© 2024 WGLT
A public service of Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Limericks

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. But first it's 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 you can click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming shows June 27 at the Mann Center in Philadelphia and July 18 at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Also, if you've ever thought this show would be way better if you were playing, first, step back. That's insulting to our panelists. Paid a lot of money to be here.

ROXANNE ROBERTS: (Laughter).

SAGAL: Second, you can play our games on our smart speaker quiz. Just ask your smart speaker to play the WAIT WAIT quiz.

Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

DEBORAH BOWMAN: Hi. This is Deborah Bowman from Short Hills, N.J.

SAGAL: Short Hills, N.J. - I grew up very near there. In fact, when I was growing up, my mall, the one where we went mall-ing...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Was the Short Hills Mall. I spent...

BOWMAN: Yes. I bet it's changed a lot since then.

SAGAL: I hope so. It was pretty...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Is it still there? Tell me it's still there.

BOWMAN: Oh, it's still there. I try to avoid it at all costs.

SAGAL: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show, Deborah. 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 in two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. You ready to play?

BOWMAN: Yes. That'd be great.

SAGAL: All right. Here is your first limerick.

BILL KURTIS: My office space cannot be beat. It's a curbside, executive suite. My space I am marking with three bucks for parking. My desk is set up on the...

BOWMAN: Street.

SAGAL: Yes...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: ...Exactly right.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Rent, as we know, in San Francisco is off the charts. And coworking spaces cost a thousand bucks a month. But it turns out you can rent a cozy, little rectangle of workspace for as little as $2 an hour as long as you're sitting there with a turn signal blinking on your desk before the Subaru pulls out.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This movement of using parking spaces on the street as office space started in the Bay Area and has spread as far as France. It's a lot like WeWork, but instead of having to deal with annoying co-workers you don't know, you just keep getting dinged in the butt by a minivan.

(LAUGHTER)

PETER GROSZ: Do you have people over to be like...

SAGAL: Yes. If you - I mean...

GROSZ: ...I'm going to impress you with my luxurious workspace.

SAGAL: I mean, it's - people are actually doing it. It's sort of a protest against, like, real estate prices.

GROSZ: Yeah.

SAGAL: But there - you see pictures. People bring their desk. They bring power cables. They hook up their lamps. They have meetings, you know? It's like right there in the street.

GROSZ: In the car or just next to the...

SAGAL: No, there's no car. They just put a desk on the park spot.

ROBERTS: So they - they're just feeding the meter?

SAGAL: Yeah. They just feed the meter, you know?

ROBERTS: And this is legal?

SAGAL: Apparently. I mean, there's no law that says...

ROBERTS: ...Says you have to put a car in the...

SAGAL: ...In the parking space.

ROBERTS: You just have to pay the space.

SAGAL: Pay the meter. You can sit there.

ROBERTS: Seems like a loophole.

SAGAL: You'd think.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: It's a loophole so big you can drive a desk through it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: The girl in the live report snorts. Men once wore them for indoor court sports. When legs aren't wimpy, then you can go skimpy. Hey, man. Slip on these really short...

BOWMAN: ...Short shorts.

SAGAL: Yes - short shorts.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Short shorts.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Despite...

KURTIS: Good to figure that one out.

SAGAL: ...How terrible they look, Prada, Fendi and Missoni are making shorts for men that are very short. It's the new thing. Go towards the light, men. By light, they mean the light palette part of your inner thigh.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Short shorts or quote, "mini skirts for men" are hitting the racks this summer. They're being tastefully styled with blazers and ties for professionals or paired with ashamed teens for that embarrassing father look.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: How much do they cost?

SAGAL: Oh, they cost, of course, hundreds and hundreds of dollars because you're supposed to pay this for that sort of thing.

ROBERTS: OK, so...

SAGAL: I mean, this is a scam that I think they're running on men that, of course, they've been running on women for probably centuries, which is they say, well, you had to wear your shorts down to your knees. You buy a bunch of shorts down to your knees. And the next thing - they say, oh, no. You've got to buy them, so they hardly - so that everybody can tell if you're Jewish. I mean that's...

PETEY DEABREU: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: For confessional ears, it's a toss up who will not run their mouth like a faucet. If secrets you harbor tell a priest or a barber, the pope told them both they can't...

SAGAL: Little tricky.

BOWMAN: Gossip.

SAGAL: Gossip. Yes - gossip.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

KURTIS: Gossip.

(APPLAUSE)

BOWMAN: I got it. Look at that.

SAGAL: This week, Pope Francis addressed a gathering of over 200 hairdressers and beauticians because, apparently, he had no Pope-ing to do. So...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And he told them to avoid the, quote, "temptation of gossip that is easily associated with your work," unquote. He then gave his next pronouncement, asking the sun not to shine.

(LAUGHTER)

DEABREU: Where was that?

SAGAL: It was apparently - I think it was in the Vatican that they came to see him. And there was, like, hey, you hairdressers. I know your stereotype is...

GROSZ: It's kind of cool that he would know that that's the stereotype of...

SAGAL: Well, this is the pope of the people, the (speaking Italian). So as it were...

GROSZ: He knows what's up.

DEABREU: He reads Page 6.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Boldface names...

SAGAL: Never Page 3, though.

GROSZ: Yeah.

SAGAL: The pope is in a tough...

GROSZ: Never Page 6 and then Page 6 and then Page 6 again.

SAGAL: Oh, no.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: It's the devil's newspaper.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Deborah do on our quiz?

KURTIS: She did really well. She got every one right.

SAGAL: Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well done. Thank you, Deborah.

BOWMAN: Thank you. It was fun.

SAGAL: I'll see you hanging in front of Bloomingdale's at the mall.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHAT'S THE BUZZ/STRANGE THING MYSTIFYING")

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening? What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.