Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Christina Koch

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

Christina Koch, NASA engineer and astronaut, joins us along with panelists Tom Bodett, Alison Leiby, and Maz Jobrani.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. The secret's out. I'm the Zodiac Biller, Bill Curtis. And here is your host, a man who would definitely be going to all sorts of cool parties if we weren't in lockdown. Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. And thanks once again to our fake audience, who this week are the customers at an Applebee's in Racine, Wisconsin, back in 2015, sarcastically applauding a waiter who dropped his tray.

We're very excited about our guest this week. That's astronaut Christina Cook, who returned to Earth in February after a record-setting stay on the International Space Station. We're so grateful she's able to spare some time for us from her main pursuit these days, desperately trying to get back. You're stuck down here with us, though, so you might as well give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you were on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Hi, hi there. This is Jennifer McConnell. I live in Southampton, New Jersey. Now, where is that in New Jersey? I'm from New Jersey, but I don't know. That is in the Pine Barrens. Oh, yeah, where all the bodies are buried. Exit 6, yeah.

Exit, yeah. I'm not going to ask you what exit that is because that's not the kind of person I am. Jennifer, let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, a comedian whose stand-up comedy special, Immigrant, is available for streaming on Netflix, and his podcast, Back to School with Maz Jobrani, is available anywhere podcasts are found. It's Maz Jobrani.

Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Maz. Next, a humorous and founder of the Hatch Space Woodworking Shop and School in Brattleboro, Vermont, will be handing out prizes on Monday, May 25th. Tickets at hatchspace.org. It's Tom Beaudet. Hello, Jennifer. Hi, Tom.

And a writer for the marvelous Mrs. Maisel and co-host of the forthcoming horror movie podcast, Ruin, making her debut on our show, it's Allison Leiby. Hello, Allison. Hi, hello. Leiby. Hello, Allison. Hi, hello. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Allison. Welcome to the show, Jennifer. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read for you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize. Any voice from our show you might choose for your voicemail. Are you ready to go? I am. For your first quote, here's Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

It will kill you. He was talking about a drug called hydroxychloroquine, which the nation was told to take by whom? By our President Donald Trump. Yes, by President Trump. Very good. A while ago, the president started trying to push a drug called hydroxychloroquine as a cure for coronavirus,

even though patients who took the drug had worse outcomes than both patients who didn't and patients who got out of their hospital beds said, watch this, and put a lit firecracker in their mouths. So the president announced at an unrelated event this week that he himself was taking it and then later said that it had kept him healthy this is a real quote from the president of the united states quote i tested positively toward negative right so no i tested perfectly this morning meaning i tested negative but that's a way of saying it positively toward the negative unquote so we can say that the drug at least does not seem to affect the patient's mental capacity. He, it blows your mind.

Listen, I personally think, because he watches a lot of TV, I think he gets his ideas from infomercials. So I think he's watching infomercials and there's a doctor saying, do hydroxychloroquine. He's like, that's a good idea. Then there was the UV lights

and then the the disinfectant give it a week he'll be on there going you want to clean up the coronavirus try sham wow you just wash it off and throw it in the wash right that's the key it's also crazy to take a treatment drug before you have the disease i mean that's like when i take advil before i go out to a bar like it's just anticipating kind of what's happening. You know it's not going to go well. It's not going to save you. And look at, you've never gotten coronavirus, so clearly it prevents coronavirus.

Yeah, it's all preventative, right? So as you were saying, Allison, it's like I drink before the evening starts just so I know I'm not going to get depressed because I'm going to be in a party mood all night long. Yeah, that's what drinking does when you're alone. All right. Very good, Jennifer. Here is your next quote. He was a jerk. That was a talking head in a hit new ESPN documentary series that wrapped up last Sunday.

Describing the film's subject. Who is this documentary about? Oh, no. ESPN, you said? Yes. It's a sport thing. I couldn't even... I'll give you this. His nickname was Air Jerk. Air Jordan?

