Judge John Hodgman - Squatters Rights

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Diane brings the case against her husband, Will. Will grew up attending a summer camp deep in the Ontario wilderness, and last year: he bought it! Diane loves being a camp director and living off the grid except for one thing: the communal outhouse called THE FORT. Diane wants a proper toilet in their cabin, but Will says privacy is impractical! Who’s right? Who’s wrong?We are on TikTok and YouTube! Follow us on both @judgejohnhodgmanpod! Follow us on Instagram @judgejohnhodgman.Thanks to reddit user u/mister_sleepy for naming this week’s case! To suggest a title for a future episode, keep an eye on the Maximum Fun subreddit at maximumfun.reddit.com! Judge John Hodgman: Road Court is happening NOW! Get your tickets at maximumfun.org/events.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, squatters writes Diane brings the case against her husband Will. Will grew up attending a summer camp deep in the wilderness of Ontario. And last year, he bought it. Diane loves being a camp director and living off the grid except for one thing, the communal outhouse called the fort. Diane wants a proper toilet in their cabin, but Will says privacy is impractical. 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. Sitting there before me in the living room, shirtless, barefoot, and wearing only an old pair of jeans sat my biblical companion, Michael Rapunzel, the great guru of the commune known

as the Brotherhood of the Spirit, the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Spirit in Flesh, the Pied Piper of Western Massachusetts, and the grand wizard of Warwick sitting with a half empty bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken right in front of him. Bailiff Jessie Thorne, please swear the litigants in. Will and Diane, 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, yes. I do, yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that as far as I know and want to know, he does not use the bathroom? Yes, I do. Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. We shall maintain the taboo of our excretions, Jessie. I shall never admit that I use the bathroom. And that way we can continue to travel the world together.

Indeed. And indeed inhabit a podcast together. Will and Diane, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment. In one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced? As I entered this fake courtroom. Let's start with you, Diane. What's your guess? I have no idea.

So I'm just going to say, wet, hot American summer. Wet, hot American summer, a great summer camp movie. Great summer camp movie. For a summer camp themed haze. Yes. I love that guess. Captures the tone of the film perfectly. Great.

No comment on its rightness or wrongness yet. Yes. I love that guess. Captures the tone of the film perfectly. Okay. Yeah. No comment on its rightness or wrongness yet. Judge Hodgman, I'm an expert on this one because a guy I know wrote the foreword to the published screenplay of What Hot American Summer. I won't say who it was, but it rhymes with messy torn. Did you really write the fore forward? Oh, all right. That's a good plug. Go out and get that.

The published screenplay of Wet Hot American Summer. In fact, let's make that your guess, too. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. That's what I mean. The movie and the public published screenplay. Actually, can I change it to I would like my answer to be the the intro to the published screenplay. Jesse Thorne introduction. Okay. Three guesses. Yes, correct.

All right. I'm not going to I'm not going to comment on the wrongness or rightness of all guesses yet. For now, Will, it is your turn to guess. What is your guess, sir? The best I've got is some kind of Tom Cruise movie. Some kind. What? Why? Captures the tone. What's the reasoning behind that guess? We're talking about your summer camp.

We're talking about toilets. We're not talking about stunts or missions impossible. I was just thinking of the one where he's in his underwear sliding through the living room. Risky business? Yes, that's the one. And I have no idea why that movie popped into my mind. Well, because he was not even wearing jeans in that. But he was shirtless and shoeless and risky and business. And my wife can vouch for the fact that my cultural connections are entirely arbitrary.

No, you don't have time to be watching movies at summer camp. That's right. If those kids are lucky, you're going to screen a 16 millimeter print of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. That's it in the in the in the multi-purpose room. That is what they used to do. They used to they used to do the films and they would they would have to tape them together. Right. Sure. Splice the 16 millimeter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we'll talk more about your summer camera in a second, because right now I got to tell you all guesses are wrong. The quote that I read to you is a 2009 blog entry by a person named Tom Devine of Northampton, Massachusetts, who I do not know personally, might be a listener to the show. Maybe I've met him a thousand times.

Sorry, Tom, if I have. But Tom was describing his brief membership in a Western Massachusetts commune that was called Brotherhood of the Spirit and later the Renaissance community. Now Jesse Thorne, just last week we performed live in Turner's Falls, specifically at the Shea Theater, which I only recently learned and frequently forget because it's so weird,

but the Shea Theater in Turner's was the high church and epicenter of the Renaissance community at its height in the 1970s. And at that time, the commune that this person Michael Rapunzel had started in a tree house in Lydon, Massachusetts, had grown to hundreds of members and dozens of profitable businesses. They basically had taken over Turner's Falls. And that's where we'll talk more about this later, Jesse. But it's around that time that Michael had changed his name to Rapunzel to focus less on being a commune leader and more on being a drug and booze addled rock star with a band called the Spirit and Flesh. Now, why he would change his name to Rapunzel to become a rock star when his literal birth name was Michael Metallica is just one of the strange

decisions that this guy made that led to the commune eventually hating him and paying him $10,000 to leave the commune forever, which he did in the 1980s. And then he went out to the Hudson Valley and passed away from cancer in 2003. And that's when our friend Monte Belmonti took it over. Yeah, exactly. The Brotherhood of Spirit, aka the Renaissance Community, does not exist, at least not in any recognizable form now. I think some of their businesses are still around,

but the Shea Theater is now a community theater where we perform as live Judge John Hodgman shows from time to time, along with a lot of other great community events. There's no more cult interners. But this was a completely unknown and wild history to me, even when I was spending huge parts of my life in the Pioneer Valley and performing at the Shea.

