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 click the contact us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming shows June 27 at the Mann Center in Philadelphia and our first-ever show at the beautiful Blossom Music Center located within Cuyahoga National Park in northern Ohio. That's July 18. Be sure to check out this week's Wait Wait Quiz on your Alexa or Google Home device. Just say open the Wait Wait Quiz, and Bill and I will hang out with you, ask you questions, listen to your words. And if that's not heaven enough, you could also win any one of our voices for your voicemail.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
STEPHANIE CARLSON: Hi, this is Stephanie Carlson formerly of Yakima, Wash. I just moved to Cheshire, Conn.
SAGAL: Well, I've been to both.
CARLSON: I know. I saw you in Yakima.
SAGAL: Oh, wow. Well, that's nice. Hello.
CARLSON: Hi.
SAGAL: And what's - first of all, why did you do that and how have you found the transition?
CARLSON: We loved the transition. New England is amazing. It feels like we're in another country. East Coasters are something else.
SAGAL: Really?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Stephanie. 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. Are you ready to play?
CARLSON: Yeah.
SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: From celebrity armpits and knees, I harvest their microbes with ease. It is culture I find as I chew on the rind. From their essence, I make wheels of...
CARLSON: Cheese.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Cheese. If you like how cheese is made out of bacteria, mold and hard, old milk but wish it had one more gross twist...
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: ...A cheesemaker in London is making cheese with bacteria starters made from swabbed celebrity skin.
(GROANING)
SAGAL: And if you're not A-list enough to be made into a cheese, then you'll just be made into sea salt.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Just think of how much closer you'll feel to your favorite celebs as soon as you eat their belly button remnants on a cracker.
(GROANING)
SAGAL: You can imagine a nice celebrity cheese board - a little Monterrey Hugh Jackman...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Some Lady Gaganzola (ph)...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...And of course, Brie Larson.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: The Austrians raise an arched brow. It seems odd that you won't find a frau. There's no bovine I do so it's #MeMoo. It's not safe to be kissing a...
CARLSON: Cow.
SAGAL: Cow, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Austria has faced an epidemic of people sneaking into pastures and kissing cows...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...After a startup offered to donate money to a charity for every cow kissed. The challenge has proved so popular that health officials released a statement begging people to stop kissing cows.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Look, one sign you need to stop doing what you're doing is if you've put yourself in a situation in which E. coli is now an STD.
(LAUGHTER)
FAITH SALIE: Do we know if this is kiss on the lips?
SAGAL: Yeah, apparently, yes. They kiss the cow on the lips. That's why it's a problem.
TOM PAPA: Oh, because they have braces.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah. All right, here is your last limerick.
KURTIS: From my lunch, I feel absent for days as I wander about in a haze. Down the stairs and through doors and past three minotaurs, their bathroom seems lost in a...
CARLSON: Oh, no.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, minotaur is a kind of a hint because where would you find the minotaur? In the middle of a...
CARLSON: What's a minotaur?
(LAUGHTER)
PAPA: It's like a really sexy cow.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: Days, haze....
SALIE: Don't kiss it, though.
CARLSON: Gaze, pave, maze.
SAGAL: You got it.
KURTIS: You're right.
SALIE: Yes.
KURTIS: Right there, maze.
SAGAL: Yes, maze.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The New York Post is reporting on a crisis in New York restaurants - restrooms that are way, way too hard to find. The Crosby Street Hotel restaurant requires you to go down a flight of stairs and find your way through five doors before getting to the restroom. Diners have called finding the bathroom at Augustine, quote, "like a game of Clue." By the way, whoever said that, do not play Clue with them.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Restaurants in New York are considering fixing the problem by installing a Starbucks in the middle of the dining room.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now, the problem came about because more and more restaurants are being built into reclaimed spaces that were never designed to be restaurants. The lone exception is the hot new Spago built on the old men's room in Port Authority.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Stephanie do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She got them all right. She's a winner.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Congratulations. Thank you so much for playing.
CARLSON: Thank you. Have a great night.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CIRCLES")
SOUL COUGHING: (Singing) I don't need to walk around in circles, walk around in circles, walk around in circles, walk around in.... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.