Judge John Hodgman - Panta-Lunacy

Episode Date: October 12, 2011

Seth and Stephen are colleagues in a Broadway show.  They bring a case of Lost and Found, Finders and Keepers, and Losers and Weepers.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, pantaloonacy. Seth and Steven are colleagues in a Broadway show. During their rehearsal period, Seth noticed a handsome pair of pants lying on the floor of their rehearsal studio. Assuming that it belonged to someone else, he left it behind. After several months, he plucked the pants from a lost and found box, presuming then that they were abandoned. Then one day, Seth's co-worker Steven accused him of stealing the pants, and things only got more contentious from there. In this case of finders and losers, who will keep and who will weep. Only one man can decide. Please rise as

Judge Sean Hodgman enters the courtroom. All of you know what I stand for, what I believe. I believe in the truth of the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua's Judges. Swear him in, Jesse. Gentlemen, please rise and lift 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 he has not worn pants since 1982?

I do. Very well. Judge Hodgman. Thank you very much, Bailiff Jesse. Nice to see you again in podcast vision. I'm back and I'm stronger than ever. We do need a strong bailiff in this one. Gentlemen, please stop pressing buttons on your computers.

Yes, sir. Okay. Stop fiddling with switches. This is a time of judgment. You both claim to be Broadway actors. Yes, sir. Do you recognize the Broadway play that I was quoting when I yelled at the top of the podcast? Could it be 12 Angry Men?

That was what first came to mind. Close, close one. Close, very close. It is a courtroom drama. Inherit the Wind? Inherit the Wind it is. Who was that there we go i was gonna guess annie got your gun yeah sure weirdly it was also in spider-man turn off the

dark i don't know why which one of you guessed correctly that was seth me set okay. I'm putting you in the guessed correctly column. This is an unusual court of law in that if you answer trivia questions, you're more likely to win. I didn't even have to read the second quote. I would have given it away, Stephen. He said that men sort of evoluted from old world monkeys. You hear that, friends? Old world monkeys. You hear that, friends? Old world monkeys. According to Bertram Cates,

we don't even descend from good American monkeys. Now, which Broadway play is it from, Stephen? You heard the one. Okay, now you're even. Geez, I was going to say, Annie got your gun again. Well, in that case, you'd be right. The scales of justice are balanced.

I'm ready to hear this case. Seth, you are bringing this complaint to the court. Is that correct? That is correct, Your Honor. All right, Seth, you are the one who took these pants? That is correct. All right, explain to me. You are both actors in a Broadway play.

That is correct, yes. And are you at liberty to tell me which play? I am. I wasn't sure whether I should do that. I know how much you abhor buzz marketing on your podcast, but we are in the play War Horse, which is currently running on Broadway. Oh, my goodness. Really?

At Lincoln Center Theater. Yes, that's right. Now, either one of you is going to help me get tickets to that show, right? Absolutely. So in no way am I going to be biased. And can one of you guys get me tickets to Annie Got Your Gun? I'm putting them in the house seat form right now.

Thank you. Whenever that play comes back to Broadway, we'll be sure to get you in there. So you guys are in this Broadway show about steampunk robot horses in a war. And you were rehearsing for this program. Are you guys actors or are you horse puppeteers in this show, War Horse? Well, I am exclusively an actor. I do no puppeteering in the play, although I have a fair amount of interaction with the puppets. But Stephen fills both roles. He has several small roles in the ensemble and also is one of the main puppeteers of the main horse

in the show. The main horse in the show. All right. But both of you are required to wear pants in the show? Yes, a new requirement. Okay. All right. So go ahead then, Seth, explain in your words what happened here. All right. Well, we work at Lincoln Center Theater, which is one of the few theaters on Broadway that has rehearsal facilities in the same building as where the play is performed. Most places rehearse somewhere else and then move to their theater. But we have both in the same building. A little braggy there, but go on. Exactly.

Well, we spent a couple of months in rehearsal in our rehearsal room. And then when we moved into our tech rehearsal, we moved on to the stage. So we moved from downstairs in the rehearsal room to upstairs on stage. And people sort of left things behind down in the rehearsal room, knowing that they'd have plenty of time to go back and retrieve them. And our stage management continuously reminded us to go down and pick up the things that we had left behind, you know, scripts or mugs or whatever had been left behind. So I went down to pick up my things. What did you leave behind, scripts and mugs? I believe I had left, yeah, maybe a couple of books from research and pencils and things like that.

