Judge John Hodgman - Garbage Man and Wife

Episode Date: July 6, 2011

Matt Haughey of Metafilter and his wife Kay split household chores right down the middle, except when it comes to garbage duty.  Does the person taking out the trash have "garbage hands" that are only suitable to replace the trash bag and deal with all matters dirty?  Judge John Hodgman decides!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, garbage man and wife. Matt and his wife Kay try and split their chores evenly. If one does the vacuuming, the other does the dusting. If one person puts the clothes in the washer, the other folds them when they come out of the dryer and so forth the question comes when matt takes out the trash he says that as part of their scheme k should replace the bag and liner k however disagrees she says that matt has already been infected, so to speak, with garbage grossness, and thus replacing the liner should be his job. Matt says that garbage grossness does not transfer onto a person who's simply placing a clean bag in the trash can. Only one is right, one must be wrong, and only one man can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hochgman enters the courtroom.

Hello, everyone. It is time to take out the trash. This, by the way, Jesse, this special edition of Judge John Hodgman is to celebrate the relaunch of The Marriage Ref back on your television sets. As of, I believe, this week, season two, The Marriage Ref. If it's out there, I am, this week. Season two, The Marriage Ref, it's out there. I am getting no money for it. Will you please swear the defendant and complainant in?

Matt K., 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. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that as a deranged millionaire, all of his cleaning is done by a team of specially trained lemurs? I do. I do. Very well. Judge Hodgman? Well, first of all, let me just say that as soon as they actually come out with a working

Roomba, I will get rid of these lemurs, okay? I realize it's cruel to make these lemurs work for me, and also cruel to make them wear little butler outfits and French maid outfits. They do have a lot of fun riding the Roombas, though. Well, I know, but that's pretty much all a Roomba is good for at this time. As soon as I can get one that actually does the work of 17 lemurs, I will get a Roomba, and then I will abandon the lemurs on the street, or find a happy home for them, I suppose. That's a lot of lemur feed. It is. It is. You know, sometimes I wonder if perhaps at least 10 of the lemurs aren't employed cleaning

up just lemur junk. And speaking of ethical dilemmas and cross-promotional platforms, this is not only the celebratory marriage ref edition of Judge John Hodgman. As longtime listeners may know, I stopped taking cases from married couples because I was getting too many accusations on the forums and in personal emails to me that I was just turning this podcast into the marriage ref, which is not something that anyone wants to hear about their podcast or their lives. So I stopped taking cases, more or less, from married couples with rare occasions.

But today we are only going to be talking to married couples or about married couples. And it is totally in celebration of the return of the Marriage Ref. Season two starts right now. Now, as I say, I don't get any money from the Marriage Ref. I think the only thing that I get out of constantly plugging the marriage ref is that if I ever run into Jerry Seinfeld, he won't murder me with his eyes. But beyond that, there is another ethical dilemma here, which is that the two people involved are people who are known to me. Isn't that so? Yes.

Sure. Matt, you and I have met before. You are the husband. Yes. May I use your last name? Yeah, go ahead. All right. Your name is Matt Howey.

Met a filter zone, Matt Howey. Is that not so? That's better. So. And Kay, have we met before? We have not met before. You are his wife, though? I am his wife.

So you are Mrs. But I'm not a Howie. You are Mrs. Metafilter's own not Howie. Exactly. Is that correct? That is very correct. And Metafilter shares a relationship with Maximum Fun? Yes. A sponsorship-type position?

Yes. I see. Keep that in mind when you make your ruling. I was going to say, I think things are stacked against me here. This is a, you know, in the spirit of full disclosure, I need to get this stuff out there. And Matt Howey, when we met, we've met personally on a number of occasions, always at the very fun MaxFunCon. It is always very fun. They don't call it MinFunCon.

But we've met there a couple of times. And as far as I can tell, I like you very much. And one of the things that helped me to like you was that this Max Fun Con, the third annual Max Fun Con, you presented me with an item. Is that not so? That is true. And how would you describe that gift? A comically oversized judge gavel in several varieties of wood. That's right. And I would say, just looking at it, we're looking at some pine, we're looking at some oak, we're looking at some maple, some cherry, maybe even some mahogany, all sandwiched together and shellacked within an inch of its life.