Yes! Michael Jordan? Who was? Michael Jordan! Oh, I didn't know about that. There you go. Yes, The Last Dance on ESPN. It was a documentary about Jordan's career in Chicago, a city he loved and was loyal to until the very minute he was allowed to leave. The doc finally settled one of basketball fans' biggest questions.

Who was the biggest sociopath ever to play the game? Did you guys watch this? Yeah, I watched all 10 episodes. I was saying, Peter, that my thing about it is the guys, Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever. But as someone who watches, I'm 48 years old. Whenever I watch really good athletes and I'm listening and he's talking about his commitment and he was there and he put in the time, somewhere in the back of my head, I'm going, you know, if I had to put in the time, I might have been able to do this. Really? You think? That's the only difference between you and Michael Jordan is just determination? Just time. I think I didn't put in enough time. That's it. That's the problem.

That's the problem. Now, a lot of people criticized the documentary. They said Jordan himself was a producer, so it wasn't going to be like an honest look at his life. But what's amazing is that even so, it still makes him look terrible. I mean, the big question the series raises is, do you have to be a jerk to win, Maz? Well, maybe that's – I've been trying to be a jerk, and it's just not working out.

You haven't put in the time and your jerkiness. That's the problem. I got to work on that a little bit. I will tell you, when I watched it, because when I hear other athletes say, you had guys like horace grant talking you had guys like scotty pippen talking and even uh um steve kerr says that you know michael would talk a lot of trash and i'm thinking to myself isn't that what athletes do they talk trash and they're jerks to one another but in the end they're like we're in battle together so i didn't leave leave going Michael is an absolute jerk more than any other athlete, I think.

I mean, are there really sweet athletes? But wasn't it true that during the documentary, 20 years after these things happened, Jordan is sitting there being interviewed and he's still dissing his competitors from back then? I mean, it's amazing. It just shows what an extraordinary athlete he is because even at the age of 57, he can still carry eight grudges in one hand. I've never related to somebody more. I feel like, yeah, holding, carrying grudges for decades. I mean, I feel like I get sports more.

No, I'm excited. I haven't watched it yet. I'm the Michael Jordan of waiting too long to watch something important. So I'll get to it. The greatest there ever was. The greatest there ever was. But it's seeing all the stills and like little clips that I have of like, it's just him by himself on a couch looking at an iPad. And I'm like, oh, at least even Michael Jordan is in quarantine the way the

rest of us are just alone watching something. All right. Jennifer, here is your last quote. It's from the Honorable Governor of Mississippi, who was honoring a group of impressive young people while broadcasting live on Facebook. Gavin Christopher Davis, Gracie Dawes, Harry Azcrack. Young Mr. Azcrack was one of the many teenagers in Mississippi and across the country who had to celebrate what virtually? His graduation. Yes, commencement. Commencements all over the country have been canceled because of the pandemic. Robbing seniors of the chance to sit in the sun,

listen to an old guy drone out a list of names, and complain about commencement. So everything went virtual, and in Mississippi, as you heard, the governor went on Facebook Live to read out the names of graduating seniors across the state, and somebody slipped in a little joke. You can watch the governor's reaction as he realizes just a second too late what he had done. First, he's embarrassed.

Then he gets really mad and yells, I demand to see Harry Azcrack right now. I mean, that's got to go down the hall of fame of senior pranks, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a common one. It's funny when if you can get the vice principal to say it during morning announcements or if maybe even the school board president at an actual graduation in the gym, but to get the governor of your state to do it. That's really the highest achievement you can hope for because getting the president to do it these days would be just too easy. He'd be like, I know that guy. Great guy. I feel so bad for all of these seniors, but also a graduation gown is perfect quarantine clothing. It's no waistbands. It feels like exactly what you would want to wear at home.

And you're like, I just want to wear this out of the house. Exactly. There have been these virtual commencements all last weekend, all over the country, including some nationally televised events. A lot of people were talking, of course, about President Obama's two speeches. But they only talked about the parts where he seemed to criticize President Trump. But it's a shame because they missed the rest of his speech, which was very, in his fashion, poignant and interesting. Perhaps the most meaningful line was when President Obama said, graduates go positively toward the negative because the

negative is a positive in a certain positive sense. That one stuck with me. Yeah, I think the diagram of that sentence is just a complete circle. Yeah, I think so. Bill, how did Jennifer do in our quiz? She was positively positive. She won them all. Three and 0. Congratulations, Jennifer.