We had our own cubby where art we could keep our things in the room because being on it being on a Broadway show is very much like being in pre kindergarten very very similar I can imagine so I'm sure you are not trusted and you were told where to sit all the time pretty much so you know I was gathering my things. Right. Your books. Your books. A little braggy again. Right. It's fine. I do read a little bit.

Anyway, so I was picking up my stuff and I noticed the few other things that had still been left behind. And one of the things that I noticed was this pair of pants, which is, you know, it's a pair of linen-y. I'll ask you to describe the pants in a moment. Let's just get to the crux of the matter. Okay, very good. Yes, so I noticed them there, but I was sure that... So you noticed some pants that didn't belong to you. Exactly.

They were left behind. Yeah, yeah, and I said to myself, well, I'm sure someone is going to come and retrieve them. They must belong to someone. And since you were an actor, you probably said that to yourself out loud, right? Yeah. Did you turn to the audience and say, I'm sure someone will be back anon to retrieve these pantsaloons?

I did, and I tried it in a few different accents to figure out which was the best. I don't remember which I landed on. Look, you may be mad north by northwest, but you can tell a hand from a hacksaw. Indeed. I think that's it. I don't know. I just did that off the top of my head podcast listeners so easy oh and just let me pause for a second podcast listeners thank you i got it okay the helicopter that carries the president around is marine one not air force two

you may stop emailing me now understood I messed up. Okay, so you saw these pants lying around. You didn't claim them at that point for yourself? No, I didn't. I trusted that whoever they belonged to would come and find them and reclaim them as their own. So I left them alone there. How long did you leave them alone? Approximately just a little less than four months after I had initially seen them in the rehearsal room and they were still lying in this box in our green room,

I decided that whoever had left them had abandoned them, forgotten about them. All right, now it is time for someone else to talk. So just so that I understand, you saw the pants abandoned, you forgot about them. And roughly four months after that, they were still in the box? Well, three months after I saw them in the box first, four months total from the first time that I saw them. So four months, so are you trying to point out that War Horse is a very successful long running show? We have been running for a while, and hopefully for a while longer. Whoa. All right. You went too far. The box was, what kind of box? Was it a cardboard box? It's a plastic bin.

A plastic bin. And this plastic bin is where you put all the things that are unclaimed together, so that all the bed bugs have one place to live? Also known as a lost and found box? That's correct. Okay. So this was a lost and found box. Correct.

Steven? Yes. These are your pants? They are my pants. I mean, they were your pants. Now the ownership is... They are no longer in my possession. They are no longer in your possession.

Why don't you care about your pants? Well, I concede the fact that I misplaced them and forgot about them for some time. How do you misplace your pants? The thing that I disagree with Seth on is... How do you misplace pants? Well, actually... Look, I understand that you are a member of the ensemble and an occasional puppeteer. Yes.

And I understand that because you are in show business, you are constantly taking off your clothes for professional and personal reasons. Well, actually. But what happened? What was the situation in which you forgot your pants someplace? Because I'll tell you something. If that happened in my life, that would be a real problem. Certainly.

In fact, I'll tell you something right now. I had a dream last night. If I were to leave my pants behind someplace, that would be a nightmare. Literally, I had a dream last night, a nightmare, in which I was at my friend John Roderick's house, where I've never been, in Seattle, and he had a swimming pool, and I went swimming in the pool, and then decided that I would take the subway home to my apartment in

Manhattan from Seattle. And it was on the subway that I realized I was just wearing a towel. And then I woke up screaming screaming and that was a dream most people I look I'm wealthy in a lot of ways and luck and good fortune and obviously money but I'm not pants rich or at least not so much that I'm gonna be leaving them around in rooms so I'm gonna ask you this one time. And I want an answer that is clear. How did you come to leave your pants behind in this public space? Because they were pants I used for rehearsal. I couldn't use blue jeans in rehearsal because of the extensive... Oh, because of the dress code. No, no. Now I understand. Because yes,

because the rehearsal room is formal only. It's like the magic castle, basically. Right. So like many people in the cast, I had clothes that I used for rehearsal, which are very free to move in and stuff like that. So I had three pairs of pants that I wore typically in rehearsal for those purposes. And one of those pairs of pants, the blue pants, I left behind. I didn't leave them in my cubby because when the announcements were made to go pick up your stuff, I did go down. I went to my cubby. I cleared that out completely. I don't want to hear any. You know what, guys? Seriously, the whole cubby issue is not only

confusing to me and thus to the podcast listening audience, but I don't want to hear grown men talking about their cubbies. I find that really unseemly. You know what I mean? Like, if you have to refer to something, say locker. But I need to stop you now because I just need a point of clarification. Let's stipulate. The pants that are in dispute, are these the blue pants?