Is that not true? That is true. All right. And I'm just going to let people hear the sound of that gavel now. I have to go get it. Hang on. people hear the sound of that gavel now. I have to go get it. Hang on. Matt, do you recognize the sound of this gavel?

Yes. Right. So satisfying. It's very satisfying and I intend to use it on this show. Now, I just wanted to get all of those things out of the way. I'm putting the gavel down now because it's larger than my desk. A lemur will clean it up. It's very heavy. Yes, exactly. Come here, lemurs. No, no, lemurs. I need that for later.

The reason that I say all of these things is to say that in the case of the garbage can justice, I am intensely compromised. Would you not agree? I think so, yes. So I'm just going to have to ask the listening audience to, first of all, trust my impartiality. They wouldn't have given me this free podcast in which I pretend to be a judge if I did not trust my own impartiality. And moreover, you just have to trust me when I say that when I received this case via email at hodgman at maximumfund.org, I did not know it was Matt Howey and Kay Nothowey. When I approved it for hearing,

and when I made up my mind at that time who was going to win, I did not know that it was you, Matt. So I just want to say that I reviewed and prejudged this case long before I ever got any gifts of any gavels. And now I am ready to hear the case again and make my decision anew, just like I did at the moment that you sent it in before I heard your argument. Matt, you are the complainant. Yes. Start complaining. Well, you know, I think we're a modern couple, and we try to share the workload.

I won't admit to coming close to 50% of all chores in the house, but the chores we do together, we do every chore as together possible. What percentage would you admit to? Oh, 30 to 40% maybe. Can we just settle on one number? You want to say 35%? A third. 33.333333?

Right. Yeah, yeah. Matt, hang on one moment, please. Yeah, you know. Does that sound about right? Yeah, it. Kay, would you, Matt, hang on one moment, please. Kay? Yeah, you know. Does that sound about right? Yeah, it sounds about right. Do you have any help around the house, any lemurs?

No lemurs, we don't. I highly recommend it. You've got to get me into it. Yeah, I need the phone number to find out about the lemurs, or the website. I don't know. I would just. You order them from Africa. It's mail order.

You have to send in a thing from a comic book. Oh, okay. Coupons and... Coupons, yeah. Do you get glasses with... You have to clip out a thing from a Fantastic Four comic book from 1977. It's the only one. My brother has that one.

It's become a very rare one to get. It's the only one that advertised lemurs by mail. And it's the only way... The company still operates, but they will only accept coupons from that particular issue. And I don't even want to say what issue it was. But let's just say Kang the Conqueror hint hint. All right. Now listen. Do you agree with 33.333 repeating percent of the chores in the house are taken care of by Matt Howie and no one else? Yes. And you would say then you are responsible for 66.66666666%?

I especially like the 666 part of that. Yes, exactly so. You are both internet professionals? No. No, just me. What do you do for a living, Kay? I'm a college professor. Oh, nice.

You guys have it nice. Yeah, I teach cognitive science. I believe it. I don't. Hey, actually, your intern, I used to teach at the college your intern went to. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So we are once again compromised even further. Yes. So I'm on the Jesse Thorne side of things. She went to this college in San Francisco that I was at when we lived there. Do you still owe her a grade for any papers? No, no.

Luckily, she was never in my class. Wait a minute. In San Francisco, she is no longer the intern. She is currently the producer of Judge John Hodgman. Are we talking about Julia? Yeah. Yeah, the producer. Yeah, she went to... Sorry, well, Matt referred to her as an intern.

What am I to know? I don't know. No, no, no. Our intern. Julia Smith is the producer of this show. Sure, she's fabulous. Yes, she is. She is fabulous.

You ought to be bribing her now. She doesn't have to bribe you anymore. I know. All right. Well, I'll send you the email so you can bribe her. Awesome. All right, let's try to get back on track here. The plumber's at work, Matt?

