A Landmark Weed Lawsuit, Sticker Shock At Restaurants, And Southwest’s New Boarding Rules Explained

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A quiet weekend winds into a not-so-quiet question: what happens when your neighbor’s choices flood your home? We unpack a striking D.C. case where a 76-year-old resident won a court order stopping secondhand cannabis smoke from seeping into her space. She wasn’t chasing a payout; she wanted breathable air. The ruling affirms a growing legal view that your right to enjoy your home can trump your neighbor’s right to light up, and it offers a blueprint for anyone dealing with odor, smoke, or other nuisances in apartments and townhomes.

Then we pivot to the sticker shock sitting on your plate. From $17 egg sandwiches to $23 for seven tacos, we break down the why behind restaurant prices without drowning you in jargon. Think simple margin math, rising labor and input costs, and a tightrope operators walk to keep the doors open. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of how menus are priced, why some items feel steep, and how to spot value without being overwhelmed by percentages.

Finally, we taxi to the gate with Southwest’s big change: assigned seats and a Wilma-style boarding flow that brings windows first, then middles, then aisles, layered with elite and priority groups. We look at what this means for overhead bin space, mid-cabin seats, and your pre-boarding strategy. If bin anxiety is real for you, we’ve got practical tips to keep your sanity intact and your essentials within reach.

Hit play, trade your own shared-space stories, and tell us where your carry-on lives: overhead bin or under the seat? If this breakdown helped, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Well, hello and good morning.
Uh did y'all have a goodweekend?
I had a pretty decent weekend.
It wasn't bad at all.
Saturday was a good weekend.
Georgia Bulldogs won.
I did some shopping, bought thegrand cam some new toys to play
with, and boy was he thrilledwhen he saw them on Sunday.
And he had a blast.
We had a blast with him onSunday too.

(00:22):
Let's see.
Oh, let's go to the stories.
I only have two so far.
It was hard for me to findanything.
But we're gonna go with um, Iwoke up late too.
So this lady, I don't know,let's see where it tells us
where it was.
This lady, this older lady, Iguess she lives in an older
community, in an apartment,townhomes or something.

(00:45):
I don't know.
Uh but she sued her neighborbecause he was smoking pot and
weed in his apartment, and Iguess it stunk up her apartment,
so she sued him and won.
Let's go to the story.
An elderly woman just scored alandmark court win against her

(01:05):
neighbor that forces him to stopsmoking weed in his own home.
You go, girl, good for you.
Uh Josepha Ippolito Shepherd,who is 76 years old of
Washington, D.C., said the fecesand skunk smell emanating from

(01:26):
the 73-year-old next doorresident Thomas Cackett's
doorway made her dread cominghome.
She said she even once vomitedwhen her neighbor, who lives in
the on the ground level of anadjoining home, lit up.
So she sued.
I was not interested in money.
I was interested in gettingfresh air in my home.

(01:53):
After five years of representingherself, Ippolito Shepherd
finally won her case in the D.C.
Court of Appeals.
A lower court judge had alreadyruled in her favor in 2023, but
Cackett, the stoner neighbor,appealed.
The higher court ended up sidingwith Ippolito Shepherd, too,

(02:16):
saying her use of enjoyment ofher own property was more
important than Kackett's use andenjoyment of his marijuana.
Ha ha ha ha good.
I don't know.
I don't know what I would do.
See, I live in a town home, sowe're next to each other.
And I know our next I know ourneighbor next to us.

(02:37):
He he has got to smoke pot.
But we don't smell it.
If he does, we don't smell it.
So thank God.
But I've often wondered whatwould happen, you know, because
sometimes we'll go to tunica andwe'll stay, you know, in the
hotel room, and you can smellit.
Sometimes it's not it's notloud, but sometimes you can get
a whiff of it if you're in thebathroom, you know, the

(02:59):
ventilation system or whatever.
Um, it doesn't happen a lot, butsometimes it does.
But I've often wondered whatwould happen if you're living in
an apartment and your neighbordoes that and it's just stinking
up your own apartment.
What would you do?
That is not the question of theday.
But good for her.
I'm sorry, but uh, I just don'tlike the smell of it.

(03:21):
I'm sorry if you smoke it, butwhatever.
Uh Kackett tried arguing that heonly smoked once a day and never
for longer than five minutes,all to cope with his many health
conditions, including skincancer, chronic hepatitis,
arthritis, and sciatica.
He says, I am not Snoop Dogg,Cakut insisted to the court.

(03:43):
Uh but the panel said I found ithard, doubtful, and hard to
believe that CAC smoked for justa couple of minutes a day.
The man has now been banned fromsmoking within 25 feet of
Ippolito Shepherd's home,including on his own property.
Good.
Good, good, good.
Good for her.
I mean, now she has ooh, but wedon't what kind of replic

(04:04):
repercussions is this gonna haveon her with those two?
Alright, moving on to the nextstory.
Let's see.
Okay.
This kind of caught myattention.
Oh, here's the ad.
Let's get through the ad.
Okay.
The headline is restaurantowners say inflation is forcing
$17 for egg sandwich.