Well done. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. And now a special message for the class of 2020. Graduates, we know you didn't have the commencement you wanted,

even with Oprah and Barack Obama, so who better to send you off into your adult life than Bill Curtis? Sir? Class of 2020, today you're smarter, wiser, and you have a brand new hat. What a dumb hat. I look out at all your smiling faces and I can't help but think, isn't the mouth weird? You kiss with it and you eat with it. So go out, carpe diem.

That's Latin for slide into my diems. Now, go and reach for the stars. Hey, stars are tiny suns. That's hot. Don't reach for the stars. You're setting off on a magical journey of adulthood. You can eat ice cream whenever you want, even for breakfast. So congratulations, class of 2020. You may now kiss the bride. Thank you, Bill. Congratulations, graduates. I'm still kind of misted up from that. Hang on a second. Put yourself together, Tom.

Coming up, our panelists shelter in place in our bluff solicitor game called 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Support for this podcast and the following message comes from Purple Mattress. The secret to purple is the Purple Grid. It's a patented comfort technology designed to instantly adapt to your body's natural shape and sleep style. With over 2,800 open-air channels and naturally temperature-neutral gel. Every Purple Mattress comes with free shipping returns and a risk-free 100-night trial. Visit purple.com slash wait and use promo code WAIT for a special offer.

Terms apply. On Bullseye this week, Tina Fey on creating unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 30 Rock, and being the best at everything. There was a window of time when we would just go to awards things and pick up our prizes and party with the people from Mad Men. That's this week on Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Tom Bodette, Alison Leiby, and Manas Jabrani.

And here again is your host, showering you with love and showering himself once a week, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Right now it is time, of course, for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff the Listener Game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hey. Hi, who's this? This is Craig Hall.

Hey, Craig Hall. Where are you calling from? Macon, Georgia. Macon? What are you doing down there in Macon? Sheltering in place like everybody else. I know. Are you able to work from home?

No, I work. I'm able to go into my office. I'm considered essential. And what do you do? I'm an OBGYN. Oh. So I have to go to my office to see my patients. Right.

And you're delivering babies? Mm-hmm. Everybody who was pregnant before the quarantine still is. Yeah, I bet. Well, welcome to the show, Craig. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Craig's topic? Time to put on my business pajamas.

Thank you, working from home, for showing us all there's something worse than going to work. This week we heard a story of someone trying to make the experience better. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win our prize, the weight-waiter of your choice in your voicemail. Are you ready to play? Ready. All right. First up, let's hear from Tom Beaudet. Just about every aspect of working from home has been exhaustively researched and written about by writers and

thought leaders working from home. But there is one inescapable issue with the in-home workplace no one has been able to solve. Going to work at home does not feel like going to work. Say hello to Gauntlet, the new virtual reality commuter simulator from Murder Hornet. Simply get out of bed as you normally do these days at 10, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and slip into the Gauntlet VR helmet. At once, you're transported into the morning hellscape you know so well and love You glance at your wrist, you're late, you rush, you brush You throw on virtual suits and shoes so real you'll swear they pinch your feet Air kisses out the door, the sound of a big wheel bike being crushed beneath the tires

As you back down the drive, faster now Peeling an orange over the steering wheel as you nudge into traffic on a bypass that bypasses nothing. Honked horns, flipped fingers, weather reports on the morning zoo always rain. Stolen parking spots and surly security personnel greet you at your old familiar workplace. You walk in, find your cubby, and you're ready. Take off your helmet and head to the sofa to start your day pumped and peed off, like it used to be. and head to the sofa to start your day pumped and peed off, like it used to be. A VR simulation of the misery of going to work just to make you feel like it did in the old days.

