Judge John Hodgman - Pain and Suffer Ring

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

David sets a phone alarm for all of his tasks. Not a reminder. An alarm. In the clock app. His sister and coworker, Lisa, is tired of hearing these alarms! They are too disruptive. She wants him to write out a to-do list instead. But David says his system is already perfect! Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Watch Lisa and David's videos about Lisa's organization, David's babysitter instructions, and other workplace sketches at youtube.com/@McDivittLaw. You have just a couple more days to order the “And I’m Gay” t-shirt from the episode JUGGERNAUT, LEST YE BE JUDGED! It's available in heather purple, off white, or in the form of an adorable ringer tee! With gorgeous art by Sonny Ross, this shirt is available for a limited time! You have until April 3 so get over to MaxFunStore.com now! Thanks to reddit user u/SJHamilton43 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? 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 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, pain and suffering. Lisa brings the case against her brother David. Lisa and David work together at their family's law firm. David sets an alarm on his phone for every task he has to complete. His phone alarm clock goes off at least 10 times a day, not counting the alarm he uses to wake up in the morning. Lisa hates the alarms. They're too disruptive. She wants him to write out a to-do list instead. But David says his system is already perfect. 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. Oh, I have been out searching with the black book in my hand. And I've looked between the lines on the pages that I've read. and I met the walking dude religious. His worn down cowboy boots, he walked like no man on earth.

And I swear he had no name. Baylor of Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant sin. Lisa and David, 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. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that I've never seen, seen him alarmed other than maybe once or twice when we weren't three hours early to the airport. I do. I also do. Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. Lisa, David, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this courtroom? Lisa, why don't we start with you? Oh, wait a minute, Lisa. I got to get a pencil and some paper to write this down, write your guest down on, into the official ledger. Okay, I'm ready now. the official ledger right here. It's not just paper towels. Okay. So. And I have this worn down stub of a pencil and I'm ready to take your guess. A lot of people think that the ledger is paper

towels just because it looks a lot like paper towels and it's so absorbent. Right. But it's actually a ledger. It's a whole ledger. It's a book where we keep a record of all of the guesses for all of the obscure cultural references going back to the beginning of time. It's a very, very beautiful guilt-edged tome that will be part of the official Judge John Hodgman archive one of these days. It may look like paper towels if you're watching on the YouTube

at Judge John Hodgman Pod, but I swear to you this is a ledger and I'm ready to write down your guests. Lisa, what is your guests? So my guess is it's a poem and it's written by a poet. I love the way you're thinking, Lisa.

Did the poet know it even? It was about to say the same dumb joke. Just lobbed that one right up for you guys. I just caught up and got caught up in a loop of, should I say this or is it too dumb? And you just said it. I just really dumbed it,

dumbed it up there, right there. That was really stupid. A poem by a poet is what you're saying. It's a 1970s American poem. And that's far as I'm going to go. Because I don't think I could. American poem. I'm going to have to move to Sharpie.

This is good. 1970s poem by a poet, a professional poet, an American professional poet. I actually did write it down. You can see. All right. Well, that's Lisa's guest. David, David, you're her older brother. Is that correct?

I am. I was actually born in the 1970s. Holy moly. What a brag. All right. There's a chance then you might get this one. Were you a fan of 1970s poems by American poet? I wasn't. However, I am a fan of Clint Eastwood.

Oh. And I am a fan of the spaghetti westerns and Sergio Leone. No, yeah. And the man with no name. Right, the man with no name. So, I would say that this was the inspiration for the good, the bad, and the ugly. is that your favorite movie David Jurassic Park is my favorite movie

yeah okay as you shake your head no no no I like it I just I thought maybe this was your favorite movie that's why you were guessing it but no you were born in the 70s of course Jurassic Park yeah I was 13 I'm going to write down

TMWNN or JP for Jurassic Park okay it's got to be one of the two I mean sure why not do you want to take a second guess Lisa No, I feel good about it. Right now I'm telling you all guesses are wrong. I'm going to give you a hint. It's not, it's not an American poem.

It is spreadish. Ooh, close, but you would be denied a cigar in Cardiff Wales. Because I guess the Welsh are technically, they're part of the UK. They are. I mean, there's a Welsh national identity as well. But it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Wales. in Northern Ireland. You were born in the 1970s,

but you're not necessarily a fan of Welsh New Wave pop rock, are you? Because I was reading the lyrics to a song. Song that is based, and you should have known this, both of you, because I'm talking about the walking dude, the man with no name. I'm talking about Randall Flagg,

the antagonist in the epic Stephen King novel the stand. The one that was so long that his editor said, you know, this book is too long. We need to cut out 400 pages or so. And Stephen King was like, well, all right. And then when he got his money together later on, he's like, I sure missed those 400 pages and he put him back in. Good for him. That's what you can do with a lot of money. John, by getting his money together, do you mean getting his cocaine together? I think he got his life together in a certain way. And he realized that his editors had been playing a trick on him, because I think they literally told him

based on the introduction to the uncut, restored version of the novel, The Stand. They told him, like, yeah, it's going to cost too much money to print all these pages. We need to cut 400 in order to sell it to the working man. And Stephen King was like, well, I'm a friend of the working class. Of course. And he is. He's like, of course, I'm going to make it affordable. They were just, they didn't have the heart to just tell him. This novel's too long. It's too much, too much story. Let me cut it out, put it back in. I love that about Stephen King.

This is a song based on the stand by the Welsh rock band that opened for you two in 1983 when this song was released. The alarm. Get it? The alarm. We're here to talk about alarms. Oh, man. Alarms on your phone.

Come on down and meet your maker. Come on down and make the stand, David. You are now facing the justice of justice of justice. Judge John Hodgman, the original walking dude. Things just got real. Things just got real. A little hot in here. I'm tearing up the ledger.

All guesses are wrong. We've got to hear this case. I'm still smarting by the fact I omitted Scotland from the list of the UK. Oh, man. And you know the people from the Isle of Man are going to take it to us as well. You know we're going to be eating poo, as they say, in the UK. for not getting all that right. But here we are in the United States so far of America.

I'm in Brooklyn. Jesse's in Los Angeles. You two are in Colorado. As aforementioned, you are siblings. Lisa, you see justice in this court. You and your brother work together. Is that correct? That is correct.

What are you two? You run a lemonade stand or what there in Denver? Not quite, but we've done that in the past. David is a lawyer. My dad is a lawyer. and he and my mom started a law firm when we were little. And David grew up to be a lawyer and take on the legal part of it. And I came on to the firm as a marketing person, their marketing director.

