PETER SAGAL, HOST:
We want to remind everyone they can join us most weeks at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Ill. For tickets and more information, just go over to wbez.org, or you can find a link at our website, waitwait.npr.org. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Roy, some exciting news in the animal kingdom. Tens of thousands of Americans have signed their names to a petition to change the name of fire ants to what?
(LAUGHTER)
ROY BLOUNT, JR.: Well, there is such a thing as a pissant.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Not what it sounds like.
BLOUNT, JR.: We already have that. Gosh, why would you want to change the name of fire ants? That's pretty good.
BRIAN BABYLON: It should be fire-ant-Americans?
(LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT, JR.: Hyphenate it. Yeah.
SAGAL: Come out of the shadows, fire ants.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Be part of the American quilt.
BLOUNT, JR.: Right. Name each one of them a little different name.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bob and Ted.
BLOUNT, JR.: Yeah, exactly.
SAGAL: And Andy.
BABYLON: And Melissa.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT, JR.: Yeah. Or they could go the other way - go Ant Lucy, Ant Mary.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: Ant Artica (ph).
BLOUNT, JR.: Ant Artica.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Does anybody know what the petition - there's a popular petition to rename fire ants what?
BLOUNT, JR.: Stingers.
SAGAL: I'm going to tell you. It's going to be so obvious.
BLOUNT, JR.: Oh, man.
SAGAL: Nobody knows?
BABYLON: Fire bugs?
SAGAL: No. It is, of course, spicy boys.
BLOUNT, JR.: Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The petition, which is very real and is directed at Barack Obama and, for some reason, Mark Zuckerberg - I don't know why - it says, quote, "it's 2016 - why aren't we calling fire ants spicy boys?"
BABYLON: Can you just hear Barack Obama say that? Look at them spicy boys.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: The new name is spicy boys...
SAGAL: Right.
BABYLON: ...In America.
SAGAL: At present, the petition on change.org to change the name of fire ants to spicy boys has more than 37,000 signatures. For comparison, that's 10,000 more than a petition urging Congress to approve emergency funding to fight Zika.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: What am I - what is my going boy band going to do? We were calling ourselves The Spicy Boys, and then all of a sudden we've got to change it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Everything is nicer when you call it a spicy boy. For example, a spicy boy just named Mike Pence to be its running mate.
(LAUGHTER)
JESSI KLEIN: Spicy boys sort of sounds like maybe that's like Anthony Weiner's new Twitter handle.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WANNABE")
SPICE GIRLS: Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. I'll tell what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to really, really, really, want to zig-a-ziga ah (ph). If you want my future, forget my past.
SAGAL: Coming up, what did Nicolas Cage and Thomas Jefferson have in common? Well, they both existed. It's our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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