Judge John Hodgman - My Wife Likes it With Peaches

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

Judge Hodgman's chambers have been too rollicking! This episode, we are committed to less rollicking and more justice! We discuss kids' poop talk, abandoned laundry, half finished fruit, wedge salads, dead ends, and a ruling from Merriam-Webster on how many holes there are in a straw.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week clearing the docket. And with me, as always, is the man who has the same baseball cap as my seven-year-old son. Yeah. Judge John Hodgman. Yeah. We got these caps in Maine.

Got some caps when we did our show at the State Theater in Portland, Maine. Great time. And I gave you some extras to take home to the kids. Yeah. And I was grateful for it. My son loves to wear it. They're branded hats, branded to a general store in an unnamed coastal town where I lived part of the time. coastal town where I lived part of the time.

But right now, I'm in a town that I'm happy to name, Orland. Orland, Maine, home of the solar-powered studios of WERU. Community Radio, 89.9 Blue Hill, no longer broadcasting from Bangor. Sorry, Bangor. Isn't that right, Joel? We are still in Bangor. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joel. Take it down a thousand, okay?

I'm sorry to say. I'm sorry to say jesse joel we've had a lot of listener interaction over the past couple of weeks we've had a lot of rollicking dockets rollicking i did i did get some feedback from a listener saying too rollicking too much rollicking not much not enough justice i'll try and tone it down. All right, Joel. All right. That's what I'm saying. You just rollicked. I'm trying to tell you. This episode is going to be a lot of justice.

Producer Jennifer Marmer, I was out there in the parking lot of WERU. You know what I was doing? No, what's that? Adding cases, adding cases. More, more, more justice. Whoa. We don't, more justice. Whoa. We don't have time to rollick. I do have time, though, to give you the market report, Joel.

Check it out. Remember how I told the story about the Miracle Ham Hawks at the Tradewinds supermarket? Oh, yeah. Well, then I went to the unfortunately named John Edwards Market in Ellsworth, where they didn't have them? Right. Now they've got them, too. They must listen to your podcast. Ham hocks all over the place up here in Maine.

And these are the, Jesse Thorne, this is the good stuff too. These ham hocks are from, they're uncured smoked ham hocks from the local farm called Misty Brook Farm. They make really good stuff. They raise really good things and then kill them.

Now listen, Jesse and Jesse, listen to this. This is the good stuff. They raise really good things and then kill them. Now listen, Jesse and Jesse, listen to this. This is the good stuff too. This is local artisanal hawks from Misty Brook Farm. Non-GMO. Pasture raised. I think they're like

heritage Tamworths. Anyway, I got them. Also, by the way, Joel, in case you're wondering, market report. Rooster Brother in Ellsworths. Anyway, I got them. Also, by the way, Joel, in case you're wondering, market report. Rooster Brother in Ellsworth has both Vietnamese-style fish sauce and Thai-style fish sauce. Wow. There you go. But that's it.

That's all the rollicking. Got to get into the justice. Here's something from Hannah. Hang on, Jesse. Hang on, Jesse. I need to give the listeners a heads up. Content warning. Butts. Content warning, butts.

Content warning, poop. All right, go ahead. Here's something from Hannah. She says, my three-year-old loves to tell funny stories which have a theme. Do you know what's worse than broccoli? Poop ice cream that comes in a poop cone from a poop truck in poop town. Yes. Well, we don't necessarily encourage these stories.

We have a good laugh when they come up. However, she attends a small private daycare where gossip can run amok. I recently learned that our friends with children in a different class were horrified because their kids had learned butthole from their classmate. I'm worried that my lovely, hilarious daughter might say something and be branded the butthole from their classmate. I'm worried that my lovely, hilarious daughter might say something and be branded the butthole kid. My husband thinks she's in a developmentally appropriate phase and that poop-themed stories are not the gateway to buttholes. I think we should consider slapping a diaper on the poop talk

out of respect for community norms. What do you think? Well, now I feel extremely empowered to say the animated show that David Reese and I co-created that is available on Hulu right now is called Dicktown. That's right. Laugh it up, tweens. Laugh it up, 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds. We've gone all the way into Poop town on this first case out of the gate.

Jesse, what do you think? Is poop the gateway to butthole? Or, I mean, anatomically, butthole is the gateway to poop. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I have to say that at my house, we youngest is three now, and my other two were three at one point in their lives. Sure. And when it came up at this age, we discouraged it at the dinner table, but otherwise just kind of ignored it and it went away. The one period where it was rough was a period where two of my three children were really into Captain Underpants. Captain Underpants is, look, I have

nothing bad to say about Captain Underpants. Jordan, my co-host on Jordan, Jesse Go and I, when we were in college, did a show from the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus with our remote broadcasting equipment to raise money for KZSC, the heavyweight 88. And we did it in our underpants. Pretty rollicking, pretty rollicking. It was very rollicking. We had rollicking comedian Mark Maron on the show. It was very rollicking. We had rollicking comedian Mark Maron on the show. I'm not sure that adjective pertains to... Mark's not a rollicker. He's more of a seether. Mark is a fun-loving, good-time guy who loves to go listen to brass bands playing in gazebos and wear a boater.

Yeah, he loves to throw horseshoes on the town green. It's just a rollicking good time. He's always taking the Dean's car apart and reassembling it on the roof. He's always biking a penny-farthing bicycle down the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 20s. With his girlfriend Ida Rose. That's right. So when we did that, we asked the people who made Captain Underpants if they could send us some Captain Underpants books to give away as pledge thank you gifts. And they sent us so many of them.

Like more than we ever, like there was a box of Captain Underpants books at kzsc for the following three years yeah jennifer marmer our producer was station manager at one point i'm sure she had to you know her her desk chair broke and she just had to sit on a pile of captain underpants books so i i i have positive feelings about the captain underpants books it gives my children uh the story of their author, Dan Pilkey, gives my children good vibes about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because he's spoken a lot about his ADHD. And he's actually written some really he has a picture book that I think is really spectacularly beautiful. But I don't really like poop jokes uh or diaper jokes and that's all captain underpants is and it was a really tough four months of my life um but i have to say when you discourage it it only encourages it this was happening in your home you didn't you did not have a situation where your kids were going to school and bringing bringing the conversation down into poop down there oh i'm

sure they did right i think that there's that my children's school teachers knew that my wife and I, and particularly me, were bringing down the class level, the level of classiness in their preschool. Upon having admitted my children, they had cast their die when they accepted the children of me. They met me before, you know? So they were just taking our money and keeping their mouths shut. All right. Jennifer Marmer, you and your husband Shane are raising a child, a human child. Yeah. Do you have any plans to deal with poop talk?

I mean, it's early days. Hmm. What words does Ezra have now? He says, nini, instead of mom. Okay. Dada, zhuzh for George. Yeah, zhuzh the dog. George our dog.

Yeah. Sometimes he'll go, deet doo, instead of thank you. Perfect. Yeah, we're working on the words. I would say, I would say, look, there is nothing, there are two issues here.

One is that I think that there is a category difference, personally, between, what was it again? Poop ice cream comes from a poop cone from a poop truck in poop town? And butthole. Butthole is, to my mind, somewhat crasser than poop. Because as we all know from the sublime children's book everyone poops by tarot gomi

everyone poops nothing wrong with it nothing wrong with having a butthole either but butthole as a term has a certain kind of crass connotation whereas poop is just poop and the sentence poop ice cream comes in a poop cone from a poop truck in Pooptown, I mean, that's just true. Everyone knows. That's why they call it Pooptown. This is a beautiful sentence that your daughter, Hannah, the mayor of Pooptown, as far as I'm concerned, should feel very proud for articulating. I don't think that Hannah's daughter is going to become a butthole kind of person. Too imaginative.

Butthole. Just crass in my mind. Either way, though, whether it's talking about poop or talking about buttholes, you're not wrong, Hannah, to, as Bailiff Jesse Thorne did, suggest that there are circumstances in which talking about Pooptown is great and talking about Pooptown, you know, read the room. The room may not be ready for Pooptown. It might cause some disruption. And the stories of Pooptown, I mean, here's the thing.

Here's what I'm really concerned about, honestly, Hannah, is that if your daughter goes in there into preschool and starts talking about poop town, the poop is going to hit the fan. It's going to be everywhere. Everyone is going to be talking about poop town. Who won't want to talk about poop town? It will be disruptive to the class and that should be a consideration. Your neighbors and fellow parents will talk about it, and they will judge you. But who cares what they think, and they're going to judge you anyway, so forget about that.

My main concern is IP theft. I think your daughter, Hannah, is on to something with Poop Town. I think this may be the next Captain Underpants. Do not spread the word of Poop Town. This is IP owned by Anna's daughter. Do not get, people start taking the Pooptown stories and start telling themselves over there in that school. Get Anna to sit down and write the annals, or the anals of Pooptown in a little book, sell it for all the money in the world. All the money in the world will flow to you. a little book, sell it for all the money in the world. All the money in the world will flow to you.

But in the meantime, you know, yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say it's, you know, school is not a place for Pooptown, but your home is the county seat of Poop County. I like to imagine this child just learning to write, getting an index card, writing Pooptown on it, putting it in a sealed envelope and mailing it to herself. Right. So she can prove she invented it to the WGA later. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jesse Thorne. You're absolutely right. That is the old – I believe that that is an urban legend of the WGA.

Yeah, I don't think you can really do that. That if you mail an idea to yourself, it is copywritten. You write it down and it is an expression of your idea. It's automatically copyrighted. But I do encourage you to support the U.S. mails by getting your daughter to write down poop town on a card and mail it to herself. That'll be a delightful distraction for an afternoon. Look at that. You get justice, not too much rollicking, and a free parental child activity for an afternoon. Can't go wrong. We're going to take a quick break.

Oh, no, we're not. Oh, no, we're not. I'm I'm pasting in some more justice. Boom. Not taking any Michael Wright. Yeah, I live in an apartment building with a communal laundry room. A few weeks ago, I forgot a set of bed linens in that laundry room for a week and a half. Of course, those bed linens were taken. I'm disappointed someone would take them. However, I can understand that the thief probably thought that after a week and a half, the bed linens were abandoned and took them for themselves. My question is, if I should happen to see those bed linens in the laundry room again, should I steal them back? Or should I accept the fate of the universe that took them away from me and gave them to someone else? I'm really proud that I had that case

copied to the clipboard so I could just paste it in there before we went to break. That happened in real time. That was not, took you by surprise, right, Jesse? Yeah, that was, wow. Yeah. I'm still reeling. It just appeared in the Google doc. That was some Google doc rollicking. First of all, Jesse Thorne, when was the last time you shared a laundry room? It's been quite some time. My wife and I lived in an apartment building with a shared laundry room, but that was about 10 years ago now. to do your laundry and you just discovered that the only working machine had some washed but not dried sheets in it, what would you do with those sheets? Would you wait there until the person came down or would you do something with the sheets?

They would, according to the rules of the laundry room, go on to the countertop. On to the countertop. Even damp. Even damp. I mean, honestly, if it were me, I might wait half an hour. Yeah. Just because it's in the apartment building. If I was at a laundromat, it sort of would have been a waste of my half hour.

But in this case, it would only be a trip up the stairs and then back down the stairs. Was this in San Francisco or Los Angeles? This was in Los Angeles. It doesn't matter. It's West Coast. Wait a half an hour. Come on. Not on the East Coast.

Grab them out of there. In the East Coast, even damp, you light them on fire, right? Exactly. These aren't damp enough with gasoline. You throw batteries at them. I have a question for you then, Jesse. Slightly different scenario. If the sheets are dry and they're in the dryer and no one's around and you need the dryer,

is it typical in, say, California to take the bed sheets for your own? No, but I think they would end up on top of the dryer or on the counter. Yeah. If there were a counter. But I have to say, after 10 days of them sitting in there, I mean, in my old apartment building, I don't think someone would have taken them necessarily. But if they had not been taken, they would have ended up, you know, in a donation pile or in the garbage. Yeah.

There was no way. There were strict rules about the laundry room because it was a big apartment building with only so many washers and dryers. Yeah, of course. I mean, I love Michael's fantasy that someone took his sheets and is using them now. That's not what happened, Michael. Whoa, John, John, John. What? You know who's probably using them now, that's not what happened, Michael. Whoa, John, John, John. What? You know who's probably using them?

No. The people at the farm where my childhood dog went to live. You're telling me that if you leave your sheets in the laundry room long enough, eventually they will be shipped to a farm and maybe cut up to make comfy quilts for all of the dogs and cats that were moved to this farm when they became too elderly to live at home. Is that right? Yeah, they wanted a room free, the sheets I mean. Yeah, that's a wonderful fantasy that you have, Michael. sheets, I mean. Yeah, that's a wonderful fantasy that you have, Michael. Your sheets aren't coming back. They've been thrown away. Your quandary is moot. That's a legal term I never understood.

Your quandary is moot, though, because they're never going to come back. You never have to make the decision about whether to reclaim them or not. But should they reemerge? Should they resurface? Should they reappear? I guess that's the word I'm looking for. Let us know. And I order you to take them and to sleep in them without washing them. That's what you get. That's what you get. And you don't get upset. Now we can take a break. Let's hear from this week's partner. We'll be back with more cases as we clear the docket on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course. Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at MaximumFun.org. And they are all your favorites.

all of your favorite podcasts at MaximumFun.org, and they are all your favorites. If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic. Just go to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by the folks over there at Babbel.

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from the 18th until the 27th. Visit madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket and we have something here from Zach. My girlfriend Catherine has a habit of consuming fruit in servings that are smaller than what nature intended. I don't like ascribing motive to nature. That's ascientific. Yeah, this is really the agency implied here.

It's not uncommon to see a banana half peeled and half eaten on the kitchen counter or coffee table. peeled, and half eaten on the kitchen counter or coffee table. Or I may open the refrigerator to see half an apple looking back with its exposed flesh drying out. She does reliably return to the fruit, removing the exposed bit and finishing it off. Please order Catherine to eat fruit in the quantity nature intended. P.S. Of course I'm not suggesting someone eat an entire watermelon or pineapple in one sitting. At a minimum, I seek that fractional fruit remnants be properly stored in Tupperware and refrigerated

until eaten. Jez, you like bananas? Sure. Who doesn't like bananas? I once read an entire book about bananas. I don't know. I never eat a lot of fruits. I don't care for them. I'm not a fruit hater. You know what I mean? I just don't go for it. I'm a local green grocer.

Joel, what's your favorite fruit? I like all kinds of fruit in a fruit smoothie. That's a little too rollicking again, Joel. You're more alive than you've ever been. Dropping in smoothie talk all of a sudden. Make a lot of smoothies. All right, give me a recipe for a smoothie real quick.

A quarter cup of yogurt, quarter cup of blueberries, half a banana, quarter cup of strawberries and mango. Oh, very nice. What do you do with the other half a banana? Put it in the fridge? I make another one for my wife

because she likes peaches in hers. Waste not, want not. That's right. Joel, would you leave a half a banana in your refrigerator? No. Why not? That's not right. That's just immoral.

A half a banana? Why not? I agree. If you're going to eat a banana, eat the banana. Because that's what nature intended? Yeah. What are you, a druid? What are you?

I believe in science, Joel. Nature doesn't have an intent. Nature just exists. I like to use up all my fruit in a practical way. How would you, all right, Joel, listen to me. If you believe that nature intended a serving size, how do you explain different size bananas? Different size appetites. Would you say that the shape of a banana is evidence that evolution doesn't exist because it is the perfect shape to be held by a primate hand like that guy on that video from 10 years ago? Well, you have genetically modified bananas.

That's right. OK. Yeah. That's science. Right. How do you explain those little tiny bananas? You ever get those little tiny bananas, Jesse's right. Okay. Yeah, that's science. Right. How do you explain those little tiny bananas? You ever get those little tiny bananas, Jesse? Yeah, sure. And I get

plantainos machos sometimes. What's that? Big giant bananas. Oh! Do you buy them because you're like, today I want just a little banana, but tomorrow I want a lot of banana.

The little bananas taste different. The big bananas are a little starchier. One thing that I was surprised to learn is I had always been raised to believe you're not supposed to refrigerate a banana at all, ever. But in fact, I checked the internet, and the internet told me that once a banana reaches the ripeness you want, it makes sense to put it in the fridge. And certainly an apple is better if it is refrigerated, whether it is whole or half. One thing you don't want to refrigerate is a tomato. That will change the flavor profile of the tomato. And if you can't eat a whole tomato, then you shouldn't have any tomato at all. There I feel it's not that nature has an intent, but a good tomato is something you want

to eat all of. And if you don't want to eat all of that tomato, it's no good to begin with, throw it away before you even start. You know what I'm talking about. But I would say that while a half a banana in the fridge or a half an apple in the fridge would be aesthetically unpleasing to me as it is to Zach, because it kind of looks like your refrigerator is a dump, a garbage pile, is a compost. Yeah, like a classic garbage pile. Like a Heathcliff style garbage pile. And by the way, when you have finished eating the fish, it's fine to refrigerate the skeleton. Just put it on your heap of unfinished bananas and apples. Look, Zach, I agree. It looks like junk.

And, you know, while we are living together, we have to be sensitive to the visual pollution that we are leaving for our partners. And our partners may not have the same level of tolerance for visual pollution. Half an apple, half a banana. These things do no harm, and it's okay to eat them later on. I don't think there's anything, Catherine's not doing anything wrong.

If anything, she's being thrifty. But I think maybe it is worthwhile to camouflage those fruits. Put them in a drawer. Take one of your crisper drawers, set it to the fruit humidity setting, and just dump all your half-finished fruits in there and put a post-it on it saying, Zach, don't look in here. Keep that stuff to yourself.

I'm not going to say put it in a Tupperware or another name-brand container because I'm not sure that that's good for fruit. I will say that the best way to replicate a peel of an apple or the skin of an avocado, if you're trying to keep those things fresh, is, since I've already named brand products, glad press and seal. That's much better than like a cling wrap. That press and seal really, really attaches itself to that half an avocado. And you can actually get a second use of an avocado. But again, if you're opening up an avocado and you're not prepared to eat that whole avocado, I don't understand you. They desiccate in the fridge, John.

That's the problem. They desiccate in the fridge? There's no doubt about it. This is a situation that comes up in my house because my children are reverse you in the sense that they will exclusively eat fruit. They only eat fruit. No other

food. And so I will sometimes find half a banana sitting on my counter, which I'm not crazy about because it attracts fruit flies. I'd rather it be in the refrigerator. Right. But if it's going into the refrigerator, it has to be sealed in some way. As you identified, cling wrap actually doesn't seal. No. But yeah, generally speaking, I would prefer for my half an apple or whatever to be in a little reusable container of some kind.

Right. So that it doesn't go brown and desiccate. Because it will go brown immediately and desiccate within a day. Right. And you'll have to cut a third of it off to not be eating a gross part. Which I think is what Zach's girlfriend Catherine is doing. She's cutting off the desiccated part. But I agree.

Protect your investment and your relationship. Here's something from Sarah. She says, after a friendship of over 20 years, my friend Lauren and I find ourselves at our first ever impasse. Lauren believes a wedge salad is a common salad consumed regularly by the layperson. No, that's, I mean, John, I hate to cut it off here, but it's exclusive to the clergy from my perspective. Joel Mann is shaking his head angrily. Very angry.

Very angry. All right, we'll get to you, Joel. Don't roll it yet. Lauren claims a wedge salad is as common as a Caesar salad. I had never heard of a wedge salad. I conferred with many friends, family members, and colleagues on the topic. It was pointed out that wedge salads may be an upper middle class salad. By the way, I think the week that Sarah spent doing her wedge salad research,

talking to all of her friends and families and colleagues, asking about what a wedge salad is, that must have been a fun week for everyone. Well, she learned about the coastal elites and their iceberg lettuce. As if to prove the salad is commonplace and not a luxury item, Lauren regularly, wordlessly tags me in Instagram photos of wedge salads. I need a third party ruling on this conflict, which has now been a background presence in my social media life for approximately one and a half years. In this era of late stage capitalism, we must address these illusions of class equality. In my opinion, a wedge salad simply isn't the food of the commons. We thank the honorable judge for his consideration. So before I rule on the substance, whether a wedge salad on

instagram she is tagging sarah in it without comment just to annoy sarah no not just to annoy sarah to help sarah understand the true nature of a wedge salad. That is very common, so much so that people will take a picture of it on Instagram frequently. Yeah. Right. It's a common salad. Look, I order, first of all, I order Lauren to never stop tagging Sarah on the wedge salad. Continue. In fact-

Yeah, tag me too, at put.this.on. Yeah, please tag me too, at John Hodgman. And also, we have the show's Instagram account, at Judge John Hodgman. Jennifer Marmer, I'm going to search up some pictures of wedge salads to send to you to post on the – at Judge John Hodgman. I can't wait. Just so that – and I want – Lauren, I want you to go in there and I want you to repost and regram and tag Sarah. Because everyone looks looking at a wedge salad because they're delicious. Joel, you were shaking your head hard over there. What's

your beef over there? A wedge salad is just a great salad. It's not high class or low class. It's just a great salad. It's just a great salad. And when you make a wedge salad, what do you put on it? Well, you take your iceberg lettuce and you cut it in quarters. Sure. That's the wedge. Right. Then you have bacon bits on it. You have blue cheese.

Right. You have some tomato. Right. Red onion. Right. And call it good. All goes into the blender and you make it into a smoothie. Right.

Yeah. My wife likes it with peaches. I think that's the name of the episode. My wife likes it with peaches. I think that's the name of the episode. My wife likes it with peaches. I love a wedge salad too. I'm with Joel. It is an apotheosis of mid 20th century. Yeah.

Middle class American cuisine. Yeah. It could not be more down the heart of the plate. If I may switch metaphors here and it has earned its place by being great it's really tasty it is a great use of iceberg lettuce blue cheese dressing is the king of all american salad dressings sorry ranch you're a great dip right and a good dressing but blue cheese is a better dressing ranch is like a which is the english king who abdicated in order to marry wallace simpson edward yeah that's ranch dressing

whereas a roquefort dressing which by the by the way, is specific blue cheese that is most commonly cited in the early recipes, the first recipes for what we now know as the wedge salad. That is truly the king of blues. Sorry, Stilton and B.B. King. It's weird. You're not the king of blues, Roquefort. You said it exactly correct, Jesse. It's very difficult instinctively for me to term any salad that uses iceberg lettuce as luxury. Iceberg lettuce, of course, is the staple of middle to working middle class to working class middle to working middle class to working class mid-century American tables because it is resilient. It stays fresh longer. It is crunchy. It is available. It is cheap. And I ate a lot of iceberg salads in my grandmother's house growing up, not wedges, but with a lot of Italian dressing.

up, not wedges, but with a lot of Italian dressing. And it was so commonplace and kind of low that there were jokes about it, right? On Saturday Night Live, the Coneheads, they were obsessed with iceberg lettuce. And it was a joke that they thought this was the greatest food in the world because there are better lettuces, fancier lettuces. Let's say, for example, romaine, the heart, the literal heart, the hearts of romaine, or the literal heart of the Caesar salad, which, of course, was invented by Caesars Cardini at the restaurant Caesars in Tijuana around 1922, 1923. Famously with, you know, made with egg yolk, Parmesan, well, Worcestershire sauce initially, eventually anchovies got into the mix, croutons, and famously, luxuriously assembled table side as you sat there in the restaurant. It was,

in its own way, an expression of sort of a middle class aspiration to luxury, because this is not something that was happening in mansions. No one was coming. Downton Abbey didn't have somebody making Caesar salad table side. This was, again, Downton Abbey didn't have somebody making Caesar salad table side. This was, again, a 20th century invention. A true aristocratic salad, if there is one, is a single olive that you pluck out of the end of a martini glass. That would be an aristocrat salad. You know, it's interesting because we know the history of the Caesar salad because it was invented by Caesar Cardini to be served in medium to upscale to fancy restaurants. That's where that salad lived initially.

While the history of the iceberg lettuce salad, the wedge salad, is a little bit harder to track because it has no restaurant origin. little bit harder to track because it has no restaurant origin. It was clearly a home salad and dates back sometime to the 1910s, but really starts showing up in cookbooks and recipe books in the 40s and especially the 50s and the 60s, where it became a staple of middle-class entertaining. It was a work-a-day home salad. Now, what's interesting and why you might be confused, Sarah, is that while the wedge salad has more humble, comparatively more humble beginnings than the Caesar, historically they kind of have crisscrossed now, right?

Because every supermarket is full of bottles of pre-made Caesar dressing. It is a very common salad that you make at home in one way or another. It no longer has the element of fancy pantsness that it had even when I was growing up. That was only a salad you would get in a restaurant, made table side. While the wedge – Now it's a salad you'd only buy at an airport. Now it's a salad you'd only buy at an airport with some dumb chicken on it. Whereas the wedge salad, which had these more humble beginnings or home-based beginnings at least, got adopted in the past 15 years, would you

say, Jesse, like that? Yeah, that seems about right to me. Got adopted by steakhouses in particular, which themselves are aspirational restaurants. But also, I think to some extent, yeah, fancy pants restaurants, along with the growth of other American comfort foods in the context of fancy pants restaurants. You know, you think of all the macaroni and cheeses that emerged 15 and 20 years ago in fancy restaurants. All of the biscuits and gravy that were being served at fancy restaurants. And I want to be clear, if there sounds like there's any contempt in my voice right now, it is only because I have mistoned my voice because I support this so enthusiastically.

There is no Edison Bulb subway tiled restaurant I would rather go to than one that makes good fried chicken. Absolutely. service was to take home-cooked meals or classic middle American or mid-century American cookbook meals and represent them in a fine dining context. I mean, that's why when you go to all those restaurants that have an ampersand in the middle of them, branch and rake or stash and farrow. I'm just making up words now. You know, pen and I'm just looking to see what I have in front of me. Pen and energy drink. Tronch and blister.

Microphone and charging cable. You know, that's why when you go to one of these new contemporary american restaurants you'll see a wedge salad on the menu or they'll rescue other cuisine of sort of like stick to your ribs classic americana cooking like fried chicken or a deconstructed chicken pot pie or for example just a just a as you would have growing up just a delicious bowl of Vicks VapoRub with some crackers to dip in it. Classic. Yeah.

Don't eat Vicks VapoRub. Classic. Don't eat Vicks VapoRub. Can I recommend a Caesar salad to our listeners? I would love it. If any of our listeners happen to live in or visit Southern California, and I think this is an experience good enough for a tourist. Right. It's worth making a reservation for a tourist. There is a restaurant in Pico Rivera, which is a primarily industrial area of Los Angeles County, called the Dalray, which has been open since the 1950s and has changed nothing in that entire time.

And, you know, you can certainly order their famous pepper steak. You can certainly enjoy Clam's Casino there, if that's what you'd like. However, I can't recommend enough the Caesar salad, which is made table side by the owner of the restaurant. It's a pretty sizable steakhouse, but the owner just goes table to table all night making Caesar salads for everyone. And I went there because years ago I was listening to Jonathan Gold, the legendary late food writer of Los Angeles, probably the greatest proponent of

any Los Angeles culture that has lived in my lifetime anyway. Jonathan Gold was talking about how this was a restaurant in a time capsule, but also that everything they made was really great. And that was my experience going there. My wife and I have gone there a few times for fancy dinners. We went there once for New Year's Eve and, you know, and I wore a tuxedo and she had gown, you know, and, um, the food is really excellent, really excellent. And, uh, it's just great. Cause it's a, it's a real night out restaurant, um, for folks in East Los Angeles. Uh, the food is great and it, everything is from 19. I mean, you literally can order Clams Casino.

I'm not jokingly saying that you can order Clams Casino. That's a real thing they serve there. I've changed my plans for dinner tonight. Joel, this is going to sound pretentious. I was going to make pho tonight at my house. I thought you were going to stop and get some fried chicken. No, I'm not. By the way, I'm off the chicken tenders.

I stopped there. It's very dangerous. I stopped at the gas station to get the energy drink that I so desperately needed. But I remembered my promise from last week. I'm done with chicken tenders. Good. But now I'm going to get some frozen stuffed clams. I'm going to get an iceberg lettuce head.

I'm going to make some bacon and some blue cheese dressing. It's just going to be stuffies and wedge. Stuffies and wedge, by the way, is the name of my subway tile restaurant. John, can I tell you something? Yeah, please. I've got a head of iceberg lettuce in my refrigerator that I was planning to make into a wedge salad tonight. Joel, are you going to have a wedge smoothie tonight? You're going to join us in this wedge party?

Absolutely. Oh, Jennifer Marmer, you like a wedge salad? No. Oh, no. Well, great. I apologize. No, i apologize no no no no we can't we can't have every j first named person on this podcast liking the same thing all the time that's true so but the point is sarah that just because somehow you missed the wedge salad in the past decade and a half of its incredible popularity. That does not mean, just because you haven't heard of it, that it is a luxury or an exotic or an esoteric item.

It is one of the kings of salad, and I urge you to enjoy it and get ready to see some pictures of it because you're going to get tagged. Let's take a break when we come back and update from Merriam-Webster on the number of holes in a straw. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience.

One you have no choice but to embrace. Because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I. Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky Let me give it a try

Okay If you need a laugh and you're on the go Call S-T-O-P-P-P-A-D-I It'll never fit No, it will Let me try If you need a laugh and you're on the go Try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O

We are so close Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh, then you're on the go. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week. We do have a letter from the dictionary.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesse. Sorry. Sorry. I got to paste in another case. More justice, extra justice. Oh, wow. Emergency extra justice. Holy cow.

We'll probably have a, there, just appeared. John, I'm reeling. Yeah, I know. I'm reeling. I know. I just pasted it in, and it appeared across the country. Alexandra writes, I request a judgment against my husband for ridiculing my use of the term dead end.

We live in a neighborhood in rural Maine, which enjoys access to a neighborhood pool. I've given directions to the pool to friends who have visited on a few occasions, and I usually instruct them to turn left at the dead end of the road that has taken them into the neighborhood. My husband contends this is misleading since there's an option to turn either left or right at the end of the street in question. I contend the street itself stops, doesn't continue, and therefore dead ends. I believe my husband's objection is based solely on pedantry and is possibly retaliatory in nature. Objection is based solely on pedantry and is possibly retaliatory in nature. While I hold a bachelor's in linguistics, which program rigorously emphasized descriptive over prescriptive linguistics?

My admittedly colloquial use of the term dead end is descriptive and easily understood by recipients of directions to the pool. Jesse, Jennifer Marmer, this is some emergency justice that I dropped in here to keep us from rollicking too hard. I went all the way back to August of 2019 to find this one from Alexandra. Alexandra, thank you for your patience. Folks, if you have submitted cases in the past and didn't hear back at all from me, not even a thanks or a hmm, That's probably because I put it in a folder to hear in the docket or to consider seriously for a live litigant case, which we will be doing again as soon as we're able. And it sat there. And if you have a case that's been

sitting there and you think that I dislike you, you're wrong. Why don't you send it in again? Just write to me at Hodgman at MaximumFund.org and just send it in wrong. Why don't you send it in again? Just write to me at hodgman at maximumfund.org and just send it in again. You don't even have to say anything about it. Just put it back on the top of the pile and I will reconsider it. And if you have new cases, please send them in, hodgman at maximumfund.org. We are ready to get some more in our larder of cases. We are ready to get some more in our larder of cases. Meanwhile, Joel, I don't know that this can really be a rural town in Maine because it has a pool. No.

Right? Yeah. It's a false flag. That's right. I knew something about this stunk, Alexandra. I don't know. You're certainly not in this part of Maine. There's no outdoor pool, no community pool, maybe inside.

Joel, if you're in rural Maine and you're driving down a road and the road ends, but you can take a left, say, to go to the beautiful outdoor pool, very common in Maine, or a right, say, to Stonehenge, which is also in Maine, would you call that road a dead end? No, I'd call it a road to nowhere. No, what would you call it if you were given directions? A right or a left. Yeah, when you come to the end of the road, take a right or a left. An intersection. A T intersection specifically.

Jesse Thorne, would you call that a dead end? What's a dead end, Jesse Thorne? Dead end's an end that's dead. It's one where if a ghoul or a goblin is chasing behind you. Right. And you get to it, you have to turn back and face that evil creature. Yeah, you can't turn left and jump in the pool because everyone knows ghouls and goblins can't swim. You'd be safe in a pool.

Exactly. Right. Yeah, well, unless it's a wolfman. Well, yeah, but you said ghoul or goblin. It's funny. I'm just giving examples. It could be any deathly creature. But a lot of people, this is, I need people to understand, a lot of people think that wolfmans can't swim.

A lot of people think, but they're not catsmans. A lot of people, this is, I need people to understand, a lot of people think that wolfmans can't swim. A lot of people think, but they're not catsmans. A lot of people think that about elephants. Yeah, no. If you're running down the road and a wolfman is chasing you, do not go jump in a pool. That's not going to help you. And that goes double if you're being chased by a hippopotamus. Yeah. No, that... They love water.

It's like their top thing. What you want to do if you're running from a wolfman is you want to go to the silver bullet factory. Look for that. Google that real quick. Yeah. But if you're at a dead end, you can't go anywhere because there's nowhere to go. But you only want to go there if they have a factory tour.

That's right. You should know before you go to any town. You don't want to be on the outside looking in. Yeah. Before you go to any town in Maine, check out the local Silver Bullet factory hours and find out when their tours are. Because you could get wolfmaned badly. You see any of these wolfmans up here in Maine, Joel?

Satsquatch. Yeah. That's as close as we get. That's as close as you get. Anyway, Alexandra, good job getting a degree in linguistics. Good job trying to accuse your husband of being a pedant. But what you are describing is not a dead end. And I am not being a pedant and pointing it out.

Because I think if you asked your friends, when I call that a dead end, was that clear or did it confuse you? They would be like, we didn't know what you were talking about. And we never found the pool. Doesn't exist. We drove into a quarry and Stephen King was at the bottom of it. Why are we in Maine? That's what they say to you. Descriptivism is great.

We're about to hear from the dictionary. They describe language. They do not prescribe language. They not tell you how to use words. They reflect how words are used. And guess what? Dead end is used to mean one thing. The end of a road where you cannot turn.

The end. That's a dead end. Boom. Can't turn. Turn back. Turn back, Alexandria. You can't go any further here. Okay, Jesse, speaking of which, we did get a letter from the dictionary. Emily Brewster, of course, is our on-call lexicographer here at the Judge John Hodgman podcast. And last week, Jesse, you will remember we dealt with the case of does a straw have one hole or two holes? Now, I have to say, Jesse, that this was one of those cases that worked their way into the docket from time to time, where it turns out it's just something that people have been

talking about on the internet for a long time. It's not an original case to the person who was writing it. And Jesse, I learned something very disturbing from a listener named Roger this week, who wrote in to say that we have been tricked. We've been tricked, Jesse, into hearing another case that did not originate with the person as was suggested. But in fact, they were repeating a dispute that has been heard all over the internet already. In fact, they were repeating a dispute that has been heard all over the internet already, specifically on the Vlogbrothers vlog cast, which of course is John Green and Hank Green's daily chit-chat with each other, the two brothers, two authors, John Green and Hank Green. You know who I'm talking about, Fault in Our Stars.

They brought up this topic. They brought up this topic. They brought up this dispute. It's been a part of their show's vocabulary for a long time. And you know what that question was? That got snuck into our podcast as an original question? What was it? This is going to hurt you, Jesse. Is butt leg. Is butt leg.

Is butt leg. Oh, wow. That is a pre-existing gag, gimmick, in-joke, running joke, running reference on John Green and Hank Green's long-running video show that they do with each other called The Vlog Brothers. Wow. Same with Does a Straw Have One or Two Holes? All over the internet. I got to be more careful. Jennifer Marmer, I got to be more careful.

I got to check these things out before I get tricked. Thank you, Roger, for bringing that to my attention. In any case, I determined that a straw, at least based on the dictionary definition, and this is more prescriptivist than descriptivist, but the Merriam-Webster definition was a hole was something that was a perforation or something that pierced another surface. And because a straw was just a straw, it defined a cylinder, but it did not define one or two holes. It was no holes

whatsoever. Now, was this sophistry on my part? Sure. Does a dictionary definition prove anything? No. But I had written to Emily Brewster, and as I was giving my verdict, I was getting live feedback from other lexicographers at the dictionary, which actually supported, they had the same interpretation as me. We heard from associate editor Dan Brandon, who was a listener to the Judge Shenhajian podcast, hey Dan, who said, my personal position would be that the straw constitutes a single defined structure, the tube itself. For a structure to have a hole, that hole would have to actually penetrate the structure in some way. See, hole sends 1A, which includes a cross-reference to perforation. So the straw doesn't technically have a hole at all unless I did something like poke it through the side with a pin.

Thank you, Dan. And then Allison DeGiordi, who's an assistant editor for Science, the thing that i believe in also wrote in from the dictionary concurring saying if you're just holding a straw in the air all the space both inside the cylinder circumscribed by the straw and elsewhere surrounding it is topologically outside the straw there can't be a hole because there's no meaningful difference between what's inside the straw and what surrounds it but if you had say a floor-to-ceiling sheet of saran wrap and stuck the straw through it then the part of the straw penetrating the sheet would define a hole in the saran wrap. Honestly, I've never thought of using a straw to stick a hole in my

floor-to-ceiling sheet of saran wrap. I know, right? I've always left it entirely unmolested. No, I mean, what's the whole point of having a floor-to-ceiling sheet of saran wrap? If you don't use it to transform a straw from something where all space, both inside and outside, is actually topologically outside into a hole. Right. Thank you very much, Dan and Allison,

for writing in. Thank you, Emily, for getting their opinions. I appreciate that the dictionary is descriptive, not getting their opinions. I appreciate that the dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive. But I just love blowing everybody's minds. I cannot wait for your letters saying that a straw has one or two holes. I'm just going to delete them. Sorry. Settled. No holes in a straw. No holes. By the way, if you have a floor to ceiling sheet of saran wrap in your home

do not poke a straw through it that then the wolfman can get in do you know that about wolfmans they can't

go through straws they can't go through saran wrap they don't like it it hits their whiskers and they're like no I don't want that they It hits their whiskers and they're like, no, no, I don't want that. They walk away.

That makes sense. Yeah. So that's it. This is the sound of a gavel. That's, that's all the justice, including the extra justice. I do apologize if we did any accidental rollicking,

but I'm glad that you were along with us for the ride one way or the other. Jesse Thorne, take us out. Docket's clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer. Our engineer in Maine is Joel Mann, program and operations manager at WERU Community Radio in Orland, Maine. You can listen to WERU at WERU.org.

And you can follow Joel on Instagram. His handle is TheMainMan, M-A-I-N-E-M-A-N-N. Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode. Submit your cases at MaximumFund.org slash JJHO or email Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. MaximumFun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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