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BILL KURTIS: 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 Amy Dickinson, Maeve Higgins and Joel Kim Booster. And here again is your host, a man who sometimes goes by his stage name, Via Getty (ph)...
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KURTIS: ...Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you so much, Bill. In just a minute, Bill does the rhyme, so he does the time 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 this week's news. Joel, during the pandemic, more and more people are breaking gender stereotypes and are starting to make their own what?
JOEL KIM BOOSTER: Clothes?
SAGAL: Yes, exactly.
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SAGAL: They're making their own clothes. More and more men are taking up sewing during the pandemic. Move over, wearing no pants.
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SAGAL: The new trend is wearing pants you yourself make. These men are part of a movement overcoming stereotypes, like only women sew, and both sleeves need to be the same length.
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SAGAL: This new wave of fashion self-designers call themselves sewists (ph) because the new term isn't gendered like seamstress and also because the word sew-er (ph) looks exactly like the word sewer. Hey, cool shirt. Where'd you get it? Thanks. I got it from a real cool sewer in my neighborhood.
MAEVE HIGGINS: Also, do you know something like only button on the left for men or something? Like, buttons...
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah. Men's buttons are...
HIGGINS: ...Are on different sides.
SAGAL: Yes, exactly.
HIGGINS: Why? That's insanity.
KIM BOOSTER: I think they do the buttons like they do so that you get humiliated as a man when you find a really cool shirt at a thrift store and realize that the buttons are on the, quote, unquote, "wrong side," and you should feel bad about wearing a lady's blouse.
AMY DICKINSON: (Laughter) You know, that, like, furry guy with the horns at the capital?
SAGAL: Yeah, that guy - the guy who attacked...
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DICKINSON: I wonder if - he must have made his own outfit. Maybe that's...
SAGAL: That's true.
DICKINSON: ...Where we're headed. Yeah.
SAGAL: That may be why he didn't have any top at all.
KIM BOOSTER: (Laughter).
HIGGINS: Oh.
SAGAL: Sewists are celebrating their creations on social media. They use the hashtag #dopemensew. And they...
HIGGINS: Oh.
DICKINSON: Oh, my God.
SAGAL: ...Create forums to share patterns that men love for things like flip flops and cargo pants and mismatched socks.
KIM BOOSTER: It's crazy that, like, men can't just sew.
HIGGINS: Right.
KIM BOOSTER: We have to, like, humiliate ourselves further by creating stupid hashtags...
SAGAL: Yes.
KIM BOOSTER: ...To, like, point out that, like, don't worry. I'm not like, you know, them. I'm a cool - I'm a dope man who sews.
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SAGAL: Amy, the company King of Fans has recalled almost 200,000 ceiling fans over a small defect in one of their models. What?
DICKINSON: They detach and decapitate people?
SAGAL: Well, they haven't decapitated anyone yet, but they do detach at high speed and fly across the room.
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DICKINSON: That's exactly what I was picturing. Oh, my God.
SAGAL: That's exactly the problem. King of Fans - that's the name of the company - though we will say they - we'll see if they retain that title of King of Fans if the other fans invoke the 25th Amendment - they issued their recall of the 54-inch Mara model ceiling fan after nearly 50 reports of the blades detaching and then, we hope, embedding themselves high into nearby walls rather than low into nearby necks.
DICKINSON: I actually don't like ceiling fans, and it's partly for that reason. I just picture that. And now I'm really picturing it.
SAGAL: Well, this is actually one of the things - because people at WAIT WAIT were freaking out because they're, like, oh my God, this is my nightmare. And I'm like, is this a widespread phobia?
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SAGAL: Because I have never once worried about that.
HIGGINS: I would hate to lose my ceiling fan, you know? She's my biggest fan.
KIM BOOSTER: Ugh.
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KIM BOOSTER: Maeve. Jail. Jail.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.