Your next story of a home office enhanced comes from Allison Leiby. But what about birthdays? Asked Sharon Thompson on a non-BCC'd company-wide email after her office shifted to a work-from-home situation. 457 remove-me-from-this-thread emails later, she realized she missed the joyless, sugar-fueled, small-talk competitions that are the office party. I mean, this was her cheers, the only place where everyone knew her name. So she developed Home Office Party, a service that delivers everything you need to morosely celebrate the inevitable marching on of time for a co-worker you have never actually spoken to. A delivery person arrives at your door when you're in the middle of actually getting some work done

and provides you with an over-refrigerated piece of sheet cake on a paper plate from 2011 with a weak plastic fork that bends like a yoga teacher the second you try and use it. If you can't finish the cake, just put it in a half-closed container in your fridge for a stale treat the next day, explains Thompson. Also included in the kit is an overhead lighting system to set the mood, an audio recording of someone saying, I really shouldn't, but it's a party, and a timer that goes off after 12 minutes to signal the party is now over. Thompson explained that the company is also in beta testing for a work-from-home bagel Friday package, but they haven't quite figured out how to get all of your remote co-workers to touch your bagel before you eat it.

The remote office party so you can have the joyless experience of eating sheet cake for a birthday in your own home office. Your last story of WFH, W-O-W, comes from Maz Jobrani. First, Zoom was like the love boat, exciting and new. But three months in the lockdown and people are tired of it. How long can you stare at Tim in accounting as he picks his nose in a box on your computer screen? How many times you got to remind Linda in HR, you muted yourself, you muted yourself, you muted yourself. There's got to be a better way to hold meetings. Enter video games.

That's right. People have found a way to hold their work meetings in actual video games. Said author and artist Vivian Schwartz, Zoom sucks. We started having editorial meetings in Red Dead Redemption instead. sucks. We started having editorial meetings in Red Dead Redemption instead. It's nice to sit at the campfire and discuss projects with the wolves howling out in the night. There have been problems. First, in order to get to the level where you can have meetings, you have to complete an hour of in-game tasks like lassoing a horse. That was not part of NBA school. Other problems, anyone else in the world playing the game can wander into your meetings and shoot you and the button you press to sit down is the same button

you use to strangle someone. Sorry Tim. Schwartz said the response of meeting on video games has been overwhelming as people discovered that they can quote hang out with their friends and go for walks together, end quote. Again, we would like to just point out that's a virtual walk, so no actual physical activity. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the fact that you can have your meetings in a fictional world, surrounded by fictional animals, and go on fictional walks does seem like a much better option than boring old Zoom, where the most exciting thing that could happen is if your meeting gets Zoom bombed and a stranger's genitalia upstages Tim in accounting, picking his nose.

All right, Craig, here are your choices. One of these things was created to make working from home just a little bit more bearable. Was it, from Tom Beaudet, a VR rig that engages you with the virtual experience of the misery of commuting? From Alison Lyby, the home office party kit so you can have those sad birthday parties in your own house with yourself? Or from Mazjo Brani, a way to hold your meetings not in Zoom or Google Hangouts, but in the video game Red Dead Redemption, where you can all be cowboys. Which of these is a real story about an improvement in working from home? I'm going to go with the last one, the video game meeting. Meeting in Red Dead Redemption. That's the one you're choosing. All right. Well, we spoke to somebody familiar with the real story. Once the meeting's over in Red Dead Redemption 2,

you can break up and go off and do crimes. That was Nate Crowley from rockpapershotgun.com, a gaming website, talking about the Red Dead Redemption meetings, which apparently have been very successful for the company that started them. Congratulations, Craig, you got it right. You're at a point for Maz Jobrani. Just for being truthful, you've won our prize, the voice of your choice in your voicemail. Congratulations. Thanks a lot.