Yes. All right. What's going on with your sink oh we are uh finishing a long renovation in a bathroom and this is actually the last step to finish off a brand new countertop just put in the sink what's the countertop what's the countertop made out of uh paper stone uh as what what is that meg meg horahan showed me her paper stone countertop. It's made from recycled paper slammed together with glue or something that's very green. Right, you're just outside of Portland, Oregon. I forgot. Of course you're going to have some crazy countertop no one's ever heard of

made of recycled paper that's been turned into stone via some new technology that's eco-green stone via some new technology that's eco green and whatever good but let me warn you if your house is ever on house hunters or house hunters international no one will buy it because it doesn't have granite that's true all right well good luck on your renovations so you're a lovely young professional couple living outside in the wine country of portland oregon you have children yes yes we have a daughter. Oh, very good. All right. I was about to say, all right, good. That's good. You're human now. I was concerned that you were just two married people living in the wine country of Portland, Oregon, an internet professional

and a college professor with no children and a bunch of curious paper stone renovations going on. I was going to, and the biggest problem you have in the world is who takes the garbage out. But you do have a child to temper your perfect lifestyle and to make it crazy. So I am willing now to hear your case. Oh, congratulations, daughter Howie, not Howie. Did you hyphenate her name? What is her first name? Fiona. Fiona. So is it Fiona Howie, not Howie? She's a Howie, yes. Just a Howie. Just a Howie.

All right. Matt wasn't into the whole hyphenation of long last names. I told her to take your name. Girls get your name. Boys get my name. Thank you, Portland, Oregon. See, I'm always sharing. I'm always trying to share.

You are. You're Mr. 50-50. You're Mr. 33-67. I got it. So let's get back on track. So you share the chores, 33 being yours share, Matt. And one of your chores is taking out the garbage. Is that correct? That is correct. And every two-step chore seems to be split. Whoever makes dinner, the other one does the dishes. Whoever loads the dishwasher, the other one empties the dishwasher when it's clean. We have this natural sort of split for all.

Trash gets taken out when someone's holding garbage in their hands ready to go and it's full. You know, hey, can you take out the trash? I take it out. We have to sort of walk around the house, put it on the side of the house. And then you come back and it's like, where's the bag? And, you know, the person's still holding garbage, demanding that I put it in as soon as possible. And forgetting the part where I'm usually cooking dinner when this happens.

So when you say literally you're holding the garbage, you're standing there with garbage in your hands waiting to throw it out. I've got onion skins or something. By the way, I need to throw this away right and you're standing there and you're standing there because and for some reason in your kitchen you have no countertops you just have to stand there with the garbage until yeah it is a problem right you know we have them in the bathroom but apparently not right right right you don't right okay got it that would be too fancy all right k i'm cooking and i the garbage needs to go.

That's when we realize, like, oh, shoot. Okay, Kay, Kay, Kay, you're freaking out a little. Collect yourself and present your argument. I will. So, yeah, the 50-50 thing, for the most part, works on many things. I don't believe, though, that it works here. And here's why. So we have one of those garbage things where, you you know you step on it and the lid flips up so you have an like an inner liner that you have to pull out to take the

garbage out i believe not nearly a cent okay i believe we have video of this your video of our garbage yeah i believe matt howie an internet professional used a video sharing service called vimeo to put put out a unprotected non-private video of demonstrating him taking the garbage bag out and putting a new garbage bag in. Let's go to the video for a moment. Okay, for those of you listening along at home, two things just happened. One, Matt took the garbage liner out with the bag in it. And also you may notice that he's given his Vimeo video a soundtrack. Sorry.

No, it's good. You know what? Internet professional. I like it. You're at home a lot. You've got nothing better to do but learn new video sharing programs and put soundtracks on your evidence to Judge John Hodgman. I appreciate that. Hang on. Now, at this point, he's taken the bag out of the garbage.

The music is swelling dramatically. I thought that was a nice touch. It was a nice touch, right? And now he's putting a new bag in. And you can tell that he's putting a new bag in because Matt Howey took the time to put in subtitles explaining each step in case you weren't able to follow along. And it says underneath, putting a new bag in. Anyone can go and see this video, by the way, on the Judge John Hodgman portion of the MaximumFun.org website. Let's follow along, shall we?

