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Bluff The Listener

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Tom Bodett, Maeve Higgins and Negin Farsad. And here again is your host, a man who wants to remind you it's customary to tip your host 20% - Peter Sagal.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you so much, Bill. Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air.

Hi. You are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

ROZ: Hi there. My name is Roz (ph), and I'm calling from San Francisco.

SAGAL: Hey. How are things in the beautiful city by the bay?

ROZ: Sunny, windy, fog will come in pretty soon.

SAGAL: Really?

ROZ: Yes (laughter).

SAGAL: Fog, fog, you say. So how long have you been in San Francisco? Are you, like, an old-school San Franciscan? You're not one of these new sort of titans of Silicon Valley who recently came or anything.

ROZ: No (laughter). No, I'm not one of those. I have lived here since 1974.

SAGAL: I love it. Well, Roslyn (ph), welcome to the show. You are going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Roslyn's topic?

KURTIS: Skateboard did what?

SAGAL: Skateboards were made so cool kids could get around easily and grumpy olds could have something to shake their fist at. Well, this week, we heard about someone using a skateboard for something other than its intended purpose. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth, you'll win our prize - the WAIT WAITer (ph) of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?

ROZ: Yes.

SAGAL: All right. First, let's hear from Negin Farsad.

NEGIN FARSAD: Now, I know you're all wondering, how can I get more social media followers? Well, a Miami-Dade local Audrey Francisquini figured she would get new followers by going to a high school posing as a student and handing out flyers with her Instagram handle on them. That's right. Francisquini, who's actually pushing 30, dressed up like a teenager. And because she was taking her cues from that one meme of Steve Buscemi from "30 Rock," that mostly meant she was very confidently carrying a skateboard, you know, because that's what teenagers do. They, like, carry skateboards. Of course, the teenagers probably took one look at the flyers and were like, what are these pieces of paper with information on them? - because no amount of skateboard-carrying could hide the fact that today's high schoolers don't know what flyers are. The fake teen was ultimately arrested at her home, which was super-easy for cops to find because she was handing out flyers with her info on them. At the bond hearing, the judge asked how she managed to even get into the high school. Francisquini responded, shut up; you're not my mom, and continued chewing on her gummy worms while drawing sad clowns in a tattered notebook.

SAGAL: A woman pretends to be a teenager by walking around clutching a skateboard in a high school just to try to get more Instagram followers. Your next story of a skateboard going off book comes from Maeve Higgins.

MAEVE HIGGINS: Ever get so sick of plates that you just want to smash them all on the ground? As somebody with a face like a plate, I certainly do. Well, now is the perfect time to smash all your plates because...

FARSAD: (Laughter).

HIGGINS: ...Of a cool new trend at a hot new restaurant - food served on skateboards. A seafood place in Nantucket opened this week, and business has been brisk. What's their secret sauce? Well, the food comes shooting out of the kitchen on skateboards, and customers get to snatch at it as it whizzes by. The restaurant's called The Motion Of The Ocean, and it was the brainchild of Wheels McGee (ph), a former pro skater himself...

FARSAD: (Laughter).

HIGGINS: ...Who you'll remember well if you were part of the 1990s Nantucket skate scene.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

HIGGINS: Speaking to the newspaper, Wheels was defensive at first. (Imitating skater) Everybody thinks us skaters are dumb. But if that's true, how come I was the first person to ever serve clam linguini on a skateboard? It's glorious, man. Oh, the trail - like you wouldn't believe. Then sadly, he tripped over a skateboard loaded with scampi and landed in a rolling urn (ph) of chowder. He drowned. R.I.P. Wheels McGee.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

HIGGINS: It's in the newspaper.

SAGAL: Of course - the restaurant Motion Of The Ocean serving seafood on zipping skateboards in Nantucket. Your last story of some wayward wheels is from Tom Bodett.

TOM BODETT: Loan sharks and leg-breakers are as old as commerce. Don't pay the two-goat vig on the milk cow you borrowed, expect a whack across the knee with a club. Well, goats became coins. Clubs became shepherds' staffs, walking sticks and eventually, the venerable Yankee slugger baseball bat. But climbing out of a black Escalade with a baseball bat is guaranteed to send the mark scurrying for cover. Baltimore's legendary loan shark, Arthur "Big Whitey" Ford (ph), recently indicted on 111 counts of usury, had noticed his old-school enforcers were not as effective as they used to be. When his son Mason "Lil Whitey" Ford (ph) broke his knee skateboarding last summer, Big Whitey saw the solution, and his business boomed. He hired a gang of young skateboard punks to pound the streets for collections and pound the defaulters with their boards. No one saw them coming, no one saw them going either, chuckled Ford, before his lawyer hit him with a skateboard.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Skateboards were used in an unusual way in a news item we saw this week. Was it from Negin, a woman who grabbed a skateboard and wandered around a high school pretending to be a teenager - because that's what teenagers do - in order to get more Instagram likes, from Maeve, a Nantucket restaurant which served their food on skateboards sent careening out of the kitchen, or from Tom, a mobster who armed his enforcers with skateboards to whack the knees and ankles of people who did not pay up? Which of these is the real story of a skateboard being used in an unusual way in the news?

ROZ: I'm going to go with Little Whitey Ford (ph), the Baltimore loan shark.

SAGAL: You're going to go with...

HIGGINS: (Laughter).

SAGAL: ...Tom's story of Little Whitey Ford, the loan shark in Baltimore. Well, to bring you the truth, here is a reporter who covered the real story.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JACLYN PEISER: She looked like a student because she was holding a painting and a skateboard. But it turned out the pamphlets that she was handing out were advertising her Instagram account.

SAGAL: That was Jaclyn Peiser from The Washington Post, reporting on the fake teenager's efforts to gain Instagram followers. Anyway, so you didn't pick the right story, but you did earn a point for Tom, who probably just gave the mobsters who listen to us some pretty bad ideas.

ROZ: (Laughter).

SAGAL: Thank you, Roz, so much. Take care.

ROZ: Thank you, you too.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

ROZ: Bye-bye.

FARSAD: Bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOREVER YOUNG")

ALPHAVILLE: (Singing) Forever young, I want to be forever young. Do you really want to live forever? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.