(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Mo Rocca, Adam Felber and Dulce Sloan. And here again is your host, a man whose butter is always soft, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Right now, it is time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
TONY RICHARDS: Hi. This is Tony Richards calling from Nashville, music city, where I listen to your show on WPLN, the Nashville Public Radio.
SAGAL: Oh, we love Nashville. Are you part of music city down there?
RICHARDS: Well, I moved to Nashville to be closer to my family, who lives here. And I've been building electric guitars to keep myself busy.
SAGAL: How very cool. Can you build a guitar that has a particular character...
RICHARDS: Yes, exactly...
SAGAL: ...Different from all other guitars?
RICHARDS: ...Like my little niche there in that I generally build electrics based on Fender-style guitars. I don't want to get sued by Fender.
SAGAL: Yeah.
RICHARDS: And then I customize to the person's particular taste in terms of finish, electronics, hardware, all of it.
SAGAL: How very cool. Well...
RICHARDS: It's very satisfying.
SAGAL: It sounds it. Well, welcome to the show, Tony. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Tony's topic?
KURTIS: Sorry, Peter. It's not a good time.
SAGAL: Bad timing - it's not just the title of an X-rated 1980 erotic film starring Art Garfunkel. It's a thing that happens. Our panelists are going to tell you about an incident involving bad timing. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win a prize - a VHS cassette of "Bad Timing," which, again, is a 1980 X-rated film starring Art Garfunkel...
RICHARDS: (Laughter).
SAGAL: ...Also Harvey Keitel - really. You ready to play?
RICHARDS: I am ready to play.
SAGAL: All right. Let's hear first from Adam Felber.
ADAM FELBER: It was back in 2018 when 23-year-old Kentucky woman Leah Holland (ph) received what she thought was one of the nicest compliments of her life from a friend. Leah felt seen. For the next two years, Leah toyed with the idea of having her friend's compliment tattooed on her arm, a testament and a daily reminder for Leah to continue to be true to herself, to always live out loud. Finally, in March of last year, she pulled the trigger and got the tattoo placed prominently on her left forearm.
Mere days later, the COVID-19 pandemic struck Kentucky and the rest of the country really hard, and suddenly, her tattoo became a little problematic because it read and reads in bold lettering, quote, "courageously and radically refuse to wear a mask." I was mortified, she said. I spent the entire summer wearing cardigans so that it could not be misconstrued. Fortunately, she says, I can laugh about it now. It's hilarious.
So that's all good. But still no word on what she's going to do about her other tattoo on the small of her back, which reads, the privatized power grid in Texas is a workable free market solution that will never fail.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A woman got a tattoo proudly bragging about refusing to wear a mask just before the COVID epidemic struck. Your next story of bad timing comes from Dulce Sloan.
DULCE SLOAN: Helen Bennett (ph) of Martinez, Ga., was known for her come and get it chicken. The savory and a little sweet recipe was a much-requested favorite at events all over town. So when the local chicken plant had a contest with a grand prize of $5,000 and a discount on chicken for the rest of the year, she knew she had to enter. The thing is, the secret to her chicken is cannabis oil, which gives her chicken its distinct taste and slight euphoric effect.
The problem is, the day before the competition, Helen ran out and couldn't get more because it's a controlled substance in Georgia, so it was tied to crime. So she called her cousin, Albert Bennett (ph), aka Lil White (ph), to get the cannabis she needed to make her soon-to-be-award-winning chicken. So she made her come-and-get-it chicken, and she gave it a different name.
And when the judges voted, Helen's totally legal, nothing-to-see-here chicken won first prize. She later admitted to using the slightly banned substance. But authorities let her off with a warning on the condition she give them the recipe.
SAGAL: A woman uses illegal ingredients in her chicken. Your last story of bad timing not involving the raw, carnal magnetism of Art Garfunkel comes from Mo Rocca.
FELBER: (Laughter).
MO ROCCA: As a child, Carol Bagnoli (ph) of St. Paul, Minn., began a lifelong fascination with folding hand fans. Quote, "we had Japanese neighbors, and they had the most beautiful fans - silk, linen, some of them lacquered." With the dawn of the Internet, Carol connected with other devotees of this ancient art and was inspired to start an online gallery of fans - a kind of subscription service where members could ogle these exotic beauties. So in 2016, Carol launched onlyfans.org.
The same year, another subscription service of the same name debuted, that one popular with sex workers. Quote, "We had only 14 subscribers first, all of them people I already knew," said Carol. But then we started getting waves of guys demanding hotter content. So I posted my 30-inch bamboo kabuki classic, hand-painted - doesn't get any hotter than that.
But once these new subscribers started asking that Carol pose with the fans and not much else, she got wise to the mix-up. Quote, "Excuse me, these fans are for cooling down. So I recommend those rascals visit my page after they've been to that other onlyfans...
SLOAN: (Laughter).
ROCCA: ...If you know what I mean.
SAGAL: All right. So one of these is the story of bad timing in the news.
SLOAN: (Laughter).
SAGAL: From Adam Felber, a woman getting a tattoo proudly proclaiming her refusal to wear a mask just before wearing a mask became very important. From Dulce, a prized chicken recipe uses the wrong ingredient at the wrong time. And from Mo Rocca, a fan enthusiast sets up a website to show off her wonderful fans and gives it the same name as the most popular website for sex workers. Which of these is the real story of bad timing?
RICHARDS: I believe Adam's telling me the truth on this one. I'm going to go with that.
SAGAL: Your choice, then, is Adam, about the woman who proudly got the tattoo - by the way, in a visible place - bragging about refusing to wear a mask right before the pandemic. That's your choice.
RICHARDS: That's the one. I'm putting my money down. Yep.
SAGAL: Well, we actually spoke to the person in the center of the story to bring you the real one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEAH HOLLAND: And it's on my forearm. And it just says, courageously and radically refuse to wear a mask.
SAGAL: That was Leah Holland talking about her very unfortunate tattoo. Congratulations, Tony. You got it right. You're earned a point for Adam Felber, and you have won our prize, the voice of your choice on your voicemail. Well done, Tony.
RICHARDS: I had so much fun. Thank you, guys. You guys were great. Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEW ORDER SONG, "REGRET") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.