All right. Now, I want to pause here. Now, I want to pause here. Now I want to pause here for a second. Matt, you've put the bag back in, correct? Mm-hmm. And this is you. I can't see the person's face, but this is you performing in the video, not one of your lemur butlers? No, it's just me.

Okay. Now you've put the bag back in, and then there is this weird maneuver where you sort of tucked the bag into some kind of flap at the back. Yeah. It's a little hole to like cinch up the gap in the bag. And actually I didn't, I should have filmed Kay doing it as well because she does it slightly differently and probably better. You should. You should have because that could have taken up another whole afternoon where you had nothing to do because you're an internet professional. I have more stuff to try.

What did you do with your time? Instead of that, monitor the message boards at Metafilter? Yes, yes. So, yeah, that's about the only time you have to touch the can, but no garbage ever touches the inner liner can. Well, hang on. Right. I don't think that's so true. Wait a minute, guys.

There's maybe 20 seconds left in this video. I just want to see how this plays out. Well, kind of anticlimactic, actually. He just put the liner back into the thing and the song faded out. There wasn't even a big ending. What was the song, by the way?

You want to give a music credit? Yeah, Phoenix. That was North by Phoenix. Instrumental they did on their, I think, second album. And that's one of your favorite internet professional mellow listening albums? No, no. They're a popular French band. Humongous.

Yeah, okay. All you needed, they're popular French band. Humongous. Yeah. Okay. All you needed to say was popular French band, man, man who lives on the internet. So, okay. Okay. I watched this, this procedure. It seems pretty simple. What's the problem? Okay. So a couple of things. One, if you notice he, when he ties the bag, he shoves it on the inside of the liner. So, yes, trash does get on that. See, I take it out on the outside and shove it through the back. That's the little difference. So, usually, when the trash has to go out, it's when I'm cooking.

And I do a lot of the cooking, wouldn't you say, Matt? Yes. Thank you. So, I cook most of our dinners. Thank you. So I cook most of our dinners. And so when the trash needs to go out, I don't think it should be a two-step process where I need to put the liner back in. If I don't want to go near the trash can with my hands, there's a reason we have one of those step lids. That way you don't have to touch the trash can and get trash hands, as we like to call them trash hands in our, or I think we call them, do you call them garbage hands or trash hands, Matt? Garbage hands is what you came up with. Garbage hands. Kay just said, this is, I want to nail this down.

Kay just said, if we touch the garbage, we get something that we call in our house trash hands, which is already a strange enough thing that you guys have a special lingo for the impure state that affects your entire body the moment you touch the trash can with something other than your foot. And then you say, isn't that what we call it, Matt? And Matt goes, garbage hands is what you came up with. Like, totally defeated. Like, I'm going to correct you. It was garbage hands, but revealing it wasn't me. It was you.

You came up with this idea. Let me ask you some questions, Kay. Yes. Are you vegetarians? Not anymore. Okay. We were. So there is an issue of salmonella, other traditionally meat-oriented contaminants that could be in the mix, as it were.

Yes. Right? Very much so. And why are you making so much garbage when you cook, Kay? Because I'm looking at this garbage can. It's pretty big. So what are the reasons that you need to be, like, emergency garbage takeout in the middle of the meal

when you're still cutting up onions? Well, and actually, it's usually not onions and stuff because, okay, now you're going to make fun of me for this one but we have a good that usually then to the compost oh you have a compost pile right okay why would i make fun why would i make fun of that you know because we're that kind of people you guys like you guys like to keep a pile of rotting food and poop near your home to turn into hummus to enrich you the soil of your garden. I think that's terrific. If you have that space. I live in the city.

I can't be keeping a, well, I do keep a box of poop in my house because I have a cat. But you guys, I think that's fine. I don't make fun of these things. But let me tell you something. Once you are holding that stuff, you already got garbage hands. Yeah, but you forget, Matt didn't mention the part when you take it outside, you have to lift the leg. We have one of those cities where they make you have a special garbage can

that the garbage truck can come by and pick up and flip over. Are you talking about Portland? Did you just refer to Portland as though it were a gadget you have in your house? We have one of those cities where you have to do this thing. One of those towns that requires you to have special garbage. No, you are a citizen of a city. You don't have it.