And if you wanna learn more about it, there's a documentary about this, the Brotherhood of the Spirit, that's called Free Spirits. You can get it at acornproductions.net. And that's where you can also find a photo of Toilet City. Jesse Thorne, I think I texted you Toilet City, right? You have texted me a photograph of Toilet City, John.

Would you open up your phone and look at Toilet City for me and describe what you see? Yeah, I see whatever algorithm lives inside my phone being ruined forever. uh, whatever algorithm lives inside my phone being ruined forever. So it's a photograph of some hippies. Yeah. You can say it hippies. Uh, and just classic old timey hippies. Some of them shirtless others wearing peasant blouses. Right.

Um, and it's a mixed gender group. And, uh, you can never tell what these long hairs. I know really. And, uh, they appear to be sitting on one, five different toilets. It's five people sitting on five different toilets, hanging out and reading, uh, newspapers and magazines and chatting. Right. This, this was the Brotherhood in Spirit communal toilet circle. The toilets are arranged in a circle.

So you have to look at other people while they are doing their business. And it says the caption is 1971 boys and girls using these toilets, quote, to get over their hangups, but also to erode their individual sense of privacy and make them more submissive to the cult, I think. And this is kind of what you got going on up at your cult slash camp, right, Will? Well, our toilets are more in a row. And we have we have six toilets. So we're we're all we're all facing the same direction, not each other. We're not we're not savages.

Oh, we're going to be looking at a photo of your toilet city in a second, but let me get a little bit of background in here. So, Diane, you and your husband, Will, purchased a boys summer camp in Ontario. You bought a camp. Why did you not buy a zoo? Because that movie was already taken. So, yeah. When did you buy this summer camp and why?

We bought this summer camp, I think, in November of 2023. Okay, recently. Recently, yes. It was, I mean, it was, you know, a year long process of getting there. But yes, we bought it. We actually met through this summer camp as well. Oh, okay. Well, Will, you have history with this camp, correct?

That's right. I started as a camper when I was 12 years old. So tell me about this camp and your history with it. What's the name of the camp? The name is Camp Pathfinder. It's located on an island in Algonquin Park, Ontario. The camp specializes in wilderness canoe tripping. We go on canoe trips all over Ontario

in handmade wooden cedar canvas canoes. And then come back to Pathfinder Island where we have fun and poop together. I can hear the sound of every listener clicking their keyboards as they rush to the URL. And I encourage them to check it out. It looks like a lot of fun. This episode of our show is a real skibbity nightmare. What is the what is the body of water that these handmade canoes ply?

We go the Algonquin Park is a region of lots, thousands of small lakes connected by trails called portages. And so we go from lake to lake. The camp itself is on a lake called Sourceages. And so we go from lake to lake. The camp itself is on a lake called Source Lake. Oh, like the source community, another commune north of in the in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles in the 70s. We are really struggling to not be cult like. This source lake is called that because it is the source of the Mattawaska River, which flows towards the sea.

So these portages are areas where you carry the canoe, right? You get out of the lake and you carry it to the next lake. That's right. Okay, got it. The Source family were known as the Source family because they were the source of green goddess dressing, which they invented in the 70s. Really? Yeah.

They pumped it out at the Source Family restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. The Source Family also has a great documentary. I mean, these are good documentaries you can be watching. You should be showing them at your camp, in fact, I think is probably a good idea. We'll put it in the queue right after deliverance. What are the ages of your campers? We started seven years old and we go up to 16 years old. And you were, you started at seven years old?

I started at 12. But then I was a counselor and a senior staff person as well. And when and why did you decide to buy it? Oh gosh, I became a school teacher and continued working at the camp well into my 30s and then met Diane while I was working at the camp because her family has a cottage across the lake. So I paddled over in a canoe and asked her out one day. We ended up getting married at the camp and have, as we've had a family, we've continued going back to the lake each summer.

And so when the opportunity became available, it was sort of a dream for our family. We'll decide how much of a dream it was. But you did it and you spent a last summer there as the director of the camp. We completed our first summer as owners and directors. And it says here that the camp is off the grid. How off the grid is it? What is life like at Pathfinder Island? Which really sounds like a CD-ROM game from 1997, but.

We're accessible by boat, so we get all of our food and supplies brought over to the island on pontoon boats. I trust everything is no-name brand from Loblaws? I love that you know them. I can't stop thinking about them. They came to visit us once in Canada. People from no-name brand came and visited us, and I still use my No Name Brand water bottle

and flip-flops when I go to the pool. I have my No Name pack of playing cards, just as King on one side. It's a very comfortable yellow on all the labels. Yeah. It's a, look it up, No Name Canadian brand groceries, everybody, if you haven't heard me rant about it. Particularly their evaporated milk can has a beautiful cow on it

let's get back to whatever we were talking about we're talking about how Camp Pathfinder is not a cult you get you get your food canoed in, correct? Motorboat, but... Motorboat. Oh, okay. Well, they're lucky. And do you have electricity? We have a cable that brings electricity under the lake. And we've got electric service in just a couple of buildings, but none of the sleeping areas have electricity. Just the kitchen and the office, that kind of thing.

Do you have a well? Do you have running water or what? We pump water out of the lake and we run it through a rigorous filtration process. Mm-hmm, okay. Everyone in this, everyone, all right, gotcha. It's tested regularly so that it's- Hey, Diane, I wasn't gonna say anything

about drinking this disgusting lake water. I was going to let it pass. Diane, when Jesse introduced this case, he said that you love spending summers at the camp apart from this toilet issue. That may or may not be true. That's just something I wrote. So let me ask you, did you love spending this summer at the camp overall apart from the toilet?

