and I really miss my apartment in San Francisco because it was.

Describe that to me.

Well, it was an older building, and I had the really cool, like,

I don't know what the name for it is, but like the architecture in San Francisco where the windows kind of go like

half circle outwards.

So I had really big, like, windows.

Yeah, big windows.

And I had,

I had a hanging piece of driftwood that I I really liked in my window.

Where did you get the driftwood?

I found it on the beach and I drilled a hole in it and I put an air plant in it.

Excuse me, you put a what in it?

It's called an air plant.

Thank you, Judge, because she has been referring to this thing as an air plant as if it's like a common known thing.

They are very commonly known.

Air plants.

Yeah, I know what an air plant is, and my four-year-old son got one as a party favorite.

They're the coolest.

They don't need any soil.

You just spray them with a squirt bottle.

Wow.

Talanzia, Bromeliads, unique, exotic, and low-maintenance air plants make for beautiful modern home decor and unusual gifts.

And I had a terrarium.

That comes from airplantsupplycoat.com.

You had a terrarium?

I had a terrarium that was also hanging in the window.

And so I guess just a combination of cool things.

So we both travel a lot and can bring back really cool and and interesting stuff from the places that we travel.

But

most of the stuff that I have is like down in a drawer because, well, Optin doesn't like clutter very much.

And I just haven't gotten around to decorating with things.

Why don't you want your wonderful girlfriend to bring a lot of plants and old wood into your home?

Judge, I submitted a picture of a piece of dried wood that currently sits on top of our fireplace.

Do you think this court has never seen a piece of dried wood before, sir?

All right, I'll look at your picture.

I'll look at your picture.

There's also a picture that we submitted of a llama painting that my

painted for me.

And it's the coolest painting.

It's a llama with a scarf.

And as soon as we moved in, he said, we are not hanging that on the wall.

That llama looks terrifying to me, Judge.

But

you heard my yell of terror.

Of course, all of these images will be available on the Judge John Hodgman page of maximumfun.org, but people can judge for themselves.

But, you know, llamas,

it's hard for me to imagine finding a way to make a llama look more terrifying than it is.

It has a scarf on, though.

Not only does it have a scarf, but the llama is smiling in a malicious way

and is standing in front of what would seem to be

an evergreen-filled horizon topped with two gently floating hot air balloons.

I have a question.

You said your friend gave you this llama.

She painted it, yeah.

Did she?

Oh, I was just going to ask if she found it on the beach.

No.

She may have painted it on the beach, though.

That sounds like something she'd do.

And then the other piece of evidence you submitted, Kelsey, or no, Obden, you submitted this evidence is the piece, is the very piece of driftwood with the, what looks to me, dying air plant next to it the air plant died the air plant died but i still like it so i still um i had never heard of it in the driftwood i have never heard of an air plant before

and i'm fascinated by this idea that a plant that needs that needs no soil that you can just stick into a piece of wood and hang from your ceiling

but i have to tell you that a dead air plant truly looks like an an alien invading species

Thank you.

It's a little that's a little it's dead opton.

I mean if we're a thing we're alive and lush and green,

it wasn't that much of an improvement when it was alive.

Now, let's take a look, Opton.

You also submitted some evidence

of your apartment as it is now,

minus all of the organic material and terrifying paintings that Kelsey wants to put in.

And so

here is a picture of

your

home.

How big is the apartment?

About 700 square feet.

Okay.

And how many rooms is it?

Just one bedroom.

So it's one bedroom.

And then what I'm looking at here is the

combo living slash dining area.

Yes.

Right.

And you've got this, right?

It's all IKEA furniture.

It's very spare.

There's no, there's no carpeting of any kind.

A couple of diplomas propped, I would say, rather precariously

on the mantelpiece of what is this operating fireplace?

Is it a gas?

Yes, it's a gas-operated fireplace.

Very, very spare indeed.

I feel as though this is

the bare minimum you would need to put into an apartment, let's say, if you were an international spy and needed to live in an apartment to maintain surveillance and in a different apartment across the street.

Just, that's what's coming to my mind.

If I could interrupt here just on on that subject, Obden, I can't help but notice that you've sent in a visual example of what you would like the apartment to look like.

Maybe you could describe that?

Yes, that is a picture of the apartment that the fictional character Sterling Archer lives in.

Oh,

you mean the fictional murderous super spot?

Potato per murder, as they would say in that show.

This is the second, I think, the second in a row Archer shout out for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I hope you've already signed the petition to get me a guest role on Archer.

I'm all for it.