Thank you so much. Thanks for playing today. Thanks. Bye-bye. And now the game where people who have flown very high are dragged back to Earth with the rest of us. We call it Not My Job. Christina Cook is a space pioneer. She holds the record for the longest time a woman has been in orbit, and she was part of the first three all-women spacewalks, which, coincidentally, were also the first spacewalks in which one of the astronauts

did not explain to the other something that person already knew. Christina Cook, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hello, it's great to be with you. It's great to be with you. Now, you did, in fact, set a bunch of records. You did the first half, exactly, of the first all-woman spacewalk. And you also set the record for a woman staying in space, right? Yes, that's correct.

328 days. 328 days. And you came back just in February. Yep, the beginning of February. Right. So about your timing. Really nailed it. It occurs to me, though, that as unlucky as your timing might be in coming back to the planet, you probably are the greatest living expert, along with one or two other astronauts, with how to survive for a long time being stuck in the same place. So do you have any tips for us, the rest of us who are new to this particular challenge?

You know, I definitely got through with a lot of, you know, kind of mental strategies, focusing on what you have rather than what you don't have, and, you know, all the things, the unique things that you're going to be missing one day. But I think in the end, I've sort of learned since I've been back that the actual way to get through it is just to inherently be a homebody. And to just, yeah, that turns out to be the best, the best way to get through it as an astronaut and during stay at home on Earth too. So where are you now? Are you home at Houston? Who are you quarantining with? My husband and our dog. Oh, wow. And this, you were away from your husband for almost a year and now you're stuck inside with him 24 seven.

That's, that's an interesting transition. It was. Yeah. And then course, the year in training before my flight where I was living in Russia almost constantly. So yeah, about two years apart to 24-7 together. It has been interesting. You know, it's a good opportunity to, you know, reintegrate in your home life and with people you love. So it's a good thing. I feel like I want relationship advice from you just because of that, but also like i don't know you've been in space you know what it's like to be with something like unwelcoming and cold and distant you know and i could use that well we try to stay out of the and vacuous cold and distant and vacuous part we try and stay in you know the habitable areas as much as we can so that's good advice yes stay away from that um

i was reading uh about the fact that when they did the first astronaut the first space program they actually put some women through the same kind of test and they found out that women were better able to handle the stress associated with space flight than men do you think that's yeah the mercury 13 yeah i've read a lot about those women. They're some of my heroes. And, you know, I would say that I didn't notice any differences up there. I got to fly with men and women, and I think everyone handles it about the same. I will tell you, we get asked a lot where things are up there, too. Do you really? I'm sorry. I didn't want to indulge in any terrible stereotypes but right i mean is

it like at my house where i don't know where anything is and my wife knows where everything is it is absolutely like that and i did get some calls from my husband asking where things were in our house in houston and i usually knew the answer so you're you're in space for almost a year and he's still calling you because he can't find his car keys? The printer paper was a big one. That one I knew right away. Yeah. Wow.

You did the, you participated in the first all women, both women spacewalk. It hadn't been done before. And famously, you tried it, but it didn't work because they didn't have a spacesuit that fit one of you correctly. Is that right? Yes. It fit, but it was kind of not the best size ever, and we decided it would be better to do it with someone who had a spacesuit that was kind of just the right fit. Wait, wait, wait.

You went all the way out there, and they gave you the wrong size outfit? Also, shopping is even hard when you're an astronaut. This is not making me feel good as a woman. Also, shopping is even hard when you're an astronaut. This is not making me feel good as a woman. I had to actually get a spacesuit just to get some pockets in the pants of my outfit. One thing I've learned about NASA is they check and double check everything. It's all about checklists and safety precautions. How could they send up the wrong size spacesuit for your spacewalk?

Well, all the spacesuits are already up there. So it was just a matter of configuring it, kind of getting it ready. And time is always of the essence there, you know, and there's never enough time to do everything that you want to do. So unfortunately, yeah, it just didn't get configured in time. Peter, can I jump in with just one question? Christina, what was the most beautiful thing you saw? I know the blue ball of Earth. Definitely, the Earth is beautiful. Some of my favorite scenes were,

one, looking down at my home. That's an incredible thing, just to see where you're from and where you've lived, kind of on that backdrop of the universe. And then the other, for me, was seeing the northern lights and the southern lights on the earth from above i used

to work in antarctica and so i saw him a ton from below and so just to see that kind of on a planetary scale was pretty amazing did you ever look out and go what is that i don't know what that like is a ufo type like hey guys come here look at that what is it do you ever have that one of those moments no sadly i'm gonna have to come up with a better story for that. But no, nothing was out the window. Christina Cook, I don't know if you're glad you came back, but we're glad you did so we could talk to you. And we have invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling... Suit Up for a Walk in Cyberspace. You've been to space, so we thought we'd ask you about cyberspace, which is what we used to call the Internet.

