Judge John Hodgman - Innjustice

Episode Date: June 21, 2017

Luke brings the case against his fiancee, Quay. They are planning their destination wedding and have a limited number of on-site cabins available. Luke would like to split the cabins 50-50. But, Quay says they should be allocated proportionally, so the two of them have an equal percentage of guests in off-site hotels. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Thank you to Travis Marttila for suggesting this week's title! To suggest a title for a future episode, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook. We regularly put out a call for submissions.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, injustice. Luke brings the case against his fiancee, Quay. They are planning their destination wedding. They have a limited number of on-site cabins available. Luke would like to split the cabins 50-50. Quay says they should be allocated proportionally so that the two of them have an equal percentage of guests in off-site hotels. Who's right? Who's wrong? Only one man can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Don't swim in lakes because all lakes are disgusting. At least the ocean has tides, heaving its weeds and slimes and jellies out of your way every now and then. But lakes are unmoving, fetid pools full of fish poop and frog parts, and the bottom of every lake is a Lovecraftian hellscape. And I don't want to hear from you people who live in the Great Lakes regions. I'm sure you will protest that your gigantic stale water ponds also have tides and are basically imitation oceans. That makes it even weirder. That's like a dog pretending to be a human. And because it's a stupid dog, it just wears a rubber human suit. And everyone says,

why is that gross rubbery human crawling around on the floor over there? Disgusting. Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in. 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 he travels with a hotel? I do. I do. Very well, Judge Hodgman. Luke and Quay, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the courtroom? Quay, you are brought here against your will, so why don't you guess first? I actually have no idea. And so I'm just going to say that Lake House movie with Sandra Bullock. Lake House movie with Sandra Bullock. I'm putting in the guest book. Luke, what is your guess?

That's not a bad guess. Bad guess. Because it has Lake right in it. Yeah. Yes. I also have no idea. So I'll guess. Lake Placid starring Bridget Fonda.

Oh, is that the alligator movie? Which is the alligator one? That's the one. Oh, yeah. That's a good guess too. You want to put that in or did you have another one? Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do Lake Placid.

I love it. Lake Placid. You can hear me writing it. I don't have to write it. All guesses are wrong. It is not from a movie at all. It is from a book called Vacation Land by John Hodgman. I'm sorry.

Look, this was a hard one because you guys are getting married and you have a dispute over your destination wedding and how to allocate the cabins or whatnot and you know i'm going what am i doing there's so many like hotels and lodging boring weddings they're great things but they're all right like like there's a whole great monologue from the opening wedding scene of the godfather but you'd get that in two seconds then i was going to do something from the people magazine feature on the destination wedding of drew scott of the property brothers but there was nothing really quotable there and then i realized you guys are not just having a wedding you're having a destination wedding and if i've read your case correctly it's the destination is a lake and i remembered

two things i have something to say about lakes i know it because i wrote it down in a book and that book is going to be for sale soon ish vacation land the new book by john hodgman bit.ly slash painful beaches all one word small letters and of marketing. So the destination is a lake. Luke and Quay, you are to be married. Congratulations. Thanks. Thank you. Tell me a little bit about the wedding that's coming up, Luke. This is your case. So let's hear about it. When are you getting married? We're getting married on September 9th of this year. September 9th. I got it in the book. See you there. Yeah. Your invites on this way. Uh-huh, sure. And you live in New York, right? We reach you at Argo Studios in Manhattan?

Yep, yep. We live in Brooklyn. Right. And how long have you guys been dating? For over five years. Good. But we were friends for many years before that. How'd you meet?

We met a friend of mine from high school, went to college with Quay, and then Quay and I were living in the same neighborhood after college. What neighborhood? Carroll Gardens. All right. Checks out. Back in 05. But that's not how you met. How'd you meet?

Just through that friend. She was in town, and we hung out one night. Yeah, where'd you hang out? I don't even remember. A restaurant or something. I guess more interesting than the meet, I guess. Excuse me, Luke. We were in a band for...

Luke. Okay. I think it was at someone's apartment. Yeah. That's better. All I was going to say was call it off. What are you saying about a band, Luke? Well, before we dated,

we were in a band together for five or six years. Whoa! Spent a lot of time together working. What was the name of the band? And traveling. The band's name was Slow Dance. It was a pretty small band, but we toured around a little bit.

Was it a local band or a destination band? Wedding band, actually. No, no. pretty small band but we we toured around a little bit was it a local band or a destination band wedding band actually no no the band was called slow dance yeah good band name what kind of music do you play that's kind of wavy pop music what was your instrument i i played keyboard and wrote lyrics and koi sang and also played keyboard. How many keyboards were in this band? Five? Just, I guess I had two. So, so three.

