Limericks

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Coming up, it's Lighting 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 them 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 right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in, yes, New Jersey on December 4. And be sure to check out How To Do Everything. This week, Mike and Ian show you how to scare the crap out of someone. Can you say crap on public radio? Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.

LYNNE VITTI: Hi, this is Lynne Vitti.

SAGAL: Hey, Lynne Vitti. How are you and where are you calling from?

VITTI: I'm calling from Westwood, Massachusetts.

SAGAL: Where is Westwood, Massachusetts?

VITTI: I'm about nine miles from Boston.

SAGAL: What do you do there?

VITTI: I teach college at the all women's Wellesley College.

SAGAL: Oh, Wellesley of course. A fine school.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Isn't that Hillary Clinton's alma mater?

VITTI: Yes it is.

SAGAL: Well, that's very exciting.

VITTI: And a number of other people too, like...

(LAUGHTER)

LUKE BURBANK: Wait a second. Are you sure about that, Lynne? I was told there was only one grad.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Lynne. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase, of course, being left up to you. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two out of the three limericks, you'll be a winner. Ready to play?

VITTI: I think I am.

SAGAL: All right. Here is your first limerick.

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: As we posed for my mobile device, our scalps will be paying the price. As we lean in real tight and exchange parasites, in selfies we're transferring...

VITTI: Lice.

SAGAL: Yes, lice.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A Russian government agency is discouraging people from taking group selfies because they spread head lice. It makes sense, right. You'll lean in for a selfie to take the picture together. Your heads touch allowing lice a chance to upgrade their living quarters. Russians are mocking the warning, but who can forget how Ellen Degeneres gave every A-list person in Hollywood fleas at last year's Oscars?

BURBANK: That is so high-tech. When I was at Daniel Bagley Elementary School, they taught us share a toy, share a ride, share the feelings deep inside. But never share a hat or comb or lice could make your head their home.

(LAUGHTER)

O'CONNOR: Wow.

BURBANK: And despite that, I got lice like 11 times between third and fifth grade. It wasn't a good elementary school.

SAGAL: I like that poem. And you remember it.

ALONZO BODDEN: I was going to say, today's kids, if they had to learn that poem or take a selfie, they're going with the selfie.

SAGAL: That's true. Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: What three glasses of milk should supply, though my bones might be old, they'll be spry. But the ounces of fat make the calcium go flat, now I'm just much more likely to...

VITTI: Die.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Die, yes. New research in the British Medical Journal shows that drinking three glasses of milk a day, just like those you know milk mustache ads tell us to do, will kill you.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The whole time those cows, they're saying moo-urder.

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: I cannot believe milk is deadly now. As a society, we've pretty much given up.

SAGAL: Really.

BODDEN: I mean, it's one thing to be afraid of Ebola, but when milk will kill you, what's left?

O'CONNOR: Everybody drinks milk.

BODDEN: And everybody dies so they must be right.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right, here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: Green cheese ain't as wrong as you think. Old myths and new facts are in sync. In comets we found that sulfur abounds. Their long tail gives a bad...

VITTI: Stink.

SAGAL: Right. Stink.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Very good.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: An unmanned European spacecraft made a big discovery about comets - they stink. The Rosetta Orbiter sensor has determined comets are made of ammonia, methane and sulfur dioxide. It's amazing, we thought they were these beautiful, heavenly things in the cosmos. But they're like the taxicabs of the solar system.

BURBANK: You know, how embarrassed that comet is, though. Like, he was just hanging out by Neptune trying to release a little sulfur, and then a space probe comes up right afterwards.

SAGAL: Oh, it's the worst.

BURBANK: That was already like that. That's apparently what a comet sounds like when it talks.

SAGAL: Comets are like, whoa, there must be another comet around somewhere. Bill, how did Lynne do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Lynne did Wellesley proud. She got a perfect score.

SAGAL: Well done, Lynne.

VITTI: Thank you.

SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing and congratulations.

VITTI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.