So I do the marketing for their law firm. You do the marketing for the law firm, including managing this hot YouTube channel that I've been checking out. Yes. Thank you for, I'm sure for checking it out. Yeah. Your YouTube channel is going to get a lot of plugs today. Don't worry about it, marketing professional. When did you join the law firm, Lisa?

I've joined in 2012. Did you proceed your sister, David, in joining the law firm here or what? I did. So my parents, Karen and Mike started this over 50 years ago. This guy talks about his parents with their first names, Karen and Mike. Well, I call them Mom and Dad. Or did you call him Mom and Dad? Oh, sir.

No, I call him Mom and Dad. In your collegial capacity, you call them Karen and Mike. That's right. That's right. Gotcha. I joined close to 20 years ago. So it's been... 2007, wasn't it?

Longer. So you've been there longer than Lisa. How did it feel to have your kid sister join the firm? It was interesting. But I was part of the decision to hire her. So it was not foisted on me. What a flex. You're saying she owes you her career.

A thanks would be nice. Have you ever thanked David for getting you this job? It's got so to my core. It's not even... The law firm of mother, father, nepo baby one and two. Family law practices are very, very common. There, it's like a car dealership. He had to pass it on to somebody.

It is. Is that what you tell your prospective clients? You have to understand. Our law firm is like a car dealership. They're like, oh, sign me up. Right there. You know, it's a Johnny on the spot to sign up when you tell them that. No one feels more comfortable than when they're in a car dealership.

You know what? We can say the name of the law firm. It's the John Elway law firm named after it's... We're definitely going to hear from his people. Listen, I love John Elway. I've never met him. But man, that guy is an institution here in Colorado. Yeah, he has a great restaurant.

So, David, you were happy when Lisa joined the firm, in part because you were part of the hiring decision, and I presume in part because you love and respect your sister as well. I do. Let's get this on the record. I do love and respect you very much. It's very nice to hear. Thank you, David.

With one notable exception that we're going to talk about, Lisa, in general, what is it like working for your older brother? First of all, David's probably the smartest person I know, which is I'm not afraid to say that, David. I think you're very bright. I do enjoy working with him. I think for anybody who has siblings, there's always that dynamic that suddenly occasionally I'll feel 12 again and maybe get a little bit defensive, like a little sistery.

But for the most part, we get along very well and we work together pretty well. You know, I just realized that I should be feeling a little defensive here because I don't think it's common for us to have genuine attorneys on the podcast. You probably have stood before a judge, David, and here I am faking it. Well, I have. I am an official officer of the court. So as such, please know it is my duty to speak honestly and truthfully. And everything I say is the truth today in court. That's a lot of protesting too much for me. Need I remind you, I cannot tell a lie. Okay. Good. So Lisa, you say that David has too many alarms. set on his phone. And maybe you notice that even though I am set on absolute do not disturb,

I just got a phone call somehow. These things happen. Yes. What is David's particular malfunction when it comes to, in your opinion, his alarm system? I don't know when it started. I think it was more than a year ago. And we would be in meetings and his alarm would go off. And it is, it's not tempered by volume, it just goes off. And it's, everybody will stop and think, oh, what's, what's happened, something's happening. The alarm's going off. Sometimes he'll get up. Sometimes he'll reset it. Sometimes he'll leave the room. Because it depends on what the alarm is. But I've seen, he's got alarms for different reminders and tests. He has alarms for, if we're, it's a weekend, it's for laundry, it's for making a phone call. It's for sending an email. It's for

making an appointment to do his, you know, he'll set the alarm to schedule. a haircut instead of just scheduling the haircut. And do the alarms have different sounds? There are many alarms you can choose on phones these days, or are they always the same? Just the same, the same sound, same volume. What does it sound like? What's the, do you know the name of it? It's radial, right?

Well, you've heard it enough. Don't you think you can give us an impersonation list? Oh, you want me to do. Okay, so it's... Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. Congratulations. You're now the new official judge John Hodgman ringtone. We'll be selling that.

Is that a sound that has haunted your brain? Yes. First of all, a lot of us set our alarms. There are several reasons. The first one is just in general. The sound itself hits you kind of in the back of your brain. Like, get up and do something. Second, I think a lot of us use it anyway for our to wake up.

And so some people find it trigger. Which one is this one? Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. Is that radio? Wait. No, that's not radio. I've got radial here. We can take a listen

and compare it to Lisa's impression. Oh, God, I hate that one thought or whatever. Stop. Stop it. Stop it. She can't make it stop either. I've heard radio and I've also heard whichever one of this one. Do do do do do do do.

Yeah. They really do. There is a trauma response when I hear that because those are wake-up alarms for me. And I don't like to wake up. I wish I could podcast from bed. Maybe we'll do that one of these days, Jesse. Can we do an all in bed courtroom? I mean, I'm going to bed right after this.

Yeah, right. All right. We'll keep that on the docket for the future. How many alarms are going off of a, let's just focus on the work day, right? Because this is a work dispute. You too don't cohabitate, right? You don't still live with your mom and dad, do you? You're adults.

We're adults. We're adult. But we hang out with them. Our kids are... Nothing wrong with adults living with their moms and dads. I'm just getting a picture here. Yeah. No, we all work together and then David's kids and my kids get along really well.

So we hang out outside of work on the weekends. Okay. So it's a cross professional and personal territories. Yes, it is. Territories. You're hearing this alarm. How many times when you're hanging with David, how many, roughly speaking, a dozen times a day, two dozen, five, Are we counting the same alarm that he keeps snoozing that goes off?

How many times do you hear the horrible sound? I would say on any given work, worst case scenario, workday probably five or six times. Okay. Okay. And a work day. Listen, so because we do work together, we're close siblings. Collectively, we have five kids between the two of us. And when we meet, whether it's dinners or weekend events, we're still discussing business. we're conducting business somehow. I mean, so these alarms are going off all the time.

I'm setting alarms that are work-related. You don't dispute that these alarms are going off all the time. Oh, no, no. We can stipulate to that. All right. Does half a dozen a day sound about right? Or in your estimation, is that low or I? That's just the number that Lisa is hearing.

Right. That's just when Lisa's around. Good point. How many a day are you hearing, David? How many of you have set right now? Including times that you've snoozed it and that comes back. I have 45 alarms probably set. In fairness to me, they are not all triggered to go off today.

