Judge John Hodgman - Power of My Turny

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Garrett and Kara like to play board games together. Early in their relationship, they agreed to one rule: They will not harm each other’s gameplay. This way, they can keep their game nights relaxed and friendly. Kara, a former Texan, wants to spice things up a bit by going back to a more aggressive form of play. Garrett, a conflict-avoidant midwesterner, is worried that competition will ruin their good time! Is Kara actually a sore loser, or is Garrett afraid of what might happen when he unleashes his inner beast? Our "And I'm Gay" t-shirt is STILL AVAILABLE! Don't know what that means? Listen to last week's episode, JUGGERNAUT, LEST YE BE JUDGED, and fall in love with litigants Patty and Cordelia like we did. Then buy the shirt commemorating Patty’s stunning poem, “The sky is blue / the grass is green / I love X-MEN / and I’m gay.” With gorgeous art by Sonny Ross, this shirt is available for a limited time! You have until April 3 so get over to MaxFunStore.com now! Thanks to reddit user u/Halfloaf 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! 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, Power of My Turny. Garrett brings the case against his wife, Kara. Garrett and Kara like to play board games together. Early in their relationship, they agreed to one rule. They will not harm each other's gameplay. This way, they can keep their game nights relaxed and friendly. But Kara wants to start playing more aggressively. She says a little competition can be fun. Garrett is a conflict avoidant midwesterner. He wants to keep the peace. 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. You see, there is no such thing as words with friends. There is only scrabble with enemies. Bailiff, Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in. Garrett and Kara please. rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God, or whatever. I do. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John

Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that I don't even, I don't play any games at all because it only gets you in emotional trouble? I do. I suppose. Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. Kara and Garrett, in Salt Lake City, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment. In one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom? We'll start with you, Garrett. It's not ringing any bells for me, so I may go with my prepared response, which was Warren Peace. Warren Peace. Who's that guy? Some old Russian guy, I believe.

Warren Peace. Warren Peace. Old Warren Peace. Be a cool name. Junior or the old man? I'll write it down. Warren Peace. I'm right. Writing it down very clearly. Anyone who's looking at our YouTube channel, Judge John Hodgman Bod can see I'm not lying. And we'll also see that I'm here, once again, at Technica House, not only with Jacob Derwin,

not only with Jennifer Marmer, but also with Jesse Thorn. He just touched me physically. This is, and we're not in Salt Lake City. We're all here in New York City together. We just did a couple of wonderful shows at the Bell House, Maximumfund.org slash events if you want to see the next things we're doing. But in the meantime, we're all here together. in many configurations of Judge Schenatchew,

I think this is the first where you and I are in a room and the Lydians in our room. So people are keeping track of that. Can I update their spreadsheets. Meanwhile, Kara, what is your guess? I know my prepared guess is wrong, but I don't have another one. So I'm going to go ahead with my prepared guess

of Tom Waits' 1978 album, Blue Valentine. Any song on Tom Waits? Yeah, 19708 album. Blue Valentine. Blue Valentine. It's the one where he growls and bangs on trash can blades. Well, I'm going to say, unfortunately, Kara, it's not from any Tom Waits album. In fact, it is from a book.

But it is not a book that was written by the famous author, Warren Peace. I'm afraid to say, Garrett. So all guesses are wrong. Throw this piece of paper away. In fact, it was from a book called Vacation Land by John Hodgman. Dang. I'm not averse to a little self-plugging, especially when it's so on topic for our episode. I just happened to have had a text conversation with the great John Dickerson.

John Dickerson. About how much he was enjoying reading Vacation Land. And if you're out there, you can read it too. Yeah. If you were a friend of yours is going to visit Maine at all this spring, summer, or fall, vacation land is something you can give them. And also, if you like cartoon versions of me solving dumb mysteries, you can watch Dicktown still on Hulu for now. In the meantime, for now, we are going to hear this case.

So, who seeks justice in my courtroom? Is it Garrett or Kara? Oh, it's me. Garrett, what is the nature of the justice that you seek? Well, as Jesse said, we agreed long ago that we would play peaceful board games, almost like a parallel play situation where there's no conflict, there's no aggression. It is just good times together where we just good. Good times. What's the point?

It's so pleasant. It's so pleasant. That's it. What's the point of playing a board game if you're not going to bring up seething resentment? That's a great point. We'll get into the details of how you play board games without conflict currently. But I guess I understand Kara wants to introduce something new and spicy into your relationship. Competition. Yeah. Spicy is right. Competition. Yeah. Kara, how do you defend yourself? What's your situation there?

Well, we started playing in nice mode because when we first started dating 13 years ago, I was a sore loser. And so we developed this way of playing to make sure playing was pleasant. But now we've grown. I've grown a lot. So I think we can handle and enjoy playing more traditionally and more competitively now. I have three questions for you. What games do you play? We play primarily together. We've been playing the game Azul. Azul.

We also play Dominion. Dominion. And Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride. All three of those got hearty nods from Jacob here at Technica House. Only when it got to Ticket to Ride was I convinced that those weren't like the new 2027 Cadillacs. Can we get some B-roll of the? of Jacob pumping his fist, please.

Just come in here, come right in front of the camera, Jacob. Blow the focus, pump your fist. Choo-choo. Let the record reflect that Jacob offered a choo-choo-chew gesture in support of the game, Ticket to Ride. Now, I'm not a tabletop gamer myself, other than Scrabble.

I play Scrabble with my wife as Holy Me. moving in our own right. And we've only just started playing again recently. So I do have thoughts on this. But I never heard any of these games you described, except I did try to do some research, Jesse. While you were out of the room, I was looking up a little video about how to play Azul. Okay. And it's a tile game. It's a you create a beautiful mosaic type pattern, apparently. And I was like, this sounds fun. and then the nerd on the video started explaining the rules, and it immediately got so complicated,

I threw my phone across the room. It just occurred to me that they can't all be 2027 Cadillacs. They could all be new club drugs. That's true. That's true. Ticket to Ride sounds like a fake drug in an 80s action movie. Exactly. You know what I mean?