All right, cool. Is your music available anywhere? Well, the band broke up a while ago, but yeah, it's still floating out there in the ether. But did it break up because you guys started hugging and kissing? No, actually. We were the last ones standing. Why did it break up? You know, personality clashes over a long period of time, you know.

Yeah, I'm sure it's something you want to get into on a public podcast. So you have a destination wedding. It is at a lake. Luke, what is this lake and what does it mean to you? This lake, my grandmother has a house on this lake and then my great aunt and uncle who both passed they had two houses on the lake uh and the brief history of is that is that it was this property was bought up by two brothers uh 150 years ago and so there's about eight or nine houses on the lake everyone is distantly related to each other because the houses get passed on from generation to generation uh so i grew up going to this place every summer right um and i love it it's very

special although i was like you and i could never swim in it because it terrified me as a child yeah um but you've gotten over that uh there's still the little voice in the back of the head but yeah i can get in the water. Yeah. Do yourself a favor. Don't go snorkeling. Don't see what's on the bottom. It's gross. Oh, no. I would never.

So, all right. Everyone surrounding this lake, you have a compound around this lake. Do you want to name the lake or do you not want to name the lake? I guess I'll name it. Yeah. Hewitt Lake. Hewitt Lake. Somewhere in the northeast.

Yeah. Yeah, in the Adirondacks. No one's going to crash your wedding. Don't worry about it. Everyone, let's all meet at Hewitt Lake. September 9th, I wrote it down. I'm going to get 35 jet skis, and we're just going to buzz that wedding. Dope.

So anyway, Quayay who proposed to whom uh luke proposed to me when he proposed to you and you said yes did you realize you were marrying into a weird multi-generational lake cult because this sounds creepy up there i had been a few times so yes what's it like up there. I had been a few times, so yes. What's it like up there? It's very quiet. It's very peaceful. It's casual, comfortable, kind of like

not super bare bones, but not very fancy. Is it magical? Yeah. You like this place. I do. The forest reminds like this place. I do. The forest reminds me of like Miyazaki movies, like Princess Mononoke. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good. Miyazaki. Jesse Thorne, famous maestro of Japanese animation. Animation. But who happens to be Japanese? You know that, of course, Jesse Thorne. Yeah. I've seen Totoro.

Totoro. What's your favorite Miyazaki, Jesse? Totoro. What rocks it? Totoro? Yeah. Totoro, and that's my favorite guy. Totoro from the movie Totoro.

I don't mean to be on the nose, but I like that Spirited Away the best. I'll do a Kiki's Delivery Service. I'll do a Ponyo Delivery Service. I'll do a Ponyo. I don't like that one. You don't like it? Ponyo, that's the submarine fish man one? Yeah, yeah. No, I don't like that one.

Why not? I don't know. It just rubs me the wrong way. You know, I shouldn't like it either because there's probably a lake in it somewhere. Yeah, I like that Totoro, though. Totoro, yeah. I haven't seen Princess Mononoke, and so I don't even know what your wedding's going to look like. Yeah, I like that Totoro though. Totoro, yeah. I haven't seen Princess Mononoke, and so I don't even know what your wedding's going to look like. But Quay, this is

a special place for you. You're not being brought there against your will. No. It's not like you were saying, I'd love to get married on an island or someplace far away from a lake, and then Luke was like, oh, but Gammy Lake Monster, my grandmother, would come back to haunt me

if we didn't you have to be one of us now all right it's gam gam lake monster gam gam lake monster so your dispute though is the how to divide the housing because they're only a certain number of guests can stay right at the lake in the weird, creepy compound of the associated homes. And the rest of the guests are going to have to stay back at the courtyard by Marriott at the interstate, right? Is that what's going on, Quay? Yeah, it's most people staying at the lake and then a handful of people not. Ooh. So how many people can stay at the lake?

By last count, we had 92 beds. 92 beds? people not. So how many people can stay at the lake? By last count, we had 92 beds. 92 beds? Yeah, that's distributed amongst eight houses or whatever. What, do you have a barracks up there? I think there are a lot of cots. Okay.

So you managed it, but that's the total number, that's the highest density population you can fit, and the overflow is going to be about how many people, Luke? It's 30 to 40 people overflow. 30 to 40. Woo. You can't just cut it down, guys. Yeah.

That's narrow. I thought you were going to say 120 overflow because you have 220 people come to a giant wedding. You only got a couple dozen people to get rid of. Get out that red pencil. Start crossing people out. Chaff. Find the chaff. Separate from the wheat.

Later, cousins, husbands, and wives. Yeah, no kidding. No cousins, husbands. No cuz-huz. Yeah. Well, Jesse Thorne, when you said, can't you cut some people out? I heard Quay go, oh, like like she's been thinking about that a lot.

