Judge John Hodgman - Juggernaut, Lest Ye Be Judged

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Patty loves the X-MEN. A lot. His mom, Cordelia, says that Patty turns every conversation into an X-MEN “lore dump.” She wants him to scale back on the X-MEN chat. But he wants to be understood! Who’s right? Who’s wrong? We did it. We made a T-shirt in honor of Patty's stunning poem, "The sky is blue / the grass is green / I love X-MEN / and I'm gay." With gorgeous art by Sonny Ross, this shirt is available for a limited time! You have until April 3 to get this tee for yourself or the queer, Marvel-loving person in your life! Get it now at MaxFunStore.com! Thanks to reddit user u/Admirable_Cook_5193 for naming this week’s case! To suggest a title for a future episode, keep an eye on the Maximum Fun subreddit at reddit.com/r/maximumfun! Have a dispute that you can’t settle? About Sloppy Joes or any other sandwiches? No dispute is too small for the honorable Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn! Submit your cases directly to the court at: maximumfun.org/jjho Follow Judge John Hodgman on: YouTube: @judgejohnhodgmanpod Instagram: @judgejohnhodgman TikTok: @judgejohnhodgmanpod Bluesky: @judgejohnhodgman Reddit: r/maximumfun Please consider donating to Al Otro Lado. Al Otro Lado provides legal assistance and humanitarian aid to refugees, deportees, and other migrants trapped at the US-MX border. Donate at alotrolado.org/letsdosomething. Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes, discounts on our merch, and more by joining us at: maximumfun.org/join!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff, Jesse Thorne. This week, Juggernaut, lest ye be judged. Cordelia brings the case against her son, Patty. Cordelia loves Patty. Patty loves the Marvel comic book series X-Men. A lot. Cordelia says that Patty turns every conversation into an X-Men lore dump. She wants him to scale back on the X-Men chat. Who's right? who's wrong, only one can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference. Gentlemen, to hellfire, may it scorch and sin, burn and boil, seethe and scald, combust in crackle until we're inflamed, roasted, toasted, grilled, and cauterized until our bones crumble into the demoniac heat. To hell, Fire. To hellfire.

Bailiff, Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in. Cordelia, Patty, please 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 John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's more of an alpha flight guy? That's true.

I do. Yes. I do. Good point. Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. Thank you, Jesse. Patty and Cordelia may be seated. And by the way, I'm so happy to be here.

Back at Technica House in New York City with Jacob, our guest engineer here. Jacob is saluting. There are no cameras on Jacob at the moment. But maybe there will be Jacob when you collect the water bottle that I threw across the room because I will need it. Thank you very much. I'm a little parched. There's Jacob, everybody. Take a look.

All right. Now, Cordelia and Patty, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors. Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered Technica House here in downtown New York City? Cordelia, let's start with you. What's your guess? Is it something to do with Ragnarok and Thor? Ragnarok and Thore, which is a Marvel comic as well as a Norse myth, Ragnarok being the end times myth and Norse mythology.

also the name of my late lamented banished to hell stand-up special on Netflix. Which I did see. Thank you very much, Cordelia. I'll write that down right now. Everyone can see on the YouTube, I'm very seriously writing that down. The Marvel comic Thor, Ragnarok,

is that correct or incorrect? What do you think, Patty? Incorrect. You're correct. It's incorrect. What's your guess as to what? it is from... It feels like some sort of biblical text

just based off hearing Hellfire, so... Well, what if I were to... I mean, you know, Patty, you know, we're comic book nerds here together. What if I were to give you a hint that it is... It's something that's set at the Hellfire Club.

The Hellfire. That's a Marvel. That is a Marvel thing. It is. Oh, he's raising his eyebrows at me. Oh, wait. I dare say I'm wagging them. Oh, okay, wait.

What do we know about the Hellfire Club? Well, there is kinky sex club in Marvel Comics that controlled the world. And inside the Hellfire Club, which is like the cream of the crop, there's even an inner secret club, which controls the crem of the creme of the crop called The Inner Circle. I did not even know about that. Which typically has members of the Black King, the White King, the Black Queen, the White Queen, and typically rolls of chess. Yeah, who was the, who, these are villains from the X-Men comics.

Correct. Created by Chris Claremont. And John Byrne. And John Byrne, I don't know why I called him Claremont. His name is Chris Claremont. Fabulous, man. Probably the most, certainly the most influential storywriter for the X-Men in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Oh, yeah.

And maybe one of the most influential comic book writers, the modern age and revived the X-Men from obscurity and made them the best-selling comic book of all time. He did not create

the all-new X-Men. He defined them very much. And the Hellfire Club was a villain in the X-Men lore, who was he the Black King? Who was the main batty in the Hellfire Club? Do you remember? Sebastian Shaw, the Black King.

Sebastian. Shaw was the black king and the white queen was Emma Frost. Yeah, and who was the black queen? Well, that depends on what role. Jean Gray was the black queen while she was being manipulated by a mastermind in the... Jason Wingard, do you mean? Yes, but I was using his code name, Mastermind. Yeah, that's not.

I appreciate it. Manipulating her and then Celine later took on the role of the black queen, probably the longest, I would say, in continuity. And so, oh, I did see. I didn't even know that. But yeah, no. Notoriously, Gene Gray, aka. Marvel Girl, aka Phoenix, was mind-manipulated by mastermind Jason Wingard into becoming the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.

So would your guess then be Patty the Hellfire Club from the X-Men Comics? Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, you're right about everything, but all guesses are wrong. Ha-ha-ha. Guess what it was from? Stranger Things?

I don't know. No. It was from the Avengers. What? Oh. The Hellfire Club never. meaningfully showed up in the Avengers comic books. Of course they didn't.

I'm not talking about the Avengers, the Marvel comic superhero team. I'm talking about the Avengers, the British Spy TV show. I knew this was a reference to that because that's what the Hellfire Club is based off of. That's exactly. Why didn't you guess it, Patty?