Get two out of three questions about the very earliest days of the web correct, and you'll win a prize for one of our listeners, any voice they might like from our show. Bill, who is Christina Cook playing for? Carol Mitchell of Memphis, Tennessee. So here's your first question. You ready for this? Yes. Okay. Though online shopping has pretty much become universal, it had to start somewhere. Which of these was the first known instance of a use of e-commerce that happened back in 1972? Was it A, an internet bulletin board user offering candid photos of President Nixon, or as they called them, dick pics? B, an advertisement for a quote, aura cleaning service? Or C, Stanford students using it to buy weed from kids at MIT? All of those answers are tough. I'm going to go with B.

You're going to go with B, an advertisement for a, quote, aura cleaning service? Because it was 1972 and that's what we did back then? You know, now that you mention it, maybe I'll go with C. Yes, it was in fact C, Christina. They arranged this extraordinary futuristic computer network and one of the first things the kids at Stanford did is they arranged a shipment of pot from Boston. You got to love that kind of initiative.

All right, second question. You've probably heard that eBay was started in 1995 to sell the founder's collection of Pez dispensers. That is not true. It's an urban legend. What was really the very first thing the founder of eBay sold on his brand new site? Was it A, a collage made entirely of dryer lint, B, four pounds of lard, or C, a broken laser pointer? Wow. That's quite a way to launch a business.

Let's go with A. A, a collage made entirely of dryer lint. I meant B. Four pounds of lard? No, it was actually C, the broken laser pointer. The first thing Pierre Omidyar sold on the auction site he found at eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83 to a guy who said he collects broken laser pointers. And he still has it, the guy. Okay, last question.

If you get this right, you win it all. The Internet is ubiquitous today, but early in its history, people weren't entirely impressed. In fact, the internet lost out on the UK's prestigious Queen's Award for Technical Achievement to which of these? Was it A, the keytar, B, those sunglasses that darken automatically when you go outside, or C, the little plastic ball in a can of Guinness? B. I perhaps should have stressed that this was the UK's prestigious Queen's Award. It was probably C then. You're exactly right. It was the little plastic ball that keeps Guinness fizzy in the can. Because that really, when you think of it, what's made our lives better?

Canned Guinness or the internet? Bill, how did Christina Cook do on our quiz? Christina, you've got the right stuff. Two out of three is a win. Well, Christina Cook, what a pleasure to talk to you. Christina Cook is an engineer and astronaut

who spent almost a year aboard of the International Space Station. Christina, you're a pioneer. We're honored to talk to you. Thanks for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Bye, everybody. In just a minute, we're all Slytherin in our listener limerick challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Making something original and creative is hard, but sustaining that is even harder.

I'm Guy Raz from How I Built This, and I just want to say congratulations to NPR's Planet Money for 1,000 episodes, and it's still so smart and surprising and delightful as ever. Just check out Planet Money's episode 1,000 celebration to see what I mean. From NPR at WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Allison Leiby, Maz Jobrani, and Tom Bonette. And here again is your host, a man feeling extreme nostalgia for pants, Peter Sagal. Thanks, Bill. In just a minute, Bill takes a big dose of Rhymedroxychloroquine 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. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Maz Anderson Cooper, the singer Pink, and your friend Ron are all going through the same experience this week. What is it? Does that have anything to do with the coronavirus? A little bit, because we're all stuck inside and we can't go anywhere. So they had to do this. Oh, they had to do this. They're stuck inside. Oh, how about cleaning? No.