All right. So those are the games you play. Wait, I have a question about these games. Yeah. Because I don't know the board games. Are you describing playing competitive games in a friendly manner, or are you describing playing cooperative games rather than competitive games? We are describing playing competitive games in a friendly manner. So, as we all know in Azul, you try to put tiles on a thing, right?

Correct. How do you play it nice? What is nice mode compared to non-nice mode? Well, the competitive nature of the game is you are competing for a pool of resources. And if Kara, say, take fun. It is a delight in all honesty. There is nothing an adult board gamer loves more than to manage resources. What a delight.

What a wonderful break from real life. How do you avoid conflict and confrontation? in a competitive game? So in Azul, it's pretty simple. I see what she's picking up, what colors of tiles she's picking up, and I avoid those colors of tiles, or I will allow her to finish her row of tiles,

to set one on her board, and then I will do something else in the meantime, and then I'll take those colored tiles for myself later, if there are any. It does come at the detriment to the person. Yeah, I mean, if you're playing Azul the hard way, If you're playing Azul mean, you would be looking at what tiles she's picking up,

figuring out her strategy, and actively blocking her somehow. I would presume. Absolutely. So you're sandbagging your own game to a degree. Only if you want to play that way. There's no... Under your agreement, under your marital agreement,

Nice Mode means, in the case of Azul, seeing what she's doing and not getting in her way. Is that a reasonable interpretation to a layman's sir, 100% correct. And Kara, do you reciprocate when playing Azul? Yes, we mutually have agreed to play in this particular style where we not only don't screw each other over, but we also make sure that we are not getting in the other person's way. And this is enjoyable somehow. It's wonderful. But I can tell, okay. That was a more sensual reeds than I expected from Salt Lake City around that question.

Yeah, that was probably about as vulgar as you could say a phrase when you are describing not screwing your partner. Right. Kara, let's take a trip back in time to when you were a sore loser. How did your sore loser to manifest in your marriage? First, it would manifest with upset at being attacked in games by Garrett. And I was trying to remember, it's been a long time now, but I think it would probably fizzle over into some anger and irritability outside of the game, too, unfortunately. Sounds like you're minimizing your sore loserdom.

It doesn't sound like a huge problem if the problem was that, yeah, Garrett played competitively, and when you lost, you felt bad about it. I think the problem is somewhat cultural. I'm from Texas where it's very acceptable to express anger. And Garrett is from the Midwest where it is very unacceptable to express anger. And so any expression of anger for Garrett was very uncomfortable. I see. Garrett, how would you describe Kara's sore loserdom?

I think she did a very good job of describing it when we had first gotten together and started playing. I think she didn't do a very good job. Honestly. No offense, Kara. It sounded like this wouldn't be a problem at all in any marriage if someone's just like, oh, geez. You know what people from Texas are like famously, Jesse? What are they like famously?

I'm like, oh, geez, I wish I had one. Yeah. Shoot. Well, shoot. Is that true? Is that true that she was just like, oh, well. Yeah, there was. There was no.

I'll tell you, let me tell you something. Let me tell you what a sore loser is. my wife is a whole human being in our own right. Yes. Look, when we play Scrabble, it's all, we're all, look, we're, we're competitive, but we're supportive. If she makes a good, if she makes a good, a good play, I enjoy it. And I don't mean to speak broadly, but your wife is tougher than you. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely tougher than me. And, you know, but, but when she plays the, the card game spit with our adult, daughter, I get out of the room. Because our daughter is too good at that game. And one time I was sitting, we were on vacation, a family vacation together. Hey, let's play spit. I'm doing a cross, I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle, I believe. And I hear them going, and then all of a sudden, and you're going to have to get the bleepin

button ready for this. I hear my wife say to our daughter, oh, fuck you, you fucking loser. John's wife is cool. If you guys are wondering, John's wife is really cool. Because our daughter is too good at that game. And my wife, whole human being in her own right,

lost composure and apologized. But it was unnerving. But that's not what's going on with Kara. Kara isn't yelling at you, calling you an effing loser. Not anymore. Not anymore. I mean, this is,

you understand that these are the stakes. What was the, worst incident in the early days. Terrific question. Your relationship. Worst incident. Honestly, it's been so long. We've probably been playing this way for a decade.

I don't have any specific memories of how poorly it went, but broad strokes, there was a lot of shucksing and a lot of O.G.'sing. Maybe a little more intense than that. It was so traumatic to Garrett, Kara, that he erased his memory of it. It does sound right. Garrett, if you were in, listen, Garrett, if you wanted, if you, if you came here as a competitor, instead of playing Judge John Hodgman on Nice Mode, you would have gathered up some data, some stories, some evidence about why we dare not open the door again to returning to the, to the truly competitive azuling that you used to do. Instead, you sent in one piece of evidence, which I believe we have hand here is photographic evidence. Let's take a look at that. that's Garrett with an Azul board before him along along with his Azul coach a dog

what's the name of that what's the name of that dog that is Charlie Charlie's Charlie's sitting up like a human Jesse did you notice that I haven't been so amused by a picture of a dog not doing anything funny in a long time It's just a really great picture of this dog. I agree with you. What's Charlie's deal? What kind of dog is Charlie there? Charlie is a Dotson.

He's a wiener dog. Yeah, he's up on, I guess that's Garrett's lap and with his back legs, but then his front legs are up on the table. And so he looks like he's got little Tyrannosaurus arms. He's actually on a king-sized pillow that is the only thing he'll sit on our laps on. So he's essentially carried around on this king-sized pillow from chair to chair, and he's living his best life. Garrett, all right, that's a wonder. What did you want to show us with this evidence, Garrett?