I did. I did. I did. I well, I grew up going to my family's cottage across the lake. It's a pretty small lake. Right. Because the camp and my cottage is in. It's getting smaller every day with all these campers drinking it. True. True. So my family has a cottage there from the, we got it in the 50s. It was my grandfather and grandmother's. And then, so I started going up when I was a little kid. So the place is very near and dear to my heart, the lake is.

And so I, yeah, I do love it up there. And I love it. Well, I mean, your family cottage probably has a working toilet, right? It had a- Or does it? No. I think you should describe the cottage outhouse. Yeah, please describe the cottage outhouse.

So it has an outhouse, a single use outhouse, composting outhouse, built and designed by Will sitting right here next to me my husband. You're saying that until you met this young Swain who canoed across the lake to woo you you didn't have any bathroom in your grandparents cottage? We had an old septic toilet that went to like a big tank underground. Septic tank. It was a septic tank. Could not withstand very much. Could not handle the poops anymore. No, no.

It was all done. Honestly, I would hate to drive that pontoon boat. There is that boat, the poop boat. You mean there's a boat that goes around emptying septic tanks all around the lake system? It's a very special boat. Yes, it's a very special boat. Why is there not a sitcom set on this poop boat? Canadian poop barge. The poop deck really has a meaning in that one.

Yes. Now you are not Ontarians either of you. No, we live in the great state of New Jersey. Were your was your family Ontarian? Is that why they had the cottage up there? My grandfather was from Rochester, which is somewhat close-ish. So yeah. The expanded Ontario universe. Yes, yes. Rochester, I think, expands further north because they just want it to be colder. Got it. Well, I'm not talking about your family camp experience

anymore, I'm talking about summer camp for boys, adventure canoe trip, living the whole summer on Pathfinder Island. Do you love it? Set aside the toilets, we're gonna talk about them in a second. Do you love it, yes or no? I do, I really do.

I love being on the lake, I love the community, yes. Right, right, okay. That sounded a little rehearsed. No, I really do. I really, I genuinely love it. And we have three daughters that are- Did they spend the summer with you? They did. They did. How old are they?

They are, it's her birthday today, our youngest. She's seven today, seven, nine, and 13. Oh, wow. And they enjoyed spending a whole summer at a boys canoe trip camp? The oldest went to a girl's camp. Oh, they were somewhere else. For one month, and then was with us for one month.

Got it. I'm glad there's so much love on Pathfinder Island, but let's go down to Toilet City. Diane, you submitted some photographic evidence of what is now known and has always been known, I think, as the Fort. And let's take a look at that evidence. Take me down to the Toilet City where the boys are canoeing and the holes are s**t.

Yeah, yeah, take me home. All right, exhibit A, the Boys' Communal Outhouse outhouse, AKA the boys fort along with the camps, one-eyed cat. Oh, that's not a euphemism. There is a cat Opal. Oh, look at that. Well, this image obviously will be available on our show page at maximum fund.org as well as on our Instagram page at judge John Hodgman.

And I'm going to tell you right now, this image is a real roller coaster because you start at the top and you're reading your eye reads one, two, three, four, five, six toilets right next to each other. No barriers whatsoever side by side in a very dystopian kind of zero privacy poop bunker. And then just when you feel like terrified there's this beautiful little one-eyed cat looking at you at the bottom of the photo. It's very, it's a real, it's a real run from disturbing to cute in this photo. She did not lose her eye in the toilet by the way.

I'm glad to hear that. John it's a beautiful cat but context is everything and this beautiful cat in the context of this terrifying toilet scape really seems like it has dark magical powers. It really does. Opal the one-eyed cat lives at the camp? That's right. Opal is the pet of our assistant director Erica. And where does Opal use the bathroom? Wherever she wants. All right, fair.

What kind of toilets are these, Will? These I should clarify are the staff toilets. Oh, that's why they're so nice. Well, they are the most advanced in terms of communal pooping. The toilets that the campers prefer to use do have partial dividers creating some separation. Oh, right. Due to the reasonable demands of parents. Exactly. Right. Wanting their children to not be traumatized.

So to be clear, this structure that is called the Boys Fort or the Fort is not actually used by the campers, it's used by the staff. Correct. The Boys Fort is adjacent to the picture we're looking at and is similar in all respects, except that there's a wooden divider between each. So they have a modicum of privacy. A modicum is a perfect word for it. Right but they're not sitting in a circle like Toilet City in Western

Massachusetts. They're sitting in a row facing out towards a screen. A view of the view of Source Lake. Right. So unless you're walking right in front of them you're not gonna see them. Correct. But these toilets are the staff toilets and the directors and directors family toilets is that what's happening here these are the this would be what we call the men's fort so okay this is where I poop do you know what the definition of fort is I don't know the I don't know the exact origin of our usage of it, but I know in the history of Canada, early fur traders would set up outposts along the shore of Hudson Bay, and those all were

called forks. John, many things can be used to fortify a fortification. Stone, adobe, holes full of doo-doo. That's right, I forgot about the traditional doo-doo, doo-doo hole fort structure. My main question looking at this photograph is, it's a beautiful photograph that people should definitely take a look at.

Is if you're in the middle of nowhere in Ontario, where did you find a chic interior design and home decor store to purchase these decorative toilet seats? Yes, all along the back row of the back wall and the side wall are decorative toilet seats that seem to have plaques attached to them. Oh, gosh. Yeah, those are really important. Those are commemorative toilet seats with names painted on them from some of our most legendary canoe expeditions. So when a canoe trip descends a river for the first time in Pathfinder history.

They'll get to write their names on a toilet seat and that toilet seat will get retired up onto the wall of our fort. What a more fitting tribute to exploration than a decorative toilet seat on the wall of a shed. Excuse me, fort. We are a boys camp. I understand. I love it.