Some of those I keep dormant. Why yourself, counselor, okay. Well, listen, I also use this as a to-do list for the non-active alarms. I keep them in my alarm list because I think, oh, yeah, I may need to get back to that next Monday. And so at some point between now and Monday, I may resuscitate that alarm or bring it back. He has set an alarm before to set an alarm for something. That's not uncommon. Set an alarm as a reminder to set an alarm.

That's right. If we're in a meeting, he'll say, oh, I need to. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Well, no, there's a reason for it. And I think it's a very good reason for it. There are moments if I'm in a meeting and I don't have the time to really form the thought about what I need that next. alarm to prompt me to do, I at least can form the thought, hey, hey, you know who, and I want to say

her name. I need you to help remind me in one hour to set an alarm about this general topic. So you're not going into your phone to set the alarm. You're speaking to the smart speaker assistant saying, hey, my electronic friend, set an alarm to remind me to set an alarm about a thing that I've been thinking about. Yes. It's sort of like you're in a meeting and you get out your phone and you say, Hey, Siri, play square biz by Tina Marie. Right.

It's sort of like that. That's exactly what it's like. But keep in mind. Or it could be Jesse a situation. So you triggered yourself, Jesse. I did. We're trying to trigger the listeners. Yeah.

It made me really happy. I should make that my alarm. or, or, you know, for other listeners, it could be something where you say, Alexa, play Tom Waits, all of the songs. Listen, I'm going to tell you tonight. Like with the Supreme Court argument, the people who follow the Supreme Court

tend to get a feel for where the court is leaning based on the questions that they're asking. Now, granted, they have to wait for weeks, sometimes for the court to make a decision. Here, I suspect we'll get a decision later. So, but right now, I sense, like the Supreme Court watchers, that the court is actually siding with me at this point. I get that feeling. Wow.

Your confidence is intoxicating. Is that something you would, I'm not denying your own lived experience. You might think that you know where I'm leaning. And it might be interesting to our listeners to know how you feel when you're in a courtroom and you feel that the judge is going one way or the other. but is that something you would ever say out loud in a real court? No. You would never be like, Your Honor, I kind of have a feeling you're on my side right now. We'll see where this goes.

I would never say that. I'm not going to ask you to treat me with the professional decorum you would treat a real judge. But I'm just tread very carefully, Counselor. That's all I'm saying. Yes, Your Honor. 48 alarms going. And by alarms, I think we're talking in the parlance of contemporary smartphones, reminders at this point.

Because when an alarm comes up, oh, no, these are separate. It's not a reminder. It is literally on the clock version in the clock section. Yeah. It's an app. It's an alarm. In the clock section, you're setting an alarm. So when you set the alarm and then the alarm, let's say the alarm comes on,

and it's radial all the way down, it's always radial, how do you know what it's reminding you to do? Do you usually have to look at the screen? But there's some times where I remember, oh yeah, I set an alarm eight minutes ago so I can, I remember kind of what it was. Look, it's been a long time since I've listened to Merlin Man espouse on all the hidden features of the iPhone.

That's some early podcasting reference there, Jesse. You catch that? Yeah, I did. A long time since I've heard. Merlin Man in my ears telling me to turn off Wi-Fi when you're walking around down or else you're going to run down the battery looking for Wi-Fi signals. But I didn't know that you could set an alarm in the clock app and have it be labeled for a specific task or thing.

Yes. You can apparently. And what it does is it just, you could type it in or you can tell your digital friend. Mine has an Irish accent. she's cosmopolitan to go ahead and set that audible note with a little message across the screen and then it requires you to affirmatively turn it off or it's just going to keep going and going. I see. It says label here. That's right. That label is my best friend.

All right. I'm going to set an alarm for ending this podcast. We'll see when it pops up. Like forever? No, just this episode. Ours is the episode that Judge can't end this fast enough. David, why are you using alarms and not reminders or a calendar or a to-do list? And those are, that's a good question. And I'll give you the reasons for each one of them. And this is not an indictment on the way my iOS works, but I do think they've made some improvements to the reminders.

historically, the only way that you could really get that noise that would really prompt you about the task that was due right then was to set an alarm. If you were to set a reminder, and you can set a reminder for eight months down the road, it just kind of pops up. And if you don't specify these time of day, it'll just generally pop up at like nine in the morning. And it's pretty passive. It just shows up on your screen. It's not blowing up your phone to alert you of the urge. of that task, right? Now, a calendar item can just be very passive and exists only within that calendar ecosystem.

And it's not necessarily prompting a reminder. Sorry, I just got an alarm saying that we have to wrap this podcast up. So you have a legacy system built in from before there was reminders on your phone. You have an older system that you devised. When would you say you devise this system? Well, I've got some old alarms on there. About eight years ago. Eight years ago.

Okay. Some old alarms. And one of some of the old favorites on there? Get Campbell a birthday gift for her first birthday. That's still on there? My daughter is 10. But I presume it pops up once a year. Okay.

I'll tell you something. There are some sentimental alarms that have stayed on there for a long time. When we took my kids, like my mom and my mom. my dad and I took my kids to Disneyland. My son was two years old. My daughter was four. I set alarms for various things, like to go meet Rapunzel for a photo shoot, like all of these different things, or do whatever the equivalent of the lightning lane was 10 years ago.

Fast pass it was, sir, fast pass. Was it fast pass? Okay. So I had these alarms set, you know, hey, so-and-so set an alarm for me to do the fast pass at 2 p.m. for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. That was the best week of my life. sounds like a waste of a fast pass, honestly, but fine. Usually the line isn't that long.

You know where it's long? It's Peter Pan. That is long. Oh, forget about it. Yeah, my alarm list has like 75 alarms, but it's only because sometimes when I'm like at a hotel and have to catch a flight, I wake up at 715. And other times I wake up at 740, they're all turned off, but it's a hassle to delete them one at a time. Sure, I understand. And you might want to keep some around, I think David is saying. for sentimental reasons, like that Mr. Toad's alarm is always there in the phone.

He could turn that on at any moment and then it would be reminded to have a memory of going on that ride. Right. I keep a lot of my alarms on for flights that I took with you, John. May I offer some, I don't know what this is called in an actual courtroom. Just outside of the alarm. This is an actual courtroom as your brother will soon remind us. So David is very sensitive.

