PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, is Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you would like to play that or any game on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT, WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. Or you can 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 next week's show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And be sure to check out the latest How To Do Everything podcast. This week Ian and Mike tell you how to hit a fastball or at least not look like an idiot when you're up to bat. Hi, you're on WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
MARILYN SMITH: Hi, this is Marilyn Smith from West Jordan, Utah.
SAGAL: Where is that exactly, West Jordan?
SMITH: It's in the valley...
SAGAL: In the valley.
SMITH: ...in Salt Lake.
SAGAL: And what do you do there in the beautiful Salt Lake Valley?
SMITH: I'm a speech pathologist.
SAGAL: Are you really?
SMITH: Yeah.
SAGAL: Yeah, do you know I had to go see a speech pathologist? It's true.
SMITH: For what?
SAGAL: Because I spoke too quickly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I spoke too fast and she paired me with someone who spoke too slow in the hopes that we would even each other out.
(LAUGHTER)
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Did it work?
SAGAL: What do you think, Paula?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Marilyn, welcome to the show. Carl Kasell 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. And we expect excellent diction.
SMITH: OK.
SAGAL: All right. Here is your first limerick.
CARL KASELL: Our wedding has just run afoul. The bride has let out a great howl. At Hogwarts it works, but we look like jerks. We trusted the rings to an...
SMITH: Owl?
SAGAL: An owl, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: A British bride's romantic plans to have an owl swoop down and deliver the rings in the middle of her wedding ceremony were stalled when the owl took the rings and flew up into the church rafters, where it fell asleep.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So the first mistake was holding the wedding in the middle of the day. Owl's are nocturnal. The second mistake? Thinking the Harry Potter books are real.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Once they coaxed the owl down, the wedding went ahead as planned, until the unfortunate Father-Tiger dance.
(LAUGHTER)
JESSI KLEIN: Did they have to find - did they have to, like, find the rings in those pellets?
SAGAL: Oh, no.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: Those owl pellets.
ROY BLOUNT, JR.: I went to a wedding where they had a little kid do it. He went down the aisle growling. And they said, why did you growl and he said, I'm the ring bear.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: That's adorable.
JR.: Isn't that adorable, yeah?
POUNDSTONE: We had a pretend wedding for my daughter Tosha when she was nine years old.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: And had 50 people attend. It was great. And I decided to have my son, who was at the time like a little over one I think, I decided to have him be the ring bearer. He was at that really koala bear clingy age where I could barely get him off my hip. And then I realized, well, he won't walk over there. So we made a row of Cheetos.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Worked like a charm.
SAGAL: I bet.
KLEIN: My fiance's going to do that at my wedding.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, right. Here is your next limerick.
KASELL: If your tot's good at speaking and thinking, pretty soon you will hear glasses clinking. A kid that is smart has all kinds of head starts. Big brains lead to lots of hard...
POUNDSTONE: Oh no.
SMITH: Drinking.
SAGAL: Drinking, yes. Very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: There are two new studies and they suggest that smart kids turn into drunks later in life.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: One theory is that smart kids are more likely to drink too much as adults to make up for the years of fun they missed while studying.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And because they - that's true - and because they watched too many Baby Bukowski DVDs.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This is good for when you're talking to that new mom who's always bragging, yeah, he's speaking at six months. You're like, great and soon he'll be drinking at a tenth grade level.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here's your last limerick.
KASELL: I have not touched a drink in a year, my blood alcohol level seem queer. See, my belly's a beast, it contains brewer's yeast. Any grains I eat turn into...
SMITH: Beer?
SAGAL: Yes, indeed, beer.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So listen, if you must have an incurable disease, pick Auto-Brewery Syndrome. It's when your stomach makes beer on its own.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Doctors encountered this miracle when a man in Texas showed up to his local ER complaining of spontaneous drunkenness. He would just get drunk. He wouldn't drink anything. It turns out his stomach contained large amounts of brewer's yeast which in turn was changing the water in his stomach into beer.
JR.: Ooh.
POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: This man is now known as Texas Jesus.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
KLEIN: Dude, that's awesome.
POUNDSTONE: (Unintelligible) the ultimate microbrewery.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: So what was the solution then?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That's a great question. I mean, they diagnosed his problem. I don't know if they actually were ever able to solve it.
KLEIN: Solution?
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: I'm sorry, what is the problem?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Marilyn do on our quiz?
KASELL: Marilyn, you had a perfect game, three correct answers. So I'll be doing the message on your home answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done. Thank you, Marilyn.
POUNDSTONE: Way to go, Marilyn.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Marilyn, thank you so much for playing. Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