You could have walked away with the whole thing. We were all rooting for me. Because we got distracted off. Oh, my headphones just fell off. I was so upset. Hang on. Stand by. I got distracted by the side tangent

of the members. So sorry about that. There are a lot of side tangents. I do know about what it was based on. Yeah. No, it's true. I was having a great time. In any case, in season four, episode 21, a touch of brimstone, John Steed and Emma Peel infiltrate a British secret society made up of aristocrats and powerful men primarily who dress up as though they're 18th century gentlemen and they have swords, just like the Hellfire Club in the comic book.

and they live a life of debauchery under the ground. They're based on the actual 18th century private club, the Hellfire Club, which was full of influential dudes primarily, whose motto was, do what thou wilt, which eventually became the Alistair Crowley aphorism, Do What Thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, which is kind of the second motto for Judge John Hodgman. the Earl of Sandwich was actually a member of the original historical Hellfire Club in the 18th century. You may remember the Earl of Sandwich for being very famous for not inventing the hot dog. In any case, Chris Claremont loved this episode of The Avengers and built a Hellfire Club variant in modern day New York City that was run by Sebastian Shaw and some of the others that we mentioned. Fun fact, maybe. Sebastian Shaw, his physical presence and character was based on the actor. Robert Shaw from Jaws.

Mastermind was based on Jason Wingard. The character, Jason Wingard was based on an actor named Jason Wingard. All the members of the male members of the Hellfire Club were based on various actors. And the Black Queen outfit was based on Emma Peel's outfit in the Hellfire Club episode that we were talking about, where she portrayed the queen of sin. Anyway, that's all. I just watched an episode of The Avengers on my way over here. So I wanted to talk to you about it, but let's get into the case because I faked you out, Patty.

You knew the answer, but I got you. I was really thought that I was not going to win this one, but I did buy the skin of my teeth. It was really impressive. He used my Achilles heel, Lord of those. Yeah, but you knew, you knew, you knew. But still, we must hear the case. So who seeks justice in this court of mine? I submitted the case.

Cordelia, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. That's what I say unto you. Got it. But also I say, what's going on? Why don't you want your child to be talking to you about the X-Men all the time? So I am a comic book fan myself, going back to prior to Patty's birth. Prior as in Madeline Pryor, the colon of Jean Grey, who married Scott Summers. Yes.

Yes. What were your favorite comic books? Well, I'm a DC girl a little bit, but I wanted to be clear, this is not DC versus Marvel, because I love Marvel comics too. But prior to Patty being born, Patty's father and I were both big fans of DCU comics. So I love Wonder Woman. I loved Birds of Prey, Oracle Bat Girl. It was kind of a dark time in like the early 2000s where it was a lot. It was like very gritty, which sometimes got on my nerves a little bit.

Oh, yeah. Jesse Thorne, it was the early 2000s. The grim and gritty trend of comic books had swept the nation. I loved birds of prey, huntress, black canary. I like her. So all of that. And then so when Patty was born, we raised him very much in the comic book nerdery space. So I'm guilty of I've created a monster.

But my dispute is just around, as you guys said, the lore dumps and how they go. so deep and so down coldestacks and it's just like it's mentally fatiguing for me. I don't need to know all of this. Like I enjoy X-Men on a surface level. I enjoy the movies. I used to watch the cartoons. Like I'm in it like to this level. But I get brought down into this infinite craziness of all the things that you guys are just talking about. Now based on some of our chit-chat before we started rolling, It's not as though you and Patty is living at home and just following you around the house all day. Talking about like, you know, Nightcrawler's mother was mystique, but that's apocryphal because blah, blah, blah, like that. Yeah, I'm sure you have.

We'll get into that in a moment. Because it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. They keep changing it. Yeah. What's the status now of Nightcrawler's parentage? May I ask, Patty? Is it Mystique still his mom?

Is Azazel still his dad? What's going on? So Mystique impregnated destiny, and they got their memories altered by Professor X so they wouldn't remember. And Mystique used like her DNA, Azazel's DNA, and then Barron Wagner's DNA and made Kurt. So that's the answer. Kurt Kurt Wagner or Kurt Wagner, of course, being the non-night-crawler name. I would like to apologize to all the people who love nightcrawler. I said it wrong because I'm nervous, but...

I always said Kurt Wagner. I always said Kurt Wagner when I was reading those comic books. But Patty isn't following you around. You mentioned that you're visiting Patty at college where in Wilmington, North Carolina. Patty, what are you studying in college? I'm a theater performance major and a musical theater minor. You are the perfect picture of a Judge John Hodgman listener for your age. And Cordelia, let me guess.

You're also a Judge John Hodgman listener. That means you're either a graphic designer or a librarian, right? Which is it? I am a marketing consultant for libraries. Yes. So you were pretty close. You were so close. That's scary.

Technically a librarian. Close enough for Technica House here in New York City. When I was a kid, I called her a librarian because it's really hard when you're like five years old to go, My mom's the charge of the director of parking at the Charlotte-Meklythelberg Library. So I just said like that. So you have a job in the Charlotte-Meklenburg Library system in North Carolina? No, not anymore. I was there through Patty's childhood.

But now I have a consulting firm. So I work with libraries around the country and Canada. It's super cool. But now that Patty is off to college, surely you must be missing hearing about the X-Men all the time. To my mind, it would be a great delight to hear. hear the Lord dumps that Patty is giving you. Well, Patty calls me a lot. I mean, we talk a lot on the phone.

So I still get the Lord dumps. He likes to call me when he's driving to and fro. And then we'll just chat. We'll just catch up. But that's the thing is you never know when a lore dump is coming. You could be talking about something totally unrelated. Like, how are classes going or rehearsals or whatever? And then it'll just.

But in style, Patty's like, Mom, how do you feel about the retcon that Wolverine always had claws and they were only covered with adamantium later. Well, I'm interested in. I think I work it in better than that. But it's the power of my ADHD where topics are internally connected that most people don't see the threat of. Yeah, that's your mutant superpower. See, the Wolverine Adamantium thing is at that level where I'm in it. I like it.

I knew that because I love the X-Men movies, but it's like the down here, like what you guys were just talking about about the genetic. But that's just as messy and complicated. I don't want to get away from the dispute, but his claws, he had just regular claw claws, like a tiger or something. And then- Well, originally, they were in the glove. They were part of his glove? Originally when Wolverine was created, not by Chris Claremont, but the other guy. Len Wien.

Thank you very much. Yeah, when we-in. And John Ramita, Sr., I believe. Yeah, John Ramita, Sr., Patty knows. Wolverine showed up in a big battle between the Hulk and the Wendigo, a giant fuzzy Sasquatch monster in Canada. And originally it was imagined that the claws were just part of his glove. Later, I think it was in Chris Claremont's run, it was established that they lived inside his forearms and they popped out.