You think Anderson Cooper cleans? No. He likes himself clean. Yeah. I'll give you a hint. So, me, a little off the top, please. So what? Oh, cutting hair, cutting hair. Yes, they're giving themselves haircuts. Salons are open in the dumb states, but they're closed everywhere else,

so people are left to cut their own hair, which is not something any of us should be doing. If you've seen examples online of people baking their own bread, imagine something that messed up, but it's a human head. This lockdown is where bald people have been able to excel. This is true, man. We are taking over the world. I don't need a haircut. I don't need a shower. Well, what? My hair is digressing to 1985. It's going to be a mullet in about three weeks

seriously i cut my kids hair i i actually my wife had me cut my son's hair and it was a little daunting but thank god for youtube and thank god for a gullible kid who who believes you know what you're doing so you can you can google like how to cut hair YouTube, and it will tell you. That's how I learned. And also, I learned start with the back, because you're going to make all your big mistakes at the beginning. Right. And it's grown out now, but three or four weeks ago, if he'd have found a way to look at the back of his head, I would have been toast around here. Yeah, the back of his head is very much Picasso cubist time. I haven't had to cut my, I mean, I should cut my hair,

but I haven't been brushing it because there's no reason, and I tried the other day, and it sounded like someone was grooming a golden retriever. It was just so loud and so bad, and it becomes just two long pieces. Did you find yourself, as you were doing it, whining like a dog? Like, rrrr.

Yeah, well, I had to put myself on a leash in the bathtub. Allison, a popular airline in Europe is now requiring passengers to adopt what new safety precaution when they need to use the restroom? I want to say wearing gloves because I want to wear gloves in every airline bathroom that I've ever used. So I want to say wearing gloves. No. Although it does have something to do with a hand. Oh, no. I guess you have to do what if you want to use the bathroom

during Ryanair? Oh, you have to raise your hand? You have to raise your hand. That's exactly right. Ryanair is Europe's equivalent to Spirit Airlines here, which if you're unfamiliar with it, it's a gas station bathroom with wings. So in an effort to avoid standing in line in the aisle, you know, and mixing too close, if you're a Ryanair passenger, you now need to raise your hand to get permission from the flight attendants to use the restroom. It's elementary school in the sky. And what if you have to go like two or three times?

I've heard that there's like people who do that. Yes. Older men. And like the third time she says, no, no, Mr. Beaudet, you don't have to go to the restroom. I've had enough of your horseplay

and tomfoolery. And then you truly are back in the second grade. Do you put up one hand and then also like maybe two hands, depending on what's happening? Depending, depending, yes. That's hilarious.

They can do triage. But it is Europe, so they have great accents. Excuse me, excuse me, miss. I have to go wee or excuse me, I got to go pee-pee. Hey, follow me, I got to go pee-pee. One more time. I know Tom Bonnet got to go three times. Why he go three? I can only pee-pee. One more time. I know Tom Bonnet got to go three times. Why he go three?

I can only go one time. Maz, adding to her shapewear line, Kim Kardashian is now selling shapewear for your what? Is it an animal? For your falcon. Shapewear for your, it's a part of your body? Oh, yes. Is it gloves?

It's kind of for the moment. Shorts, shorts. No, not shorts. Oh, the masks, the masks. Come on. The masks. It's shapewear for your face, Maz, from Kim Kardashian. Now you can get that perfect hourglass head with Kim Kardashian's new shapewear face masks.

The masks come in a variety of neutral skin tones, so your face looks smooth and mouthless. A perfect way to show off your face cleavage. Well, they have one like harness, these little turkey necks. Yeah, exactly. It's made from the same material as her leggings and waist trainers, which I guess is what we call girdles now. The masks do exactly what they're supposed to do.

They squish your face all together and boom, va-va-voom, chin. God, you look like you're going to rob a liquor store. I mean, that's like, that's pantyhose over your head, right? I guess so. I want to do a tie that turns into a mask. So you could be-

Just pull up the tie and wrap it around your face? What are the women supposed to do? