MAZ JOBRANI, 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. Also, check out our new bonus podcast Letter From The Editors, where you can hear things that got cut from the show, things no one should ever hear, things that cannot be unheard. Find it in the WAIT WAIT podcast feed.
Hi. You're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JULIA TILTON: Hi, this is Julia Tilton calling from Cleveland, Ohio.
JOBRANI: Julia, what do you do in Cleveland?
TILTON: I'm a teacher.
JOBRANI: Have you been Zoom teaching or real teaching?
TILTON: So we were hybrid, and we just went to Zoom about two weeks ago.
JESSI KLEIN: Julia, can I just jump in and say you're doing an amazing job? And thank you to all the teachers dealing with this right now.
TILTON: Aw, thank you.
KLEIN: And...
JOBRANI: Jessi, you make a great point. And since Julia is a teacher, we're just going to give her the - you won.
KLEIN: Yeah.
JOBRANI: You've already won the game.
KLEIN: Let's just let her win.
TILTON: This is easier than I thought.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Well, welcome to the show, Julia. 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 the last word or phrase correctly on two limericks, you're a winner. Here's your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: With their late-1800s design, these ancient jeans held up real fine. Where once there was gold, I found treasures untold. These pants were found deep in a...
TILTON: Mine?
KURTIS: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
JOBRANI: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)
JOBRANI: Yes, the oldest pair of jeans actually aren't on your dad.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: This week, a pair of 136-year-old jeans found in an abandoned gold mine were trending on Twitter. Can you imagine looking for gold and finding a dumb pair of Levi's? It's even worse that they were bootcut. Gross.
(LAUGHTER)
FAITH SALIE: Oh, my gosh. What if there were, like, 150-year-old pair of jeggings? And we were all like, we thought we invented those, but, no, they were here before (laughter).
EUGENE CORDERO: Yeah. Or if they picked up the pair, and they were just like, what, these are sized husky? They still made those?
JOBRANI: Or, like, a hundred years from now, you're going to find a bunch of sweatpants all over the place. Now, you may be asking why were these jeans in them there hills? Well, they were, of course, down in the mine because of the old prospector's custom. When you find a seam of gold, you take off your pants and leave them right there to mark the spot.
CORDERO: (Laughter).
JOBRANI: Then you walk back up to the surface, covering your privates with a canary.
CORDERO: (Laughter).
KLEIN: Was this, like, Jeffrey Toobin's great-great-grandfather?
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Oh, God. Move on, Maz.
KLEIN: (Laughter).
JOBRANI: All right. Let's move on to our next limerick.
KURTIS: At Old Records, this pizza chef sneezes. With his toppings, he does as he pleases. His uses dairy, impressive and scary. It's well over 200...
TILTON: Cheeses.
KURTIS: Yes, it is.
JOBRANI: Cheeses.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
JOBRANI: Quattro formaggi? More like 250-quattro formaggi. With his 254-cheese pizza, this week, a French chef broke the world record for kinds of cheese on a pizza and, moments later, the world record for lactose intolerance.
CORDERO: (Laughter).
KLEIN: I am strongly against this, strongly against this. It's too many cheeses. Give me one or two cheeses, tops. Do you - am I alone on this? Am I - (laughter) I just have such a strong opinion about this.
CORDERO: Listen, I don't think I can name more than 10 cheeses, period
SALIE: That's exactly what I was thinking, Eugene.
CORDERO: So like, 200 is crazy (laughter).
JOBRANI: Well, this guy set a record with 254 cheeses on his pizza. How bad do you think he felt when the first guy that bought a slice shook some Parmesan on there and hit 255?
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: By the way, Jessi, you're totally right. I'm not making this up. I had a problem one time. I went to a pizza place. And they had the four-cheese pizza. I go, I'll have a - I said, I'll have four-cheese pizza. And they gave me four slices of cheese pizza with one cheese on it.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Very confusing. All right, Julia. Here's your last limerick.
KURTIS: The walls crawled. And my stomach felt squooshy (ph). Saw my face in the mirror, cried, who's she? I am paying the price for some raw fish on rice. I ate five-day-old, gas-station...
TILTON: Sushi.
JOBRANI: (Laughter) Yes.
KURTIS: You are right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Parfait.
(APPLAUSE)
JOBRANI: After a woman suffered from hallucinations, insomnia and digestive problems for months, doctors were finally able to trace the source of her illness to the day she ate five-day-old sushi from a gas station. Ah, five-day-old sushi from a gas station. It's a classic case of fool me once, shame on me. Jesus, what was I thinking?
KLEIN: (Laughter).
CORDERO: Oh, my goodness.
SALIE: Was this in Wuhan? Was this COVID patient zero?
(LAUGHTER)
CORDERO: I'll tell you, the best sushi in LA is at 7-Eleven. You've heard it here. So...
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: All right. You want soy sauce or unleaded? I'll take both.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Bill, how did Julia do?
KURTIS: Julia did wonderfully, just great. She's a winner. And let's do it for the students.
(APPLAUSE)
JOBRANI: Julia, thank you for joining us. You won three for three. You're a winner. We appreciate you being the teacher that you are.
SALIE: Yeah.
TILTON: I appreciate it. It was so much fun. Thank you.
JOBRANI: Bye, Julia.
TILTON: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.