Quay, can you cut some people out or what? Well, I did something that's probably not advisable. I like prematurely cut people or preemptively cut people. So I had, there are people that I definitely want to invite that I didn't even put on the list people that you wanted to invite that you didn't put on the list in order to keep the numbers down yeah and then

what happened was Luke's dumb family took all those spaces that you had preemptively cut and flooded them with cousins and husbands and husbands cousins yes or no is that what happened cut and flooded them with cousins and husbands. And husbands, cousins. Yes or no, Quay. Is that what happened?

I mean, I don't know what the first part of that is true. And then I don't know what happened. My wife and I are very much in love and we have been for a long time. But when we got married, I happened to know that you make two lists with a line down the middle, one of which is husband guests and one of which is wife guests. And even the most cherished joint friends end up on one or the other of the list. There's no joint list. Right. How many people are on each of your lists? Good question, Jesse. By my last count, I had about 48. And that's pretty close to exact.

And then I think Quay is around 75. Uh-huh. That sounds right. And that's including plus ones and everything. So Quay, you preemptively cut a lot of people, but you have the majority of the guests here. Is that correct? Yes. Got it.

And this leads to the dispute, right? Because Luke, you, how do you want, you want the guests to be allocated in a 50-50 split between the cabins and the interstate? Well, if, if you were to find in my favor, I don't need 50 of the bets um exactly but i think i would be within my rights to take more than the 38 or whatever that number ends up being um for that reason yeah i'm not gonna be doing math here but let me just make sure i understand you want to split up these sweet, sweet cabins 50-50. There are 92 of them, so you would get 46. That's more than the number of, quote-unquote, your guests that are coming. So all your people would get in, and a bunch of Quay's people would be offshored to the Radisson.

Right. Okay, Quay, how do you feel about that? I don't like that. Right. Okay. Quay, how do you feel about that? I don't like that. Right. Yeah, I don't. I'm not so much into that. For a couple reasons. Do you want, can I? Yeah. Can I go into it? Okay. Please. Yeah. That's why we're here. That's why we're here. Yeah. So I think that there are kind of like two reasons why I think we should split them up a little bit differently. I don't know that I would need them to be split like the hotel rooms need to be split half and half. But what I do think is that it might make more sense to have people who are less close to us be further away physically.

And why? Because, you know, it's our wedding and we want to, I guess, spend more time with the people that we care about the most. But I do understand that maybe that's a weird, I don't know how we could kind of like explain that role to people. I mean, I don't know how we could kind of like explain that role to people. I mean, I don't know that we would need to, but. Sure. No, this is what you say.

What you say is you 30 to 40 people mean less to us. Here's a shuttle bus. We don't want you near us during our wedding. Please go away. Thanks for coming. It seems to me like the easiest thing to do would be like an all-ages club where a black ex goes on the hand of the people that you like, and then a red ex goes on the hand of the undesirables. Yeah.

Quay, how did you end up with so many more guests to this wedding than your fiance? end up with so many more guests to this wedding than your fiance? I just, I have quite a bit more really close friends than he does. Not like casual acquaintance friends, but like actual people that I, you know, go on vacations with. You're better liked than he? with and um you're better liked than he i'm i'm a little i'm more outgoing than him uh he's he's a more of an introvert um so yeah more friends on my end but of the same caliber this isn't a matter of you have as in many situations you having many aunts and uncles who have to come and him having only two aunts and uncles who have to come or something like that. This isn't a family situation. This is discretionary family friendship. Yeah. She's just more popular.

Yeah. Do you agree with that characterization, Luke? Sure. I could go along with that. Yeah. I have fewer friends and it takes me longer to get to know people and everything. Do you agree that your fiancé's 25th and 28th best friends are the same amount of best friend as your 8th and 10th best friend?

I'll say that Quay relates to people in a way that I don't necessarily and I don't necessarily understand it, but I love her very much and am very supportive. What does that mean? Yeah, what does that mean? You know, that I have about 20 friends, say, coming to the wedding, and those are all very close, very special people to me. And Quay apparently has 50 people that are very close and very special to her.

And I guess that's just – She's popular, dude. You should feel lucky you're marrying a popular woman. I know it. To get a sense – and so like who are the people in Luke's world that you want to exile to the interstate so that you can get more of your people into the sweet, sweet cabins, Quay? I don't know who listens to this podcast. Well, you don't have to give me their names. Okay.

Are you talking about friends of his that you don't like? No. Are you talking about extended family of his that Yes. That are just boring to you? Smelly old people? We won't say smelly old people. Oh, okay. No, no, you can. Yes, then we will.

Yeah. Okay. I would say extended family and then friends of parents. Friends of parents. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Within reason. I mean, they're just obviously, you know, some are more important than others, but the Mm-hmm. that just generally speaking, people who weren't going to be partying and drinking as much should probably be staying off campus, so to speak.