So, yes, here we are in the middle of Archer's apartment, and it's got a very mid-century modern vibe.

That would be my ideal apartment if we made Archer money, which we do not yet.

So, this is my attempt to achieve Archer look at the lower end of disposable furniture company.

So, what you're going for is the luxury of imaginary super spy life.

And what you have currently is the, is the sad, is the sad, underfurnished,

depressing

luxury, non-luxury of a

federal employee for an unnamed agency life.

Indeed, we are sitting on a couch called Lugenwik, or however it's pronounced.

L-U-G-N-V-I-K.

L-U-G, L-U-G-Lugenvik, I think sounds about right.

And you like, but you like the IKEA.

Like, if you had more money, you'd fill it up with more IKEA.

Is that right?

I don't, I think, I would like to think I would, I have better taste.

I would go someplace with more lavish furniture.

Because right now, looking at this picture, your apartment basically looks like an unoccupied Airbnb.

Like a low-end Airbnb.

Yeah, it's got that.

It's got all the charms of a room at a at a uh at a spring hill suites for go ahead and name name name bird this is going my way let me let me ask you do you have a kitchen in your apartment or do you just go down to the lobby and get some

you get you get a you get a you get a can of soup from the from the uh from the the pantry that they have there that you heat up in a microwave and bring it back to your room

We do have a kitchen and it does have stainless steel appliances.

I was going to take a picture of it and send it, but kitchen was dirty on that day.

That's just fine.

Obviously, the kitchen already came furnished, presumably.

You had no choice in that.

Correct.

Do you intend to, like, is it because you do not have enough funds to purchase a carpet?

Or do you, or is it a choice to not?

I just want to, I'm not judging.

I just want to get a sense of, well, technically, I'm always judging, but I just wanted to get a sense of whether it is, your aesthetic is so spare that you would rather have a bare floor than put in a carpet.

He wanted a bare floor.

That was part of what we were looking for in an apartment.

He wanted hardwood.

Right.

And any,

I don't know, any rug, I feel like he just is like, eh, why?

Would you prefer to not have a carpet at all on the hardwood floor, Obden?

I wouldn't mind having like a nice rug of perhaps Persian or Turkish or Bulgarian origins.

They're not known for that kind of thing, I'm afraid.

Indeed.

You don't make good rugs.

I'm sorry.

It's just not known.

It's not part of their culture in any way.

Darn it.

Yeah, I mean, it's like trying to get a pizza slice in New York.

It's going to stink no matter.

No matter where you're going.

You'd be better off.

You'd be better off getting some Persian pizza and putting that on the floor because that's a good carpet.

I mean, you have to understand, Kelsey, you might think this is going your way, but there's there, though I don't love the furniture that Obden picked out,

it's not to my taste.

The idea of just

the spareness of it does kind of have a hold on my soul.

No, oh no, because I think what I would like is to be able to pick things up from different places that I go, including thrift stores.

Sure, all kinds of beaches and vacant lots.

Yeah, if I find something I like, I want to be able to bring it home and put it somewhere in the apartment.

And Abden, you wish to deny her this

opportunity to help decorate the apartment that she presumably pays half for?

Yes.

She does pay half for.

Absolutely not, but I do want to set some ground rules and boundaries.

We also live in the East Coast now, which I'm sure you know, there is a bed bug situation going on on most of the East Coast.

So trip stores kind of freak me out.

Well, that's an interesting point.

Yes, as someone who has struggled with bed bugs before and conquered them.

What kind of stuff do you want to bring home from thrift stores?

I would know it when I see it.

Like, I can't think of anything particularly, just something that catches my eye that I like.

Yeah.

That's how thrift stores work?

Yeah, you never really know.

Like, you don't go there for a while.

I don't know.

I might want to just go and get a garbage bag of old sheets that were thrown away.

Maybe a bin of discarded stuffed animals.

Judge Hodgen, we're going to have a lot of trouble if you start running down thrift stores.

I'm not running down thrift stores, but Jesse Thorne, my bailiff, my bailiff,

what do you recommend with regard to furnishings from thrift stores if bed bugs is a concern

for you?

I believe that there are things that can be done to alleviate the risk.

of bed bugs.

I can't remember what they are off the top of my head.

I think it's steaming them, something like that eliminates bed bugs.

Bed bugs, if you are careful, aren't the hardest thing in the world to.

Yeah,

I can tell you that

if it is a piece of clothing, run it on high through the dryer

for 20 minutes or longer, and that will decontaminate it completely of all foreign intruders.