Okay. So I'm looking at this photo now. What about this could possibly be not acceptable to you, Diane? Well, so this is the boys fort, the ladies fort as it's called, looks the same except instead of six toilets there are four. Okay. But other than that, it's completely identical. We don't have no dividers. No dividers.

In the ladies' fort. No dividers in the ladies' fort. And again, the ladies' fort would be used just by she, her people at the camp. And not campers, presumably, because. No, no, yes. There are no lady campers. Adult, adults, and your daughters.

My daughters, yes. But we do have some female swim staff and staff members. Got it. OK, got it. So why don't you want to poop and pee right next to? The people I employ? Yeah, exactly. What's wrong with that?

It seems like team building to me. I mean, I think for a lot of the boys, it is, I, I think that they, they call it a board meeting when they all go together. Oh brother. Oh gee whiz. He didn't want to know that. Sounds like, um, yeah. So I think, but, um, yes, I do like, I do like some privacy.

Um, and, uh, that. And that's pretty much it. How do your daughters feel about using the ladies fort? Our middle daughter's fine with it. Our younger daughter does not enjoy it. And our oldest, I think, does not. She's not like a teenager now, so I think it's uncomfortable for her. What is... How far away are the toilets from your home?

Very good point. We have... You have an owner's cabin or something? We have an owner's cabin. I think Will and I have a bit of a dispute of how far the walk is from our owner's cabin to... Well, there's no way to find out. ...to the fort. I think it's about a seven minute walk.

And what would you say, Will? I would say it's about less than 90 seconds. That's a very, very big discrepancy. But to be fair, Will is holding his eyeglasses thoughtfully, so I'm inclined to trust him. How do you account for that discrepancy if possible, Diane? Seven minutes versus one and a half minutes. Do you do you do you really wait until it's an emergency will and you have to hot foot it there? To be fair, you know, in the night when it's

dark and there's a need to go number one, most boys don't make it all the way to the fort, whereas girls often prefer to make it to a seat to pee. When it's dark out, the process of getting your shoes on, locating your flashlight, navigating up the trails might take a little bit longer. But during the day, I think it's pretty quick. I mean, seven minutes is how long it takes for me to walk to the subway. And that is where I usually poop and pee. Laughter

A couple of city blocks. And how does that go for you to have to walk the seven minutes? Oh, it goes. Great. Even if it's only a four-minute walk. That's what I was going to say. If we sort of put it down the middle and it's a four-minute walk. That's what I was gonna say. If we sort of put it down the middle and it's a four-minute walk,

I should say that in the middle of the night, I will just go outside. Yeah, you're on Pathfinder Island. Yes, yes. Now, let me just go backtrack here. You just bought it, so was this, and I hate to put it this way, but was this past summer summer number one

or summer number two? summer number one. And overall, how did summer number one go? Give me a headline each of you. It was a mortality free summer. Everything went really smoothly. Congratulations. I should say every summer at Camp Pathfinder is mortality free.

That's right. And the weather was amazing and unbelievable. And everybody had a great time. You mentioned that the campers love to go hang out together and sit on toilets together and have these board meetings, right? How do their parents feel about it? I think the parents, once they hear about it from their kids, come on board because

their parents tend to, when they're sending their kids to camp, have a lot of trust in their kids to navigate, you know, new scenarios independently. Yeah. navigate, you know, new scenarios independently. Yeah, I mean, it feels like part of camp, I mean, to be sure. But it's not like you're not getting any complaints other than from inside the house. Correct.

All right. And I'm looking here at camppathfinder.com. I don't mind saying the URL. Why, thank you. If I poke around here on this lovely website, am I going to find a picture of toilet city or no? I don't believe we've got a current photo on the website. No, you save that. You save that. You don't put that in the advertising. Let some things emerge as surprises. All right. These toilets are what kind of toilets are these?

They're called vaulted privies. So the toilets, the waste goes down. Well, well, down into. All right. I didn't realize it was also a Renaissance fair camp. No, it's very high tech. They go down into a tank,

a trough that drains into a large underground lake called Source Lake and then they drink it. Everything is kept completely separate. They go into a large underground tank that's made of very thick plastic that is then pumped out at the end of each season by the very special boat. By the special boat. That's right. And Diane, as attractive as the men's fort and the ladies' fort, I presume, are as well, you are suing for a private toilet in your own cabin.

I'm suing for a very particular private toilet. What kind of private toilet are we talking about? I would like to refer to exhibit C. It's called the Cinderella toilet. The Cinderella travel incineration toilet? I know vaulted privy sounds very fancy, but Cinderella toilet sounds also very lovely. You sent a link to a off-grid living solutions website that offers the Cinderella travel incineration toilet. And by the way, on sale right now, 10% off,

you can get it for a mere $4,000. It normally retails for almost $4,500. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Tell me what is in, tell me, I mean, of course, I know what an incineration toilet is, but let's pretend that I'm not lying. I will pretend that you have no idea. So you put you you put you you poop and pee into it. And then there's a small propane tank outside the cabin that starts a fire start somehow. You don't know, you don't know.

It burns it, it incinerates. It burns the waste product. Your waste into this, I mean, you can see on this pile of ash here that it makes it into that. And then you can grow things out of it, apparently, according to this photo. But it's not a composting toilet.

They're indicating that this is a green solution. Is it? I mean, what is your take on this, Will? Why not get an incinerating toilet for your wife? Why doesn't she deserve an incinerating toilet? Well, you mentioned the cost. And, you know, $4,500 is just for the toilet. The installation is almost as much. And then when you consider it in Canadian dollars, it comes to almost $10,000 for the toilet, which is significant. Not that- That's too much.