Basically, I wanted to show you Charlie, in reference to a board game. It felt really appropriate for Jesse to see Charlie. Kara, would you get mad at Garrett in the olden days because he won or because of something about the style of his play? I would get mad about his attacking style of play. Go on. So in Dominion, there are cards that are specifically meant to attack the other person, and they can really mess up the other person's gameplay. And they could basically completely destroy your enjoyment of the game.

And that is what happens sometimes when Garrett would play those cards. And so he would see that I was building a specific deck. and attack me in a way that felt very personal. And I would get upset about that. What are some examples of attack cards and dominion, just out of curiosity? There is a witch card that makes you gain a curse every time the other player plays it, which dilutes your deck and makes it harder to play. Oh, Garrett, you were playing that witch card hard, huh?

I was, and I was playing the militia card, which made her discard down from five cards to three and really screwed up her game. But that's all fair play within the game, right? It is. It used to be. So how do you define what is not aggressive gameplay in a two-person game where the two people are in opposition?

We have a really loose definition. I don't think we've formalized it in any way. It's just we try to stay out of each other's way. I don't want to do anything that will intentionally harm her. But there are sometimes where it unintentionally can harm her. Like in Dominion, there are some cards that are attack cards that primarily help me, but also kind of hurt her. Those ones are okay.

Those ones are fine. But if you get a witch? Oh, I don't. Jesse, I have not bought a witch in eight years or militia. It has been eight years since I bought any of those cards in that game. You can buy a witch? Yeah, you can buy a witch. Maybe that's a Salt Lake City thing.

I don't know. Is this a card game like Magic the Gathering where you build your own deck and you can you can buy superpowered cards like with money and amp up your own? It's kind of, but this is more of a you build the deck as you play. So you start with maybe seven cards in your deck. I don't want to know the rules of dominion. That's cool. What I'm trying to clarify is you can't just go to the store and buy a witch shop and be like, Carrie and I are going to have a real night tonight.

I need five witches. No, you buy it in the game as you play. So you spend your resources on it. You spend your resources on it. Got it. It's resource management. The most fun game of all. You know what my favorite board game is?

No. Logistics. Yeah. You know what mine is? What? Compounding interest. Yeah. So how long ago,

did you come to the agreement to play nice? Kara, I'll ask you that question. How long ago? Over a decade ago. Okay, over a decade ago. And did you Kara Institute or initiate this discussion? You're like, hey, I want to, how did it come to pass? I don't remember us ever having a formal discussion. I think it's just something that we coalesced on after having multiple instances where we played more aggressively and didn't enjoy the outcome. I got to tell you, Kara, I don't think this is you, but that sounds like some real secret bully language. When did you decide to play nice with each other?

When did you decide to force Garrett to play the way you wanted to play? Oh, I don't remember that there was any discussion about it. It just seemed like he finally came to his senses. Someone kept writing notes in blood on the walls. Garrett, do you remember discussing the change to play nice? I have a vague memory of discussing it. Give me a vague memory as best you can as to when it was over a decade ago. And just to reset the table here, Kara is a, you call a sore loser, but all she does is really just go, oh, shoot, wats, meh.

Meanwhile, you're playing witch, witch, witch, which. At some point, the two are you like, this can't go on any longer. or we're going to get divorced. Yeah, we were living in Arkansas. We were going to school together. We had played Dominion for an entire summer every night, two or three hours. It was a great time. And I would say about halfway through it, we had talked about it.

Like, let's just try to play nice with each other. Like, because you can choose which cards to play with. So we just played a game with no attack cards. And it was so much more fun. The resource management, guys, it was delightful. And we had a great time. So we decided to do that. And in fact, we bought a expansion for it called Prosperity, which had no attack cards.

It was just get more resources better. And it was a delight. So it seems to be like it's a genuine style of play within Dominion. It is. To collaborate more than compete. You're not collaborating. You're just not getting in each other's way. You're playing your own game.

You could honestly play it solo. You just wouldn't know when the game is over. Kara, when Garrett would play these witch cards, that's part of the game, isn't it? It is. Would he overplay the witch cards? Was he overaggressive? Or was he appropriately aggressive for the game, would you say? He has sometimes been overly aggressive with attack cards and resource hoarding.

How do you respond to that, Garrett? I support and sustain that. I cannot play Catan with anyone because I am unpleasant to play with. Because you're trying to win? I am trying to win via resource hoarding and making it difficult for other people. Yeah. Unintentionally, I think I'm playing fine. Other people have told me that it is not fine.

And so, Garrett, what constitutes sore loserdom in your mind? I think a certain amount of anger is acceptable at losing or having some aggressive. play. Frustration, surely. Yeah, frustration, absolutely. And at some point when it crosses into the board game is over and we're done and there's still some frustration and irritability going on from where the board game was, that's where I would say sore loserdom. Or if it's like a very small piece of aggressive play or competitive play that elicits a bigger reaction, I would say that could be sore loserdom. So were you ever accused of being unfair or breaking the rules by Kara when she lost?

I don't think so. No, I think she fully, yeah, I don't think so. It sounds like you're saying that if you were playing a game and Kara lost due to your witch deployment or whatever, that Kara's frustration would extend beyond what you would say is a reasonable period of time. Like, game is over, the night has moved on, maybe it's the next day. Maybe you discover that all of your clothes have been burned. Maybe she has hired an actual witch to come to your house and place a benign curse on you.

Real witches aren't evil, of course. Real witches are just practicing a different kind of earth observance. He could have hired a vich. Yeah, could have hired one of those vaviches. Yeah, from the movie The Vovic. Right, from the movie The Vovich. That's bad news. What would Kara do that constituted sore loserdom in your eyes?

Oh, it was really small stuff, in all honesty. I think I was just really sensitive to it because, like Kara said, I'm from North Dakota. I was raised. There are no problems. There is no conflict. Anger is reserved for very bad stuff. Iridability, also. very bad stuff. And it's a different cultural thing to express irritation in Texas. So I think

a big piece of it was anything outside of the game was upsetting to me because I was so sensitive to any type of irritability or frustration at basically any point. You come from a culture in North Dakota where there are no other people. Right. No. The next person is 17 miles away. Right, and you're just so excited to see anyone who's not a cow that you're just, yeah, you're overjoyed. But how would Kara express this irritability? I would say primarily through tone. It wasn't even what she did.