And if it is something that is hard,

like a picture frame or something like that.

And you have to, I mean, bed bugs can get into those little things.

Rubbing alcohol, if it will not damage the item itself,

will kill any bedbug nymphs and eggs.

If it is a piece of furniture that is

upholstered,

even though I recently purchased a sofa from a flea market, it was a big

and it's a beautiful upholstered vintage sofa that I love very much.

It was a big

inward breath and leap of confidence that that was going to be okay.

And so far, everything's fine.

But yes, those are the things you could do.

I think that it would, I think that as Jesse points out, for most items, particularly decorative items, that is to say, pieces of driftwood.

Other pieces of garbage that you want to use to

put on your mantle or whatever.

These things can be pretty well deloused without too much risk.

There is more or less an issue of an aesthetic.

How would you describe Kelsey's aesthetic?

What are you afraid she's going to be bringing in?

And what are the rules that you would like to lay down?

More than one occasion, she has mentioned a desire to go and find or purchase from a triff store a rock to put on our coffee table.

Like a cool rock, like crystal.

Yeah, well, not like a lane,

Kelsey.

Like a geode,

Kelsey.

I'm with you, right?

I like, I can see, I like the idea of decorating with natural items.

And when you said a cool rock, I'm like, yeah, I can picture a cool rock.

And then you said a crystal, and I'm like, wait a minute.

No, I mean, like, like a geode.

That is the opposite of cool rock.

Geodes are kind of cool.

Like a geode, but I feel you now I'm beginning to tell me more.

Tell me more that she wants to bring in, Opton.

She wants to bring that.

She has an idea, and this kind of was her compromise, about a chandelier that just points in all sorts of things.

I kind of want to make one that looks like a Sputnik chandelier, but I want to make it myself.

What are you going to make it out of?

First of all, don't say Sputnik chandelier like everyone knows exactly what you're talking about.

Oh, thank you.

Like a ball that has like sticky out.

Oh, a sticky outy ball chandelier.

It's hard to describe.

Maybe it's like.

It looks like a spikenick.

It's like it's like chrome.

Yeah.

And it has spikes coming out of it in different directions.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Everyone looks this up.

They'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's like a chrome, typically a chrome ball with fixtures pointing out of it in all directions, and it looks like a.

I want to find, either find one at like a thrift store, which would probably be hard to do, or try and make one.

How would you make one without smelting a thing?

That's a good question.

Plumbing fixtures.

Plumbing fixtures.

I'm going to say plumbing like that.

Sure, plumbing fixtures.

Jesse, are you saying you've made a sputnik chandelier out of some pipes?

No, but the prospect appeals to me immensely.

And I think it could be very well done if done carefully.

I think so as well.

This is one of the situations where I don't know is precedented in Judge John Hodgman legislative history, where Bailiff Jesse is really into one litigant, and I am really into another litigant.

We're taking sides.

It is the time we live in, same as a Supreme Court split decision.

That's right.

But if we split down the middle, then we have to reveal, we have to, what, revert to the previous ruling, right?

And there is none.

So history requires us to come to some decision.

Judge Hodgman, I feel like I need to disclose that I just finished reading a book called American Junk by Mary Randolph Carter, and I got so excited by its depictions of various thrift store and flea market decor selections that I went onto a popular book purchasing website and purchased not only big city junk and kitchen junk, but also the book.

Never stop to think, do I have a place for this?

And for the love of old, all follow-up books by the author, Mary Randolph Carter.

These are all terrible suggestions.

I'm writing this down right now.

By the way,

she was a top stylist at Ralph Lauren.

She's no old country grandma, if that's what you're imagining.

She knows how to pile junk on side tables in Ralph Lorenz stores for sure.

Yep.

Little round eyeglasses that belong to no one, and books that will never be read, and

all that kind of

eye pollution.

Very pollution, that defines the Ralph Lorraine aesthetic, as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry, Ralph Lorraine.

I think you'll be fine.

So certainly it's hard to argue in favor of the IKEA aesthetic, which is junk that you wasted your money on.

But that's, we'll, we'll save this for the verdict.

Just out of curiosity, Kelsey, Are you crafty?

Do you feel you can make a Sputnik chandelier?

Yeah, yeah, I do.

Because of experience you have doing these kinds of things?

Or because you just believe it of yourself?

I'm pretty crafty.

I tend to make different things.

And I did so at my old apartment.

I just haven't had the time to do it.

Like, what are some of the things you, what are some of the things you made at your old apartment?

