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. You can click the contact us link on our website, which is waitwait.npr.org. You can also find out about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago.
And you can check out the latest "How to do everything" podcast from the producers of WAIT WAIT. This week, in honor of "Fahrenheit 451" being published as an e-book for the first time, we teach you how to burn an e-book.
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SAGAL: That's a little sick. I just want to say. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
ASHLEY ISE: Hi, my name is Ashley and I'm from a little town just south of Tampa, Florida.
SAGAL: And what do you do there?
ISE: I'm a mediator.
SAGAL: A mediator.
ISE: Uh-huh.
SAGAL: That means you contact people from beyond the grave.
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ISE: That would be exciting.
SAGAL: That would be.
ISE: No, I help businesses and people who have conflicts, resolve their conflict.
SAGAL: Really? Are any of them dead?
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ISE: Not yet.
SAGAL: Okay.
LUKE BURBANK: That would be so cool.
ISE: But if they want to pay me, I'll do it.
SAGAL: That'd be cool.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Ashley. Carl Kasell, of course, 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 will be a winner. Ready to play?
ISE: I am.
SAGAL: Okay. Here is your first limerick.
CARL KASELL, HOST:
In Peru there's no glaciers in sight and bare mountaintops do not look right. To make them look colder, we'll color the boulders. We're painting the mountaintops?
ISE: White.
SAGAL: Absolutely right, yes, very good.
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SAGAL: They're painting the mountaintops white. A group of Peruvian environmentalists have figured out a way to solve the problem of melting icecaps in the Andes. They want to climb up to the now bare mountaintops and paint them white. This, they argue, both gives the impression the glaciers are still there and would actually cause the ice to come back because ice is really gullible.
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SAGAL: Here's your next limerick.
KASELL: Ron Paul's always known what it took to get all our votes on his hook. He knows we're just itching to peek in his kitchen. So his pamphlets will teach us to?
ISE: Cook.
SAGAL: Absolutely right, yes.
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SAGAL: Foodies and amateur chefs everywhere are rejoicing at the arrival of a new campaign pamphlet/cookbook from celebrated cook Congressman Ron Paul.
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SAGAL: The 2012 Paul Family Cookbook features 28 pages of, quote, "tasty recipes from the Paul family and friends," unquote. It includes the Paul family's famous, quote, "American Dream Burger." That's a recipe that instructs you just to leave raw ground beef on a table and if the free market wants it cooked, it'll get cooked.
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MO ROCCA: I was going to say, can this cookbook actually have any directions or instructions without being...
SAGAL: It's just whatever, you want to be free, be free. Whatever you want with it, eat the eggs with a shell on, it's a free country.
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BURBANK: Was this a thing that people were kind of just waiting around for? Like, I love the guy's politics but I really want to know how he makes moussaka.
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SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.
KASELL: The parent consultant now talks: "They're wood and they come in a box. Make piles or stacks, just, please, put them back." The parents get trained to use?
ISE: Oh, could I hear it again?
KASELL: The parent consultant now talks: "They're wood and they come in a box. Make piles or stacks, just, please, put them back." The parents get trained to use?
ISE: Oh, blocks.
SAGAL: Right.
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SAGAL: According to the New York Times, there is a hot new trend among Manhattan parents learning how to play with wooden blocks. These block workshops are led by a self-described block consultant.
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SAGAL: Who encourages parents to sit back and observe their children struggling with, quote, "structural challenges." This is all part of a broader trend of basic parenting classes. Other workshops include "Playing Peek-a-Boo" and "Nose Picking 101."
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ROXANNE ROBERTS: I think this is going to be an Ivy League course pretty soon.
SAGAL: Absolutely.
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SAGAL: Carl. How did Ashley do on our quiz?
KASELL: Well, Ashley had three correct answers. And Ashley, I'll be doing the message on your voicemail.
ISE: Well thank you.
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SAGAL: Well done, Ashley, thank you so much for playing.
ISE: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.