It was more of the tone of voice that she used. Can you recreate it for us? Yes, please. We'll use the phrase, are you going to unload the dishwasher tonight? That's something that people in a relationship might say, each other in many tones. Right. There might be a tone which is like, oh, I was wondering if you're going to do it. And then there's a tone which is like, why haven't you done it already?

Okay. So a normal tone would be more, when are you going to unload the dishwasher? And an irritable tone would be more, when are you going to unload the dishwasher? That does sound pretty intense, John? Kara, does that sound familiar to you? Somewhat. Kara, are you getting a rush of memories back of times that he played The Witch? Absolutely.

Kara Garrett cannot imitate you in angry, frustrated, resentful mode. Can you give us a sense of how your sore loserdom, and that's in very vigorous air quotes, manifested itself externally? What'd you do? What'd you say? How'd you say it? Yes. Asking me to work against myself here, but I have specific memories. Not necessarily, because what I'm trying to evaluate is whether your behavior is, whether your behavior,

merited changing the rules or not. Do you know what I mean? I think it did back then. So, for example, Garrett might play a witch card and I might look at him and say something like, seriously, you're going to play that. And that might happen several times over the course of the game. You know what they say in Mortal Kombat fatality. Yeah. Out of bounds. That's Carol holding his spine up out of his body. Finish him. John, are you allowed to issue divorce Decrees? I don't know. I'm going to have to look through the law books. It sounds like it wasn't much worse than seriously. You're really going to do that to me? That was the vibe, right? Yeah. And I would say an underlying tone of anger that I knew Garrett would not feel comfortable with.

Right, because in his North Dakota feelings, that was a beyond the pale. Yes. Okay. So to recap, Garrett would play more aggressively than you liked. and Kara, you would respond with more anger and frustration, quote, unquote, unquote, than Garrett was comfortable with. And very smartly, you came to a compromise as a spousal couple to play nice with each other. And that seems like a good solution. So, Kara, why do you want to undo all that work now? Yes, two reasons. First, I think that sometimes playing nice now can get kind of boring.

We know what's going to happen in the gameplay because we know that we are not going to harm each other's gameplay. And so sometimes in games like Azul, you can even predict who's going to win far in advance. And second, I've grown a lot as a person. And I think Garrett has too in terms of our ability to handle conflict. And so I think it would actually be really fun for us to explain. or playing in more traditional or even aggressive ways. You've got some deep Texas aggrove still in you that you want to express in your marriage. Exactly.

Inside of each of us is a tiny Yosemite Sam ready to dance on his heels and shoot six guns in the air. And Garrett, you're afraid of what might happen. You want to shut this down before it even starts. I wouldn't say that I'm afraid of. what would happen because I totally agree with everything that Kara said. I think we've grown a lot as people and I am more capable of handling any emotion that isn't just pleasant and comfortable and calm. I think it's just a fun way to play. I really enjoy the way that things have been going. The games are very fun to me. And as I'm talking, I actually am afraid. Yeah, North Dakota fun. North Dakota fun.

The most fun. North Dakota fun is defined as seeing a person that's not a cow. Sorry, North Dakota. Where in North Dakota are you from? A small town of about 2,000 people right in the middle of it. Believe it or not, they do exist there. Oh, okay. You're not from Tokyo, North Dakota? Mega City 1, North Dakota. No.

Yeah. Kara, do you have a career? I do. What do you get up to every day? I am a legal psychology professor at the University of Utah. So you're both psychology experts. We are. Excellent.

And so have you played games with other people? We do. And do any of the aggression on Garrett's part and the defensiveness on your part manifest when you're playing with other people? If anyone else complained about either of those things? Only when we've played settlers of Caton with Garrett's family, they get upset with him for being. Oh, his family in North Dakota. That's right. Yes.

I'm too aggressive for that. Do they blame you, Kara, for teaching him to be a bad boy? They don't. No, okay, good. They know me well. They know that when I do play board games, I do, if I'm allowed to be untethered and unbound by rules, I will go for it. And I get pretty competitive.

Oh, so you're not afraid what Kara is going to do. You're afraid of the monster that you're going to become. Yeah, I think that's a big piece of my fear here is I am afraid of the monster inside coming out. It does come out with my family because I know what's going to happen there. But if it comes out anywhere else, maybe the competitiveness will really overwhelm me. I'll get, I'll flood the board. Gary, you keep talking about your style of play as though you are breaking the rules, as though you are cheating, as though you are outside of the bounds of the game, when in fact, you're entirely within the bounds of the game.

You just happen to be playing in a style that you find distasteful. That is true. That is true. And I think historically, when I play within the bounds of the game, but play aggressively, I can get a little too into it. I think that is probably true. You can be a sore winner. I can be a sore winner.

I think, yes, we played some Uno last night. And would you say there was a little sore winning going on? No. No? Okay. I guess it was just internal. You just got Uno reverse card in. Well played, Kara.

How would you, who won Uno last night? Garrett won many rounds of Uno and I won a few rounds of Uno. Why do you think you may have been a sore winner at Uno last night, Garrett? Kara doesn't think so. She doesn't think so. Internally, I was dancing. I was celebrating victory over my enemies. I was, it was devastating.

And externally? Cool as a cucumber. Charlie was on my lap and everybody was having a good time. Cool as in North Dakota, Kuk. Kara, if Garrett had allowed himself to feel and express emotions, we know that he's a trained therapist. So obviously, he knows the first rule is, bottle it up, keep it inside.

