CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Alonzo Bodden, Jessi Klein and Mo Rocca. And here again is your host, at the Wang Theater in Boston, Massachusetts, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you. Thank you all. In just a minute, Carl reenacts the Midnight Rhyme of Paul Revere in our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.
Jessi, this week the Wall Street Journal published a list of the best and worst jobs in America. In the bottom 10 out of 200 different jobs were dairy farmer, meter reader, dishwasher and what?
JESSI KLEIN: Wait, how did it rank?
SAGAL: It ranked in the bottom ten.
KLEIN: It was in the bottom ten.
SAGAL: Yeah, 200 jobs.
KLEIN: Of the worst jobs?
SAGAL: Yes.
KLEIN: OK, being a janitor in a toll booth, cleaning the toll booth up.
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KLEIN: No?
SAGAL: No.
KLEIN: Not that one?
SAGAL: A janitor in a toll booth I think would not be a terrible job, because however unpleasant it may be, it would be over quickly.
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SAGAL: You'd be like mop, mop, mop, I'm done.
KLEIN: You would need to work overtime to make any money at that.
SAGAL: That's true.
KLEIN: I need a hint. I need a hint.
SAGAL: Well, it kind of hits close to home for all of us.
KLEIN: Talk on the radio.
SAGAL: Right. We broadcast on the radio and the answer is broadcasters.
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KLEIN: What?
SAGAL: Broadcaster is in the top ten.
ALONZO BODDEN: Really?
SAGAL: Yeah.
KLEIN: No.
SAGAL: The jobs are ranked by the Wall Street Journal in terms of income, stress and hiring outlook and the likelihood that when asked what you do, your parents say "Son? I have no son."
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SAGAL: Some of the jobs that rank above broadcaster on this list - this is all true - roofer, sewage plant operator, and nuclear decontamination technician.
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KLEIN: Broadcaster and sewage plant person are on the same list?
SAGAL: Yeah, except sewage plant operator is above us.
KLEIN: Is above.
MO ROCCA: Oh my gosh.
SAGAL: It's steadier work, if you think about it. Good news for broadcasters, though, broadcasters do rank higher than broadcaster decontamination technician.
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BODDEN: Sewage plant operator.
SAGAL: Yes.
BODDEN: Well, I read a lot of crap before I come on the show.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: Mo, Ikea is famous for making adorable cheap furniture and Swedish meatballs. Now they've announced plans to make a whole what?
ROCCA: Well they also make lingonberries. They don't make them but they provide them.
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ROCCA: They're going to make - cars wouldn't be interesting. So I don't think it's really adorable, the furniture that they make.
SAGAL: It's kind of...
ROCCA: That's very subjective.
SAGAL: It's sort of an extreme extension of what they do already.
ROCCA: An extension of what they make already.
SAGAL: Maybe it'll be called Lingonberryberg.
ROCCA: Oh, they're going to make an Ikea town.
SAGAL: Yes, they are.
ROCCA: A whole town.
SAGAL: An entire town.
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SAGAL: They're going to build it. This new 27-acre community outside London will come with 40,000 pages of wordless assembly instructions.
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SAGAL: And an Allen wrench the size of a telephone phone. It has yet to be named but you can bet that the name will have an umlaut somewhere.
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SAGAL: The biggest danger, of course, they finish building the whole town, the streets, the homes and they have all these parts left over.
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SAGAL: Dammit, what was I supposed to do with this stoplight?
KLEIN: Is the whole town going to smell like meatballs?
SAGAL: It will
KLEIN: That you don't really want.
SAGAL: Real estate analysts predict that in two years you'll be able to buy the whole town on Craigslist when everybody moves up to Crate and Barrelsville.
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BODDEN: Where do you find contractors and construction workers to build an Ikea town? It just seems...
SAGAL: Well, you do it yourself.
BODDEN: Oh, that makes sense.
SAGAL: The entire town packs flat. You can put it on top of your station wagon.
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SAGAL: Bring it home, open it up. Alonzo, final preparations for the London Olympics are underway, of course. They're going all out. Organizers tried to get legendary drummer Keith Moon of "The Who" to perform but they were informed Mr. Moon was unavailable. Why?
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BODDEN: Is he still alive?
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SAGAL: That's one more question than they asked.
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BODDEN: Is he dead?
SAGAL: He's very dead.
BODDEN: That's what I though. Yeah, he's dead.
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SAGAL: He's as dead as dead can be. He died in 1978.
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BODDEN: He should have told somebody.
SAGAL: He should have. He went quietly.
BODDEN: You got to get a publicist or something.
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SAGAL: So, it was pretty stupid for the London Olympics to try to get Keith Moon to play at their ceremonies. On the other hand, if they had gotten him, it would have been a coup.
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SAGAL: Organizers sent the request to Bill Curbishly. He is "The Who's" manager and winner of this year's Most British Name contest.
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SAGAL: Mr. Currishly responded, curbishly, quote, "Keith now resides in Golders Green Crematorium."
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SAGAL: "If they have a round table, some glasses and candles, we might contact him."
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SAGAL: Embarrassed by the incident, London Olympic organizers are now withdrawing their silly requests for Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Keith Richards.
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BODDEN: Well this guy couldn't have been much of a manager because my people would have asked for an advance.
SAGAL: That's true.
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SAGAL: How much are you offering?
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