Limericks

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1(888)WAIT-WAIT. That's 1(888)924-8924 or click the contact us link on our website waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Illinois.

Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.

MAGGIE DUNBAR: Hi.

SAGAL: Hi, who's this?

DUNBAR: This is Maggie Dunbar from Roslindale, Massachusetts.

SAGAL: Roslindale, Massachusetts? We've had a lot of Massachusetts callers this week, as only appropriate. But where's Roslindale?

DUNBAR: Roslindale is a neighborhood of Boston.

SAGAL: Oh, it's in Boston?

DUNBAR: Yes.

DUNBAR: There you are. So you're a Bostonian?

DUNBAR: Yes.

SAGAL: And what do you do there in the hub?

DUNBAR: I'm a medical biller.

SAGAL: A medical biller?

DUNBAR: Yes. I'm the one that sends out the bills.

PAULA POUNDSTONE: First I thought she said medical bowler, and that would've been so much better.

SAGAL: Oh, yeah.

DUNBAR: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bowl for health. Welcome to the show Maggie, we're glad to hear from you.

DUNBAR: Thank you.

SAGAL: Bill Kurtis is going to perform for you right now three news-related limericks, with the last word or phrase missing for each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two limericks, you will be a winner. But before we start, Bill, I understand you have something you want to say before?

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Well, I do. You know, I've been here for a few months and I got to say, Peter, I don't think I have captured the subtlety or the elegance or the poetic power of those limericks. So I've decided to take a lesson from the master. If that's OK, I'd like to bring him in right now?

(APPLAUSE)

KURTIS: Ladies and gentlemen, Carl Kasell.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Good to see you, Carl.

CARL KASELL, BYLINE: Thank you Peter.

SAGAL: It's been too long. Carl, how have you been enjoying since you sort of became our Scorekeeper emeritus, how have you been enjoying your extra free time?

KASELL: Extra free time?

SAGAL: Yes.

KASELL: I'm a married man. I don't have any extra free time.

SAGAL: I understand.

(LAUGHTER)

KASELL: I don't mean that, darling.

SAGAL: Well, Carl, Bill has brought you in to give him and I think all of us a master class in performing limericks. Are you ready to do it?

KASELL: I'm ready.

SAGAL: Here we go. Let's have the first limerick.

KASELL: This Russian home loan for our flat has no toaster or warm welcome mat. But, just to be nice, they help us chase mice. The banks going to lend us a...

DUNBAR: Cat.

SAGAL: A cat. Yes, very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Russia's largest bank, known as Sberbank - one letter away from being a different kind of bank entirely - is offering a free cat with every new mortgage loan they give out. Customers can pick from a selection of ten different cats that'll be delivered to their home ready to destroy the furniture just as soon as the movers bring it in.

There is a catch, before you get excited and want to go to Russia to get your mortgage, you have to give the cat back afterwards.

ROY BLOUNT JR.: What?

SAGAL: It's only a loaner.

BLOUNT: That's got to be a be a pretty jaded cat.

SAGAL: What kind of person out there, even in Russia, is like, oh, I need a cat. What's a simple way to get one? I know, I'll get a home loan.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Here is your next limerick.

KASELL: At six my alarm goes beep beep, but out of my bed I don't leap. It's a federal crime to start school at this time, 'cause teens need more hours of...

DUNBAR: Sleep.

SAGAL: Sleep indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending schools start later in the morning so teens can have their recommended 9.5 hours of sleep every night. Teens finally have an ally in the war against ever getting out of bed.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here is your last one.

KASELL: We cavemen have many travails, yet we blaze epicurean trails. We've had escargot, millennia ago. Yes, cave-dwellers often ate...

DUNBAR: Snails.

SAGAL: Snails, yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Very good. Thought the French were culinary leaders with their frog legs and escargot? According to archaeologists though, cavemen in Spain were eating snails 10,000 years before their snooty French neighbors. Now this is getting headlines everywhere - oh my gosh, cavemen ate snails. It is not surprising that cavemen ate snails, what is surprising is that we still do.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is 21st century. We have Taco Bell. It's right over there.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl Kasell, how did Maggie do on our quiz?

KASELL: Maggie had three correct answers, Peter. So she's a prizewinner.

SAGAL: Congratulations Maggie.

POUNDSTONE: All right.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Maggie thank you so much playing. Bye-bye.

DUNBAR: Thank you, Carl. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.