Yeah. But if you were allowed himself to feel and express emotions and that emotion was, I'm so happy I won and I'm going to do a little dance, how would you feel about that? I would feel fine about that. Do you think that he holds himself back from playing aggressively because of you or because he's afraid of what he himself becomes when he plays that way? Um, maybe because he's afraid of what he himself will become. And I think he knows from playing with family that if he plays extremely aggressively, people do get upset. How do they get upset up there in North Dakota?

Um, there's some cursing. And some I'll never play this game with you again. Whoa. He's probably pretty good at settlers of Katan, huh? He's actually not because he is too aggressive in setting trade rules. So no one will. trade with him. So does the aggression... We're not to get into topical satire here, but... You recognize, Garrett, that the

object of most two to four-person board games is that there should be a winner, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They're not collaborative for the most part, these games. Sure. they're not designed to make everyone feel great.

They're designed for everyone to have fun, but one person to have a very special kind of fun, which is triumphing over the vanquished. Absolutely. Okay. When you're playing a four-person game with family, let's say you're playing settlers of Catan and North Dakota over there, and you got half the population of the state in the room.

I'd love to visit North Dakota. Are you playing aggressively equally across your competitors, or are you focusing on one person with the effort of frustrating them? Ooh. I would say equally across all competitors. I am vicious in some of those circumstances, absolutely. So it's not a matter of you unbalancing the game by teaming up with somebody, accepting that you're not going to win, because that, while within the rules of most games,

is a bit unsportsperson-like. Absolutely. I don't do that. I maybe have done that in the past a few times, but it's pretty irregular. Generally speaking, I am just going all out to ruin the board. I just want to take victory. Kara, you're the one who's opening this door potentially to playing more competitively. Are you concerned at all?

Or it sounds to me like you're not concerned about Garrett bringing out his inner Vovich. I was not concerned. But I am a little concerned now. I think that... Now, why? Well, the way that he's described some of the extremely aggressive play is reminding me of some of the issues of the past. However, I think that Garrett's case is that he wants to play nice. And so I think even if we experiment with more traditional or aggressive gameplay, he's not going to unleash the beast.

Garrett, what are you afraid is going to happen if I rule in Kara's favor? My primary concern is that we will lose a method of play that I really enjoy, which is resource management and playing your own game better than the other person next to you as opposed to being in conflict. so that that conflict makes them play worse. I want to win on those merits more so than conflict will prevent them from winning. And the second thing I'm afraid of is definitely I get a little unhinged and go too hard in the paint. That's a settlers of Catan term. Yeah. Going too hard in the paint.

There will be like a Dremont Green move. Right. When he's playing Settlers of Caton term. settlers of a guitar player. So, Kara, what specifically do you want me to order? You mentioned experiment. Tell me what you want to do.

Pick a game and how you want to play it. I would like you to order that we experiment with. We try out playing Nozul with a more traditional gameplay where you don't necessarily know how aggressive or competitive the other person

is going to be towards you. And you're Bringing Azul in particular is the one that you would like to experiment spicing up your game life with. I would like to do it with all of our games, but I think Azul would be a great start because it's the game that we play the most frequently and has the most rules around being nice. Kara, you said that you instituted the play nice rule about 10 years ago. How long have you been together? We have been together for 13 years. So is it fair to say that the thrill is gone those early years? I think the thrill of playing nice in the same way is somewhat gone.

I don't want to stop playing that way completely, but I do want to be able to play in different modes. What's changed in you that you feel like it's time to make the change, Kara? I think I've grown a lot in my emotional capacity to handle games and just things in general. So I think that I can be a better winner and a better loser if we play competitively. And also it's boring the way you're playing now, right? It's somewhat boring. Yeah. Acknowledging that you were under fake oath.

Kara, if the beast is unleashed, will you be able to handle it? I don't know, but I want to find out. Garrett, if the beast is unleashed, will you be able to handle it? The beast feels great. I can handle it. He's ready to Hulk out. The beast feels great.

Garrett, your argument is that you actually have fun playing on nice mode, as you say, and you don't, and you enjoy it. but isn't the point of the game that everyone have fun to some degree? I feel compelled to say yes. Whoa. It's about to unleash the beast. Yeah, but what would the beast say? You feel compelled to say that everyone should have a good time.

Yeah. But what does the beast say? The beast would say it's all about me and victory is the only thing that matters and feeling good is the only thing that matters. so nobody else. Nobody else's concerns are as valid as me. It's really hard for me to hear you say that in that nice North Dakota voice and believe that there is a beast inside of you, but I have to believe it.

I think the nice North Dakota voice is the trick. That's the facade. That's the facade. The beast runs the show. Kara says that she's grown and tolerates adverse outcomes better than she used to be able. to. In the 10 years that the beast has been held inside of you, has the beast changed? Have you grown? I think I've grown. I would say that I've grown quite a bit, especially in my tolerance and resilience in the face of any emotion that is not calm and placid. Have I grown in relation to the beast inside? I have no idea. I don't engage in many conflictual activities.

So the beast is still there. I'm a little uncertain as to what it will look like. How do you feel about conflict in other aspects of your life? Generally avoidant of any and all conflict outside of my work capacity, which involves quite a bit of conflict sometimes. Maybe when you come home after a day of managing hard feelings and conflict in your work, you don't want to do it. You don't want to rehearse it again in games.

That is absolutely true. was especially true around the time where I was, we were in school together and I was learning how to be a therapist and be a psychologist in this, in this capacity. Right. There was not much room for anything else after many of those days. And Kara was incredibly supportive and really, really helped with that. And so there's, there's a certain amount of that. I think that is true, but doesn't have to be true anymore. Have you ever considered not playing a game and instead being a normal couple just watching television and maybe watching all creatures great and small,

which has no conflict in it whatsoever. Well, John, there's lambing season. There is an inciting incident. It's true. To what degree there is conflict is arguable. It's whatever conflict there is swaddled in many layers of intricate knitware. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mean to suggest that you're abnormal for playing games.