Yes. But then for a long time, it was understood that when he was, when he had his skeleton coated with adamantium by the Super Secret Canadian Superhero Project, turning him into weapon X, that they added the claws to his forearms, adamantium claws, to use as weapons. Then later it was suggested that he always had claws in there,

but they were made a bone, and they were covered with adamantium. And that's where they lost old Judge John Hodgman, I must say. That's one of the places where I started to get off the X-Men train. It's one thing to take somebody's skeleton out and coat it with it. Oh, they didn't take it out. They injected it in.

Oh. And it was melting metal. Jesse, you were saying it's one thing to coat someone's bones with metal, but what were you going to say? It's one thing to coat somebody's bones with liquid metal. But it's a whole other thing to, the whole thing is, yeah, I understand. It was miserable. It was miserable.

Point is, though, Patty, I got off the X-Men train a long time ago. I was like, bye-bye, ch-choo. And I was reading these things when the, when the, I was catching up on the Hellfire Club issues when I was 13 years old. They had already been public. They were old news then. Your mom's deep into the early 2000s DC Comics run, how did you get into the X-Men, particularly this era? Well, like my mom sent my parents, raise me to like comic books, which I find very funny because both of their comic book love fell off when I was around. like eight, like they started becoming less and less casual about it.

And I kind of had all the remnants. So, um, you mean more and more casual or? No, less and less casual because you, you just became fans, not even a casual fan. Just like fan. Like there's fan, casual fan, like super fan. They just became fans. Like they just, they stopped. And they like, create a lot of my media to be like the super friends and like all this like,

Batman, D.C. stuff, because that's what they loved. And my dad would, like, go to Walmart and, like, find, like, stuff in the bargain bin and be like, because they had so many old superhero DVDs. And one of those superhero DVDs that just really took off in my brain was an X-Men DVD. The original year 2000 or so movie with Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman or the cartoon. The 90s animated series. And I just something clicked in my brain. So in my brain, it's just like the, the, The sky is blue, the grass is green. I love X-Men. It's just that fundamentally core to my individual. It's a love that's just forever been present in my mind. I'm still waiting on the end of that rhyme. The sky is blue, the grass is green.

I love X-Men. You know what I mean? And I'm gay. Boom. There we go. Perfect. It has no. No, no.

Yep, that's it. You got it. Designed a T-shirt? Is that correct? I would love it. T-Man that said that. I think we're going

to do a T-shirt that said Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah. But yeah, I just, something about X-Men really took off

about me and my parents were like, they were like, oh, it's great that you found something, but they were like, oh, you picked the thing that we just.

Well, okay, so to be fair, that show, that animated show was on when I was in college and we used to just watch the WBE or whatever channel

it was on in Richmond, Virginia, where I was. And so we would watch Batman in the animated series, which I loved, which is so good. Patty loves it, too. But that when the X-Men would come on, I was like, what is this love triangle? Like Wolverine? Now, to be fair, I got into the Love Triangle in the movies because Hugh Jackman and Fonca Johnson are beautiful. And I love James of Ardston, too. He's beautiful, too, James from Ardston. I'm sorry.

But the cartoon, I was like, this is a soap opera. This isn't a superhero cartoon. And so when Patty started watching it and I would overhear it because, but mind you, I was, I have two younger kids, too. So part of why my comic book fandom fell off is like, I was busy raising children. I was watching it behind my sisters came around. No, because they're four and six years younger than you. Anyway, I've got babies. I'm overhearing.

My brain is like whatever. And I'm like, oh, God, the soap opera. Sof over it. Sof over it. So anyway, that was just my defense about why I was like, ugh, about that a little bit. Yeah, but I mean, it's a soap opera. about outsiders. I mean, say more, Patty.

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I mean, as a queer being, it's a good metaphor for a lot of minorities, you know, because mutants cover a lot of things. Like, they, X-Men, be used as a race allegory. It can be used as a disability allegory. It can be used as a queer allegory because sometimes you have to come out,

which is heavily relatable. they even had an AIDS metaphor, the legacy virus, which is really nice that they were like trying to spread awareness about these things. And I guess as a minority, a queer minority, when I was little something about it spoke to me and I can't, I mean, I can appreciate it as an adult, but there's still part of me that's like so intrinsic to my identity that I can't explain it. And I don't want to explain it because it's just just who I am. Yeah, I mean, from the beginning, the X-Men was an exploration of difference and the perceived threat of difference and the, and also pride in difference and how to live in a world that distrust you or doesn't understand you. I think that it's allegory for, you know, civil rights and queer rights and everything else that you articulated so smartly there, Patty, was really explored primarily, like a lot in the Claremont run. become part of the deep lore of X-Men for sure. But yeah, long before someone else wrote about a special school

where special kids could go to and feel a part of something, I don't know what I'm referring to. There was the ex-manion where, you know, I'm not a queer person, but I was truly a weird, like, I felt a bit of a weirdo. I was a weird middle-aged, only child at the age of 12. I dreamed of going to live in that mansion and particularly getting my own room. If I had to share a room in the mansion, I wasn't going to go.

But if I got my own room, I'd definitely, I would think about it a lot. I get it. Yeah. My dad as a kid would be like, you know, if you experienced something traumatic, your mutant powers could develop early. And I was like, what? So cool at like the age of seven. He's like, that's when Jean Grey's powers came at 11.

So you never know. And I was just like, oh, yeah. But that was unusual, Jesse. because typically your mutant powers would manifest in a little bit later in puberty in early teens was sort of the typical spot. So there were a lot of weird kids who were like age 10, 11, 12, just waiting to sprout wings. You know what I mean? Like maybe I'm going to be able to make a glass of water move with my mind or whatever.

What was the dumbest, in your opinion, Patty, what was the dumbest mutant superpower you could have? I feel like dumb sounds so mean to mutants everywhere. I feel so bad for like, forget me not, because everyone's just constantly forgetting about him because of his mutant power. Like, no one can remember. I've never heard of this character. Well, that's...

Or maybe I knew about it, but I've forgotten. Well, he's a mutant, and his power is just that people forget him, and I just feel awful for him. That's pretty good. But your favorite storyline, Patty, the one you want to talk to your mom about all the time. It is what? It is the Phoenix saga and Dark Phoenix.

Saga. Phoenix Saga. There's something about someone radically transforming and becoming everything that no one expected them to be that spoke to little patty me. And my love of Jean Grey cemented through it as a little kid and my mom can attest to that. Something about it spoke to every cell in my human being and it still does. A few moments later. I think I've heard enough.