Yeah, they ought to be up on the shelf. Get out of town, non-partiers, olds and friends of parents and stuff. What kind of hotels are there at the interstate? There are two, at least two. And then, of course, there are Airbnbs and, you know, that sort of thing in the neighborhood. But, yeah, there's a nicer hotel and then a very comfortable middle-of-the-road hotel. You can tell me. You know what?

Tell me the brands just so that I can get a real picture. I don't think they're... What people are looking at. Are we talking about a Hampton Inn? Are we talking a Four Points by Sheraton? It's not a... Are we talking a Spring Hill Suites yeah they're not

actually chains but there's one that's on the nicer you know Marriott end and then there's one that's more of an Econo Lodge type place

you know but they're not chains not chains at least not ones that we recognize one called Alpine Lodge and the other I can't remember

the name of the other I don't know about this this all sounds fake how are your guests going to get points? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking, Jesse. How are you going to convince friends of parents to go stay in a non-Spring Hill Suites and they don't even get their Spring Hill points?

Are the hotels nice, Luke or Quay? They're nice enough. There's actually a ski mountain very close by, so there are a few, you know, decent hotels. Resorty. Right. Let's take a quick break. We'll hear more about Luke and Quay's wedding in just a minute. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast the jv club with janet varney is part of the curriculum for the school year learning about the teenage years of such guests as allison brie vicki peterson john hodgman and so many more is a valuable and

enriching experience one you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Luke and Quay can't agree on how they should split the lakeside cabins for their destination wedding. You've heard about the nearby hotels. What's so great about staying on the lake? Let's go back to the courtroom and find out.

Now, are there really people jockeying to sleep on cots in the hallways of these weird haunted cabins, Luke? Well, maybe I'm underselling it. You know, there are some cots, but they're also very nice as well. And it's really picturesque and there are great views. And it's definitely the preferable of the two options. There's one house that the groundskeeper warned us against. Yay! I'm glad there's one that is haunted. What did the groundskeeper warn you about?

No, it's just a little less nice, and maybe there will be some cobwebs and some rickety cots and that kind of... More of a summer camp thing. A basement full of centipedes? Yeah, more of that. Yeah. All right.

Let me ask some very specific questions here, and we'll get some very succinct answers if you don't mind. Luke, how far away is your creepy compound from the main town hotels? It's about a 20 minute drive. I think it's 15 miles. 20 minute drive. All right. Quay, what kind of wedding are you going to have?

What kind of stuff are you going to do up that lake such that people are partying all night? What's going on? What do you got planned? Ceremony, a dinner. Hopefully all of that can be outdoors if the weather permits. Yeah. I'll make sure.

And then, yeah, thank you. You're welcome. And then some dancing and all of this will be yeah like outdoor band or dj well that's another case for a future episode you're not gonna get slow dance back together no um my weird dad might play some music uh what does he play if uh he plays a lot of different stuff, but he would probably... He was threatening to bring his Hammond organ, actually. Okay.

I mean, he lives in Montreal, so it'd be down to forest, but I don't think he will. So ordered. He has to now. No way your wedding is going to go off without your Montreal and dad bringing his Hammond organ down. That's awesome. Are you Canadian? No. Is your dad Booker T of Booker T and the MGs? Nope. What is your dad doing up in Montreal? Is he on the run? He's a sometimes professor at McGill. And he's a sound designer, engineer, musician type. I'm not exactly sure what he does. We never know what dads do.

Luke, you okay with your soon-to-be father-in-law coming down and playing some organ tunes? Take me out to the ballgame? We're figuring that out. There will be a place. There will be a place for it. He's not cool with that. Well, you got to get cool with your father-in-law playing the organ.

Or whatever dobro or strum stick he brings down. It's got to happen. This is the sort of thing that makes weddings great. Weird dads doing embarrassing stuff. It'll be magic. You'll cry, Luke. Trust me. Don't try to plan a wedding with good taste in mind.

You're having a party. You're joining two weird families to each other. You got to just open up and show yourselves to each other. That's true. What do you want to have there? A band or a DJ or what? For simplicity's sake i would do dj um yeah i think it's just easier and and everyone hears the songs they love and then uh you know

it takes care of itself all right so then clay everyone's gonna go skinny dipping after that yeah yeah that's what you want? You want all your young pals around to rock out all night long. Yes. Now, what percentage of the 40 beds that Luke wants would you say are, he is currently apportioned for older folks, friends of the family, that sort of people? Let's say 10. Okay. And these are friends of your, of your, are your parents married?

