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Panel Questions

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 Roxanne Roberts, Mo Rocca and Negin Farsad. And here again is your host, a man who's getting ready for this year's staff retreat by practicing socially distant trust falls, Peter Sagal.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill looks forward to the big deals of this year's Amazon Rhyme Day 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. But right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Mo, California's infection rate is still high. And some are criticizing the state's decision to reopen indoor dining. But don't worry - the governor's office has a plan. They're advising diners to do what?

MO ROCCA: To wear their masks in between bites?

SAGAL: That's exactly right, Mo.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Governor Gavin Newsom is advising indoor diners to wear masks in between their bites. So you take the mask off. You take a bite. You put the mask back on. You chew. You contemplate the world. And then when you want another bite, you take it off again. It's a genius idea trying to distract from the dumb idea of reopening indoor dining with an even stupider idea.

ROCCA: You don't - listen. You don't have to take the mask off. What you do is - you know, you stick your fork into the bite of food.

SAGAL: Yes.

ROCCA: And as it comes towards your mouth, you just kind of coquettishly lift up your mask and then put it in there.

SAGAL: Oh, I see. Or you can pull it down.

ROCCA: You don't actually - yeah. And then you pull it down.

SAGAL: You don't have to do the complete ear unhook. You don't have to do that.

ROCCA: No, you don't have to do that.

NEGIN FARSAD: Is the coquettishness one of the defenses against coronavirus?

ROCCA: I think it is. You're just sort of showing a little lip.

FARSAD: Right. Right.

SAGAL: Yeah. But won't that attract the virus, though, because it's constantly looking for a little flash of lip?

FARSAD: (Laughter).

SAGAL: Have you guys done what I have done, which is forgotten when eating, in my case outside, whether you have your mask on or not and tried to push some food through it?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Because I've done it. I've lifted coffee cups to my mask, to lips. And that hasn't worked out well, either.

Roxanne, a Swedish town outside of Stockholm will become the home of the first secondhand store run by whom?

ROXANNE ROBERTS: Second wives.

SAGAL: I'm just trying to think what that would be like and what its name would be. But anyway, it's not.

ROBERTS: Oh. I got all your stuff. And I'm selling it cheap.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I do like your thinking. No, it's not that.

ROBERTS: I'm going to need a hint.

SAGAL: It's a secondhand furniture store. And it's in Sweden - Swedish.

ROBERTS: Oh, it's got to be secondhand Ikea.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Ikea is opening their own secondhand furniture store. The store is called ReTuna after the Swedish word for used fish. The store will initially be stocked with merchandise from a nearby Ikea store that's been damaged or repaired, making it the best place in the world to get old Ikea furniture other than the alley.

ROBERTS: Half of everything on Craigslist is Ikea.

SAGAL: Exactly right. That sounds fun. But by all means, skip the cafe. You do not want secondhand meatballs.

ROCCA: It's all curbside pickup. It's just been sitting on the curb forever.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Mo, Cal Cunningham, the Democratic challenger to the North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, is caught up in a sex scandal just weeks before the election. His sexts with his paramour have been released. And what's amazing about these illicit texts is that they are so what?

ROCCA: Vanilla.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: They are incredibly boring. I mean, come on. If you're going to immolate your career and hand control of the Senate back to the GOP, make it worth it. Use some imagination. Think of some spicy verbs. At the very least, name some interesting body parts. Instead, we get this.

KURTIS: Pick a day. Starch your white shirt. And be ready to kiss a lot.

SAGAL: Ooh.

ROCCA: Calgon (ph), take me away.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Wow.

SAGAL: This isn't a sexting scandal. This is what you say to a 6-year-old when she asks what a sexting scandal is.

ROCCA: But I think that, let me starch your collar - what was it? Start...

FARSAD: Starch your clothes.

SAGAL: It was pick a day. Starch your white shirt. And be ready to kiss a lot. That was actually from her to him. He texted back...

ROCCA: Right.

SAGAL: ...I also like to kiss a lot.

ROBERTS: They're like ninth graders.

SAGAL: They're not - have you met a ninth grader recently?

FARSAD: (Groaning) I'm embarrassed.

ROBERTS: OK. They're like sixth graders. They're like sixth graders.

FARSAD: Yeah.

ROCCA: That's amazing. I mean, it's I - mean, it's - you know, it's not great. But it's also weirdly kind of sweet.

SAGAL: We also got to see some texts that the girlfriend sent to her friend complaining that she doesn't hear from him enough. Quote, "I know he's busy. But, I mean, he has to poop. So that's the perfect time to text."

ROCCA: They are going to swap cooties.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVIN' & HUGGIN'")

HANK WILLIAMS III: (Singing) Well, we were loving and a hugging and a kissing and a squeezing on a Friday and Saturday night. Just a dancing and a prancing and a lot of romancing. And boy, did it sure feel right. But now we're cussing and a fussing... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.