Yes. Okay, the blue pants are the ones in dispute. One of the many pairs of pants that you would carry around with you in order to be free and easy in the rehearsal room. Is that correct? I had a few pairs at rehearsal in my locker. How many backup pants do you usually have in life? I had three pairs of workout pants there. Are these hammer pants? Like ease of movement?

No, they're like gym pants. And then I had the pair of linen pants as well. Okay, so the blue pants. Now we'll get to the description of the pants, because I do feel I need to know now. We are talking about the blue pants, which are made of linen. They are not obviously gym pants, because only I go to the gym in linen. Well, you and literary celebrity Tom Wolfe. That's right. Well, we're at the same gym.

Okay, so they're blue linen pants. Are they elastic waist? No. They have a drawstring waist. Whoa, okay. Drawstring waist? Do they have pockets? They do, yeah.

Okay, I'm just trying to determine whether these are pants or weird pajamas. Where are they from? What brand are they? I got them at H&M. H&M. Hang on, I'm just going to try to look. You didn't send in a picture, did you? I did send in, as my evidence, I sent in a picture of myself wearing the pants,

and I believe Stephen might have done as well. I sent in pictures as well, yeah. Okay, excuse me. Let me check here. Oh, here we are. Yeah. Okay. Excuse me.

Let me check here. Oh, here we are. Okay. I see here a nice picture of a man reading the book, The Areas of My Expertise. Oh, what a... In an actorly pose. This will be posted on the website, MaximumFun.org. And wearing, okay, I see now these blue linen drawstring pants, weird hybrid pants. They kind of look like jeans at first glance until you realize.

They do, yeah. And they seem to fit. And then there's a picture of utter squalor. Poor dude sitting around a hookah. Where are the pants in this picture? I don't see them anymore. I'm wearing them on the left side of the picture. They're rolled up.

They're pretty loose, so you can roll them up and wear them as shorts too a little bit. Wait a minute. All right. First of all, just a little – people can go to the MaximumFun.org website and check these photos out for themselves. Four dudes in what looks to be a squalid hookah house sitting around a hookah, where I suppose they're smoking tobacco legally. There are a bunch of wall-to-wall carpeting and bed bug ridden, secondhand reclining sofas of various colors and textures. A Fight Club poster and a Back to the Future poster on the wall. I would imagine stuck onto that wall with that disgusting blue sticky poster tacky stuff. Right.

The most depressing torchiere lamp in the corner that I've ever seen with a bare bulb sticking out of it. the corner that I've ever seen with a bare bulb sticking out of it. No less than two pair of disgusting flip-flops abandoned on the floor. And even worse, it looks like a cheap Circulon pot sitting on the floor. John, what you're seeing is the legendary Marathon Party House from Syracuse University. Okay. Which is, of course, the feeder school to all of our finest Broadway plays. Syracuse University is kind of the Juilliard of Syracuse.

It is. The point that I'm trying to say here, this does not look like a scene from fame. No, no, no. This looks like a scene from Breaking Bad. This looks like Jesse's house from Breaking Bad. And you, meanwhile, are reclined on this weird, suede, lazy boy sectional sofa with your beloved blue linen H&M pants. And then there's another picture of you walking around with your shirt off. Actually, that's Seth. And that picture is a little bit more.

Well, that makes more sense because Seth is so braggy. And he's the one who would have it. This is one of the many times that Seth waltzed in and, wearing my pants and... Shall we just say the pants? Yes, the pants, parading them around

and insulting me and teasing me in front of our castmates about his conquering of the... He's flaunting the pants and his weird hairless actorly body. Exactly, yeah. Because he's Braggy Seth. Yes.

Braggy Seth, where did you go to college? I'm a little embarrassed to say because you called Syracuse the Juilliard of... I went to Juilliard. You went to Juilliard. Do you think you're better than Steven? Absolutely not. Not in any way. But you went to Juilliard, right?

I did. And he went to Animal House University. He probably had more fun. And you took pains to point out at the beginning that you are an actor only. And then you made pains to point out that Stephen is a member of the ensemble. And worse, a puppeteer. Oh, my gosh. Well, I would say, I mean, I've always, and Stephen will back me up on this,

I've always made a point of saying that the horses are the real stars of our show. Look. And Stephen is one of those. Yeah. You know what? You're right. Anyone should go on the Internet right now if they haven't seen this show and look up these horses that are puppets in this show. It is astonishing.

I happened to see this horse at the TED conference, and my mind was blown, and so was Al Gore's. But I haven't seen the show yet. So I'm counting on one of you. Hey, man, you got it. Thank you. Stephen, so you went to Syracuse. What did you study there? Puppeteering?

I studied acting as well. No, I'm actually an actor by trade as well. Oh, an actor by trade. Not by art. Not by art. No, no. By trade. I'm a common tradesman.

A journeyman. Humble tradesman. A humble tradesman. The humblest of trades, I dare say. Indeed it is. You know, I have a new policy where every case of Judge Shen Hodgman is now going to come down to class warfare. Okay. When did you figure out that Seth was walking around wearing pants that you had left behind out of your cubby?

The first time I saw him wearing them, I said, those are my pants, at which point he ran from the room. Do you have a cognitive disability where you can only recognize your own clothing when it is being worn by someone else? Yes, I do. Did you notice that your pants were missing for the four months that you did not have them in your possession? I did notice that they were missing.

Now, this is during the point where we were rehearsing. Just please answer my questions. Where did you think they were? I Now, this is during the point where we were rehearsing. Did you? I mean, just please answer my questions. Where did you think they were? I actually thought they were at home, and I was looking at home primarily. I thought I'd brought them home. Right, because you're leaving pants. I did look at the theater as well. You could be looking anywhere for your pants.

Sure. My pants. Where could I possibly have left my pants? There are so many places. So many chances for me to take my pants off. It could be anywhere. Let me retrace my steps. I woke up this morning and took a pair of pants off, so it could have been there.

And then I drove in to the theater, and I took my pants off in my car, so I got to check my car. The other point that I think is important is that I was not aware that we had a lost and found. Otherwise, I definitely would have looked in it. So you were not aware that you had left the pants behind? No, I knew that I had misplaced them and I was looking for them, but I didn't know that at the theater we had a lost and found in the green room. Did you make any effort to ask around if anyone had seen your pants in the theater? I had been asking around. I had been looking, but I...

Can you present any evidence that you had been looking around? You can interview my girlfriend if you'd like. She can attest to the fact that I wasn't. Oh, I will be interviewing your girlfriend. No, I appreciate, Stephen, that as an actor in a Broadway play, it is very important to you to remind everyone that you have a girlfriend. I will verify that. Are you there?

But did you put up any posters? I didn't. I hadn't gotten to the point of putting up posters yet. You knew they were missing, and you're asking me to take on faith that you were looking for them. And then the first time it occurred to you that you might have left them behind in the theater was the moment that Braggy Seth walked through with his shirt off going, check out my new pants. That was the first time you put two and two together and realized you had left them behind? But like I said, I hadn't found them up until that point or hadn't checked and lost and found. Seth, when Stephen saw you wearing the pants and said, those are my pants,

is it true that you ran guiltily from the room? Not exactly. my pants, is it true that you ran guiltily from the room? Not exactly. What happened was, when I first found the pants, there were several other castmates around me, and I asked the people around me if they thought it was a good idea for me to take the pants. I explained how long they had been lost. And your cast members, of course, said,

no, those pants are garbage. It is weird for you to wear abandoned pants. You went to Juilliard. It is not that bad. You will do okay in life. You do not need to stoop to this. Look at the label. If you like those pants, I think H&M probably has a store somewhere where you can buy pants for the $2 that they are selling them for.

Well, in fact, my good friend and castmate, Ian, who's another actor in the play, encouraged me to take the pants. He thought that whoever they had belonged to had abandoned them, and so he encouraged me to do so. So I took them, and then later that day, I was wearing them and went into Ian's dressing room where there were a few guys sitting around playing cards, Stephen being one of them. And Ian asked me. I wasn't showing them off intentionally or making a point about them.

Ian asked me, hey, how are those pants working out for you? They look good on you or something to that effect. That was how the attention was called to them. And then Steven looked up and said, hey, those are my pants. And I did not run screaming from the room. I said, correction, they used to be your pants, they're my pants now. But I felt a lot of tension building up from Steven, a lot of anger, so I decided to remove myself from the situation.

By running. I don't recall- So I decided to remove myself from the situation. By running. I don't recall. There were other instances where Stephen was physically threatening me while I was wearing the pants where I may have run away from him at other instances. Physically threatening? Like what? Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, it's Seth's turn to talk. Yes.

How did Stephen physically threaten you? Something should be said. We grew up together. I've known Stephen since I was 12 or 13 years old, so we've always had a rather... But Stephen always lived on the other side of the tracks, right, Julio? Would you sneak his family food in the winter? Stephen and I have always had a very brotherly guy sort of rough-housy relationship.

So, you know... As you would expect from any pair of Broadway actors. Exactly, exactly. And that relationship continues to this day, but I would say Stephen is physically stronger than me being a puppeteer and a guy who works out quite a lot.

Did he actually physically, did he say, I'm going to punch you in the nose if you don't give those back? No, no, he actually, he does this thing where he sort of tickles people, but it actually kind of hurts. He tickles very rigorously. Right.

A Broadway fight. I get it. Exactly. Right. Okay. Backstage Broadway fight. But how did it end up that, you know, you knew each other, you did plays together, and then one of you went to the amazing Juilliard school from the other one the other one applied to a community college

and got a degree in talking loud and now and now you both end up in the same Broadway play except Steven is like watching you on stage from behind a fake horse. Stephen, are you stalking Seth? What's going on? How does this happen in life that you guys end up in the same production? It is pretty remarkable that we ended up in the same production after growing up together and kind of going separate ways. Yeah, it is pretty amazing.

But this is the first time that you have reuned in this way? Yeah, it's the first time we've worked together since we were about 13 or 14 years old. But we have remained friends and seen each other frequently throughout that period of time. Oh, okay.

I think I have all the information I need to make my decision. I'm going to go into chambers. Seth and Stephen, you can talk to Bailiff Jesse Thorne. Seth, try not to be too braggy. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Seth, Stephen, the judge framed this as a matter of class warfare. Seth, would you say that you're practicing a sort of reverse redistribution of wealth? You know, I'm really not sure how an idea of class warfare made it into this kind of case.

But I don't think I'm doing anything of the sort. I think I just found some cool pants and I want to keep them. Steven, I think we can all agree that you're the kind of guy that we'd like to have a beer with. How does it feel to have your pants so cruelly taken away from you? Well, you know, I thought it was all in good fun. I think Seth's head is fun, but I do think that the pants need to revert back to their original order.

I mean, you were so poor that you had to use these pants both as pants and as shorts. I did. They're the only clothing that I had for my lower body for quite some time. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman reenters the court. Well, this is a tough one. Rich versus poor. Well, this is a tough one. Rich versus poor.

This is a tough one because I really did go into this feeling very moved by Seth's argument. First of all, because he recognized the inherit the win quote. Second of all, because there was a clear, I mean, look, I don't ever encourage anyone to wear clothes out of Lost and Found. Because it's gross. I mean, you are basically wearing garbage. And those things do then to consider fresh. This now is ownerless and it belongs to me. There is always that case that while abandoned, it may belong to somebody else.

However, while I don't necessarily, I would never take this path myself. Oh, wait a minute. I did do that once. Sorry, I have to reconsider my whole decision now. For example, I have a scarf that I recovered from the lost and found at the Coolidge Corner movie house in Brookline, Massachusetts, where I grew up. It went unclaimed for a long time, and it's a beautiful scarf. I've had it now for almost 20 years, and I still own it today.

And it still haunts my neck with the memory of another owner. But all the same, there can be no question that my scarf and these pants were effectively unclaimed for a reasonable period of time, that they had become public property, and that there was no question in my mind going into this that Seth, the one who knows all the lines from Inherit the Wind, and the Juilliard graduate, was not in error in choosing to put garbage pants on his body and wear them around as though they were new. And I expected to be completely unmoved, Stephen, by your arguments. But let's face it, your hardscrabble, common-sense, newsy-style arguments. But let's face it, your hardscrabble, common sense, newsy style arguments from your street smarts kind of wore me down a little bit. Because at the end of the day, you guys have known each other for a long time. that you did not know that you take terrible care of your pants.