Your parents still alive and married or what's going on? They're not together, but they'll both be coming. They're friends of your parents? No, I've got my friends' parents coming. I have a couple of family friends. I don't actually don't have that much family. I mean, I have family

coming, but not many family friends. Don't you think those grown-ups will want to go back to a nice, clean hotel room once the skinny dipping starts? They're not going to want to listen to Quay organizing a huge stripped-down freakout in the

non-labeled intimacy tent or whatever she has planned. They're going to want to go back to the alpine lodge and have a martini yeah and do it themselves not wrong it's it's a but it's a little complicated because anyone who's on my dad's side of the family who has grown up coming to these houses sort of has a right to that space and i don't want to kick any of them out to a hotel um and then on the other side, my mom's family that is coming, they're coming from the West Coast, and I haven't seen them in years, and to then exile them to the hotel feels cool.

But may I say something? Sure. I would love to hear you object to Luke trying to make his family happy. It's not like they don't get to be around during all the important parts of this uh ceremony and dinner and um cocktail hour before the ceremony and all the stuff they would be around for when things were happening and then they would just retire to a little bit further of a place they're not missing out would just retire to a little bit further of a place they're not missing out wait why can't your friends just suck it up and get a hotel room and drive 15 minutes well they could um but i guess my

my you know and they may very well have to after this but yeah we'll find out a it's i think it's like silly to have the people who are going to be you know partying the most and drinking the most um because because i think you know we would have a shuttle um to bring people back after you know like maybe at at some time earlier in the evening but certainly not at two in the morning or something like that. And my friends would definitely be out until then. And so then I'm not entirely sure how they would get back to the hotel. It would be dangerous for them to drive. Luke, is this a region where cabs can be called?

Not so much, but we are, we are going to find a solution to that problem because there's no cell phone service and the roads, you'd easily get lost there. So we're going to have a shuttle service. We're going to provide for all that. The shuttle service would be the son of the groundskeeper, and I think it's not so cool to make him be shuttling

people at 2 and 3 in the morning. Because we're not going to do it at 2 and 3 in the morning. There'll be a set time that everyone then goes back to a hotel at a set time. Right. So this is when the shuttle's coming. Well, yeah, but that's Quay's problem, Luke, because if you pull the plug on the party, there are going to be people who want to keep partying.

They're not going to want to leave the incredible Burning Man situation that Quay has got going there because the son of the groundskeeper has got to get home. They don't want to get in the creepy car with the son of the groundskeeper. I don't like this horror novel. Sure. Question. Luke. Yes.

Is there camping grounds around? People could camp on site. I don't think either of us have a lot of friends that are the camping types. So I think that would be a bigger ask than to tell people to stay at hotels, really. Mm-hmm. Okay. Quay, is fairness important to Luke in any other parts of your relationship?

Does he see these things sort of more black and white than you do? I would say that Luke has a lot of integrity. And he tends to be very fair himself himself which is why this is kind of like a thorn in my side well because you feel the fair outcome would be to let your friends stay the younger people stay up at the lake i mean if we're talking fair i mean that that's kind of that's less my concern than just the practicality of it, where it just, to me, makes more sense to have people closer and who are going to spend more time with us staying on the lake. All of my aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff are going to be staying in hotels. By choice, or you just have already decided to exile them?

I've decided because they don't know any different. Well, they may now. How are you going to inform people of where they're staying? That's another thing. Because we have our website that has the accommodation section. Yeah. And Luke wants to include the existence of the beds on the lake on the wedding site. But then if we do that, then people will know that they're not chosen to be in them.

And I feel like that'll make people feel bad. So I just, I think we should not include. So what is the system, what are you going to do? You're going to assign birthing when they arrive? Yeah. going to do you're going to assign birthing when they arrive yeah and i think we'll just notify um the the lakeside people that you know they don't need to look for a hotel and and just only notify the the the people that need to stay in hotels that they need to book their hotels which i've already started to do with my side but sounds like a pretty cool sort of semi gaslighting system you're planning so you're saying are you good have you thought about putting up like giant scrims in front of the other houses around the lake that just have a picture of trees on them yeah you camouflage them

so people don't know also the people who are staying in the in the lake houses you have to you have to swear them to secrecy. They can't talk about where they're staying. You should give each of the lake house people a hat that says Marriott or Hyatt on it. Yeah. And instructions to say they got it at a hotel if anyone asks. Yeah. What you do is you hand them some pamphlets for some zip lining courses and some canoe tours.

And you're like, where'd you get that? People say, say where'd you get those things like in the lobby of the hotel i'm staying in and then you'll have to take all the lake house people on a special shuttle back to the hotel and they all have to pretend to go into the hotel but they just go through to another shuttle that brings them back no no no no john that is half of a plan you take them all to the hotels if they just get on a different shuttle that goes back they'll be noticed you're gonna have to dig a basically an el chapo style tunnel yeah from the hotels back to the lake a trap tunnel yeah exactly so so they can go down into the tunnel and travel back without being detected because your big concern is if the people are in the hotel and they've got a

view of the road, they're going to detect them escaping. So you're going to have to hide them on the way back. Well, wait a minute. If you're, if you're already digging a chip funnel, yeah.