(04:26):
Here's the math behind it.
Are we still in the are we stillin an inflation era?
I sometimes, you know, I wentthrough Taco Bell the other day
and we got seven tacos.
Now they were the Supreme ones,but when he told me the total on
that, I about had a heartattack.

(04:47):
$23 for seven tacos.
What in the world?
Okay, so let's move on here.
Uh diners already concernedabout the cost of eating out may
be disappointed to learn thatmany restaurants are considering
raising prices to keep up withinflated food and drink costs.
I thought we were not doing thisanymore.

(05:08):
I thought the costs have comedown.
Restaurant management softwarecompany, Toast, recently
released in 2025 voice of therest.
Okay, well, whatever.
Let's get on to the story, shallwe?
Uh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh my god, I should have readthis first, y'all.
Okay, here we go.
The basic math is whateverproduct you have, you divide it

(05:30):
by 0.3, and that's what theproduct should cost to the
consumer to operate at thathealthy margin.
Do I need to go back up here andread some more?
Raising men raising menu pricesis typically a last resort for
restaurant operators, but withthe rising cost of food and
labor, their operating mathstill has to work.

(05:54):
Okay.
Uh the National RestaurantAssociation estimates that to
maintain a 5% profit margin, theaverage restaurant needs to
raise prices by 31%, accordingto data compiled by the DC based
industry trade group earlierthis year.
Okay, whatever.
Uh there's a lot of percentagesand numbers in here.

(06:17):
Operators whatever.
I just okay.
I I'm sorry, that was a dumbstory.
I should have not brought thatto you.
I just don't understand.
I first of all it's math.
And I don't like math.
All right.
So what else we got going on?
Well, it appears SouthwestAirlines has a new boarding
process for you.
Southwest Airlines surprisesflyers with its new and unusual

(06:41):
boarding process.
Here's who gets on the planefirst.
I've never flown Southwest.
I think maybe one time I did flySouthwest, and it wasn't of my
choice.
I was flying with a friend ofmine who booked the tickets and
whatever.
We flew to Texas for something,and it was okay.
It wasn't it was alright.
Okay, so let's see.

(07:01):
Let's see, let's see, let's see.
Southwest Airlines has beenmaking a range of changes with
the carrier now charging forchecked luggage and eliminating
its famous open seating policyin favor of assigned seats.
From January 27th, 2026.
So starting next year,passengers will now have

(07:23):
assigned seats, but they'll beboarding differently than most
other carriers.
Per the Wall Street Journal,Southwest Flyers will have a
boarding pass that contains aboarding group and a number from
one to eight, unless they bookeduh priority boarding.
After priority boarding,Southwest will mostly follow the

(07:44):
Wilma method, window, middle,and aisle for boarding.
Passengers in the window seatswill board first, followed by
those middle seats and aisleseats starting at the back of
the plane.
If queuing isn't okay, ifqueuing isn't good, if queuing

(08:05):
isn't good, boarding isn't good,Lisa Hingson, managing director
of innovation, told WSJ, so wespend a lot of time studying and
queuing.
The method isn't new.
United Airlines switched to thiskind of method a couple of years
ago, saying it was moreefficient.
But flyers with perks, I thinkdidn't Jeffy and Pat Gray have

(08:29):
an argument argument about this,how the plane should be loaded.
And somebody said the reasonthey don't start with loading at
the back first is because itgets too heavy.
And the plane will the planewill tip upwards.
I don't think that's true.
But I think I remember themhaving an argument about that.
I think Jeffy wanted them toload the back first, or maybe it

(08:53):
was I can't remember.
All right, but flyers with perkswill automatically get an
earlier boarding group no matterwhere their seat is.
Perks can include frequent flyerstatus, ticket type, seat type,
or credit card, and these peoplewill be in group one and two
regardless of their seat.
This means that those sittingtoward the front of the plane

(09:13):
that aren't in first class orpriority boarding could have
trouble with overhead bend spacefor a carry-on bag.
They also they'll also be inlater boarding groups.
The journal noted that they sawa boarding pass for a passenger
seated 12C, which is consideredto be a good economy seat on the

(09:34):
airline, and the passenger wasput in group 7.
Okay, whatever.
Um, well, I don't know how thisis any different.
I guess so I guess it'sdifferent because they used to
load from the front first andnow they're loading from the
back first.
I don't know.
If you want to, if you care toget into all that, it's over on
the New York Post.
And as far as the overhead binscarry on things, I never use

(09:58):
them.
I make sure that I pack a bagthat I can put under the seat in
front of me.
I am not putting my shit upthere on the overhead bins with
everybody else's.
I'm not doing it.
I don't know why I don't like todo it.
I just don't want it up there incase I need something out of it.
I just know how to pack better.
Okay.
Alright, so we need to do thequestion of the day.

(10:19):
Alright, let's do the questionof the day.
When you board on the plane, doyou use the overhead bin or do
you put your bag in the spacebelow you in the seat in front
of you?
That's the question of the day.
Alright, I gotta go.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.