He's kind of what I would call, I don't know. You're not a hoarder, but you, you have, he's a hard order, it sounds like. That's what I was going to say. He has all of his kids clothes, which is great for me because eventually, eventually, it takes him about. Lisa, I apologize. David, I got to give you props for that dad joke. That was good. Thank you very much.

I missed it. I got to say this. From now on, I'll be delivering any rim shots in this courtroom. No self-rope shot. You lost me a little on the rim shot. You don't have to rim shot. That was good. Alarmist was good.

I usually have to do my own rim shots. So like in a real courtroom. David, he has a hard time letting go of things. I just didn't know that his alarms also fell into the category of sentimentality. Oh, you didn't know until just now. Correct. I just thought they were. He had hidden this part of himself from you.

That's right. I thought they were within the realm of today or future days. But you. You're not hearing the sentimental alarms, nor is that your complaint. That's correct. You're only complaining about the alarms that are on. That's right. I mean, I'm going to complain about it now because I know.

But no, that's not why I originally brought this case forward. All right. So, David, it says here that Lisa, I've made some notes here on my paper towels. It says here that Lisa thinks you're smart, a good older brother. He's a great older brother. And he's also, I mean, I see his life and he juggles a lot. He's got two little kids or they're getting older now. They're kind of self-sufficient.

But he, he, you know, runs the firm. He handles clients. He is the primary parent on a lot of stuff. So, okay, right, smart, good parent, right, Lisa? Yes. You like your brother, right? I do. I love my brother.

I want to hang out with him. He doesn't want to hang out with me. So on this side of the paper towel, it says here that your brother gave you assessment and his one word disorganized. She's more than that. He made a whole YouTube video about it. Let's take a look. Lisa's office is a world unto its own.

My sister has an organizational system that is anything but. I have a very creative system of organization. John, I didn't see a watermark on that video, but I presume it was originally commissioned by Quibi. No, that's from the, that. That's from the law firm. The production values of that video were unbelievable. What is going on? Who's making mobisodes in 2026?

I think it's, I think, Lisa, this has got to be your, I accused your brother of saying you were disorganized, but this joke about your messy desk. It was, this is part of the, got to be part of the marketing department, I would think. It was produced by us, yeah. Yeah, that was funny. Is that your real desk in the? video? So it's not my real desk, just because of lighting and cameras and things like that. My real desk is not too far off of that. It's a real family business. The person who produced that

is actually my husband. So he had a field day making fun of my organizational system because he also does not approve of it. And how would you describe your organizational system? Effective. What are we seeing in this video if we're not watching it on YouTube? And if you're not watching it on YouTube. Why aren't you? Judge John Hodgman Pod, please subscribe. But for the listeners at home, I would you describe your desk? So the desk itself is, is a hodgepodge of various knickknacks and papers where I just don't need to file anything because I kind of know where it sits underneath other things. David, would you say it's messy? Would keep it my lease as an artist. Yeah. That's all you need to know.

David, this is your evidence. You're bringing forward this what aboutism by saying, yeah, I got a lot of alarms, but she's got a lot of post-its. So make your case. All right. So here we go. With the price of a ticket to see the alarm opening for U2 in 1983. Before they played Red Rocks.

That's right. That's right. But here's the thing. Lisa is very bright. And she has a system that works apparently for her, but I don't think would work for many other people. And it's also the kind of system that if you had to come in and fill in for her for the day, you just might as well go home.

Like you couldn't filter your way through it. That's how she makes herself essential. You think she's going to be protected just because she's your sister? She's got to have an obscure filing system so that she cannot be replaced. Thank you. So the military has reached out to Lisa about her code system, which she calls her handwriting, but is probably the most sophisticated system of coding known to man because it's unintelligible. You couldn't break that with the Enigma machine.

I thought you were going to tell me the truth in this courtroom. He's just doing bits. David's just doing bits. Oh, I do love an enigma machine joke, though, honestly. He's afraid of the truth. I'm going to let it slide. I can't handle it. I thought we were talking the truth here.

Lisa, are you ever billing clients? I am not. I am not, I don't ever work really with the clients because we have much brighter and more talented people helping them with their actual legal cases. I am simply on the getting the word out about what we do and who we are and how we can help people side of things. You're not an attorney. I am a, I am a, I went to film school and journalism school. David, are you billing clients? We do a different fee structure. It's called a contingency fee structure, but yes, my job is to provide results for my, clients. The best results I can. So if you're working on contingency, that means that you are generally not billing customers based on your time. That's correct. Okay. When I worked at a law firm, everybody was down to the 10 minutes. It's six minutes. Yeah, 10 an hour. That's right. Wow. And if an alarm had gone off while I was billing someone else, who boy? Lisa's complaint, David, is that your alarms go off too much.

much at work and at home, such that it is distracting to her, and I presume others, but specifically to her. And your counter-complaint is that she's messy. I'm not sure I see what your argument is here. I say that is a way of defending a system, which has served me well over the years. I recognize that it is obtrusive at times to those around me. But the trade-off is I'm getting stuff done. And isn't that important that we achieve what we set out to achieve every day? How do you think you're doing with me right now? You're the expert. You see right through me. Listen. How do you think you're doing? There's an ebb and a flow to this thing we call life. And right now I think I'm ebbing. Yeah, but you don't know that you were flowing.

When you started talking. I told you earlier I was flowing. I'll be the judge of your flow when I said to you what is what is this got what is why are you pointing out Lisa's disorganization as a defense for your own disruption in the office you came back around and boy David did you flow you were like well the point I'm making is we all have

our own peculiar systems and and she has hers and I should be allowed to have mine I was about to stop right there and go Lisa your brother's a good attorney that's a good point You really swayed me there. I was with you. You were flowing. But then the ebb happened because you went on to defend yourself over and over and over again.

But I will say this in the, and I'm saying this with love, David. I just accused you of saying too much, you know, saying more than is necessary. Which Lisa also accuses you of because there's another YouTube video about you that is posted on your, on your, on your official website of your law firm. Let's take a look at that. I've created a manual that goes through step by step all of the things that the babysitter will need to do in order to take care of my kids.

It's about 107 easy pages that walk you through all of the ins and outs of life in our house. How to get the kids to bed. At what level do we keep our dimmable lights? When should you read the children a story? How to turn the television on. This is not a huge manual.

It's more of like a beach read. The photo post. The phone policy. Okay, I think we get the idea. Okay, I feel ambushed. Lisa, did you provide that evidence? Yes or no? I provided that evidence on your behalf.

And what is that evidence there to show? I think David overcomplicated his life. And I think that basically, maybe I see this as an entry point to be able to tell you that there are easier ways and you're still going to do great and keep track of stuff. and maybe you could find a way that would be more fun. Now, wait one second. I don't think that anyone can accuse David of not having fun. I mean, that video, that's not true, David,

that you have a 107-page manual for child care providers. All right. So first of all, I mean, I asked the court for continuance. I presume that that was a very funny joke that you made. It's not. But it's not joke. Go on. Okay.

So first of all, I didn't know this was coming. in a normal court, I would ask for continuance because this was not disclosed. Yes, 100% is real. And it was about 107 pages. And it exists still. Now it's slightly outdated. I haven't gone back and revised it as the kids

have gotten older. But the idea was because I was doing everything by myself with small kids and I needed childcare, I had nannies, I had opairs, I was trying to work full time. I had to have instructions for them to understand how to do every single step of the day with the kids.

And yes, it did include where to set the lights. It did include how to prepare a parfait in the mornings. It did include what channels were appropriate on the radio, what words they had to use. Like, I don't like the F word, for example, F-A-R-T. So my manual had a list of like PG words, but the G-rated word I wanted substituted for those PG words. what's the what's the g rated word for f a rt toot yeah all right this is what i want to talk about too for people who didn't get to see this video which by the way is on your law firm's youtube account it is yes right so all right i i look i i i appreciate you even more david because as as a

parent to now adult children who are whole human beings in their own right yes it is a as as lisa well knows. It's very, if you're putting your kids in the care of somebody else, you want to give them them as much information as you got. Yeah. And it's also fair that you were poking, even though that was serious, you were poking fun at yourself in the video. Were you not, David, a little bit? That's right. The video was poking fun of myself. The manual was real. But now wait a minute, David, I'm a man of the world. I'm a judge of the world. I use some of this new technology. If I'm in the shower and I think of something that I want to remember to do at 35 minutes, I can say, hey, electronic friend, remind me in 35 minutes to call David or watch David's video.

Judge, what happens in 35 minutes? I will get a little boop and a little reminder on the screen of my phone to do it. and it will also be entered into a list of reminders that if I am trying to remember what it is I'm supposed to remember, I can consult the list of reminders and I will know whether or not I've done it. Your Honor, I heard the noise you just replicated. And it was a modest noise. It was a, it was. I don't want to brag about it, but I make great noises. Well, you're a very modest noise maker. That wouldn't alert you if you weren't just almost looking at your phone with the phone in your hand. It's one and done. The radio just keeps going and tell you affirmatively shut it down. Are you familiar with the settled law in this?

Surely you've done some research into the settled law of the court of Judge John Hodgman. Are you familiar with the precedent? If it's not fun for everyone, it's no fun at all? I feel that it could be fun for everyone if we opened our mind a little bit. I mean, I would say that one, one case. of someone not having fun with it, counts as it's not fun for everybody. And that one person

is sitting in front of you and she's your sister. Hi. Lisa, tell me and tell your brother exactly how disruptive this is. Make your case. And feel free to make it as emotional as possible. Okay. So

I think for me, if we're right in the middle of a meeting or even a conversation, when that alarm goes off, you stop talking to me or I think I get put on hold while you deal with your alarm. And I wish that you had a different system because sometimes I feel interrupted. And then it takes a while to get back on track. And then during that pause, I start evaluating sort of, is what I'm saying interesting enough? Can I hold your attention? Should I stop talking about this? I do a lot of introspection when your

alarms go off, which maybe is a good thing. But I think that there's got to be a better system for it so that it's not disrupting the flow of a meeting or the flow of a conversation. Let me understand, Lisa, you're suggesting in your experience that David will police his alarms and interruptions a little bit more with other people who are not his sister. Yes. Do you agree with that? I don't want to mischaracterize you. I don't know. I try to police it no matter if it's with you or with a judge. Yeah, I would hope. Are you in court responding to audible alarms in the middle of your opening and closing statements? I shut them down.

What about when you're meeting with a client? Do you make any adjustments then? Yes, I make adjustments. What are the adjustments you make? I go in ahead of time, mute the alarms, I toggle them off. I set another alarm for when I anticipate that meeting will be over so I could go back in and reactivate the alarms. I temporarily deactivate it. Now, Lisa, through you a lifeline there suggesting that maybe you don't deactivate the alarms when talking with her because you feel so collegial uncomfortable with her.

maybe there's some truth to that. Lisa, let me ask you your opinion. David obviously likes to hold court. Do you feel that David's willingness to interrupt your train of thought and make you feel like you have to put yourself on pause for him and that maybe what you're saying isn't as important to him as, say, a client or whatever? Do you feel like those interruptions are okay and allowed in his view because, A, he's your boss or B, he's your brother?

I think it's more that he's my brother. Yeah. Do these interruptions affect other people at work, Lisa? I think we chuckle about it. I don't think it bothers other people as much as it bothers me, but have you gotten feedback? Does it bother mom? Yeah, how do mom and dad feel?

That's what I want to know. They don't really say much. I went to see them this weekend with Luke, and we paused the movie we were watching. We were watching F1. I took Luke down the hall to go to the restroom. While I was gone, turns out my alarm went off. They sat there listening to radio until I got back.

Now, you would think they did that because they wanted to make sure I didn't forget my alarm. And I think that's probably true. They didn't complain about it. I think they realized it's just part of my system. I turn off the alarms before a meeting with a client, before I go to court because those are defined moments. Lisa just comes to my office.

She comes in to just talk about something. So I don't know when she's just going to show up and want to talk about work stuff, which is fine. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. And so I can't just proactively keep these alarms off in case Lisa shows up to talk. There are some challenges to my system here.

Number one, this alarm doesn't just bother Lisa and it doesn't just go off at times that are inappropriate when we're talking. But it goes off when I'm with friends. I don't have many friends. I've been on dates, though. And it's infrequent. See that manual. That's Exhibit A to why I don't get out on dates much. But I've been on dates.

What is your manual for first dates? What do you hand the person that you're dating? Contract. He has to. A non-disclosure agreement. Anything we talk about. Any alarms that go off. You're out on dates.

Do you turn the alarm off? Yes or no? I try to remember. Sometimes I forgot and they've gone off. You've got to set an alarm to turn off the alarm, obviously. I've set alarms to turn on alarms. I can set alarms to turn off alarms, too. David, do you feel discomfort similar to Lisa's when you enter her horrible raccoon's nest of an office?

this is how it's described to me on this piece of paper towel, a horrible raccoon's nest that says here. I didn't come up with that. I think what has a more visceral impact on me is why enter the world of her hand ride, which is actually more direct with me because I'll see notes, she writes me, things that are work-related, but they are distilled down to a written form. How would you describe it if you were going to describe it?

Is it tight and like small? Is it loose and wobbly? Like, what does it look like? You've seen those devices where they, it's like a little artistic toy for children where you can spin it and it just does wobble like this. And after a while, if you do it at the pattern enough. Is it a spirograph? Yes.

Like a spirograph. Yes. All right. What I'm taking from that is that Lisa's handwriting is radially symmetrical. Let me ask you, Lisa, you know, Not that it necessarily has to be a two-way street. I mean, I might rule that David's behavior is such that he ought to make adjustments without you making any adjustments.

That would be nice. I'm sure you would love that. Yes. But would you consider offering to change your organizational style and or your handwriting style? I'm not asking you to change your handwriting necessarily, but to convey information in non-handwritten form or some other way to address his concerns in return for his addressing yours? To one of them, yes. I think it could be a one for one. I would not do both. Which would you propose? Probably the organizational system. I would rather do that than change the very nature of my written word. Even if it just meant sending an email instead?

I send you emails and text messages. A lot. Oh. Okay. Well, I think I've seen and heard enough in order to make my decision about your obviously flawless system. I'm going to go into my chambers and find a book to throw at one of you. I'll be back in a moment with my verdict. David, Lisa, please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Lisa, how are you for? feeling about your chances right now? You know what? I think I don't feel as good now as I did before. I think that the needing to trade off something makes me feel like this is less about his system and more about our interaction with his system. And so for that, I think he'll be very judicious, but I don't think I'm going to come out winning anything from this. David, you were confident early in the case. How do you feel now? Well, I think this is true with discussing. When you get involved in discovery, it may be on issue B, but really it allows the other side a chance to get into issues B and C and D. There may be some relevance to it. So you did open up

can of worms by bringing me into court by airing this grievance publicly. Now, that said, Jesse, to answer your question, I don't feel great about my chances because I recognize, because I've been hearing complaints about it from her privately for a very long time, that it is a slightly flawed system. It works for me, but it does, you know, cause some tension with my sister. We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about this when we come back in just a moment. Judge John Hodgman, we're taking a break from the case and noting that the Max Fund Drive starts on April 20th. That's right around the corner.

That's right. This is no April Fool's Day joke. It is April now. That means 420 is coming up. And that can mean only one thing. Max Fun Drive, as you say, is right around the corner. Now, if you're new to Judge John Hodgman, we are part of the maximum fun network of your favorite podcasts, which is primarily indeed almost entirely a member supported. What does that mean, Jesse? Well, our show exists because folks who are listening to it go and volunteer to send us a few bucks a month and send all the Max Fun shows that they listen to a few bucks a month. We'll talk more about it during the drive, but we want to make sure that you know that between 420 and International Workers Day, May 1st, we will be asking for you to join Max Funn and we hope that you'll do it. Yeah, if you don't know that ours is a membership, model. That's because we're not talking about it all the time all year long because we're focused on just giving you fun podcast to listen to. It's only once a year that we come to you

for two weeks and ask you to consider becoming a member or upgrading your membership if you already are one. If you subscribe to anybody's Patreon, you understand this idea already, intuitively. This is how we keep the lights on and bringing the podcast to you. So please consider going to maximum fund.org slash join. Not only will you gain the benefit of supporting a podcast and a network that you love. And indeed, I hope you do love it and you should. The maximum fund network is a remarkable collection of podcasts. And to my understanding, the only podcast network that is employee owned. It's cooperative. But also, you will get special stuff, particularly the members only mailbag once a month that will show up in your bonus content feed. That's a special

monthly episode of Judge John Hodgman where Jesse, Jennifer, and I just chew the fat and read your letters on all sorts of subjects also allows you to use that special iconic passphrase to get that message into us so we will read it on the members-only mailbag. And during the Max Fun Drive, we'll be doing live streams. Including John, not only regular fun live streams on our social media channels and our YouTube channel, but also at the end of the drive, the grand finale of the Drive will be a live Judge John Hodgman streamed for free on the Max Fun YouTube that will feature cases between Max Fun hosts. I'm really excited about doing the show. John's flying out to LA for it. It's going to be a real good time. I've already heard about some of the disputes and their quarkers.

So you'll want to watch that live. That also free to everyone on that last day of the drive, May 1st. So get your clicking fingers ready and get ready to click on maximum fun.org slash join or go over to maximum fund.org right now to find out about all of the benefits of being a member and all of the fun live streams and fun we're going to have during the fun drive. It really is a max fun drive. Join us at maximum fund.org slash join. Let's get back to the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict. Lisa and David, you may be seated. So you folks may not know what other folks have learned, which is that my great big gavel that I normally used to pass judgment was confiscated by TSA at the end of our SF Sketchfest show as I was leaving San Francisco and it was a shame to see it go.

But we are working actively right now with Nick Offerman and the fine craftspeople at Offerman Woodshop to craft a brand new big gavel. And in the meantime, I've been selecting books from my office that I've enjoyed to throw at the, I guess, winner of the case because these are real gifts. And this week's book that I'm throwing is The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson. This was sent to me by my friend and editor

Sean McDonald at S. McDee Books. It is a wonderfully magical epic novel of adventure in the South Seas. And it also

glows in the dark, apparently. This hard cover edition, you turn off the lights and the stars glow. Adam Johnson, of course, is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the Orphan Master's Son. The new book is The Wayfinder. I'm sure you've seen and read all about it. It's a terrific novel. And I'm going to use it to pass judgment on you in a moment.

First and foremost, I'm going to say that regardless of my judgment, it is time for both of you to examine your systems. I will start with David to say that your system, I appreciate your sentimental attachment to your system. And I very much love the fact that all of our listeners are going to be reminded by their smartphones in about an hour to send Jennifer a video of how to make a parfait, which is terrific.

I'm so glad that everyone with the sound of your voice is going to get that reminder later on. But I do think that it is, even though you are used to that system, you are too young to become hidebound within it, you know. Like, I understand people reach a certain age in their professional careers, and we are talking about professionalism here, where they're like, I don't want to send an email. Why don't I just keep using my fax machine or whatever it is? I'm used to things the way they are. And when you catch yourself saying that in this life, that's often a good time to take a moment and reflect and be like, hmm, am I really good with how things are or is there a better way? Whether or not it annoys your sister, I think that it is worthwhile to examine whether the system that you have cobbled together using alarms.

And I know that you've said that you've used other productivity apps and so forth. I appreciate that. But clearly there's something's breaking down here. If you know that you have to turn your system off when meeting a client or in court, because you know that it's disruptive, not just to your sister's train of thought, but maybe even your own. I never, ever, ever, ever, ever recommend people. get smart watches. I guess you have one. I am wearing one right now, yes. Right. So you have a,

you have a smart watch. And look, there are people that I'm very close to in my life who have smart watches, who swear by them. And they use them to be less disruptive in their professional lives when they are constantly receiving texts and reminders, because that is the nature of their professional life. Now, how that translates to me, their friend, and this is multiple people. I'm not just talking about one person named Jonathan Colton, but multiple people who are very, very dear friends to me, that when I am spending close personal time with them, they are constantly checking their watches like they're bored with me. Like literally like, uh-huh, like time, time, time to look at this now. And I get it. I'd still prefer that than having a phone go,

do-d-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Oh, let me, hang on, let me remember how to turn this off. Because that is less disruptive than the other thing. And I know that they're busy and I know you are too. I get it. I don't get that many texts. I don't know why. Point is, I think that you could perfect your system. Similarly now I will turn to you, Lisa, and say,

I think that you're, of the two systems that I asked you to consider whether you would reform, you jumped to desk organization. Yes. But, and I would normally, and this is not a ruling, I'm just giving you some feedback. Normally I'd be like, yeah, that sounds fine. Why don't you do that? It would probably be nicer for you if your desk were a little bit more organized. But the thing that really may be paused for a moment, Lisa, and I must be honest with you,

when you said you cannot even read your journals from college because of your own handwriting, you are being denied an important part of your personal record and memory. That is an intrusion on your life that I think is something that you should maybe reflect upon. I know your kids love your spirograph handwriting. I'm sure it's beautiful as decoration. But if the job is, and here I do side with David, if the job is to communicate information, not just to your older brother or to your kids,

but to your future self, well, I think that you, you're, as I have said to young people in my life, your words and ideas deserve to be heard, and understood clearly and preserved properly. So consider that. Okay. As I now turn back to David, David, what happens between you and your sister outside of the office?

I don't care about. That's, as Al Pacino once said, that's between the brothers, Kay. Not interesting to me. It is part, and having never been sibling to myself, I understand that it is part. part and parcel of siblings' lives to drive each other a little batty. And also, you're both parents, you both have a lot on your plates and on your minds.

And I get it that you need to be reminded of all the different things that are going on without doubt. I mean, you could be putting them in a reminders list. You could be writing them down. You could be making a note to yourself. You could be doing like Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life in Tying Strings. to your fingers, but then what happens? You throw, you leave the firm's money in a newspaper so Mr. Potter can steal the town. That's no good. Whatever effective way that you have to remember stuff, if it's effective for you outside of the office, I absolutely have no problem with it,

and I'm sorry if it bothers Lisa, but inside the office, inside the office is a different situation. I don't know what it's like to work with family, like literally work in the, the same business on a day-to-day basis with a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, or whatever. It's just not my thing. But there's important navigation that has to happen. I would imagine in that situation where you have to put on your professional hat and treat each other professionally, not as siblings or sons or daughters or whatever, you know.

Correct. And you know that your system, such as it is, is pretty disruptive to your train of thought and others, and to the moment. So that's why you turn it off when you're meeting with a client or you make an adjustment when you're in a courtroom. And whether or not your mommy and daddy in the law firm are equally as disturbed as Lisa, it should be enough that Lisa is disturbed. She deserves as your colleague to be heard and treated with the same professional respect

that you would treat a judge and a client and other people in the office. And so I am finding in this regard in Lisa's favor and ordering you to do what it takes to turn it off. And Lisa, you can be proactive in this by when you wander into the office, just say, would you mind turning off the alarms for a second? Because I need to talk to you about something. That's fair. That's a, you know, set the tone and set the expectation. But in general, I think that it should be understood that in the context of the office, whether Lisa comes over to you to have a conversation or you go to her, that it is a professional courtesy and obligation to give her your full attention.

And that means either revising or turning off, revising your current system or turning it off for the period of the conversation. But I do encourage Lisa to take a look at your handwriting. If you can't, if you can't read it, that's a, that's a problem. If you can read it, I don't care. But if you can't read your own handwriting, you deserve to remember what you're thinking about. All right, I'm throwing the book then, I guess at, I'm throwing the book at David, but Lisa, you're going to get the book because you won the case. Okay. And you can share it as a brother and sister.

This is the sound of a book pretending to be a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all. David, Lisa, please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Lisa, how are you feeling about this decision? I feel good about it in the sense that I feel validated somewhat, and I think there's hope for our future in meetings. I feel properly, I don't want to say scolded, but reminded that I'm in charge of environments as well, and I probably should do more to prepare you that I'm coming in for a meeting. So that was worth noting. David, how are you feeling about the verdict?

I feel it's fair. I suspected that this would happen. I think it's probably been a long time coming. Well, David, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on Judge John Hodgman. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We'll have swift justice in just a second. Our thanks first to Redator SJ Hamilton 43 for naming this week's episode. If you want to name a future episode, go to our slash maximum fun on Reddit. That's where we ask for the names. And it's fun to just see the names, even if you're not suggesting one. evidence and photos from the show are posted on our Instagram account. That's Judge John Hodgman.

We're also on TikTok and YouTube where you can catch full video on YouTube and video clips and special stuff on TikTok. Those are both at Judge John Hodgman pod. Speaking of YouTube, as I have mentioned incessantly full episodes are available on video at our YouTube at Judge John Hodgman pod, as are a variety of online. online YouTube-only extras, including little essays from Jesse Thorne. It's also a place where you can leave us direct comments. It brings us to the YouTube comment of the week. Now, our producer Jennifer Marmer, had a terrific idea. Why don't we choose the comment from our recent episode, Swing and Amiss,

in which I challenged the commenters to guess the Tom Wait song that I sang when I first lay eyes on my infant daughter, the first time she and I were alone. and she was put into my arms. And my wife is a wholly in her own right was taken away for some medical attention. And I was sitting there having been an infant dropped into my literal lap and arms. And I thought, Jennifer was like, well, we should, we should feature the YouTube comment of the week, the guessed the correct song. Well, guess what? No one got it right.

No one. Wow. You don't know me. You don't know me, do you? That said, I want to give shout out to some, probably. not all. Zoe K.H.7W. guest, I can't wait to get off work to see my baby on Montgomery Avenue by Tom Waits. Velvet Cheese Man guest Time by Tom Waits from the album Rain Dogs, which I just sang at one of our night court shows. That is one of my favorite songs. That was wrong.

Benjewal guest Picture in a Frame. Brian Para 2-1-4 guest Innocent When You Dream, not the only one to guess that beautiful Tom Waits song. Georgia Lee was Alf Tuba's guess. There were very, very many, and excuse me, my guess is Tom Wait's Lullaby, Nobody from 1975, live album, Nighthawks at the Diner. It was recorded as though it were live. There was actually in a studio with a live studio audience.

That was jizzy poop. 2244. I love that name. Jizzy poop. I can't wait to get off work. Another guest Rumble Spike's game. You get it. Go on over there.

I am not going to reveal what the song is. The prize is still available to the one who guesses. Wow. You can see everything that's been eliminated over there at our episode, Sue Wing, and a mistrial. That was our dispute, Jesse, between two high school teachers over which is better baseball or softball. It's a fun episode, and you should check it out. So, sorry about that. But thank you for all of your YouTube comments of this week and more.

Please make sure to go over to the Judge John Hodgman pod YouTube channel and subscribe. It really, really helps us to reach new listeners if you subscribe. It costs nothing. And I did notice that the Judge John Hodgman YouTube channel only has a couple more thousand subscribers than the law firm in Colorado belonging to our litigants this week. So come on, come on, everybody. Get over there and subscribe. Let's get us up to 10K. And of course, leave your comments, leave your responses, share it.

And let someone in your life know about Judge John Hodgman, whether it's via YouTube, social, media or just person to person, it really helps people discover the show. Thank you. Judge John Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode engineered at Dialed Studios in Denver, Colorado. Megan Razadi runs our social media, the podcast edited by A.J. McKee, and our video editor is Daniel Spear and our producer, Jennifer Marmer. Okay, you ready for swift justice, John? I am ready. Okay. Bolton Nerdist on the MaxFun subreddit. That's a classic Max Fun Subreditor. We often hear from Balton Nerdist. Baltimore, great. I live with Sophia and her daughter, Dorothy. I usually make dinner for the household when I get off work,

but Sophia always wants to eat an hour before I'm ready to prepare dinner. She pesteres me until I cave and gets her daughter riled up as well. I seek an injunction that if I am not done with work, the two of them also have to wait. Oh, also they are cats. Okay. That changes things somewhat. Yeah. I am long past the point where I have tried and failed and tried and failed and

ultimately given up on the possibility of reasoning with cats. You can't reason with them. They are going to rile each other up for that food. And I'm just, you know, I have honestly. it is after being a cat person for basically my whole life and being responsible for feeding a cat for most of those years, I only now have learned to tell the cat to shut up. I've only now learned to say to the cat, shut up, I'll feed you when I'm ready. Shut up. I'm not cruel about it. I don't say shut up. I'm like, it'll be fine. You poke the cat with a stick, like poke, poke, poke.

My first cat was named Poki. I named that cat. Actually, my first cat was named Fluffy, then Poki. Anyway, yeah, just ignore them. Eat when you want to eat. Do work when you want to work. Close the door. They'll get it eventually.

You know how long it took for our cat, Lola the Dum Dum Cat, to realize I was no longer going to be putting. A listener had suggested this little maze that you can drop treats into. It's like a three-dimensional maze that encourages cats and dogs to eat more slowly, right? Because they have to sort of fish out the food. And I would put treats in that maze. And I initially Lolo was too dumb to use it. And our daughter put it out on the stoop with a sign that said our cat is too dumb to use this. And I brought it back in in order to show our daughter that, in fact, Lolo could learn to use it. And she got very good at using the maze and getting those treats out.

and then we realized that all she ever wanted to eat were those treats, and she begged for them all the time, and she wasn't eating her real food and had to go. And it took months before she finally understood I wasn't going to be putting the maze down. The maze is in the garbage for now for life. And I wasn't putting in those food, but it took her months to understand it, but eventually after months, she forgot about it. And so your cats will adjust to Walter Nurtist.

Tell Sophia and Dorothy, great name for cats, especially mother-daughter cats. Thank you for being a friend, but you got to wait to eat. Hey, April Fool's. It is April Fool's Day when you're hearing it. I guess the joke is I'm recording it several weeks before that. But it is April Fool's Day.

I would love to hear about the pranks in your life that have gone wrong. Pranks, hoaxes, goofs, deceptions. Have you been pranked? did you prank someone and they didn't like it? Did your co-worker set up a bucket of water to pour on you when you walked into your office? That would be terrible. Did your friends abandon you and let you take the fall when you pranked the college dean? You ever hear about that?

Jesse Thorne, the phenomenon of pranking the dean? Yeah, I heard about that. I heard about that with my friends Jordan, Jim, and Lauren. Yeah, you were all part of a comedy sketch group called Prank the Dean. Did you guys ever have any disputes? Is there a practical joker in your life that you are begging to put an end to their endless tricks? Anything to do with pranks, disputes? Do you have a disagreement over what to watch in the hotel room?

Nine hours of impractical jokers or 35 hours of impractical jokers because it's the only thing on a hotel TV? I don't know. Send me your April Fool's Day. Send me your April Fool's Day disputes. And you know what? I'm going to open this up to fake disputes. You know what? make up a dispute that some trick me into believing that something is true by the time we get

these disputes i will have forgotten that this was an aprilful's day episode so send me in your in your in your in your phony disputes prank prank me i'm your dean john hodgeman i don't know interpreted it as you well but send them in please won't you at maximum fun dot org slash jh oh and of course no matter what your dispute is we want to hear about it go to maximum fund dot org slash JJHO to share it with us. It is, of course, the lifeblood of our program. And you know what? If you don't have a dispute, if you think you don't have a dispute, go mess with somebody. That's what I say. We need your case. Politely. We need your, poke it with a stick. We need your cases at maximum fun.org

slash JJHO. And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Owned Shows. Supported. Directly. By you.