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 right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our December 3 show at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles and check out the latest How To Do Everything podcast. This week, Mike and Ian tell you about Queen Elizabeth's favorite poop joke. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
ELIZABETH BARNES: Hello, Peter. This is Elizabeth Barnes, and I'm from Dover, Mass.
SAGAL: Now, where is Dover? I don't know Dover.
BARNES: Dover is about 15 miles west of Boston.
SAGAL: Oh, OK. What do you do there?
BARNES: Well, I'm a mother of two teen girls, and I'm a beekeeper.
SAGAL: You're a beekeeper? Is there anything that you have learned from tending bees that helps you dealing with your teenage daughters?
BARNES: I approach them carefully.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: Yeah, yeah.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show. Bill Kurtis is now going to read for you three news-related limericks with the last word of phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you will be a winner. Ready to play?
BARNES: Absolutely.
SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: Though their toys hurt my feet, I feel chipper 'cause Lego's a footwear equipper. When I step on hard plastic, my feet feel fantastic with Lego's own tough brand of...
BARNES: Slipper?
KURTIS: Slipper it is.
SAGAL: Slipper, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Yes, indeed.
SAGAL: Now, the folks at Lego know what people have been screaming in the middle of the night for years, that it really hurts to step on a Lego brick. So this year, they're offering, for the first time, official Lego brand protection slippers. They come in bright red and yellow, look great around the house or at McDonald's. The slippers have extra padding in the insoles to absorb even the biggest Lego bricks. It is the next best thing to never having kids in the first place.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: The destruction of mankind will quicken. We all will be ill-fed and sicken. But we would regroup if we lived in a coop and were shrunk to the size of a...
BARNES: A chicken.
SAGAL: A chicken, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Chicken it is, yes ma'am.
BARNES: (Laughter).
SAGAL: A Dutch man has proposed a solution to overpopulation and the depletion of the earth's resources - make all humans chicken-sized. If that sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. But, according to Arnie Hendricks, if humans were just under two feet tall, we would use up far fewer resources. Quote, "for example, one chicken would feel a hundred people," assuming we could catch the chicken.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: You know, it's all wrong. I can remember when my kids were under two feet tall.
SAGAL: Yeah.
O'ROURKE: They ate up all the resources.
SAGAL: Yes. Here is your last limerick.
KURTIS: At 60, I'm agile and sporty, not wrinkly and craggy and warty. My bones aren't brittle. I'm firm in life's middle, 'cause 60 is now the new...
BARNES: Forty.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Forty.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: It is, in fact, the new 40.
KURTIS: Yes.
SAGAL: Isn't that good news? Sixty is the new 40. That makes 20 the new fetus.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: We know this thanks to a team of scientists studying the power of denial.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They say that 60-year-olds have a similar outlook on life and the same lifespan ahead of them as what 40-year-olds did back in the 30s. So it's really exciting for people who fail to go completely nuts during their first midlife crisis to have a chance for a second one. 'Cause if you thought getting a motorcycle was exciting, wait till you ride one with failing eyesight and a hip that could blow at any time.
(LAUGHTER)
FAITH SALIE: This is such a relief to me.
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: Is it a relief to you, P.J.?
O'ROURKE: What, to get old?
SALIE: Do you feel like you're in your 40s?
O'ROURKE: No, I do not feel like I'm in my - I'm 68. I feel like I'm 68, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: I'm a Republican. I was born 68.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That's true.
SALIE: You're in your sweet spot.
SAGAL: So, Bill, how did Elizabeth do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Elizabeth got three right.
BARNES: Yay.
SAGAL: Congratulations, Elizabeth. Well done.
O'ROURKE: Yay.
BARNES: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks for playing.
BARNES: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY BACK PAGES")
BOB DYLAN: (Singing) Good and bad, I define these terms. Quite clear, no doubt, somehow. Oh, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.