You choose to live in it and take part in the social life of that place. It's not a thing you own. Like a paper stone counter. It's not your paper stone counter. We have one of those cities that requires a very special oil and you can't put hot pans down on it. Exactly. I think I should only take cases from Portland. All right.

So listen to me. You have one of those cities where you have to list a thing. You have to use some kind of organic Sharpie to write a thing down. What? Well, you have to go outside and instead of having just, you know, your regular maybe open trash can that you can just put trash in, you have to lift the lid of this big plastic dumpster thing they give you. Lift. Right. Okay. Gotcha. Your hands have to touch it. And trust me, it's not clean. And you lift it up, and then you put the trash in, and you lift it down.

So you've got kind of double garbage hand problems. Okay. First from taking the trash out, and then taking it out to the outside and touching that trash can. Okay, and so your contention is that after Matt's got garbage hands all over him by lifting up the lid of this thing and by handling all the garbage, he should then come in and put the garbage bag in because he's already contaminated.

Exactly. And then what are you going to do? Well, I would have already washed my hands and washed down all the counters before I do anything else. And with a light solution of bleach and water? Or something more eco-friendly? Perhaps is there a product in mind that you're biting your tongue on right now

because I said bleach? Because you can't believe... Bleach and water is what most people would like to do. That's what Elton Brown would tell you to do. Thank you for pronouncing his name correctly, by the way. How do other people pronounce it? Alton. But what do I care?

I'm not going to relitigate that. Okay, Matt, I see a lot of flaws in Kay's arguments. What do you see? What did she end that long process with? Well, you're quite good. First of all, as a husband, you're a terrific listener. I know you were probably uploading some things to Milkshake and double-checking some things on Metafilter

and maybe checking some of your Etsy stores and whatever and watching the plumber do his thing. But I'm trying to do justice here. Okay, double click. So let's go. Well, she did mention she washes her hands often when preparing food. All I'm asking, even if there's a garbage, a contamination problem, she washes her hands probably 10, 15 times in the course of making a meal. Hold on a second.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Kay, 10, 15 times. Would that be accurate in terms of washing your hands during a meal prep? It only depends if we're dealing with meat or not. If I have chicken, I wash my hands more and I wash the counters more. If you're cooking with chicken, I think it's reasonable to say you should throw the counters away. Okay, listen, Matt, go on. So whether or not there's a cleanliness or a contamination

problem, I would say even if I admitted that, and if you watch the video from seconds 19 on, it's pretty clean with the new bag. But if you're worried about contamination, she's already washed her hands after each ingredient gets chopped up or whatever. Adding one more time isn't the end of the world. Not too much of it. But I will say. Not too much of it.

Okay, finish your sentence, please. I don't want to interrupt you for two reasons. I want to respect you, and I want to make sure we get a clean edit. Okay, yeah. So finish your lesson. It's not too much of a... I'm going to be quiet now. Okay.

It's not too much of a time commitment to just wash your hands. Is it too much of a time commitment to just wash your hands a 16th to 17th time, Kay? No, but I think I shouldn't have to be interrupted in the middle of my meal prep for the entire family, Is it too much of a time commitment to just wash your hands a 16th to 17th time, Kay? No, but I think I shouldn't have to be interrupted in the middle of my meal prep for the entire family, where I'm trying to get everything on the table at the same time, to have to stop and do this. And when you have a little more time, when you don't have like three pots going. Matt, you contend that these are two separate chores, and are getting you're getting the bad end of this deal because normally you split all the chores down the middle but in this case you are doing uh you're doing both of them is that correct yeah and when the other person is standing there

with garbage still in their hands a minute later going hurry up you think well you've gotten a bag out and thrown it into there and then uh but'm not saying this does put your percentage up. Yeah, why don't you just up your percentage and do what your wife wants you to do here and put the garbage bag in? You already got garbage hands. Yeah, that's true. All right, I think I know exactly what I'm going to rule on this. I have for a long time, actually, and I will be back in a moment. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Wow, this one got complicated, didn't it, Matt? Yeah, way more than I thought. How do you feel about your chances? I have no idea what my chances are. 50-50. Kay, how are you feeling about your chances? You know, if he goes with the cleanliness issues as well as the 50-50 issue, perhaps I will come out on top.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom. I'm back. I really love this gavel, I gotta say. Just putting it down sounds like I'm hitting a lemur dead. I find it in favor of Matt. There's a surprise.