Of course, many, many couples love to play games. But there are other ways that you could spend your time together, like having dinner or conversation, watching a movie, being distracted, especially if you feel you need to space out at the end of the day a little bit, Garrett. Yeah, I would say our jobs are complicated and difficult, and we do that pretty frequently. And I think we use games as a way to do that and have nice times with each other where we're directly interacting as well.

So I think the pleasant way to play games, is a really great way to manifest that in our lives. Why are you playing competitive games? There are cooperative games. I'm not a board game guy. I don't have a board game library at my house, but I can tell you that Save the Whales game is a cooperative game.

I had that as a child that has pewter whales in it. Peter Wales. You work together to save the whales. I never heard of that game, but I believe that it's true. Then there was the ungame, too. Wasn't that one? I'll tell you this, John. Yeah, tell me.

If we need some ideas for cooperative games, we can just ask literally anyone who listens to our show. That's true. And get 10,000 suggestions. Many, many, many, many suggestions are being emailed to me right now. Nothing over, there's probably no personal characteristic more over indexed for in the Judge John Hodgman audience than knowledge of cooperative board games. Yes, that's right. And also, Dewey Decimal expertise.

Yeah. Yeah. Why aren't you playing cooperative games? Yeah, maybe there's a cooperative game to play. That's a great question. I don't think I've ever thought about that. I would say that we still enjoy the somewhat competitive nature, albeit subdued, but I think we still enjoy competing, even though we're doing it in a very subdued manner.

Yeah, I think that there's a little bit of Texas and you that's perhaps saying cooperative games, no. That's my Texas accent, by the way. Yeah. Pretty good, right? Great job, y'all. Iha. Kara, when Garrett talks about wanting to leave conflict behind at the end of the day, how does that resonate with you?

What do you think about that? I want to support Garrett in that. I think there are definitely opportunities, though, where it might be fun to have conflict, like maybe on the weekends to mix up the way that we play games. And I think he would enjoy it too. Azul is the game that you want to play a little bit rougher. It is.

You don't want to go into the blood sport of Scrabble just yet. No. You ever play Scrabble? I have. Why don't you guys like to play Scrabble? What's going on? It's a little slower pace, I think, is my thing. Oh, it's the slowest paste.

It's truly tedious. Or it can be. That's when the real frustration starts to bubble up. Do you guys have a vacation coming up? We do. Yeah. You go in someplace? We are going to Mexico City.

Mexico City. Great city. So before I go into my chambers, just to recap, ideal ruling for you, Kara, is to play five to six games of Azul, agro style. However, that's defined for each of you. And see how it goes. And trust that you can get through it if it goes sideways. And for you, Karat, you would like me to rule that nothing change.

Absolutely. And that the beast and the sore loser and all the big feelings and emotions kept be kept deep, deep in that vault at the bottom of Salt Lake. Is that right? 100%. And we have the same amount of fun we're already having. Okay, I think I understand. Before I go into my chambers to consider my verdict, I will remind everybody that my gavel was confiscated by TSA a few weeks ago. The Offman Woodshop and I are in heavy consultation right now.

Really? In terms of size. This is like a Camp David situation. Yeah, that's, well, we're just, we're just sending emails back and forth, and we're consulting on size, which will be of the new gavel. Yeah. Which will be quite large. Great. Materials.

Finish. Grain. It's all being figured out. And we'll have it eventually. In the meantime, though, I am using books for gavels. And this week, my gavel book is the memoir, Destroy This House by the great Amanda Yulee, who is the publisher of McSweeney's books. and a fantastic writer in their own right. And I've read this really wonderful memoir

about a really interesting family life. It's called Destroy This House by Amanda Yule. I will go into my chambers now. And when I come back, I will determine to whom I am going to throw this book at. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Garrett, how are you feeling about your chances right now? I am feeling far more optimistic

than I had anticipated being. You could be telling the truth. You could be lying. There's no way for me to know. You might not even have been paying attention this whole time. You got that placid therapist face so perfected. You might have been thinking about tomatoes you're buying for dinner. That's right.

Roadside tomatoes. It's all buried deep down inside. No one knows a thing. Kara, how are you feeling? I feel really good. I think that the request to try out a handful of games in a different way is a reasonable one that I hope the judge will. that I hope the judge will honor. Kara, what if you really like the beast?

I mean, that's fine. That's it. It's just fine. It's a good discovery. Yeah. Can I keep your marriage lively? Yeah. We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment. Judge John Hodgman, our new t-shirts are in the Max Fund store right now, but only until April 3rd.

These came from a recent case on the program with Cordelia and Patty. Yes, Jesse. Cordelia and her son Patty were in the courtroom disputing Patty's perhaps overblown love of a certain comic book. Yeah. And Patty wrote us a beautiful poem. And that poem is, the sky is blue, the grass is green. I love the X-Men and I'm gay. And we made an incredible T-shirt design.

Don't take our word for it. Get the over to Maxfundstore.com. Take a look at it right now. We have not done an improv t-shirt like this in a long time. No. And supplies will not last because we're shutting it down on April the 3rd. Only until April 3rd. Thanks to everybody who came out to see us at the Bell House in Brooklyn.

We had a great time. That was wonderful. Births sold out on the boat that we're riding on. That's true. The Grace Bailey Schooner is now full. Although go over to maximum fun.org slash events or even better, I may say, subscribe to hodgeman. substack.com, in case you missed your chance to sail with us on the Grace Bailey, there may be some

last minute cancellations or openings that I will alert you to there. That is my, every other week, more or less, that is my substack where I announce stuff that I'm doing and places that I'm going to be or we're going to be. And beyond the paywall, I'm also continuing to read Moby Dick to you in a bad main accent. Yeah. We had a little brunch party here in New York City where we're sitting and you just spent the whole time talking to my friend Jenny about Moby Dick. I'm just, I'm talking to everybody about Moby Dick. Okay, let's get back to the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So another game that my wife, who's a whole human being and I play, in fact, I don't play the game with her. She plays it against herself is spotting license plates. and when we drive to Maine in the spring for the first time, that is when the game begins. And then she will spend the summer well into the fall, often long after we've gotten back trying to spot every license plate, all 50 United States license plates. And, you know, there are some that are quite easy to get quite common.