Why not expand that into a larger underground layer where you can put canned food and bunk beds. And then what you do is you make all, then you don't have the hotels at all. You put all the old people down into the hole, right well we'll be quiet we'll see you in the morning and then you cover it up that hole and you cover it with dirt and then you dance on top of them and you forget about them because now it is your turn yeah it is now time for the young that sounds great it's a celebration of the vibrancy of new life yeah. It's a classic lake wedding, basically. Yeah, sounds beautiful.

Quay, what do you think's gonna happen when people who are in the hotels learn they could have stayed in the lake houses? They're not gonna be fooled. I've been talking down the lake houses. Some of them have been aware, but I've been talking about the centipedes.

Well, that's fair. That's fair psyops. But you can't keep the centipedes. Well, that's fair. That's fair psyops. But you can't keep the lake houses secret. Right? No. I don't think we'll keep them secret. I just didn't want to have a note on the site that says, hey, maybe you'll stay in a lake house. We'll let you know.

Luke, do you think that Quay's plan is going to work? This particular plan? No. I think Quay is really considerate and she doesn't want anyone's feelings to be hurt or anyone to feel... Because this really sounds... Because what I'm hearing, and I respect you, Quay, for asserting your point of view. What I'm hearing is, I don't want Luke's older family and family friends getting in the way of my party.

I want them all to be on a hotel by the interstate where they might hear the distant sound of us partying but can't be anywhere near it. And I'm going to achieve this by lying to people or keeping information back, hoping that those olds won't get those sweet, sweet cots. How is that being considerate? Defend your wife, sir. I think it's more sort of like a pain or aversion where in her mind, like to tell someone that they're not going to be staying at the lake is a painful thing to tell someone. And that that's because and because of that, that that's a burden we should share equally. Um, and I think that's sort of her motivation behind

it. Yeah. I have these questions. Sure. Have you sent out the invitations? No. Have you built the website? Yes. Sort of. It's in beta. It's yeah soft launch okay yeah are you guys splitting the cost of the wedding equally or is there one family that's paying a little bit more uh me and my family are paying more oh everything just flipped script got flipped interesting i'm making a note in my interesting notebook. All right. So obviously, Luke, if I rule in your favor, you want me to split the cabin accommodations 50-50 and the overflow all go into the hotels. More or less.

Yeah. I wouldn't take that half exactly. But I will. Yeah. You want to take all the beds for all the people that you've invited. Close to it. Yeah. Quay, what would you have me rule with the exception of specific family members on Luke's side?

I would say that I'm 10. Now, I right now have to send 10, I think 10-ish people to the hotels that are my friends and who will definitely be out with us or maybe like 10 to 15. And I'd love to just get those 10 people back on the lake. So swap my 10 for his 10. So he's got to boot 10 people. The 10 extended family? Well, I can't do that. I can't boot the family.

So it would be booting friends. Well, you know, it's just going to be a hard choice. Have you made promises? This is my final question. Have you made cot promises to your friends and family luke uh no don't i'm not going on what their expectations probably are have you actively said y'all are gonna get a cot uh i think i told a couple close friends all right they're kind of they'll have room either way yeah all right good i think i've heard everything i need to in order to make my decision i'm going to drive 20 minutes down to the embassy suites and get some sausages off the

steam table at the continental breakfast i'll be back in a moment with my decision please rise as judge john hodgman exits the court so uh luke how are you feeling about your chances in the case um right this moment not great i feel like I didn't make my case exactly, which is that I feel like my friends are, if Quay wins the case, then my friends are essentially being punished for the fact that I don't have many of them. That because Quay invited 30 extra people than I did, then I will have fewer of my guests on site. Quay, you also seem to have the advantage that everyone likes you better.

Well, I think I maybe like people more than Luke likes people. Oh! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Late crux. Oh, late cracks. Luke, you've brought this friendlessness upon yourself. Yeah.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I. Hmm. Are you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go,

call S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I. Ah, it'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. We are so close. Stop podcasting yourself.

A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go. a laugh and you're on the go. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom. Well, first of all, I just want to say congratulations on getting married. You know, this is a step forward in your ongoing growing up process, a process that never stops. As my friend Jean Gray reminded me last Sunday at church, Church of the Infinite You with Jean Gray, every other Sunday at the Bell House or Union Hall, check it out. But you know, growing up never stops. You never become a grown up. You're always growing up. And now that you are married, you are choosing each of you,

you're choosing yourselves over all others, including your own dumb families, to create something new that will be eventually, if you have children, that will eventually be rejected by your children as they make something new again. Marriage is a great union, but it is also a great cutting off and a healthy one. I don't mean that in a mean way. It's not like you suddenly say to all your friends and relatives, you're all dead to me. But if there's someone in your life who isn't healthy for you, you should feel free to do that. But it is choosing your couplehood and making something new of it in a newly grown up way. And one thing about marriage and one thing about being grown up is you can't tell other grownups where to sleep.

You can't, there's no way. Like, I know you guys are working so hard. Here's the thing. We could go through this in a million different ways and it's going to cause a lot of different friction because planning weddings are hard because you want things to be fair.

But the fact is there are all kinds of different competing contingencies. Who's paying more, you know, for the wedding. The fact that this is Luke's ancestral creepy haunted lake and, and the body of a dead child is going to come out of it at the end and murder one of you like it's it's his family in these old cabins and they have this connection but your family is coming from wherever and you have more friends and he does especially with regard to the money you don't want to argue over that stuff right the truth of the matter is you have to split it down the middle now for now and forever fair or unfair practical or unpractical it's down the middle for the rest of the time you guys are

married which i hope is forever because i hope that within our lifetimes we conquer death and i can get past my greatest fear look Look, Luke's friends are drags. Of course they are. They're not fun like your friends, Quay. Of course they're not. Luke's a sweet guy. But I can tell his friends are, you know, they're not going to party as hard as Quay's friends.

And he's popular. And Luke's family and extended family, you can't necessarily kick them out of those cabins just because you want to put the cool kids in there. They have a connection to those cabins. But the true fair thing to do and the great consolation of being married is you don't have to care about these people anymore.

It's just you guys. And this will start the second that your wedding party begins. You're not going to be thinking about where all these people are going back to sleep. You're going to be thinking about this great party that you're having as your dad plays the Hammond organ and you guys just, you know, smooch in front of everybody. and you guys just, you know, smooch in front of everybody. You don't want to think about their lodging then, and you don't want to think about it now. Grownups decide where they sleep.

And so what you do is this. You make your website, and you are open to the world, transparent to all the world. We got all these cots up in these houses and then we've booked these blocks of rooms. We've reserved blocks of rooms at a group discount or whatever at these hotels. And also there's camping nearby if you want. And if you've got a houseboat that you can chopper into the lake,

go for it. Fitzcarraldo that thing in. Yeah, right. Exactly. Let the other grownups fight it out. First come, first serve. That is the fair way to do it, because this is not a community that you can micromanage. It's not fair.

You can't lie. You can't withhold information about the lake. You can't dissemble. fair you can't lie you can't withhold information about the lake you can't dissemble like you can't put the people exactly where you want them to be because a wedding party is a party times a thousand it's just so much emotion so much fun so much parental melancholy so much Hammond organ so many variables you know half of those kids that you want to party with all night long are going to poop out and fall over in the bushes or go back to the hotel or going to choose to go to the hotel. And half of those dithering olds and Luke's dumb, dumb friends are going to turn out to be incredible karaoke singers.

Like you just want to create the space and let others fill it with their needs and desires. That's the fair thing to do for your family. That's the fair thing to do for your family. That's the fair thing to do for each other. So, in the spirit of Luke's petition, splitting it 50-50, I find in his favor. In the practice of it, I'm ordering you both to take yourselves out of the micromanaging, of the evening lodging, of all of your other grown-up guests. Make all the choices available to them. Allow them to book them first come, first serve on your website. You're both smart young kids. I know you can figure out how to do it.

And instead, put that energy into planning the greatest party that you're ever going to have, where you don't have to worry about where everyone's going to go at night. And that may involve investing a little bit more in some kind of ongoing professional transportation to make sure that people can get back and forth between the hotels and the campsite at need. And I would highly recommend, you would be surprised if you're open to it. I would highly recommend allowing people to pitch camp if there's a nice place to do it, because one of the greatest weddings I ever went to was our friend Sarah and Matthew's wedding. And that was similarly on a family property in the wilderness. To get there and back again would require 15 minutes of driving to the nearest

big town. I would say about a third of the whole wedding party just camped out. And they built an all night like hootenanny bar, outdoor open air hootenanny stomp record playing area. It was the greatest. Steal that idea if you dare, and I will be at your wedding. But whatever you do, I hope you have a good time. And I'm sorry that Quay is more popular than you, Luke. Good luck. That'll be the same forever. This is the sound of a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules. That is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Are you surprised, Quay?

Hodgman exit to the courtroom. Are you surprised, Quay? I felt pretty good midway through. So, yeah. How do you feel now? I feel disappointed.