Not just your belongings, but your pants. Things that should not be leaving one's body under normal circumstances without going into a pool or copulating. You are losing pants

left and right to the point where you wouldn't even know where to begin to look. While I found that to be bizarre and frankly embarrassing, given your precarious financial position as a person from the poor suburb of St. Paul, who could only go to Syracuse in order to study acting, it's still, in its embarrassment, it convinced me of your sincerity

that you honestly didn't know where your pants were. And it was not until they strode into the room on Braggy Seth's long Juilliard-trained legs that you realized exactly where they were on the body of your friend. realized exactly where they were on the body of your friend. And at that point, I have to say that if you are wearing something from Lost and Found, even if it has been unclaimed, reasonably unclaimed for a long period of time, and someone sees you wearing this thing and says, you know what, that's mine. I lost that a long time ago. And you have every reason to believe that they're telling the

truth, including photographic evidence. And especially if that's someone that you've grown up with, you ought to give it back. Life is too short to be going around wearing pants of indeterminate length and indeterminate ownership. That's weird. Therefore, I am compelling Seth to take his pants off because they are not his pants anymore and give them back to his old, poor, orphaned friend, Stephen, so that he will have something to wear because the guy is losing pants left and right. And you, Juilliard, you're going to go on to great things.

You're going to follow in the footsteps of other Juilliard graduates like Robin Williams. That guy owns a lot of comfortable pants. This is the sound of a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Seth, just as Stokely Carmichael took on both the class system and the world of American race, so did Judge John Hodgman take on both class and the world of American pants.

How are you feeling after this brutal rebuke? Well, I got to say I'm a little disappointed to part with the pants. I've grown fond of them, but I trust Judge Hodgman's brilliance, and I will return the pants this evening when Stephen and I show up for our performance. Do you think you'll ever be able to find the $19 that they cost at the discount clothe or H&M? I'll see what I can do. Maybe I can find a matching pair, and Stephen and I can wear them when we hang out.

Stephen, it sounds like this was quite the turnaround for you. Were you surprised by the decision? I am, yes, especially judging by Judge Hodgman's initial feelings about the case. Have you considered joining the IWW, the Wobblies? No, what's that? International Workers of the World. Oh, no. It's a trade union.

Jesse, Jesse, you can't. You know what? You can't. He didn't go to a left-leaning Ivy League college like you did. Or me. This guy is from the streets. He doesn't know the history of the IWW. John, the union makes us strong.

I know that you and your leather elbow, tweed jacketed wearing leftist professors like to talk about the wobblies all day long. This guy is making a hard scrabble living as a puppeteer. He doesn't have time to read all that stuff. He's not going to know what you're talking about. Maybe I didn't get a complete picture of the world from my ivory tower at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Here's the thing. I made this judgment truly, I mean, completely unbiased because I knew I was going to get free tickets to the show either way.

It's a show that I've wanted to see for a long time. And I, and I knew that if I went with Seth Juilliard trained actor, I'd probably get house seats. If I get tickets from, uh, from Steven, I'm probably going to have to watch the show from inside a fake horse.

You know what they say, judge Hodgman, there's no business like show business. Annie, get your gun herbert fields irving berlin dorothy fields 1946 sinner give that man your pants inherit the wind we'll see you next time on the judge john h Hodgman, it is so nice to be back in the courtroom after my

brief sabbatical. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's such a mess, Jesse. It's not been the same without you here to pick up my mugs and handkerchiefs. I've gotten a lot of email complaints about this Jack character. Jake was great, but he wouldn't clean up my

mugs and my pants and put them in my cubby the way I like and all my smashed gavels. The only cubby that he appreciates is his cubby on Air Force One. And Marine One. Yeah, sorry. Shall we clear the docket, Jesse? Here's a question

from Sarah. She says, My husband, Matt, believes that there is a statute of limitations, his exact words, on how long you can leave an item in the fridge, freezer, or pantry before it becomes public property and safe to poach. As there are only two of us living in our home, it means that he is the one that poaches said public property foodstuffs from me. His logic continues even to items that he has bought specifically for me, such as cake for my birthday or Valentine's Day chocolates. What?

Oddly, his internal judgment of when an item has been left for too long without being eaten varies, giving me no warning as to when he might eat something that is specifically mine. This issue mostly occurs with sweets, but he has been known to extend his methodology to other foods. The hot-button food that seems to be the most frustrating for Matt is ice cream. We'll buy separate flavors, and he'll eat his in two servings, and I will eat mine over the course of weeks in small portions. The ice cream in the freezer calls to him, taunting him to eat its remains.

First of all, you're married, so you share property, technically. There is a statute of limitations after which food in the refrigerator becomes public property. That is when it becomes spoiled, disgusting garbage and should then be thrown away by either one of you. The light of day is the best disinfectant. You ought to see what you look like, sir, under the light of your kitchen light at three o'clock in the morning when you're eating your wife's birthday cake and shoving her frosted name down your throat. That is not seemly, sir. Stop it.

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