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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, and here is your host who already took down his Christmas tree and released it back into the forest - run free, tree - Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. We are celebrating Christmas or, for our ancient Roman friends, the festival of Saturnalia, by feasting on some favorite bits from our shows during the past year.
KURTIS: Back in February, we heard a story about a very strange dinner party and decided to make it the center of our Bluff game. Little did we know that dinner parties were about to become extinct. Here's our game with Tom Papa, Helen Hong and Alonzo Bodden.
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SAGAL: Hi. You are on. WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
CARL DAVEY-ROMANO: Hey, this is Carl Davey-Romano, originally from the Chicagoland area but now in Greenville, N.C.
SAGAL: Carl, how could you ever leave our beautiful paradise by the lake?
DAVEY-ROMANO: Oh, yeah, good question. I do miss the winter weather.
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SAGAL: And do you ever, like, just, you know, try to bring Chicago to you by just being bitter sometimes?
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DAVEY-ROMANO: Oh, all the time. Yes, all the time.
SAGAL: Do you enjoy living in North Carolina?
DAVEY-ROMANO: It's OK. Culture's something different, but it's pretty.
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SAGAL: OK.
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SAGAL: Well, it's great to have you with us, Carl. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's the topic?
KURTIS: This isn't a dinner party. It's a dinner catastrophe.
SAGAL: Dinner parties are times when people eat too much, drink too much and then say dumb things that will keep them awake for the rest of their lives. This week, we read about a dinner party that got way out of hand. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the real one, and you'll win our prize - the WAIT WAITer of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
DAVEY-ROMANO: Yes, I am.
SAGAL: All right. Let's hear first from Tom Papa.
TOM PAPA: Evergreen, Colo., can be a cold and lonely place in the winter. With a population around 9,000 and snowstorms a regular occurrence, residents can go for weeks without having anyone to talk to, eat with or play Twister against. So one can hardly blame a stir-crazy Colorado woman for reaching into her inner Etsy and planning a dinner party that quickly went off the rails. Everything was going smoothly. The house was clean. The table was set. Teeth were brushed. The only problem was that the only guests who showed up were covered in fur, had antlers on their heads and hooflike shoes that were actually hooves.
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PAPA: Of course, the woman recorded the entire affair because why do anything these days if you can't post about it on Facebook? In the video, she invites a deer into her living room and serves up a bread buffet. Several other deer can be seen looking on from the front yard, apparently upset that they couldn't get in because they weren't on the guest list.
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PAPA: The party was such a big hit that the woman kept it going for a second day. This quickly turned into a three-day event, reminiscent of Woodstock.
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PAPA: The third night was crazy as the deer partied in the living room with their shirts off while the woman fed them human cereal and even gave them nicknames. She called them Mackenzie Fay and Sandra Fay, making one wonder what this Colorado woman was really sprinkling on top of that cereal.
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PAPA: But the party ended, as most good ones do, when the police showed up.
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PAPA: The deer were offended. The woman was annoyed. But they will always have the memory of those three days of peace, love and Lyme disease.
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SAGAL: A woman invites a bunch of deer over for dinner and then gets in trouble. Your next story of a dining disaster comes from Helen Hong.
HELEN HONG: Birthday gifts can be sweet. Birthday gifts can be savory. But no birthday gift can match the delicious taste of payback. That's what Janet Kim, an accountant from Michigan, found out on her 34th birthday last week. The mild-mannered CPA thought she was celebrating the occasion with a low-key dinner party at her friend's home. But an hour into dinner, the doorbell rang and in stormed a trio of "Magic Mike"-type exotic male dancers, complete in firefighter gear. All right, all right, all right. I hear there's a birthday girl in here who's getting a little too hot, exclaimed a doughy dollar-store Matthew McConaughey.
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HONG: In fact, none of the male strippers were exactly in great shape. And as Janet took a better look at one of them in particular, she exclaimed - Mr. Peters? Turns out, it was her old boss from one of Janet's first accounting jobs. Mr. Peters was a disgusting boss who would make jokes like, this is Janet, my little Shanghai surprise. Ha - Janet hated him. But it was her first job, and she didn't know how to tell him to get lost. Well, times have changed. Mr. Peters had since been fired for harassment and resorted to male stripping to make ends meet.
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HONG: It was a great birthday surprise. Janet was pleased with the opportunity to make him work for once, shouting, I'm Korean, you dum-dum. While the seemingly humbled Mr. Peters took the opportunity to apologize, the night ended well. The usually reserved Janet got her revenge, and Mr. Peters left with his firefighter's helmet and his heart full of change.
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SAGAL: Strippers at a birthday party provide the guest of honor with a chance for revenge. Your last story of an RSVP gone south comes from Alonzo Bodden.
ALONZO BODDEN: When the students of the daily 10 a.m. warrior woman workout class at the Woodland Oaks Athletic Club in California first met Richard Kostis (ph), aka Rocky, they were a little suspicious. He was the only man who'd ever taken the class. But he quickly won them over with his charm and humor, and they began to look forward to seeing him every Monday and Wednesday. Nobody was more fun to kick in the face, said one student.
So, of course, they were all happy to accept his invitation to a dinner party at his place. The food was great. The wine was excellent, and the furnishings were weirdly familiar. Wasn't that the vase from Cheryl's (ph) house? And isn't that Mindy's (ph) missing TV? And the silverware - isn't that a wedding present from Jennifer's (ph) parents?
As it happened, Rocky only came to class on Mondays and Wednesdays because he spent Tuesday, Thursday and Friday robbing the other students' homes.
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BODDEN: It was easy, Rocky told the Rancho Cucamonga Times from jail. I knew they weren't at home, and I knew their alarm codes because everybody told me the date of their wedding.
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BODDEN: But why, having robbed them, did he invite them over for dinner, leading to his arrest? I know it was a mistake, he said. But they're all such great gals, so fun and welcoming. I almost forgot I had robbed them.
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SAGAL: So these are your stories of a dinner party with a surprise ending - from Tom Papa, a woman in Colorado who invited deer into her home and fed them and photographed it and put it on social media, which resulted in her breaking multiple laws about wildlife; from Helen, a CPA who got vengeance on a terrible boss when that boss showed up at her party in stripper garb; or from Alonzo Bodden, a dinner party that got the host arrested because his guests realized that he had stolen all his furnishings from them. Which of these is a real story from this week's news?
DAVEY-ROMANO: Well, I think I'm going to have to go with Tom and the deer crashing at the lady's house in Colorado.
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SAGAL: There are people here who agree with you. Well, you've chosen Tom's story, then. To bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone very close to the story.
MARK LAMB: She enticed deer into her house with food items and then was issued a citation for four counts of feeding.
SAGAL: That was Mark Lamb with Colorado Parks and Wildlife talking about what happens if you have a deer over for dinner. Congratulations. You got it right, Carl. Well done.
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SAGAL: A point for Tom. You've won our prize, the voice of your choice on your voicemail. Thank you so much for playing with us today.
DAVEY-ROMANO: Appreciate it.
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PEGGY LEE: (Singing) Let's not forget to feed the reindeer. Angels are friends of the reindeer, too. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.