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 here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in just a few days in Milwaukee, Wis.
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SAGAL: Also, you can check out - yes, woo - woo indeed, sir. Also, you can check out our How To Do Everything podcast. This week, Mike and Ian tell you how to deal with a disgusting co-worker. For some reason that probably has nothing to do with the fact that I am their co-worker.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON’T TELL ME.
ANDREA HESSIE: Hi, my name is Andrea Hessie.
SAGAL: Hey, where are you calling from, Andrea?
HESSIE: I am calling from the wiles of Mount Hood, Ore.
SAGAL: Hey, Mount Hood...
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh wow.
SAGAL: ...Really? Are you out there in the slopes?
HESSIE: No, I am the principal of a residential environmental education program called Outdoor School. We are celebrating our 50th year.
SAGAL: Really?
HESSIE: Yes.
SAGAL: So when you say residential, you mean kids, like, spend the whole school year out there with you?
HESSIE: They spend a week. So every kid in our county comes out. It's six graders, and we have high school-student volunteers. So they spend a week out in the woods learning science and community and being out here in the woods with us rain or shine. So...
SAGAL: That's very exciting.
HESSIE: Yeah.
SAGAL: Andrea, welcome to our show. Bill Kurtis is going to read for you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each of them. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. You ready to play?
HESSIE: Yes, definitely.
SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: All artists require utensils. Some use brushes and others cut stencils. The coloring craze left the warehouses razed. And the factories ran out of...
HESSIE: Pencils.
SAGAL: Yes, pencils.
KURTIS: Pencils, yes.
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SAGAL: If you're not familiar with it, and maybe out there in the slopes of Mount Hood you missed this, there is a craze for adult coloring books. It's a way of recapturing our youth but just the boring parts.
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SAGAL: This craze apparently has caused a global colored-pencil shortage. Pencil-maker Faber-Castell says they've had to increase shifts to keep up demand. But even that may not be enough, forcing self-involved adults around the world to mug preschoolers and raid kindergarten craft tables to get their coloring fix.
PETER GROSZ: What about markers or crayons? What would we...
SAGAL: Oh wait, what?
GROSZ: What about markers or crayons?
SAGAL: Oh, crisis averted.
GROSZ: Yes, you're welcome. Next one.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: For my resistance, this is the piece da. Let Madrid hold a giant fiesta. Take three hours away from our lengthy workday. Get rid of that pesky...
HESSIE: Siesta?
SAGAL: Siesta...
KURTIS: Yes.
SAGAL: ...Very good.
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SAGAL: The prime minister of Spain is threatening to cut back one of his country's oldest traditions - laziness.
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SAGAL: The afternoon siesta of Spain is being blamed for Spain's lack of productivity - or put it another way, the siesta is being blamed for the best thing about Spain. Apparently, this is caused by a concern in Spain and other European countries that they have to keep up with Germany, where they have amazing levels of productivity. Man, this is really the worst thing Germany has ever done to Europe.
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POUNDSTONE: I always wondered why though in a business sense if everybody else went to bed why there weren't people just, like, working their [expletives] off to make progress while the other people were sleeping?
GROSZ: They were. They're called robbers.
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TOM BODETT: But, you know, I have - my lovely wife, who was born in Madrid, she and I - we talk about this. And I have made the observation that no country that has the siesta also has a space program.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: It's how I keep the peace around my house.
SAGAL: Yeah. Here is your last limerick.
HESSIE: OK.
KURTIS: Ms. Paltrow, the queen now agrees, deserves the hive's ablest draftees. She wants, of all things, to be treated with stings. She wants toxins from dozens of...
HESSIE: Bees.
SAGAL: Bees...
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SAGAL: Yes, bees. Gwenyth Paltrow, actress and white Walker, recently revealed she pays to have bees sting her. Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I would pay to watch Gwenyth Paltrow get stung by bees.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Can't be worse than "Country Strong." But - this isn't for your entertainment. It's an ancient beauty practice called apitherapy. The bee stings supposedly get rid of inflammation by hiding your inflammation under the enormous swollen face you get from being stung by bees. Now, it just so happens - there you are Andrea, you are an outdoors person. Do you - would you, having probably been stung by your share of bees - do you think that this might help your own beauty regimen?
HESSIE: Well, I got stung by a bee yesterday, and I sure don't feel too beautiful about it, so...
SAGAL: OK.
POUNDSTONE: Wow, that's just plain weird. There's a world bee shortage. And it's probably going to turn out because Gwenyth Paltrow is hoarding.
SAGAL: That's true.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: And they were trying to figure out was it, you know, waves from radiation or was it this or that that was killing off the bees. It was Gwyneth Paltrow.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Andrea do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She won all three.
SAGAL: Congratulations Andrea, very well done.
(APPLAUSE)
HESSIE: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: We'll see you out in Portland in June.
HESSIE: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.