I'm so sorry. I Cordelia, I agree with you. Your son, Patty, is obviously a tedious bore, and you can never talk about X-Men again. I'll, how dare you? I'll take it. I'll take it. No, no, that was delightful. No, it's an iconic story because, as you point out, this character that had been so, so sort of like underbaked and mistreated as a, in, not on the page necessarily, but as a character just sort of like was a side-capable.

suddenly becomes the most important and powerful character in the group who makes the biggest sacrifices. And Gene Gray dying was a major event in comics. Chris Claremont had to fight very hard to make sure that she stayed dead and was that way for many years until they decided to revive her. And that was sort of when I also got off that X-Men shoot you train, but that's another story. That's, yeah, that's fair. Cordelia, how can you argue that Patty is a. not adorable and right in this case. I could never argue that Patty is not adorable.

Patty is the most adorable. Well, speaking of adorable, you say you got Patty into comic books at a young age. I believe we have some evidence to prove that this is true. Pull up that evidence. Take a look at Exhibit A. Yes. I know, it's crazy. I was a real blonde back then, about this fake blonde.

This rogue hair streak I have. If you want to see this evidence, go to our YouTube channel, Judge John Hodgman Pod, And please subscribe while you're there. It'll also be on our social medias. If you don't have a moment to do that at this very moment, let me tell you, this is a very, very cute picture photograph of Patty as a toddler wearing a Superman underrew and holding a Superman figurine. Who he called Man Man.

I called a lot of characters Man Man as a kid. And I called Wonder Woman Wham and I called Thor 4 because I had a lisp. And Green Lantern was Green Lantern, Martian Mantirn, Martian Man to Turn. Martian Bat, Bab. Baba. What was back? Brubra. Brubra. Brabba Gordon. Brabba Gordon. Brubra Gordon. Yeah. I can actually sing the 60s theme songs for a lot of like the Avengers stuff where it was like because my-

Oh, I certainly hope you don't do that. Those deep cut. Whatever you do, don't sing anything charming and funny and wonderful on this podcast. Tony. You know, I changed my mind, Patty. Do do it. Okay. Tony Stark makes you feel he's a cool exec with a heart of steel. and Iron Man all jets a place He fights and smites with repulsory

If you guys know this one sing along When Captain America throws his mighty shield All those who oppose his mighty shield When he said to a fight Miam, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, meow. The white and the blue come through When Captain America throws his mighty shield There's also a Thor one too.

Can we take a look at exhibit B furthering, speaking of indoctrination? Oh, it's the Phoenix car from when I was in Boy Scouts. I mean, Cub Scouts. That's fine. I never made it past Weebelose myself. Actually, I never made it to Weebelows. What's the Phoenix car?

I don't know anything about any, Phoenix car. So in my Cub Scouts troop, there was like a race where we made a car out of cardboard boxes. Oh, this is a photo of you wearing a cardboard box that is decorated. Yes, and I actually won this race. I have the trophy of it. It was the first time, like, I won something, and my family was weirdly, really proud of it. So clearly I was correct in naming it the Phoenix,

because it worked. And let's take a look at Exhibit C. This is me dressed. And this is a little bit later. And this is a photo. I'm presuming this is you, Patty, dressed as the Phoenix, Jean Grey. Yes, this was actually a dream costume to wear for me.

I got a compliment because there's, like, this. like little runway at HeroesCon and Charlotte that I got to walk down and a lady was like, you just were made to wear this costume. And I was like, oh, well, it's designed by my measurements because my friend with the Kitty Pride, who's a big fan of your show, by the way, hi Lucy. I promise to give her a shout out. Also, hi, Ted, her dad. On the far, if you're not watching on the YouTube channel or on social media, you'll see on the far right is Lucy, Patty's friend dressed as Kitty Pride, the youngest of the new X-Men, along with her pet small dragon Lockheed. Am I correct?

Did I remember that? No. Kitty Pride, yes, she is the youngest X-Men in the 80s. She was the new insert girl. She was 14 or so when she joined the X-Men in the late 70s. And my friend in the middle is Connor who's dressed as Matt Murdoch. He looks great. And that's a guy running for Congress?

No, it's Matt Murdo. It's Daredevil, but in his lawyer form. He's our legal representation of the X-Men. I'm having a great time talking to Patty right now, as you can tell. Yes. What's going wrong? Like, is this really boring to you? Is it as boring to you as it is to Jessie to listen to me and Patty go down these rabbitles together?

Well, there's kind of two parts to it. One is I'm also parenting Patty, although he's 20. So we're, you know, going through that, leaving the nest, piece gradually, but obviously we're very close. And then there is sort of the going off on tangents piece of it. So the parenting piece is just more like when I'll call him and be like, how's school, how's theater, how's blah, blah, blah. And he just wants to talk about X-Men. And I'm like, are you go, are you in school? Like, what are you doing? Because I'm like, his level of interest in X-Men is equal to, if not greater than his interest in school,

in our conversations. I'm not saying it real life. No, that's fair. So part of me was always like, you are still like going to classes and stuff right now, just reading about the accent. But he is. He absolutely is. And he gets good grades. But how does Patty turn a conversation, a parental check-in conversation about school? Like, if you were to, I don't say imitate Patty, but like, I know that we're about to ask an important question. I just want to interject. I just learned that parents call to check in about school, when you're in college. So this is blowing my mind. Yeah, right? I know why my, that certainly didn't

happen when I was in college probably was my fault. But yeah, well, Patty calls me a lot, like I said, when he's in the car. And, um, but- You'd like to have someone to talk to in the car for me. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you, Patty. So, um, I lost my train of thought. Oh, so. Well, I guess I was wondering, how does Patty turn one conversation into another? Like, give me a version of what it sounds to you. I almost couldn't tell you because you've been with Patty now for an hour, so you know, I mean, it just kind of goes there. I can't even really explain how it goes there. I mean, certainly, like, we have had a lot of conversation about, like, learning to budget. And so that was the other piece. It's just, like,

we've had a bit of a dispute about, like, the action figures and stuff and, like, the cost of those and learning to budget that. I've gotten better, though. He's gotten better. He's gotten better. He's got much better. So this is not just X-Men taking up mindshed. It's also there are pocketbook issues. They're collectibles, Patty? What's going on? I mean, I have ADHD, so I struggle with like, I've gotten a lot better with it. But, you know, I was a, it was kind of the stereotype of like, you know, like a Catholic

kids so reserved and they're in college and they're wild. My wild was like, spend, spend, don't care, don't care. And it's just, you know, it was just like learning impulse control away from parents. So my freshman year, I did struggle, but it wasn't, it wasn't, I don't think it was about comics. It was more about me just having to learn a part of myself outside of having like two parental figures in my life to manage stuff. So what year are you in college now? I'm a junior at the moment. I mean, your self-assessment feels profoundly mature for Delia.