Your wife doesn't deserve it. Well, no, exactly. I would hesitate to put a dollar value on the comfort of my wife and daughters. And three daughters. Exactly. You know, in terms of this being a green solution, you know, that's hard to define. I would say that burning the propane and when we're talking about evaporating urine, that's a fairly energy intensive process.

I'm always talking about evaporating urine. Exactly. I can't get this guy to shut up. We're in the van on tour. Blah blah blah evaporating urine. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Energy-intensive blah blah blah blah blah. So I'm also reviewing some pros and cons of incinerating toilets here on the internet. It's caught, you know, there's propane involved. If you don't have electricity, you're going to you're going to need to power the incinerator and then and then it has this smokestack. And some people say it stinks.

Have you heard that, Will? I have heard that some people smell an odor. It stinks. Yeah, that's what stink is. That's what stink is. Trying to make your argument here for you. Stinks. You know, I had not used that in our discussions to date

because I fear that any solution is going to have a stink element. Oh, do they? I can see that point. The lines of toilets that dump into a single tank that gets plumped out at the end of the season don't smell so great. That's why you have to have them three city blocks

from your home. About as much as an incinerating toilet. But once per year, 10,000 Canadian to come get, take the poop away. Yes. About that. I got to change my career. I could be driving a Canadian poop lake boat. That's where the money is.

I mean, just, oh my gosh, we could be swimming in Tim Hortons right now. And why, why not a, you have a, a will had put in a composting toilet to your family cabin, if I Will had put in a composting toilet to your family cabin, if I remember correctly, and a composting toilet is an alternative outdoor toilet situation that I have seen and used in outhouses before, both at the Rosenmeier's property in Prince Edward Island and when I was visiting our friend Chuck Bryant

at his camp in Georgia, composting toilet. Oh, so you have a friend who has a camp. Yeah, I got all kinds of people in my life. You just know, yeah. No, I'm not talking about a summer camp for boys. I'm talking about a place where he pitches a tent, literally. Gotcha. Barbecues. Yeah, I think he is composting.

Maybe he is incinerating, I don't remember. But I do know a composting toilet is one where you do your business and then you turn a crank Maybe it's incinerating, I don't remember. But I do know a composting toilet is one where you do your business and then you turn a crank and it all gets put into a compost and then it actually can be used as fertilizer. So I don't know whether there's a cost difference there, but why an incinerating toilet as opposed to any other option?

They can't try to do a composting toilet and it was ineffective up there. Yeah, composting toilets can be finicky in terms of their mechanisms and requirements. The composting process is a delicate one. You have to have very carefully managed temperature and moisture levels. And there's small machines and motors that turn and rotate the compost. And it can require a lot of maintenance. If a composting toilet was the solution, you would have to put it in an outhouse. Yes.

Nearer to your owner's cabin than the forts are, but still outside. Yes, correct. And people would look at that and they would be like, well, well, well, the king and queen have their own outhouse. Yes. Is that part of your consideration, Will, that if you get a incinerating toilet in your home,

it's gonna cause morale to plummet throughout the camp, and then there'll be a takeover of Camp Pathfinder, and it's gonna be a Lord of the Flies type situation. A mutiny of sorts. Wait, hold on, Will, wait until you have the conch. Okay, go ahead. A putiny? A poopiny.

No, I'm not worried about that. You know, as the owner of the camp, I recognize that I need to have the support of my family to do this job. And so I have no shame about wanting them to be comfortable and happy in their pooping. And you think the rest of the camp would understand? I hope so. So your consideration is purely price.

Is there any other consideration as to why you will deny your wife and I mean your daughters want this too, right Diane? Yes. Yeah, he did come up with a second option to the outhouses, which I can refer to exhibit D. Let's take a look at exhibit D. This looks like a bucket. Yeah. So I can see that the hiking to the group forts is not necessarily going to make everyone happy. And so some sort of private solution makes a lot of sense. And in considering sort of the three major options, an incinerating toilet, a composting toilet,

or a bucket privy, the bucket seemed like it was going to be the most practical, the least worrisome, and the least likely to have maintenance issues. So the way this bucket would work is it's basically a wooden box with a toilet seat on it. And inside that box is just a bucket and the bucket would have one of those green compostable bag liners Right kind of like a doggy bag a dog bag. Yeah, but bigger and then

after after a Suggesting that my poops are bigger than a dog's Just a you know, we're a family collective bigger than a dog's. Just a family collective. Spent on the size of the dog. Yeah, and so after an event or several, you would just tie up the bag and take it out with the garbage.

As Norm MacDonald might say, the way a bucket toilet works is, Jesse, it's a bucket. Yeah. How often would you change out the poop bag in your bucket toilet will I Would commit to changing it out after every poop? or if I'm not there at the end of each day Would you deal with the poops of others? Good question happily is that what you're offering? I'm in the business of dealing with the poops of 110 boys.

No, you're not. They're all going down into a tank. Yeah, the boat deals with the poops. You pay the boatman. I would argue that that's dealing with it. Paying a poop sailor is not the same as emptying a bucket once or multiple times a day. Fair enough. But I'll ask you this, Diane. Let's say that he's as good as his word.

And every time you and one of your daughters uses the bucket, you pull on a little chain, and it makes, it sounds a little awuga horn, and Will's gonna run back and tidy up your bag. Hold on, Judge Hodgeman. I need something different from this situation. If this is going to happen, Will, you're gonna direct a I need something different from this situation. This is going to happen.

Will, you're gonna direct a scene with Diane. This is going to be an enactment of what happens when your wife has pooped in a bucket. So you can give her the dialogue that she needs to use and I want to know, I want to see your reaction on microphone and camera. I pooped. And I peed too.

podcast Emmy for that performance. Great. Would you kindly not the bag so that I can? Whoa, whoa, whoa. She's got to not her own bag. Oh. Why don't you? You're hauling it, Will. Why don't you not the bag? Would you like me to not your bag? Yeah. Always. Things are getting weird on Pathfinder Island. I'm not your bag. Yeah.

Always. Things are getting weird on Pathfinder Island. This is the best episode of the show ever. Have you proposed nodding the bag to your daughters and how do they feel about the bucket toilet option? I don't think in a substantive way. Like when you said to your 13-year-old daughter, here's a solution, you can poop in a bucket. What was her reaction? We have not had the conversation with them yet.

You haven't even brought it up yet. How do you suspect it's going to go? I suspect they're going to go for the more sleek incinerating Cinderella toilet. I mean, the marketing is clearly better on that product Also, they're not pooping into a bucket. They're pooping into a flame chamber Which is awesome Yeah, kind of shot myself in the foot on that one Now I'm gonna throw away my sewer connected toilet so I can poop into a flame chamber This thing even comes with a flange.

Break it down for me. Incinerating toilet, 8,000 American, $10,000 Canadian outlay, and then it would cost a certain amount of money to keep it running all the time, right? Probably just the propane. Cost of propane, it would add to your cost of propane. Potentially maintenance if it breaks. Potentially maintenance. Many, many, many, many delicate propane. Potentially maintenance if it breaks. Potentially maintenance. Many, many, many, many delicate moving parts.

Many delicate, fragile sensors. Bucket has no moving parts. Very simple. Yeah. It's true that there are no moving parts to a bucket. What's your budget for Project Bucket? 10,000 Canadian. All right.

You kids are just joking me. Twenty five bucks. Well, you know, the one the picture that you sent in looks like a real toilet just happens to have a green bag in it that catches everything. I could build a little wooden box to you could make it look to conceal the bucket. Yeah. You know, you have to pay. You have to buy the bags.

And the Canadian government wouldn't have a problem with this. No. I mean, I presume not, but I just want to double check all trying to get all of the all of the angles here. Yeah. All of all of these solutions keep the human waste out of the water stream. How realistic do you think it is, Will, that you'd be able to empty this bucket efficiently? You've got so many other responsibilities. That's a fair point. Realistically, I concede that there may be times when my wife or daughters may find themselves just emptying the bucket themselves. Because they don't want to wait for you to come and do it.

That's right. Or they might just walk away and let you come and get it. Later, yeah, which would be fine as well. Would that be fine with you, Diane? If you never had to knot the bag. I mean, I feel like I will be knotting the bag most of the time is my feeling. Realistically, you think that you're gonna have to do it.

Yeah, yes, I do feel that and and I feel I don't want to do that. Ha ha ha! Fair. Why don't you and your daughters just stay at your family cabin and enjoy your composting toilet and everything that that cabin has to offer? It's hard to be in two different places with three kids. Like, I find it difficult to, oh, I left this thing at that place

and we gotta go back there to get your, you know, your swim floaties or your bathing suit. And it's just easier to all be in one place. Plus at camp, the meals are all cooked and done. Oh, okay, got it. Unlimited sloppy joes, John, that's the secret here. Yeah, what do you serve for food there? You got that bug juice?

There's definitely bug juice, yes. Will, is there something about an incinerating toilet that violates the spirit of Camp Pathfinder? That is to say, if the judge John Hodgman podcast were to buy you one and Install it for you and pay for its upkeep Would it still be a problem for you? George? That's a great question Thank you, and I'll preface my answer by saying that I really do want the absolute best

most comfortable pooping solution for My family so do I even need to go and consider my verdict my argument is that the bucket system is? the best Solution for the thinging. I see. Okay. And that, and my argument comes down to reliability, right? The summer is two months long, that's 60 days of pooping.

And with a toilet that is potentially malfunctioning and having a number of days with no solution, in my mind, is a worse outcome for my beloved family than having the bucket toilet, which is going to be 100% reliable. Will, would it be possible to obtain some sort of, I mean, this is crazy, I know everything comes in on a barge, but some sort of backup solution, like, uh, what would you call it though? Like a fucking a bucket. Yeah. I'm thinking of a bucket. Would it, could you get a bucket onto the island just in case

too expensive? All right. But let's be real about expense for a second here, because I can imagine this is a big, this is a big, not only life change, but a big financial burden to run this camp. Right? Camps are not like how you become wealthy. Yeah. Right.

Owning camps. I'm sure that there's a ton of insurance and upkeep and year round maintenance and everything else. I mean, I think it's sometimes hard for one spouse to say to another, I'm sorry, honey, we simply cannot afford an incinerating toilet. Is that what this comes down to? No, not for me. All right. So what does it come down to? I think my instinct is to

Analyze the engineering of it and think about the reliability. I had not considered You know an option a with a backup solution on standby I Will say that you have said well if we ever did get any kind of bucket or toilet situation in our cabin, that you would still use the fort. That's right. Why? I love it. The front windows of the fort look out over the lake.

The conversations you get to have in the fort with friends are completely unique kind of conversations. You're just sitting there with your pants down, having a bowel movement and chatting. That's right. So just because you love the fort, do you wish that Diane also loved the fort? No, I don't need that personally. All right, I think I've heard everything I need to when I make my decision.

I'm gonna go into my chambers and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a minute. Judge Hodgman, we have some new t-shirts in the Max Fun Store. That's right. Everyone's long been a fan of our wonderful,

weird dad shirts. That weird dad logo designed by the great Aaron Draplin. Well, guess what? We went back to Aaron Draplin and we're like, something's missing in our lives. And he's like, you're right. How about a weird mom shirt? And we got them. Weird mom shirts are now in the Max fun store. No matter what type of parent you identify as, you can be weird.

As long as it's weird, we have a t-shirt for you at maxfunstore.com. And also bumper stickers, weird mom, weird dad bumper stickers are available there as well, as well as a new old favorite. Right, Jesse? The Canadian House of Pizza and Garbage. Just in time for our grand return to Canada at the beginning of 2025. You can celebrate the holiday season

with one of the greatest Judge John Hodgman cases of all time in which a litigant was accused of getting pizza out of the garbage indirectly granted, granted indirectly by saving up points that others had thrown into the trash can at a fast food restaurant. Yeah. And honestly, when we're talking about the particular pizza pizza chain that he was taking the pizza out of the garbage from when it's already garbage when it goes before it goes into the garbage. I guess it doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly.

You can get that and not only in t-shirt form, but also in koozie form, which is the perfect way to express the garbage inside of you. That's right. We have a brand new Canadian house of pizza and garbage, cozy cold beverage insulator sleeve that you can stick right into any holiday stocking you like. And what better gift to give this holiday than tickets to Judge John Hodgman Live. We are currently in New England, but at the beginning of 2025,

we will be on the West Coast, including, it can finally be announced, our San Francisco SketchFest show. That's right, we'll be at Marines Memorial Theater in San Francisco during that San Francisco SketchFest on Groundhog's Day, Sunday, February 2nd. And that's just part of our tour. We're also going to Vancouver, Canada,

Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, California, where we will also be joined by whom, Jesse? Jordan, Jesse, go. But John, last time I looked, that show was 99% sold. Whoa. I don't know. I guess that means there's like three or four tickets left.

So you better go grab those if you're in LA or get yourself a ticket up to SF SketchFest. Have a great time, make a weekend of it. All of our tickets are always available at maximumfund.org slash events. Get them for yourself or a loved one now. And if you have disputes that you'd like us to hear on stage at any of these shows, make sure to let us know

at maximumfund.org slash JJHO. And John Hodgman, if you know a dad in your life who is not weird, for years, Judge John Hodgman listeners, among others, have been asking me to bring back the Put This On ball caps that say dad on them. And we are bringing them back this winter. So go to putthisonshop.com.

You can find those along with an infinite number of other wonderful things to give someone you love this holiday season. It's putthisonshop.com. I think they'll be up by the time, it might be a week or two from when this goes up that they'll be up in the Put This On Shop, but there's lots of amazing things there at putthisonshop.com. but there's lots of amazing things there at putthisonshop.com. So make sure you bookmark putthisonshop.com as well as maxfundstore.com,

as well as maximumfund.org slash events, as well as maximumfund.org slash JJHO. Start clicking some links. Let's get back to the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict. Bert and I went down across the lake to go to the camp to light the fire. Light the fire, Bert, I, but you said it yourself.

You knew who you married. You were there enjoying a beautiful summer with a working toilet. It was almost like a fable. You were there enjoying a beautiful summer in Ontario with a working toilet in your family cabin when across the water came this creature to tempt you away from all of that and to bring you back to Pathfinder Island and keep you there forever. And you agreed.

You knew what you were getting into. And over the years, you agreed, I trust and hope. You knew that Will had this obsession with Pathfinder Island. And at some point, I trust, Will came to you and said, I want to buy the camp. It will secure a future and legacy for our daughters forever. And you said yes. And I trust that when you say, I know who I married,

that you also knew that, Will, you were going to go and not be home for big portions of the spring and fall, and leaving your three children in the care of your wife. And it's hard, even when you have two children, one children or zero children, will your dream is fascinating and lovely and novelistic.

I think it's amazing thing to do with your life, to find a place that is so meaningful to you where you've devoted so much time and to take a huge risk and make a huge life change. And I trust and sense that you're very, very grateful that Diane is supportive of this dream which is yours. And I guess one you share together, but mostly yours. And one that she gets to visit and be a part of or two months out of the year. I think that she deserves a toilet that she is comfortable with.

I mean, I get it that there are costs. I mean, that's not cheap. $10,000 Canadian toilet. Forget it. That's not cheap. I agree. And I'm sure you've got a lot of expenses, you know, got to, got to, got to maybe buy a bucket, start putting money in it. Not pooping in it.

Well, you can poop in it too, but it might ruin the money. You should buy a bucket and you should start putting aside money for this incinerating toilet, um, as a, as a couple because you have shared finances after all. So maybe it's worth buying summer number two with a bucket, but I think that you should start saving up money to buy your bride and the incinerating toilet she loves. I appreciate that they're, they take energy, they're, they're, they cost more. They have small sensors and stuff that will break down, but they, people have them, they do work.

It's not like they don't ever work. And the truth is the occasional expense and hassle of repairing or maintaining an incinerating toilet, I have to imagine as going to be less onerous ultimately than you being on bag nodding duty or the duties multiple times a day. I mean, I think that, and quite honestly, I hope that this dream comes true as it has already done, but comes true every year and that the camp financially is sustainable. And I dare say even profitable, but there may come a time when you're like,

well, I can't keep this up anymore. Just like the previous owners of the camp did, the old man from before who owned that camp and you may need to sell it. And guess what? Incinerating toilets can be a real attractor to a new buyer. It's an investment, not just in the happiness of your marriage, but also in the camp itself. So I do think that you owe it to your spouse, especially now and to your spouse, especially now and your daughters also. Because as you know, from attending camp and now owning camp, summer is short. Time moves in one direction.

People grow up, not everyone works at their summer camp and into their thirties. I would dare say that that's something of an anomaly that you felt that connection with camp. Look, I have children who went to camp. One of them hated it. The other one loved it and does feel a connection to camp. People feel real connections to the places where they spend this time.

And there is definitely bonding that occurs through pooping in the same room, among other activities. But I don't think it's necessarily true that your own children, as they grow and into their fullness as whole human beings, are necessarily going to want to spend every summer at the camp themselves. One of them is already going to another camp. I don't know where she poops. But the thing is, if you want your children to come to you as they grow older and you

grow older and as your lives separate, you've got to provide them with comfort and enticement and something other than bucket honestly. So I think that it's an investment even though it's expensive and I appreciate that composting toilet. I would have thought might be a more cost effective way to do it, but I understand there are different complications, but even though it's expensive, I think that I think that you will gain more than what you spend over time by making your wife and daughters a place that they can defecate in privacy.

So I rule in favor of Diane and your daughters. This is the sound of a gavel. I hope you're not using the toilet, it's broken. The toilet doesn't flush. Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Diane, how are you feeling about this decision? I am feeling ecstatic. I feel very grateful to the judge for his ruling. And as always, his

rulings were deeper and more profound than just the matter at hand, which I appreciate. 05.12.00 Will, how do you feel? 05.19.00 When I search my feelings, I feel like Judge John is right. This is probably the right decision. The bucket concept was probably more of my own design and thinking than putting my girls first.

Diane, well, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you so much. Thanks. It was fun. Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We'll have swift justice in just a moment. But first, our thanks to Redditor MrSleepy for naming this week's case. If you want to name a future case,

join us on Reddit at MaximumFun.Reddit.com, where every week Jennifer Marmer puts up a little thread for people to suggest their puns and suggest them they do. Evidence and photos for the show are, of course, on our website at maximumfund.org on the page for this episode. They are also on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. You can also watch full video of this episode

and almost all of our episodes on YouTube at JudgeJohnHodgmanPod. Go there and make a comment, hit that share button, do all the things that help our stuff, hit the algo. And of course you can find us on TikTok now at JudgeJohnHodgmanPod. So be sure to follow us in all of those places. And John, do we have an Apple Podcasts review this week?

We do. Thank you to Doc Robert. That's a very dapper name. Doc Robert over on Apple Podcasts lent some very kind words and a five star rating, writing, two of the best voices in podcasting, that's you and me, Jesse, two of the best voices in podcasting

brought together for ridiculous and hilarious cases, one of the best maximum fun shows to get your friends into the network. Well, that's very flattering indeed. And of course we love it when people discover Judge John Hodgman, all of the maximum fun shows. And these five-star ratings on Apple podcasts and now on

Pocket cast to really do help new listeners find the show So if you feel moved to give us a rating and review, please do so right now You can also leave a comment on Spotify or a comment on our YouTube page at YouTube comm slash at judge John Hodgman pod And by the way, if you visit that YouTube page, make sure to check out this video where I feature my weird way of eating a carrot. You've never seen anything like it. Well, maybe you have, but go check it out.

Judge Hodgman, speaking of those other great Maximum Fun shows, you have a new Maximum Fun show. Why, that's right, Jesse, we do. Janet Vardy and I are the co-hosts of the brand new MaxFun Podcast, E Pluribus Motto, where we go state by state, commonwealth by commonwealth, talking about fun, weird, state and commonwealth trivia, starting with the state mottos and often ending with the state beverage,

which is often milk. Lots of states have an official state beverage, which is milk. If that's the kind of thing that interests you, it sure does me. Go check us out over at MaximumFun.org, the name of the podcast, E Pluribus Motto. Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode engineered by Marvin Perdomo at Bravery Studios in Garfield, New Jersey.

Our social media manager is Natty Lopez. The podcast edited by A. by AJ McKeon. Our podcast producer is Daniel Spear. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer. Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment. Dave Brarian on the Max Funds subreddit says, my sister uses a spoon to mix medicine into her cat's

meals. When she's done, she rinses it and sets it on the clean dish drainer tray. Please make her wash the spoon with soap and water. Jesse, I also use a spoon to mix medicine into our cat's meals. And one thing that I do is I definitely don't rinse it off and put it in the tray. I immediately throw it into my spoon incinerator. No. If that's not your judgment, John, we're going to get letters. If I've learned anything. Scrub that spoon. Look, there's probably nothing wrong with the cat food that your cat is eating.

You could probably enjoy it yourself. God or whatever, help me. I have been tempted, but you don't want to just rinse your cat food spoon. You want to give it a good old wash with some good old hot soap. Well, regular temperature soap and hot water. Unless, John, you have a cat disease, in which case you might want a little bit of that cat medicine. That's a good point. If you have a cat disease, consult your doctor.

Meanwhile, we are around the corner from the holiday season, and you know that that means holiday parties. I would love to hear about your party-related disputes, all of your party fouls. They don't have to be winter holiday-themed. I don't mind if they do, but any party at disputes, all of your party fouls, they don't have to be winter holiday themed. I don't mind if they do, but any party at all, any time of year, if I am paraphrase Andrew WK, when it's time to party, we will always bring justice.

Oh man, you know what? If we get a really good party dispute, I'll send Andrew an email. I haven't seen him in too long. Yeah, maybe he'll lend us a few words of advice and wisdom and justice. The greatest of all party legends, one of the best dudes in the world. We're eager to hear about any dispute.

No dispute is too small. Go to MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. Of course, if you are in one of the places where we have an upcoming show, which is the West Coast in January and early February, Make sure and note that when you fill out that quick little form, it's at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.