And I feel a wave of anxiety about figuring out how to do first come first serve on a website. Luke, how do you feel? I feel pretty good. I can accept the verdict. I guess my worry about first come first serve is that then it's just going to be all filled with Aunt Sally's from Michigan

and then your favorite people are somehow late to RSVP and then off-site. But that's probably a silly fear. So I can get over that. I got to jump back in here for you, Luke, because this is where you can assert yourself. Once you put all the tickets up for sale, you got to give a little heads up to your people. Get on this. You know that Quay's going to be doing it.

She's already setting up a presale code right now. I'm giving you both a backdoor option to stock the cabins with the people you want, but also allowing the older people and the younger people a choice of what their ideal place to stay is. And if they're out of luck, they're out of luck. Yeah, no, that's good. I like that. Well, Quay, Luke, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you. And I wish you and your relatives all the best, Fitzcarraldo-ing in that organ and that houseboat. Thanks. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to MaximumFun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by the folks over there at Babbel. Did you know that learning, the experience of learning causes a sound to happen? Let's hear the sound.

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Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash Hodgman, spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by our pals over at Made In. Jesse, you've heard of Tom Colicchio, the famous chef, right? Yeah, from the restaurant Kraft. And did you know that most of the dishes at that very same restaurant are made with made-in pots and pans? Really? What's an example? The braised short ribs, they're made in, made in. The Rohan duck, made in, made in. Riders

of Rohan, duck. What about the Heritage Pork Shop? You got it. Made in, made in. Made in has been supplying top chefs and restaurants with high-end cookware for years. They make the stuff that chefs need. Their carbon steel cookware is the best of cast iron, the best of stainless clad. It gets super hot. It's rugged enough for grills or an open flame. One of the most useful pans you can own. And like we said, good enough for real professional chefs, the best professional chefs. Oh, so I have to go all the way down to the restaurant district in restaurant town?

Just buy it online. This is professional grade cookware that is available online directly to you, the consumer, at a very reasonable price. Yeah. If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common. They're made in Made In. Save up to 25% this Memorial Day from the 18th until the 27th. Visit madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. dot com. Another big case in the books. We've got swift justice coming up in just a second. But first, we want to thank Travis Martilla or Mortilla for naming this week's episode

Injustice. If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we regularly put out the call for submissions there. You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO. We like to look at those. Me and John and Jennifer all like to check it out and chime in what people are talking about, about Judge John Hodgman, as you should. Search Twitter for hashtag JJHO if you want to know what other folks are thinking about the show. You can also check out the Maximum Fun subreddit at MaximumFun.reddit.com to talk about this episode. The show recorded by Paul Ruest at Argo Studios in New York City, as well as-

Thanks, Paul. Thank you, Paul, as well as at MaxFunHQ here with our producer, Jennifer Marmer. Thank you, Jennifer. Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment. Michael G. asks, my wife doesn't believe in paper towels, just fabric towels. Help me out here. Well, your wife is wrong because paper towels definitely exist. I just bought some.

I don't know. I think it would be fairly quickly proven that they are a thing and that they're pretty convenient. But if she is concerned about ecological waste due to use of paper towels, I think that fabric towels are fine. But she's got to keep them clean. She's got to wash them or else you're all going to get salmonella or something. And think about then the ecological waste of washing those towels over and over again well it's a dilemma but it's fine as long as she wants to use dish towels instead of paper towels you just got to keep them clean you can't can't just reuse them over and over again at my house we usually have both i like to use a cloth towel because it's more effective for

cleaning especially and for wiping your hands on and so on and so forth but then there's some paper towels around in case you have to clean up something poisonous or potentially poisonous like, you know, some chicken drippings. Yeah, or if you've got to drain some bacon or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. I couldn't live without them, and that's why I'm glad they actually are a thing in the world.

Here's a question from KDP. Is it accurate to say that you're driving up to a place when you are not traveling in a northerly direction? It has always been confusing to me that in England, people say you are driving up to London no matter what direction you are approaching from. This has been my observation, and if my observation is incorrect, I'm sure I'll be hearing from people on the internet about it. But that is something that I also occasionally hear about driving to other big cities in the United States, right up to New York, no matter what direction you are approaching from, as though the biggest city in the area is somehow elevated

above the rest of the landscape. And that is only true about St. Louis, the famous floating city. But in this case, I think that it is wrong to say you are driving up to a place when you're not traveling in a northerly direction. It is wrong and it is confusing and everyone should stop it. You hear me, England? What if you're driving to like up a mountain? Can I still drive up to my cabin if I'm starting from north of my cabin? I apologize.

Yes. Altitude trumps direction. Sweet. I'm in. Okay, good. If you have a question for Judge John Hodgman, MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. That's MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. There's Maximumfund.org slash JJHO. There's a form there.

You can submit your question. You can also email us at Hodgman at Maximumfund.org. No case is too small, and we are particularly seeking cases in London, England. So if you are in London, England, please be sure to note that you are in London, England, which is a large town or city in England. Let us know. We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.