MIKE PESCA, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. It's the game where you have to listen for that rhyme. If you'd like to play on the air, call or leave a message at 1(888)WAIT-WAIT - that's 1(888)924-8924 or click the contact us link at our website waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending the weekly live shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show at Wolf Trap in Virginia July 23. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
MARCIE VERASTIQUI: Hi, this is Marcie Verastiqui calling from Dallas, Texas.
PESCA: Hello Marcy. What do you do there in Dallas?
VERASTIQUI: I'm an elementary school librarian and a mom of four kids.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Wow.
PESCA: And do you allow them to read what you allow the kids in the school to read?
VERASTIQUI: Yes, yes. Anybody can read whatever they want.
PESCA: Well, what kind of librarian are you? That seems a little...
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: That doesn't seem specific enough, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: All right, well, welcome to the show, Marcie. Bill Kurtis 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 limericks, you are a winner. And here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Using deep sonic blasts, we have found a big fire won't have to be drowned. Now a fireman's job is to make the base throb. We can blast out a fire with...
VERASTIQUI: Sound.
KURTIS: Sound it is.
PESCA: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
POUNDSTONE: That's crazy.
PESCA: Students at George Mason University have found out a way to put out fires using only sound by aiming 30 to 60 hertz of deep bass at a flame. They were able to successfully able to vibrate oxygen away from fuel. This is great, firefighters will save thousands of gallons of water and Bill Kurtis will be able to extinguish the fires he starts in the loins of all our listeners.
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: All right, here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: Evolution progressed by degrees. Herding cows beat out climbing in trees. We were hairy and scary until we found dairy. We got smart once we learned to eat...
VERASTIQUI: Cheese.
PESCA: Yeah...
KURTIS: Cheese.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
PESCA: There you go.
(APPLAUSE)
PESCA: There are all sorts of theories as to why mankind started eating cheese. A caveman was eating a typical dinner of round tomato bread when he realized it needed something extra. Whatever the reason, scientists have determined once we began digesting lactose, we made all sorts of agricultural and technological advancements. If not for cheese, mankind would never have invented the cheese wheel, which led to the regular wheel...
O'ROURKE: Right.
PESCA: ...Which is useful in transporting loads and loads of cheese.
(LAUGHTER)
ADAM FELBER: It all comes together there.
O'ROURKE: Yeah, it does.
POUNDSTONE: How did they come up with that?
PESCA: I don't know.
O'ROURKE: They left the milk out overnight is how they came up with that.
POUNDSTONE: But if that were the case, then you would just eat leftover milk. But...
O'ROURKE: Well, that was sour cream. Then they left it out for another - it was a bachelor invented cheese.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: How long has this been here?
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: I'll eat it anyway.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: (Grunting).
PESCA: Here now, here now, your last limerick.
KURTIS: The stone I brought in made the vet balk. In this '70s fad, I should get stock. Chia beware, this needs even less care. That's why I will invest in the...
VERASTIQUI: Pet rock.
KURTIS: Yes.
PESCA: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
O'ROURKE: He just died, didn't he?
PESCA: Yeah, that's right. This week, we mourn the loss of Gary Dahl, inventor of the pet rock. For a few months in 1975, millions of Americans paid $4 for a box with a rock in it and that was it. As far as pets go, it ranked above a hamster and below a dead hamster.
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: Do you remember the pet rock?
POUNDSTONE: I remember the pet rock.
O'ROURKE: Oh, hell yes. Yeah, absolutely.
POUNDSTONE: I mean, I never had one. I wasn't responsible enough.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: Mine ran away.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: My parents said yeah, we're going to get the pet rock. But you know who's going to end up feeding it.
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: Bill, how did Marcie do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She got them all right.
PESCA: Way to go, Marcie.
KURTIS: Congratulations.
PESCA: Thank you so much.
VERASTIQUI: Thank you.
PESCA: Bye-Bye.
VERASTIQUI: Bye.
PESCA: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.