PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first is 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 - that's waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, our upcoming show in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 12, and you can check out our How To Do Everything sister podcast. This week Mike and Ian get almost everything wrong.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
ALEXANDRA PURLOW: Hi, this is Alexandra in Washington, D.C.
SAGAL: Hey, Alexandra. How are you?
PURLOW: I'm great. How are you?
SAGAL: I'm fine. What do you do there in our nation's capital?
PURLOW: I am a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology.
SAGAL: Really? So you're going to be dealing...
O'ROURKE: So you're in a target-rich environment.
(LAUGHTER)
PURLOW: Yeah, exactly.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show Alexandra. Bill Kurtis right now 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 in two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. You ready to play?
PURLOW: Yes.
SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Woolen warmth makes us penguins feel better, but bedtimes it just acts like a fetter. We have all kinds of knits, and it all kinda fits, so we birds do not need one more...
PURLOW: Sweater.
SAGAL: Yes a sweater.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Goodness.
SAGAL: It was Penguin Awareness Day. I'm sure you all celebrated at your penguin parties. That was this week. And it highlighted the debate that's going on right now in the high-stakes world of penguin fashion. Some very well-meaning people say penguins recovering from oil spills are helped by humans knitting them tiny sweaters to protect them from the cold, while other people are saying that is ridiculous. These sweaters are necessary and they're dangerously adorable.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But the answer is clear - nobody - I don't think anybody understands this. You do not wear a sweater on top of a tuxedo.
Here is your next limerick Alexandra.
PURLOW: OK.
KURTIS: All the office distractions I've fled, from my home I am working instead. My new flexible desk lets me type while I rest. With my laptop I lie down in...
PURLOW: Bed.
SAGAL: Yes, bed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Very good. A design company called Thanko has unveiled something they call the Super Gorone Desk. It is the lazy person's revenge on the standing desk. It's a metal apparatus you put on your bed, and you lie inside it and it suspends your computer laptop over your face so you can type while lying down while looking straight up.
ALONZO BODDEN: At what point was working at home - I got to walk to the desk?
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Can't I somehow work from the bed I'm lying in?
FAITH SALIE: I have to sit?
SAGAL: Oh God, I'm sitting here and yet I'm still using muscles to hold my head erect. This isn't right. Now you might ask - it's a big apparatus that goes over your bed, what about the person lying next to you? Just kidding, you just bought a computer for your bed. This is not going to be an issue.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here Alexandra is your last limerick.
KURTIS: Not quite maidenly, prudish or spotless, on page three, for two days, girls were flopless. But the Sun failed that test, too much grief was expressed. And the ladies once more appear...
PURLOW: Topless?
SAGAL: Yes.
KURTIS: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week a crisis in Great Britain - the Sun Newspaper, the tabloid in England - it was rumored might retire their famous page three girl feature, where they always feature a topless young woman. Meaning they'd no longer be able to use the slogan, all the nudes fit to print. But no, the Sun said the feature is safe. The rumors were untrue. I mean, come on, they're not going to take that away. Without the tabloid page three, where would people be able to find pictures of topless women to look at?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Alexandra do on our quiz?
KURTIS: You know, she did great.
SAGAL: Congratulations Alexandra. Thank you so much for playing.
PURLOW: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YESTERDAY'S PAPERS")
ROLLING STONES: (Singing) Who wants yesterday's papers? Who wants yesterday's girl? Who wants yesterday's papers? Nobody in the world. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.