And not just because he gave me a gavel. And not just because he's a sponsor through Metafilter of Maximum Fun. Because I think that we've established that, Kay, you are equally flush with us in terms of bribery by giving us an amazing, helping to train an amazing producer in the person of Julia Smith, who I don't think would be a third or even 33.3333% of the producer she would be if not for her cognitive science class that she took with you. Which she never took a class with me. Whatever.

This is not the time for correcting me. This is my time for correcting you. Sorry. But here's why I made this controversial decision. You guys are not taking the garbage out enough in your house. guys are not taking the garbage out enough in your house. If you are the kind of person who pays attention to detail and has paper stone counters in your bathroom and knows exactly how they're going to decontaminate the counters in the kitchen and washes his or her hands 14 or 15 times to make sure that everything is clean. If you're the kind of person who is only getting food from the CSA and, you know, making dinner for a family, including a young child, with only the best ingredients,

all I can say is you are people who live in Portland and you are considerate almost to a fault, except this blind spot. There's no reason that this kind of household should be reaching crisis point in the garbage can in the middle of food preparation. That's cuckoo time. You need to add a second takeout, and then you will literally be separating the chore half and half, because one of you is going to take the garbage out and put a bag in, just one person. And the other of you is going to take the other garbage out and put a bag in. And then this kind of crisis will not happen again. But until that happens, I find in Matt's favor. So even though it does mean getting a little garbage hands, we all know that the moment you touch a chicken, you've got garbage hands for the rest of your life.

So that is my ruling to clarify. From now on, if there is only one trip out to the garbage during dinner, and it is during dinner preparation, okay, you should put that garbage bag right in there right away and get on with your life. But you can avoid this kind of conflict and some extra trouble in your life. But you can avoid this kind of conflict and some extra trouble in your life by scheduling a second garbage run, in which case each person would be responsible for taking the garbage out and putting the new bag back in. This is actually the sound of a gavel. Here's some words from Tom Papa on the garbage ref. I don't even know what that means. Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kay, the judges seem to have offered you a stern rebuke in the interest of efficiency. How do you feel right now? Well, you know, I will have to live with it. It doesn't mean I have to change my ways now. Oh, my Lord. Well, thanks, guys. Thanks. Thank you.

Bye. Bye. Well, another exciting case, eh, Judge John Hodgkin? Hang on, I'm just fondling my gavel. Oh, get away from there, you lemurs. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. It's like a terrifying semi-primate version of whack-a-mole. Yes, it's whack-a-semi-primate.

Shall we clear the docket so you have a little more room there in your office? Oh, yes, please. Here's one from Matt. He writes, Wait, is this the same Matt? Is this Matt Howey again? This is a different Matt. Okay, good. This is Matt W. Okay, good. My wife and I have a dispute that only you can resolve. matt is this matt howie again this is a different matt okay good this is matt w okay good my wife

and i have a dispute that only you can resolve i know you don't like to get in the middle of marital debates however this could be crucial to the survival of the earth my wife believes like most normal people that garbage should be thrown into the garbage can i used to believe this until i was confronted with the overwhelming logic of a different philosophy oh I love husbands. What? It sounds ridiculous? throwing garbage into a garbage can results in garbage being piled up into large plaque garbage dumps taking a long time to decompose however if garbage is ripped up into small pieces and scattered on top of the soil having direct contact with the sun it will decompose

faster therefore making it better for the environment in fact i would go so far as to say he hasn't gone far enough yet. Throwing trash in the garbage is actually doubly bad because it ships the garbage out of sight, out of mind, creating a false idea of how wasteful we really are. Jesse Thorne for getting two marriage-related, garbage-related arguments from guys named Matt for this Marriage Ref Week special edition of Judge John Hotchman. I'm very impressed by that, I have to say.

