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. You can click the contact us link on our website at waitwait.npr.org. You can find out there about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago. And you can check out our sister How to Do Everything podcast. This week, Mike and Ian invite you to join the exclamation point fast. That's no exclamation points for 30 days. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.

KIM SANDERS: Hi, this is Kim from San Francisco.

SAGAL: Hey, Kim from San Francisco. How are you?

SANDERS: Pretty good. How are you?

SAGAL: I am fine. What do you do there in San Francisco? Do you make millions working for some Silicon Valley company?

SANDERS: Millions. No, I work in the solar industry.

SAGAL: Oh, the solar industry.

PETER GROSZ: Thousands.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Maybe the thousands.

SANDERS: On a good day.

SAGAL: Kim, welcome to the show. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. Are you ready to play?

SANDERS: Yes.

SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Indoor shops and the food court enthrall. And we might have a great climbing wall. The canyon's great drop should inspire to shop. The Grand Canyon is getting a...

SANDERS: Shopping mall.

KURTIS: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Yes, a mall. Yes, very good.

AMY DICKINSON: No.

SAGAL: Just in time for Earth Day, it was announced that this week, the...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It was announced this week that some developers want to put a mall right on the rim of the Grand Canyon. It'll cover 420 acres of land right there with a tram down to the valley floor and will feature an IMAX, elevated river walks, food courts and a museum all about what the Grand Canyon used to look like.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: They're going to fill it in, right, and then put it on top of that?

SAGAL: Yeah. They're going to pave it. Well, you have to park somewhere. So there's a big hole in the ground. Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: I'm down 'cause I feel that my charm quit. So I'll get a re-odorant farm kit. The fastest cure yet is a happy man's sweat. So I'll stand here and sniff at his...

SANDERS: Pit.

SAGAL: What kind of pit?

SANDERS: Armpit.

SAGAL: Yes, very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A new study in the journal Psychological Science says women who are feeling down should sniff the armpit of a happy man.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Until now, people just assumed this was an old perv's tale.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But apparently, it's like secondhand smoke. If you smell a happy man's sweat, you become happy. So at this point, everybody agrees we'd just rather be sad, right.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: Honestly, I think I've tried that, like, by accident, by accident.

SAGAL: Really? You're married to a generally happy man, right?

DICKINSON: I am married to the happiest man. You know, I've learned so much today. I'll go home and, you know...

GROSZ: Just get in there.

DICKINSON: Get in there.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: Get in there.

GROSZ: Get in there.

APARNA NANCHERLA: Give me that pit.

SAGAL: Here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: 'Cause I don't want to say goodbye, see ya, here's my furniture shopping idea. Let's lay off attacking while we are unpacking. Find joy in those shelves from...

SANDERS: IKEA.

SAGAL: Yes, IKEA.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

KURTIS: IKEA it is. Yes it is.

SAGAL: Very good. IKEA, as everyone knows, are the great blues stores on the horizon where happy relationships go to die. You go with your loved one, and you fight about what to buy, how to pronounce Riktig Oogla and who of the two of you will get the last horse meatball. But the The Wall Street Journal's new Furniture Anger Scale can help. The Nornas coffee-table has a good rating. It's small, relatively easy to put together when you're working on it together. The Liatorp TV storage console gets five strikes since it's enormous, complicated to assemble and will definitely end with mutual homicide by Allen wrench.

NANCHERLA: And if you smell a man's armpit after he assembles...

DICKINSON: ...A table, that's not happy sweat.

SAGAL: That, my friend, is the smell of competence.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bill, how did Kim do?

KURTIS: She got every question right. Congratulations, Kim.

SANDERS: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.