I don't think you got anything to worry about Patty at this point. Oh, no. Patty's very self-aware. He's very smart. and knows himself really well. What were you spending your freshman year money on there, Patty? What was some of your prize gets? Well, I feel like action figures.

You like posters? You like maquettes? What do you like? It was some active figures. When the 97 action figures came out, I was like, I need to get these. I mean, they were so hard to get. And I did spend like $60 and $70 on some. I had birthday money.

So it was like a birthday present to myself. Yeah. And then that rare comic book that you bought. That was with money I had gotten from my job and I saved a lot of the money for my job. Yeah. But the problem was that some of the job money was meant to be used for like life expenses. And then I had saved enough, though, that I could get it. And for me, it was worth it in every aspect because it was fulfilling a core part of myself.

I got an X-Men 101 that was originally five. $500 for $400. And Chris Claremont was right there to sign it. Jennifer Marmer, if you can hear with the sound of my voice, look up the value of X-Men 101 and VG condition signed by Chris Claremont. I just want to get a ballpark what this is. What's going on here. Yeah.

And I'm not disputing. I did dispute that purchase at the time. I've made peace with it because he was short on funds. But so it was just, and certainly the action figures for Christmas and Burr, Are they? Like, he's got a really nice collection. It's probably worth, I don't, well, probably thousands of dollars. Maybe. I've taken them out of the box. I like to pose them. But I mean, what was spent on them total if you were to total up. I don't know because I haven't spent them. There have been gifts. They've been I bought them. You and dad have gotten me some. My grandparents have gotten me some. I've been collecting specifically Marvel Legends since I was like 10 years old because my dad bought them for me. It sounds like Patty's got the collectible thing under control. Or is this still an issue, like money management? I think it's definitely getting under control.

Can you make an argument? And this sounds like a little provocative. I don't mean this way. But is there an argument to be made that Patty's obsession with the X-Men is somehow unhealthy or detrimental to him? I think it's healthy now. I think there was a period where he was having a lot of anxiety. And we'd share that with Jennifer when we talked to her. But it was like he was in a play.

He had a small role. There was a lot of downtime in rehearsals where he went into some deep dives where it was actually causing him anxiety. So I was worried at that time. But that has since gotten better. And now it's just more like the fact that he does these lore dumps in the middle of conversations where I'm like, I would like to clarify what I'm saying. Please do. It wasn't comic books that were giving me. I am an extrovert, if you cannot tell.

I process thoughts auditorily. And my two best friends, Lucy and Connor, who I love, who are my non-theater friends, I didn't see physically for about two months during this show. You were missing your fellow mutants. Yeah, I was missing, I had lost a huge part of my support and my anxiety spiraled. So it wasn't comics that were stressing me out. It was because anything that I loved, was creating such an intense amount of mental pressure

that it was hard to stay focused and be myself. And the online forums, too, because you would read things and you'd get really upset. But that was more mean because I just was never really into social media. And I was like, because I was alone. I didn't have anyone really talked to a lot because I'm at rehearsals. I looked online and I was never really into online discourse. And then I just saw how, like, aggressive it was.

And it was off-putting and I was just at the wrong headspace. But I don't think it's about comments. And I, and I, every time I've explained it to you, you seem to understand it better that it wasn't comic books that were stressing me out. It was just a symptom of my anxiety getting out of control at the time. Patty, was your deep diving into this special interest when you were feeling anxiety was, to what extent was it soothing and to what extent was it irritating your anxiety with the understanding that the anxiety was coming from somewhere, was sourced somewhere else? Well, this was a specific period in time. And I wasn't necessarily deep diving. I was more looking at other people's opinions because I normally talk with my friends, which is a much safer space.

It's a much healthier place for discourse and stuff. And I just wasn't used to how people communicate with each other online. It's very aggressive and stuff. Oh, it's not the best. It's not the best for everyone's mental health. Cordelia, I know you're a parent and you are concerned about Patty and Patty's well-being and Patty's transition to adulthood. I want to give you the opportunity

as an adult parent of an adult child, as an independent human being, a whole human being in your own right, how do Patty's info dumps affect you and your life? Oh, interesting question. Mostly, not negatively, other than I do get a little bored sometimes, just because it's so detailed.

Like I said, I love comic books at like this level, and sometimes it goes to this level. For a while, it was worrying me, because like I said, I felt like I heard more about the X-Men than how college was going, how social life was going, you know, general health and wellness things. But obviously, Patty's doing great, so I'm not too worried about that now.

And then, like, when he was home for Christmas and we would, like, go walk the dog together, which is like a fun time when we would chat, sometimes, again, we'd have like a good little chat and we'd just like, Gene Gray would come up and it would be fine. And then it would like go off on like a tangent. And then like suddenly we've been talking for 10 minutes. So it kind of became a joke where I was like, can we like keep it to like two minutes? And then he'd be like, and I know I'm getting close to my two minutes, but I just want to say something. I think about that's like the thing and the stuff. And so that kind of became actually a joke with us. So it's kind of like we've kind of made it funny. Cordelia, I got to tell you, I'm asking you this because I have three neurodivergent children. I work in the backyard in my shed, but there's no bathroom there. And so anytime I have to go to the bathroom, I have to make a plan to avoid info dumps between my shed and the bathroom so that I can pee before I start learning about. Yeah, you want dumps, not info dumps.

Exactly. I have to make a lower avoidance plan. Yes, yes, exactly. And I love lore. Like I love, you know, doing deep dives on things too. I mean, we're, you know, obviously Patty got it from his dad and me. But it's just, it goes, you know, it's just like I'm ready to talk about something else. Well, in particular, and I sympathize as a parent, if you're feeling that the conversation about Jean Gray and the X-Men might be covering other more important topics or an avoidance technique to not talk about.

I'm not accusing you of doing this, Patty, but like I might wonder whether, you know, when my daughter, who's a whole human being in her own right, just wants to tell me about what's going on on Love Island USA. I want to say, like, I'm a little worried that maybe she doesn't want to talk about what's going on in her personal life. And then I realized, oh, no, this is her personal life. And also Love Island USA is awesome and she's great. So it doesn't matter. But you know what I mean? Like, maybe there's a worry there that you can. Yeah.

I would like to offer a counterpoint to what my mom said. I don't talk about stuff when stuff is going good. And my mom used to always say, you always tell me the bats of this happening. I'm like, well, you're my mom. You're a safe space I can go to. So I like to talk the negative stuff out with you. If something good's happening in my life, no offense. I don't need help on it.

And I normally go to you for help. And what the X-Men thing is, we get into a lot of philosophical, psychological, psychological and sociological discussions. And I use X-Men because it is designed to address said issues on stuff. And it's a very provocative comic book. And I use that to back up my own theories and explanations.

I understand she does not know and I'm trying to get better at it. But I do think it's like, I feel like until I explained it to you, Why did it? You were just like, oh, Patty, I just want to talk about X-Men. For me, it's how I analyze the world through something that I've had since childhood. I'm going to ask a couple of quick questions about ideal rulings before I go into my cerebro chamber and make my decision.

Ooh, that's so cool of you to have. I know. I know. Isn't it cool? Yeah. That's why I came here to Technica House. They're the only podcast recordings to do in New York that has a cerebrough. Right?

Right, Jacob? Yep, Jacob confirms. That's very advanced, Jacob. Two thumbs up for me. Two thumbs up, yeah. Audio Technica makes, of course, audio equipment, cerebrose, and automatic sushi making machines. Yeah, seribos are really important. I'm glad that they're being more installed in places.

So Cordelia, you mentioned, and it says right here that your ideal ruling would be to limit an X-Benn sidebar at any given time to two minutes or less. Yes. Does that feel fair to you, Patty? And does that feel possible? It feels fair and possible. I mean, it's like, I get it. Sometimes it can be a lot for you. And that's, that's completely okay.

I mean, I would say more three, maybe like two minutes and 30 seconds to three minutes. But I'm fine with two minutes. I'm, I, that's okay with me. It does sound that when you, when you set the limit, Cordelia, you know, the suggested limit, the two minute, the two minute warning that Patty takes it to heart and it's like, I know my time is almost up, but I got to get this out. Yes. I had another idea just during this conversation of ideal ruling, which would be that I could have an equal lure dump. Yeah. Something that I'm interested.

Oh. Like I was really into the X-Files in the 90s. I actually joined the fan club. Well, I listen to your tangents about X-Files. But I'm just, but they're not nearly as long. Oh, I mean, you can, yeah. Feel free to do your dump about Boulder and Scully. Well, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm not an X-Files fan. Wow. He's trying to get our podcast burned down by Krily, Manjiani. I don't know. I don't know whether that was a funny mistake or the most clever diss of one's mom ever recorded. I'm going to be so honest. I love hearing all about Boulder and. It was probably the first one because I say things wrong all the time.

Scully and Man Man. Patty, you know, you're an adult now. You're 20 and obviously, you know, your career in college is going great. You got your action figure spending under control. You're a major in what theater? Yes. Did you say? And what else?

What else are you studying? Wasn't there another discipline? I'm a musical theater minor. So musical theater minor, non-musical theater major. Correct. Okay, gotcha. Right. Great.

So as an adult, is there anything else that you think you could do to help honor and appreciate your mom's limits when it comes to talking about the X-Men? Yeah, I mean, I think it's nice when she says like two minutes. I mean, I know I can pick a long time to wrap up. But once I wrap up, normally I'm good. I just talk out my thoughts, audits. editorially. So I need to like do it with with talking. Yeah. Patty, you also submitted an ideal ruling, which is very simple. And I want you to hear this Cordelia. Patty's suggested ideal ruling is to be understood exclamation.

I just want to understand. And to watch X-Men 97 with me because she still hasn't seen it yet. And she keeps telling me she's going to watch it. And she has it. And season two is coming out this summer. Can I watch it like by myself? and then report back to you? You can watch it with Hong. I don't. You can watch it with anyone. I just, I want, I want updates of each episode.

I want to, I want to hear your thoughts because it, because I would like to hear your thoughts on the show. So Cordelia, you're open to the idea of watching X-Men 97. Yeah. That does not seem like pure torture to you. I have avoided it because it kind of felt like homework and I already have a lot of things on my plate. But my partner and I like to watch a show from beginning to end. We just finished like fallout. And I'm like, we could do, we could do X-Men 97.

Patty, Cordelia, I'm getting word from our producer, Jennifer Marmer, that we do have an appraisal for your copy of X-Men 101 signed by Chris Claremont in VG condition or thereabouts. I will reveal that to you when I get to my verdict. But now I'm going to go into my cerebral chamber. As mentioned in the past few episodes, my gavel was confiscated by TSA a few weeks ago. Nick Offerman's Offerman Woodshop and I are now in active collaboration on designing and fabrication of a new giant wooden gavel, but in the meantime, I'm using various books that I enjoy as gavels. This week's gavel book is The Magic and You

by our friend Matt Ricardo, Jesse, out there. Incredible magician, street performer, busker, a dapper fellow juggler, a person of profound, the many talents. It says on the back here, the Guardian says, this showman deserves your applause. One of the greatest variety artist that works today,

says the Scotsman. And I'm not sure if this is a real quote. Matt Ricardo is amazing. H.M. King Charles III. I don't know if that's true or not. That is true. That is absolutely real. All right. By appointment to H.M. King Charles III,

with all caveats about the royal family understood. I present here the magic in you by Matt Ricardo, the most amazing encyclopedia of tricks and magics for all ages, become a superstar with the help of one of the greatest entertainers of the world. That's Matt Ricardo. I will choose whom to throw this book at after I have made my decision. I'll be back in a moment with my verdict. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Patty, how are you feeling about your chances right now? I mean, for me, what matters is that we just got to talk it out and we had fun and we laughed with other people. I don't, we're both people who don't feel the need to win that often. It's just, it's just nice to, like, talk out our feelings and stuff. Patty, you're saying as long as you walk out of this 45-minute podcast completely understood by your mother, thus achieving all the goals that everyone has been working on in therapy their entire lives. Yeah, that exactly. You're all set.

Oh, yeah. Cordelia, how are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good. I think no matter the outcome, I won't, it won't be terrible. And I'm on a lifelong journey to understand Patty and his sisters. And I probably will never completely achieve it. But I'll do my best. I love you too, Mom.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment. John? Yes, what? The sky is blue. Yeah. The grass is green. Yeah. I love the X-Men and I'm gay.

Yeah. The t-shirt is real. It's at maxfundstore.com until April 3rd. This is, we have confirmed it during the course of this recording. Yeah. It's been a while since we've heard the perfect idea for a t-shirt, made it, and put it up for sale at maxfundstor.com. What a great way to come roaring back with a brand new t-shirt. the sky is blue, the grass is green, I love X-Men, and I'm gay, pure poetry, on a shirt, wear it, get at maxfundstore.com.

Only till April 3rd. Act now while supplies last. I'm going to mention, too, that I just got back from a big trip to Mexico City. I spent a lot of time at the flea market and all of the beautiful things that I bought, including particularly a lot of beautiful jewelry, is in the Put This Onshop now at put this on shop.com. But pursuant to the special topic of this week's episode, I also purchased a passel of what are in Mexico called bootleg superhero figures. Oh.

From like, you know, 1970s, 1980s, something like that. Oh, yeah. If you want a giant plastic Batman that has certain similarities and dissimilarities to Batman, you have to put this on shop, I put this on shop. dot com. Yeah, you know, it's not going to be too long before we hit that dads and grads season. No better place to shop for the person who has everything. Put this on shop.com. Okay, let's get back to the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman reenters the courtroom and presents his verdict. I think that it was Tim McGonagall who got me into the X-Men.

my old pal Tim McGonigal, with whom I also saw Frank Herbert's Dune. And then decades later, I also went to go see Denevrnevrneux Dune together. Tim was one of my great nerd friends. And he was really, he upped my comics game by introducing me to all kinds of interesting and non-mainstream and very mainstream comics,

including the X-Men. And it was such a, a profoundly important discovery, cultural discovery for me. And again, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a pretty straight, boring dude, but I was a profoundly pretentious 13 year old only child, um, who did not, who did not like sports and had no way of really communicating with other people until I found my people like Tim. And X-Men was about inclusion, you know, and, and, and a people of, a, a, of, a, a, of, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a a world of strangos and oddballs who got to live in a, live together. And not only that, they got to live in a mansion together and they had their own jet. That was pretty incredible. And also they never, they never, they always had money for action figures in the ex-manion.

There was never any want for anything. You just got to be with your people, particularly the, the issue where Kitty Pride gets recruited by, by Storm, by Aurora Monroe, Storm, and Kitty having, having a conversation, I remember in a, I was just thinking about this. Because they're having a conversation in like an malt shop or something. And, you know, the writing is so wonderful. Particularly the new X-Men that debuted in the 70s, the larger team, which included Storm, Wolverine Colossus. Cyclops was the only member of the original team who was in there until, Gene Gray came back.

Obviously, it was originally written by Len Wine, but then Chris Claremont really took it to places. And the story, Kitty Pride has discovered she's able to walk through walls and she's getting recruited to come to Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. I say Xavier. I'd never want the Xavier route. And one of the things about the new team,

which was really important, was that it was multinational and not tremendously, but certainly significantly multiracial for the time. Storm is a black woman of African birth, but she has white hair and blue eyes. And Kitty Bride says, I've never, there are black kids in school, but I've never seen one with blue eyes.

And she said, you know, I'm unusual. And like you, Kitty, I'm one of a kind. This is a beautiful little, just beautiful writing. Of like you feel different, but being different is a value and not a fault. And these weren't characters. These were whole human beings

who were your friends. And for kids who didn't have a lot of real-world friends, this became a way to have fictional friendships and through fan communities develop, you know, real friendships, often very close friendships. I eventually fell off of reading the X-Men

because I got older and I mentioned that I was pretentious. And indeed, I was so pretentious that I began to feel that I was too smart for the things that I loved. The soap opera element, because that really, I mean, I remember realizing, oh, this is general hospital, but with superpowers. And instead of saying the correct thing about that, which is, great, what's wrong with that? That's perfect. Instead, I was like, it's a soap opera. And then I got to say, Wolverine, I started to see through why this was the most popular character, because dude is just like incredibly macho.

incredibly tough little guy who's got, and I was going to say a plane, he's got three erections on each hand. Like the male power fantasy of Wolverine was a little bit, I got a little embarrassed by it. So I sort of set those things aside. I set what I thought were childish things aside. And yet this conversation reminds me in a little bit of sort of rediscovery and reading that I've done. It's like, no, this was actually beautifully written stuff. I mean, it's pulpy and it's soap operatic and it's space operatic and it's science fiction and everything else. But it's really, really beautiful and important.

And one of the things that is so sad about, to me, tragic about this scenario is that this world that was this world that was built on the theme of inclusivity, right? And that carried over, at least in my experience, into fan communities, has curdled in a way as nerd culture has become more and more dominant. and particularly online that conversations around things like comic books and science fiction can become, as you discovered, Patty's so divisive online and so gatekeeping

and so mean. And paradoxically, like the idea that there are people out there claiming that comic books have become woke. Oh, yeah, that's crazy. It's so absurd and awful. I love that you love the X-Men so much, and I encourage you, and everyone within my hearing,

stop going on the internet about it. I mean, read a Wikipedia article. That's fine. I enjoy that. I recommend the Marvel Wiki. I use that a lot. It's great. I appreciate that, Patty, and I'll take a look at it. But, I mean, it's like, you know, this thing that is supposed to make you feel

sort of more at home in your own skin and body and mind has turned into on certain discussion boards in various social media platforms, just a place where you get yelled at. And I encourage, like, one thing that I'm going to do is order you to stay away from that, Patty, as much as you can, because that's not what the X-Men are all about. So you see, Cordelia, I've been Lord dumping on both of you, and I've been Lord dumping so hard that Jacob had to change the battery and the camera

because I wore it down. Which is to say that, like, I really, really respect and love Patty's obsession with X-Men, but I also appreciate as a parent and as someone who has been Lord dumped before, like everything in moderation, as they say, everything in moderation. And I think that probably a two to three minute, I'm not going to say rule, is advisable, or I should say, that when, now that your child is an adult, it is perfectly reasonable for you to set a reasonable boundary. That seems harsh, but you know what I mean. Like to be able to communicate one adult to another, I can probably do this for about three minutes and then we're going to need to talk about something else.