Oh, my roommate and I

we distressed a bookshelf that we found at a garage sale and painted it blue.

And it looked really cool.

It was like a teal, like antiqued, distressed wood bookshelf.

It was the best.

Right.

It seems to me like,

you know, it's all coming down to brand names here.

But like, it sounds to me, Obden, like you're trying to reach Dwell magazine by way of

with the, with the poor tools that IKEA offers you.

And it sounds to me

that you're, Kelsey, that you're trying to get inside an anthropology catalog.

Was that too fair to say?

uh yes that is very accurate yeah because I'm getting a real picture and it's and it's it's a

it's a really hard case because um you have very distinct tastes like Kelsey would you like to have some hanging tapestries in there oh for sure and I already I already have some the moment you said geode the whole thing came into

force but but mine would be more authentic than anthropology because I have tapestries from the places I've actually been not that I spent $200 on.

Yeah, no, the

hanging pieces of junk that tell a story of your life.

Yes.

I guess my only question here, Judge Hodgman, with your characterization of the situation is I am not convinced that Obden wants

to live in a Dwell magazine lifestyle because I think he's sort of explained a general contempt for the aesthetic.

And in fact, I wonder if he would not simply prefer to live in, I don't know, an army barracks.

No, you know that he wants to live in Archer's apartment.

Well, Archer's apartment could very well have a Sputnik lamp.

Thank you kindly.

Yeah, well, it's true.

It's very mid-century modern.

I think that Obden is

trying to figure out what his aesthetic is, but generally speaking, it does not involve geodes and tapestries.

That's fair.

And I feel like the Archer Apartment Sputnik will be done by professional and very beautifully.

Do you want your girlfriend to leave you?

No, I do not.

I was going to say, if I make a Sputnik, it will be beautiful.

All right.

We all know that this who you are.

Words to live by.

We all know that one of my orders will be, yeah, you better make that Sputnik chandelier and post a picture of it.

I almost feel like I want to recess this court for the period of time

that you require to make a Sputnik chandelier before I even render my verdict.

Because then I will know

just how good you are at Sputniking.

It will be years, Judge.

It will be years.

Yeah,

that's terrible.

But I just have so little time because I go to law school.

I have class every evening and I work 8 to 5.30 and then go to class 6 to 9.30.

So I don't have very much time for crafting.

How do you feel, Kelsey, when you go into your home that you share with Opton?

Um,

and to be honest, in a lot of ways, I feel really grateful because he does a lot of the like house,

like arranging.

I wouldn't say chores because we have a cleaning person, but he'll cook, get like, get groceries.

I don't know, he kind of like runs.

Does the cleaning person just come in and hose it all down

because you have the interior of a Honda element?

Yeah,

yeah, because you, you, uh, you, you have absolutely no textiles of any kind.

I mean, yeah, they could possibly do that, hose, and then squeegee it out, maybe.

But I mean,

since you are getting this pushback on your geodes and your tapestries and your hanging plants and your

everything else,

when you walk into the home and you know that he would not like to have those things, does it feel like your home?

Yeah, it actually does because he's here.

Boy, oh boy.

Blink twice if you need help.

No, it does feel like a home.

It's not the first time.

That's not how you're going to win this case.

What you're supposed to say.

Do you understand?

Like, you're supposed to say, I don't feel like I have any way

to express myself in my own home.

I feel like I'm in that Kia

showroom.

Do you fear that if you allow one air plant,

then you're going to lose control and suddenly it's just going to be all air plants?

No, I feel like we can limit it to one air plant, and it's sitting dead on our fireplace right now.

I can always buy new ones.

Yeah,

okay.

Get rid of the dead air plant.

Do you fear that that do you fear that that air plant is going to take over your body?

It is pretty foreign looking.

Right.

I don't know what it does at night.

The last thing we need in these dangerous times

is an alien air plant taking over the body of a high-level secret agent living in an IKEA world.

Abden, before I go in and make my decision, you say there are certain things that you would like to prohibit specifically

from your apartment.

What are they?

Anything from Trift Store that is upholstered or has the potential carrying any undesirable bugs or bed bugs and anything that is too off-putting to a reasonable person who we might have over and they will see what that will become a conversation piece.

Thank you.

What is that?

So no conversation pieces.

Everyone that comes over is going to be just incredibly bored.

You understand the conversation pieces

are there to inspire conversation.

I ask you this, Judge.

What does that llama is going to inspire the conversation to be?

Hey, what's that llama doing over there?

Interesting story.

My old roommate painted that on the beach or found it.

I'm not sure.

It inspired.

Look, I tell you, we would have gotten a lot less out of this case if that llama hadn't scared me.

Really provided some good conversation.

Speaking of which, your roommate, Kelsey, you and she used to distress bookcases together.

She was painting llamas.

You guys were dancing around with your Stevie Nicks stuff on, just living it up in geode land.

Do you miss her?

I do a lot.

Where is she?

She's in medical school now in a different state.

Does she have someone in her life who's not

let her anthropology flag fly?

I don't believe so.

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

I'm going to go into my chambers, which is currently kitted out as the

Venture Brothers apartment in the latest season of Venture Brothers, And I will be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kelsey, it sounds like you're barely home anyway.

Why does this matter so much to you?

I mean, I guess it would just be nice to be able to have memories of past things that we've done or places that we've been and have that included as part of our home that people can see and I don't know, that I can see when I walk around.

Optin, I understand that you've purchased the bare minimum amount of furniture necessary for human life.

Would it kill you to get like an area rug or something?

I'm open to the idea of a rug.

Only if we buy an IKEA, though.

No, if we can afford a nice one.

Specifically, I didn't buy an IKEA rug because they look so cheap and polyester.

You said you need something Persian,

Turkish, Bulgarian.

For Bulgarian.

What about maybe Oaxaca?

There's another nice rug tradition.

I am not familiar with those.

I'll look into them.

Okay, good.

I appreciate that.

Hey, do you guys, out of curiosity, do you guys own this apartment or rent?

We rent.

But at some point in the future, you might think about owning something, right?

Yes.

Yeah, you probably are going to want to talk to my aunt Debbie Miller there in Arlington, right?

She's a lifestyle transition specialist.

Fantastic.

I didn't know that's a thing.

Yeah, totally.

She's going to help you find a great place.

And she can't help you with the furniture.

We'll have to see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about that.

We'll be back with more in just a second.

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 maximumfund.org slash join.

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

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

Lifestyle Transition Specialist.

Yeah, Debbie Miller, Arlington, Virginia.

And that's more than

like she's a life

coach or a real estate agent.

I don't understand.

She's a real estate agent who works with people, often people who are either

either moving into their first place or who are

moving into like a retirement home.

Does she help people with the difficulties of joining lives that had previously been separate?

I think that she would be wonderful at doing that.

Well, if only we had people like that to refer to her.

But unfortunately, we just have these weirdos.

I think she'd get one look at that llama and just straight out the other side of the door.

Here's the thing.

You guys are joining, whether or not you are getting married, you are joining your domestic lives together.

And that can often be uncomfortable

and challenging

because you obviously love each other, but you're going to be revealing sides to each other that had previously been not purposefully concealed, but just through everyday life.

You just didn't know that.

Your girlfriend had a crazy llama painting or that your boyfriend buys cheap furniture.

These are things that you're learning about each other now that you're trying to merge

your lives together and your sense of aesthetic together.

And,

you know, it's a challenge because

you are not wealthy.

International intrigue doesn't pay what it used to.

And you've already wasted a bunch of your money on a bunch of junk that you don't like.

Right?

Obden, would you say you love the the furniture you have?

I do.

No, no, I don't love it.

No, and I know how you feel.

It's all right.

I mean, it's serviceable, right?

I've had IKEA in my life, and they have some fun pieces, and they have some nice pieces.

But generally speaking,

I've never met someone who's like, that was a really good investment.

I love it, and it has never fallen apart.

It's not things that I have heard said about IKEA furniture in the past.

But you had to get stuff in there

fast and

economically, and you did it.

And now you're going to be stuck with this for a while until you can build up the war chest again to start deploying it and making

your Spring Hill Suites more of a home.

And

in the meantime, Kelsey has some good ideas because she is used to

having spent a lot of time

living with a similar thrift shopian,

going out and rescuing garbage and fixing it up and turning it into decorative pieces, which is

a very

cost-efficient way to bring some

interesting elements into your decorative life.

But,

and this is a major but,

geode.

Geode,

a geode is a beautiful thing.

But with a geode comes

a lot of extra baggage in the form of hanging tapestries and

candles, pillar candles,

distressed wood bookshelves, and found garbage hanging from the ceiling.

Kelsey has a very distinctive,

and I and I dare say, at the risk of being gendered,

a feminine

style, decorative style.

And you,

I think, have a very distinctive style, which I guess we have to then call male, in that who cares if it's ugly, I can wash it off easily.

But the distinctive, the anthropology style that

you are interested in, Kelsey, you can tell I have some reservations about it.