By the way, can I introduce our special guests, Shakira and Cedric the Entertainer. Hey, thanks guys for coming by. This Matt is obviously insane. What troubles me most about him is his inability to distinguish types of garbage. When he speaks about garbage, he's speaking about a very broad category of stuff.

And if he means that we should be tearing up lettuce leaves and onion peelings and other decompostables or compostables and spreading them on the topsoil, sure. That's exactly what Matt and Kay are doing with their compost pile, except they're making it compost first before they spread it all over their lawn. all over their lawn. But he could equally be talking about tearing up Brookstone catalogs and old computers and old keyboards that you don't want anymore and batteries. Like, what's his solution for that?

And certainly I hope he's not tearing up old pieces of chicken and tossing that all over the place because that does not compost properly. It will only attract badgers and lemurs, and it will make him look strange and disgusting to his neighbors. So as much as I appreciate some of his efforts to make us more mindful of our waste, I think unless he is a vegetarian who never drinks coffee and otherwise throws nothing else away. Do not tear up your garbage and throw it all over your lawn or you will be taken to a home.

Here's one from Steve. I'm 38, married and have two children. The downstairs of our home has what is essentially a half bathroom and this bathroom is where we keep our soft core toiletry items such as tooth and hair brushes and such related. These items are used on a daily basis so I prefer to leave them out on the sink or sink caddy area where they can be easily grasped when needed which as I mentioned before is daily. However my wife who does not use these items on a daily basis, she keeps all of her toiletries upstairs, prefers to keep these items all tucked away from

sight so as to maintain a neat orderly and utterly lifeless look about the bathroom. So whenever I need to use these items I have to go into closed and desolate cabinets to retrieve my items. If I leave them out, as I am apt to do, they are put away almost within moments by the all-seeing eye of my wife. So, should the items in the downstairs bathroom be put away or out for convenience? First of all, Steve, when you are talking about a bathroom, never talk about storing soft core anything in a bathroom. Next, I would say that

bathroom preferences are highly personal, and in my many, many years as the marriage ref, I've encountered the bathroom as the locus of many a dispute. I think that the solution is to grant one bathroom to one aesthetic, and the other bathroom to the other aesthetic. However, you can decide which one is going to reflect each aesthetic. And I think that you will find that that will be a solution that will only cause more heartache and misery, but you need to do it anyway. I don't think it's fair for her to insist upon you

putting away everything in the bathroom that you primarily use, especially when she has a whole bathroom to herself where she can stand around and whisper to herself, pure, pure, pure, pure. That's all we've got here, Judge Hodgman. Oh, let me put this down. So you know what? I'm glad that this is Marriage Ref Week

because it occurs to me that there's another reason to be talking to husbands and wives, which is obviously the advent of marriage equality in New York State, which I'm very happy about. I hope that it comes to California one of these times soon. I know that you're kind of a backward state and it takes you a while to get on to these things, but I'm very excited about it. And I would love to, despite my ban on husband and wife issues in the future, and I'm going to reinstate that ban. I'm going to be highly skeptical about taking any husband-wife cases, because they tend to revolve around the same stuff, and I tend to always fall in favor of the wife.

But I would certainly be very open to any husband-and-husband cases or wife-and-wife cases, should they come down the pike. in husband cases or wife and wife cases should they come down the pike. And so please write me with any of your disputes at Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. Is that correct, Jesse? Absolutely. This is Metafilter's own Judge John Hodgman saying that is all. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is a production of MaximumFun.org.

Our special thanks to all of the folks who donate to support this show and all of our shows at MaximumFun.org slash donate. The show is produced by Julia Smith and me, Jesse Thorne, and edited by Matt Gourley. His great podcast, by the way, is called Super Ego. You can find it in iTunes or online at GoSuperEgo.com. You can find John Hodgman online at areasofmyexpertise.com. If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, email us and be sure and include your telephone number. The email address is hodgman at maximumfund.org. If you have thoughts about the show, you can always comment on it on our message board, forum.maximumfund.org. We'll see you online and next time right here on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.