And I love the fact that Patty is receptive to that and understands that and is able to absorb that because Patty wants to be understood. And this is an important way for Patty to be understood. I think that's reasonable to create that little boundary. Yeah. It is reasonable, Patty, but I have to interrupt you now because it sounds as though I'm ruling in favor of your mom, and I am not. No way was I ever going to do that. I am suggesting a reasonable, I mean, I'm suggesting what I only always suggest, which is communication and making sure that both sides of a conversation feel heard and seen

and understood. But in terms of, you know, look, if I get on the phone with our son who's a whole being in his own right, and he just wants to talk about Night of the Seven Kingdoms, I've never. never been happier. When our daughter calls me, I mean, I don't know why you want to talk about to these kids about real world things like budgeting and everything else. That's their problem now. They're grown-ups. When our daughter calls me and wants to talk about the traders, I watch the traders. I know, no spoilers, but I'm now watching the season of Love Island USA where Rob R first debuted. It's like this, it's like watching an origin story of a superhero.

It's incredible. It's a mini-series. And I love talking with her about that. I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to rule against a child expressing their inner lives to their parents. I know you know this, Cordelia. I know that you get it. It's reasonable to set a limit for three minutes. But for, but I'm going to rule in Patty's favor.

And I'm going to rule that you're going to watch X-Men 90s. and you're going to watch X-Men 97 and it's going to be like a book club. You watch maybe two or three episodes and then you talk about them on a regular basis. And at the same time, I'm going to rule that Patty's got to watch the adventures of Boulder and Smelly and the X-Files. This book is the sound of a gavel. We should have just tried to sneak in here with a marching band. Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Cordelia, how do you feel right now? I feel great. You know, coming into this, I never would have thought I'd get to make Patty watch The X-Files. I'm so excited. You're both adults now. It's a fair exchange. Patty, how are you feeling? I feel great.

I'm excited to watch The X-Files. I think it's a show I would enjoy. I just never had the time to get into it. So that would be fun watching season four, season four. She's informed. Patty Cordelia, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman

podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much. For having us. This is awesome. That's another Judge John Hodgman case in the books. We'll have swift justice

in just a second. First, our thanks to Reditor, admirable crook 5193. The conversation is over there on the Maximum Fun subreddit. That's Reddit. That's Reddit.com

slash R slash maximum fun. Evidence and photos from the show are on our Instagram. That's Judge John Hodgman. And we're also on TikTok and YouTube where you can watch full episodes of our program. Follow and subscribe to see all kinds of great stuff there. Speaking of YouTube, we recently had the incredible Monet Exchange on the show, along with her equally incredible fiancé Andy talking about how they met.

It was such a thrill to have Monet on the show. It's a great one. Go and check it out. Speaking of that episode, our YouTube commenter of the week wrote, This was from Bomb One in One Wrote, I have never in my life set an alarm for a YouTube video drop before now, but a crossover event of this magnitude

demanded it. Thank you very much, Bomb One and One for not only leaving that comment, but also setting an alert. Did you know that you can right now, if you're watching this on YouTube, ring that little bell and it'll send you a little alert whenever we drop some new stuff, not only new episodes, but also shorts

and some of the YouTube specials, the YouTube exclusives that we recorded today just for this episode. I hope that you will consider doing that and especially subscribing to our YouTube channel. It really does help people find the podcast. You can find us at YouTube at Judge John Hodgman Pod. That's Judge John Hodgman Pod on YouTube.

And thanks to everybody, by the way, who recommends Judge John Hodgman to a pal in real life or electronically in real life, it makes a big difference for us. So maybe this week, If you love Judge John Hodgman, think of somebody else in your life who you might info dump about it onto. This is a wonderful moment. Judge John Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Tanner Lackey at Blind Cinema Sound in Wilmington, North Carolina. Megan Razotti runs our social media, the podcast edited by A.J. McKee and our video editor, Daniel Spear. And of course, our producer is Jennifer Marmer. Swift Justice. Len Cicada says in the Max Fund subreddit, in a recent Scrabble game, challenged the word lefty. I know it's a word, but I also know that it's not in our available dictionary, which is from the 1930s. I was right. It wasn't there, but I was overruled anyway. Should I have won the challenge? The reason why Len Cicada is using a dictionary from the 1930s

is that he only wakes up for a week every 17 years. He hibernates underground for 17 years. hate of humor, folks. And then he comes out and he's like, oh, I've only got this like, like comedy. I want to play, I want to play some Scrabble, but I've only got this dusty 1930s dictionary.

Here's the deal, folks. I'm getting back into Scrabble with my wife, who's the whole being in her own right. It's been, we've been on a dry spell for a while. Spell, get it. But, oh, I hated that wordplay. But I'm enjoying it again.

But it is always the case. You decide what dictionary you're going to use before you play the game. It's not about the dictionary you want to have. It's the dictionary that you've agreed is going to be. And if you've agreed to be using the 1930s dictionary, which is a weird choice, then that is a perfectly reasonable challenge

that Len Cicada made by saying, I don't think it's in that particular dictionary, and they should have won the challenge. But mostly I would say, use a contemporary dictionary. Use Merriam-Webster. Our Dictionary of Choice, hi to Emily Brewster and all of our friends at Merriam Webster. A hot dog is not a sandwich, but I still love your dictionary. Hey, speaking of sandwiches and things that aren't, if you're listening to this on the day that it is released, it is March 18th.

And of course, you know that. Jesse has National Sloppy Joe Day. I noticed my wife Teresa's birthday, but I'll celebrate it with her by making sloppy Joe's for us. What you want to do is you want to make a giant sloppy Joe's? cake, put some candles in it. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah, that's true according to days of the year.com. Hey, are you a fan of sloppy Joe's or is it just a sloppy no for you? Are sandwiches an acceptable dinner? Or are they a lunchtime food or are they a better birthday cake? What is the best sandwich? What is the best sandwich? I know you've got thoughts on this. Philly cheese steak,

BLT, PB&J, you let me know. Don't think about trolling me with a hot dog sandwich unless it's hot dog that is sliced and then put into between two pieces of white bread. Don't think you're cute and bring us a freaking taco. Yeah. Sandwich. You know what a sandwich is? The Earl of Sandwich made it at the Hellfire Club. In any case, send me all of your sandwich disputes.

Hot takes, confrontations. Speaking of hot takes is a hot brown a sandwich. Look it up. Send them all to me at maximum fun.org slash JJ.HO is a Kentucky hot brown. a sandwich, let me know your thoughts. No matter what your dispute is, send it to us. Maximumfund.org slash JJHO, big or small, we dispute, wait, undisputed them all. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.