There are some that are more challenging. You would think that Alaska would be hard to, find, but that's, the Alaskans are all over Maine. Hawaii is challenging to find, but we do it almost every year. I help out. The one that never shows up, Jesse, never. Is North Dakota? Wow.

North Dakota's don't go anywhere, turns out. South Dakota, no problem. Every time. North Dakota, I'm not sure these people exist. That's apropos of nothing except for North Dakota. But we do play Scrabble together, and there was a time when our playing Scrabble was quite contentious earlier in our marriage and our Scrabble playing career. And we would get into little snits about it. In fact, a friend of ours would point out that in his marital games of Scrabble, it was determined that it was a fair play that any player could end.

the game at any time by flipping the board. We never got to that point, but we did reach a point where, you know, there is an aggressive style of play of Scrabble, where you're not only trying to build the best word you can make, but you are also actively trying to block valuable squares so that your opponent or spouse, usually it's the same in life. You cannot make the highest, you know, like you'll make a lower scoring word of your own that is also not an interesting word

just to block that triple word square so that the other person doesn't use it or whatever. And consequently over the years, particularly because our vocabulary is basically identical at this point, we were, we were doing our two-letter words and our strategic scrabble to the point, that the board itself was just this, this tight knot of letters.

There was no place to make a word. There was certainly no place to make an interesting word. And the idea of making an interesting word had been thrown out the window because the point was to win not to have fun with words. That is when I wrote in Vacation Land that there's no such thing as words with friends, but scrabble with enemies. And the end result was that over time, we stopped playing because it just wasn't fun anymore. We would just, we were not like we were mad at each other or like getting upset,

but the game itself just became tedious because our gameplay was exactly the same. And we were always tying the board up into these tiny little prosnickety knots. And so we stopped playing for a long, long time. And then we came to realize we missed it. And after years of being out of the Scrabble game, as it were, We decided to play again, and we were like, look, let's just have fun. Let's make the words we want to make. Let's play quickly because when you get really competitive and you're not in a tournament environment where your play is timed and you can just take all the time you want, you can get really, really tedious as you're trying to figure out the word that's not only going to give you the most points, but they stick it to the other person.

And we're going to, I mean cheat, you know, we're going to keep. keep the list of the two-letter words right next to us. We weren't going to challenge each other. We were going to look up words on the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Wordfinder to find interesting words. The idea was that we were going to just play nice for nice sake, but try to have fun again and develop more words in our vocabulary so that if we wanted to go competitive again down the road, we would have a new a new bag of of tiles and tricks, as it were.

So this sounds like I'm making an argument for Garrett, but in fact I'm not. I'm making an argument for the beast. In the sense of, yes, you have found a way to play your various games,

as you say, on nice mode that has worked well for you all for a decade. But, you know, games change and so do personalities and so do marriages. They evolve. And one of the settled laws here in the Court of Judge John Hodgman, of course, is if it's not fun for everyone, it's no fun at all. And while I agree that it's clear that Garrett setting aside all of the emotional appropriateness of keeping your feelings bottled up inside, I must take at face value that you are having fun playing the nice way. The nice way of playing Scrabble is a fun game too, but not if the other person isn't having fun. The rules of the game are only arbitrary sort of guidelines that you accept together.

And if Kara is not having fun anymore playing these games, well, then it's time to spice things up. This is true about your Azul game. This is true about your marriage. This is true about your friendship. This is true about whatever. It is worth exploring a little bit of a, a little bit of a change. And I think that, you know, I appreciate, and I think the real revelation to me, the crux that got found, was not that Garrett was afraid that Kara would be a sore loser,

but that Garrett was afraid that he would be a sore winner. pretty true. And I think that that is something for you to explore and work through through the therapy of playing a fun game with your wife. And I would say one of the ways

to keep the beast contained or to at least experiment safely with this new mode of play is to do it in a different context. I suggested you play six games of Azul

in beast mode. Kara counted with five. I can already see she's a competitor. Not sure what weird game we were playing there just that time, but it was on. And that's why I asked if you were going on vacation somewhere, because if you're going on vacation somewhere, A, ideally you're going to be setting aside

some of the conflict and stress of your work life anyway, vacation is a great time to explore being a different kind of person. And since you're setting that aside anyway, you can incorporate a little bit more stress in your Azul game to see how it goes. And I suggest that you take Azul, I guess, to Mexico City and bring it at least once to the ball game court and sit in that blood-soaked history

of games being played with the heads of your enemies and play a couple of games of Beast Mode Azul right there in the court if that's allowed, I don't know. I've not been there, Jesse.

Yeah, you can probably get away with. Yeah, you can probably get away with a few Beast mode of Zools in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just experiment with being in a different place and being in a different context

and not being different people, but being the people who you are now and seeing who you are now once it is reflected in the game you play. And then at least you'll have some information to take with you back to Salt Lake City. And, you know, this is not a show where we talk about this stuff, but I think it's going to be hot, frankly. I mean, I don't, you know, look, I think it's going to, I think it's, we need some hot, hot nights in Mexico City is what I'm saying. John, we don't talk about this kind of thing a lot on the show, but I think this could be hot. I think this could be. We don't talk about hotness a lot on the show.

This is not the sound of a gavel. This is the sound of Destroy This House by Amanda Yule. By the way, this is a Midwestern memoir. So take that as it were. And now it is going to make the sound of a gavel. I rule in Kara's favor. This is the sound of a book gavel. man. Game over, man. It's game over. Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Well, there's Judge John Hodgman's ruling for you. Garrett, how are you feeling? Devestated, but also optimistic. I think if those two can go together, I'm feeling both of those things right now. I'm sad to lose, but I'm happy for the anticipated hot nights in Mexico City. Yeah, I mean, you must be the beast must be looking forward to

cutting off the head of his enemy. Always. Always. It's going to be nice to let the beast free to roam and collect some heads. That'll be fun. Kara, how are you feeling? I feel two ways. I feel excited. I think that this will open the door for a new way of gameplay for us.