Personally,

it can go wrong if you are layering in too many goo-gaws and found things and little glass balls and doodads and this and thats.

Do you know what I mean?

And secondly, that is a style that is really defined by

how many things can we put in a pile over here by the phony old-time LP player.

Do you know what I mean?

And

it also requires a lot, it has an emphasis on, in its world, fake vintage, but in your world, real vintage stuff that scares Abded because things might be living in it.

So

it's really a style that

is

designed to cause him anxiety and also I think can very quickly get out of hand and make it look like you're living in the back of a truck.

I'm not saying you have bad style.

I'm just saying that there are risks inherent once you start going down that road.

As you see that Obden, his style also have risks.

when you go too far and you don't invest in pieces of furniture that you love and care about and bring you happiness when you, and they spark joy when you touch them, like Maria Kondo says.

And it just looks like

a prison in many ways.

Looks like a pretty nice prison.

Looks like a white-collar prison.

Let's put it that way.

But luckily for you both,

I think that there's a way to meld these styles for you, Kelsey,

to use

the incredibly blank slate that Obden has provided you and accent it tastefully and minimally

with your

found objects, be they thrift store finds or stuff you pull off a beach or out of a vacant lot.

I

like,

and I think the key here

will be for you guys to

um for you kelsey to act judiciously and slowly and deliberately and not just start bringing home a bunch of junk

but to

let obden live with a hanging piece of driftwood with an air plant growing in it and let him live with it at its best like say a living air plant

because i actually think that that kind of spare environment with a single piece of driftwood has a very wobby-sobby niceness to it that I can picture in my mind that I think you guys might be able to learn to enjoy together.

And I also think that you guys, and this is all life advice, right?

I haven't rendered my verdict yet.

I also think that you guys should take the benefit of the time that you have of having no money and you can't immediately rectify the terrible mistakes that Obden made by going to IKEA for all your furniture

to go through some catalogs

and go online to interior decoration sites and everything else, and start, you know, sort of sitting there and saying, What do you think about that?

What do you think about that?

What do you think about that?

And find things that you can actually kind of agree on and just be agree to be honest with each other.

Um, so that you can start finding places where your two different styles can intersect.

I find in favor

of Kelsey,

insofar

that

Obden's

request

that I ban specifically a llama painting and also anything else that might spur a conversation

is simply too vague and too unreasonable to uphold.

Kelsey has to have the opportunity to bring her taste into the apartment.

But the caveat is,

Kelsey, you have to make a Sputnik chandelier.

You said you could do it.

I want to see it.

I want the listeners to judge Sean Hodgran to be able to see it over at maximumfun.org.

If you make that thing, then you can hang a llama painting.

But until then, llama painting stays under your bed.

And in the meantime,

develop your taste together, slowly but surely.

You may bring in things from thrift stores so long as you delouse them.

But be judicious, be patient, and understand that

this takes time before you develop a taste together.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Optin, how are you feeling about the case?

I'm feeling okay.

Not super disappointed.

I feel like the judge was very fair.

And given the time constraint, I don't see her building the chandelier for another two to three years, which gives us exactly the time to develop our taste together.

And by then, maybe the llama painting will be out of the picture.

Yeah.

And you know what?

I have a friend in Oaxaca who's a rug weaver.

Let me know and I'll hook you up.

She can send you some pictures.

You can, you know, you can pick a little something out.

Thank you, Bayliff.

Kelsey, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling great.

This, this is,

first of all, I'm really excited to make this button chandelier, and this just gives me more motivation.

Oh, it's happening.

I'm pretty excited for you, Kelsey.

I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

Obtin, Kelsey, thanks so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

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 listen.

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.

Who produced and edited this program?

Julia Smith produced this week's program.

It was edited by Mark McConville.

It was named by Karen Polowick.

Thank you to Karen for naming the show.

If you want to name a future episode of Judge John Hodgman, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, join the maximumfun.org Facebook group, and follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne, J-E-S-S-E-T-H-O-R-N, and at Hodgman.

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If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, big or small, we consider them all.

Go to maximumfund.org slash JJ H O and there you will find

easy installation instructions.

Speaking of installation,

I I would like to say Kelsey isn't with us anymore, but I hope she's listening to this now.

Before you make that sputnik chandelier, please don't electrocute yourself or anyone else.

That's a good call.

We are not responsible for electrocutions.

It's pretty much a given.

That's blanketly true for all podcasts, but I especially want to say it now.

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

Goodbye.

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