Panel Round Two

Transcript

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Kyrie O'Connor, Adam Felber and Paula Poundstone. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: In just one minute, Carl reveals his hip-hop alter ego, Lim Shady...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...in our listener limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Kyrie, the inauguration is just over a week away and if you haven't already booked a room, you might consider The Madison Hotel's "Inaugural Town and Country" package. For just $47,000, you get 4 nights in the presidential suite; you get a car and a driver, a couple's massage and what?

KYRIE O'CONNOR: You get to do Michelle Obama's eyebrows.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That would be good, but no, not that.

O'CONNOR: OK, I think I need a hint.

SAGAL: All right, well it's like if you're going to be a big shot and you're going to live that way, you don't have time to come up with your own hash tags, do you?

O'CONNOR: Oh, you get someone to Twitter for you?

SAGAL: Yes. They're calling it your social media butler.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh, man.

O'CONNOR: Wow.

SAGAL: So you go and you buy the package. You get your car, you get your driver, you get to go the inauguration and all this stuff, right. This person will tweet, Facebook, Instagram and text pictures of you at every swanky ball you attend, in case you're tired of texting pictures of your balls yourself.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: Now, would they just tweet what you told them to tweet or they would...

ADAM FELBER: Come up with clever tweets for you?

POUNDSTONE: Yeah.

SAGAL: I don't know. Well, presumably they'd have to add some creativity, otherwise you could be doing it yourself, I guess. I don't know. I never had it.

POUNDSTONE: Well, no, I mean I would just like to not have to push the buttons myself.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: I mean, I wouldn't want anybody to replace my words, but I would...

SAGAL: So you'd be like "Crawford, take a tweet?"

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: That's exactly right.

SAGAL: "Delicious hot pastrami sandwich for lunch, hash tag yum."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Very good, milady, I shall...

FELBER: The master is at 49 characters. Shall I attempt to compress that for you?

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: You know, you're joking, but this is exactly my fantasy.

SAGAL: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I know a place that can make it come true for you for just 47,000 bucks, Paula.

FELBER: Perhaps I can replace the word "great" with the letters G, R and the numeral 8 for the master.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: By the way, I would never do that.

SAGAL: No.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: Perhaps a colon and a bracket to indicate some sort of amusement.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Kyrie, according to a five-page official letter of reprimand that was found and posted on the Smoking Gun website, an employee of the Social Security Administration was officially punished for his what?

O'CONNOR: Oh geez, I should know this. Did it have to do with office behavior?

SAGAL: It did. Something he was doing in the office that people found objectionable.

O'CONNOR: Did it have to do with bodily emissions?

SAGAL: It did, Kyrie. It did, Kyrie. Quite...

(LAUGHTER)

O'CONNOR: He was emitting.

SAGAL: He was. He was reprimanded officially for his excessive flatulence.

O'CONNOR: Exactly.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Which is the sort of thing that happens in offices, we all know. But this was the government, so it had to be done according to the rules.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The letter, which will go on the employee's file, goes on for five pages, in dry, bureaucratic language, describing the extent...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...of the problem and the failed attempts to deal with it, including the employee's somewhat lame offer to turn on a fan.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I will quote the supervisor. "I explained to you that turning on the fan would cause the smell to spread."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: What's amazing in this - and I encourage you all to look at it - is the detailed, precise log of gas attacks, with dates and exact times.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: There were four on September 7, one on the 10th, three on September 11th - now a day that will be forever associated with tragedy.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But the worst day, the shots fired at Fart Sumter if you will...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...came on September 19th, when there were nine emissions, including ones at 2:42, 2:52, and 2:54.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The next document to be leaked, of course, will be the formal complaint from the Social Security employee who was forced by her supervisor to log and time farts.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

FELBER: Those last two times sound a little suspiciously close together.

SAGAL: Really?

FELBER: I'm wondering whether there was a second farter.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: On the gassy knoll.

(LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.