And I'm slightly scared of the beast. Garrett, Kara, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thanks for having us. Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We're going to have swift justice in just a second. Our thanks to Redator Halfloaf for naming this week's episode. You can join us on Reddit at R slash Maximum Fun. You can also join us on social media if you want to check out pictures.

Judge John Hodgman on Instagram. John and I are also on Instagram, John Hodgman, Jesse Thorne, very famous. So our Instagram handles, that's correct. You can also find the program on TikTok and YouTube, Judge John Hunchman Pod. I just put a new video on a YouTube. Oh, did you? It's a little tour of Manhattan Wardrobe Supply. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There's nothing I love more than like a store that only has industrial shelving. Yeah. And only sells things to people in a really specific industry who have really specific needs. But also, I'm allowed to sneak in there. I'm going to watch this video that you made. because this whole weekend that you've been here, you've been talking about Manhattan wardrobe supply.

It's a costume shop. Specifically, their wall. No, it's a shop for costumers. It's not just a shop of costumes. It's for people who make costumes for professional productions. But I certainly hope your video features the much now talked about wall of wounds. Yes, there is a real wall of wounds, and it's in the video. Steve, a video.

Yeah, YouTube comment of the week, John. Yeah. So we have lots of stuff on our YouTube channel, Judge John Ojman Pod, including Jesse's Wall of Wounds, but also full live episodes on video. And we always pick a YouTube comment of the week. This week, our YouTube commenter of the week is real kangaroo flu. They wrote, quote, it's always fun to listen to the podcast and then watch the video to see if I pictured what the litigants actually look like. That's a good point. You know, like when it's like when you read a, when you read it.

read a novel or whatever. Yeah. Do you cast the book? Oh, like with celebs? Or people you know or like, how do you picture? I don't think I have a vivid internal visual sense. I think I'm low on that scale. Well, if you listen to the podcast and you're picturing what the litigants look like,

I got to say you're probably wrong. Why don't you find out what they really look like by going to the YouTube at Judge John Hodgman pod. And while you're there. Hey, John, I would add to that. If you don't already know what we look like, make sure and look at it and comment that you're disappointed. Exactly. Exactly.

Why don't you come over to YouTube and say, why couldn't they have gotten John Hodgman an apple box or something to sit on? He looks so small next to Jesse Thorne. I do. I'm very short. I think that's the effect of the lenses or something. No, I think it's just, I need something to sit. I need a booster seat. You got to get Johnny a booster.

Judge John Hodgman pod on YouTube. You leave a comment there. you might be the commenter of the week, but more important, please, share the YouTube with anybody who think might enjoy it, and please, please, please subscribe. All those things really do help people find the podcast.

Our thanks to the folks at Utah podcast studio in West Jordan, Utah. Megan Rosati runs our social media, the podcast edited by A.J. McKee and our video editor, Daniel Spear. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer, the show, of course, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

Oh, that's us. Yeah. Swift Justice. You ready, John? I'm ready. Charlotte asks. Are food crumbs considered dirt? My wife Miranda says food mess is not dirt because dirt only comes from the outdoors.

I think crumbs are dirt. Who's right? Crumbs make things dirty, but themselves are not crumbs. And here's how I know the difference. Yeah, they're not, excuse me. Crumbs are not dirt. Thank you, Jesse. And here's how I know the difference.

How do you know the difference? Well, one thing that's unpleasant, right, is crumbs in bed. Yes. Like if you or your partner eat a snack in bed, you get crumbs. That's not crummy. That's literally crummy, right?

But I know the difference between crumbs and bed and dirt because we have a geriatric cat that tracks cat litter into our bed every day. That's called dirt. It's real dirt. Not crumbs. Crumbs, I might eat. Cat litter, I might not. It was raining in Los Angeles the other day. And my dog Jr. just left like a science museum level of,

clarity, dog paw print path across my white bed spread. Exactly. That's dirt. Crumbs or crumbs. Well, you know, it says here that it's Aries season. That's the Ram. That's the Ram. The season of the Ram. I think Jennifer Marmer is into the Zodiac.

I think she is. I think she's into the Zodiac. She gave an I don't know. Just looking for topics. The topics is it's Aries season. We can't see inside your hearts and find. Find the Darkness directly, listener. We need your help.

Do you have any disputes about Rams, it says here, which is, that would be cool. I mean, I know that we got a lot of listeners who probably keep sheeps and rams and, and goats and so forth. Bar-ram, you, et cetera. Right, exactly. And, you know, and of course, I know that there's a, our... I'm suggesting here that Babe listens to our program, Babe the Pig. Oh, Babe the Pig. My friend Ari and Maine, I know her mom Poki listens to the podcast.

So maybe Ari, I don't know if Ari can listen to it because she's too busy, what do you go, herding sheep on islands. Wow. She has a flocks of sheep that she keeps on islands. Do we got an update on whether Gumbi listens? She has a sheep dog named Storm. I love it. Maybe there's some disputes there. Anyway, other Aries theme disputes.

is the planet, type of candy bar. Sure. Aries is a fire sign. This is a good topic, Jennifer, Marmer. I like it. What about fire disputes? Maybe you like lighting candles, but your roommate prefers candle warmers instead.

I don't know what a candle warmer is either. This is the kind of Aries-themed-disputes we're looking for. Why don't you send them in to Maximumfund.org or, as noted, my email is Hodgman at maximumfund.org. anything to do with Aries or anything to do with anything at all. Maximumfund.org slash JJHO, big or small, we judge them all. Good night and good luck. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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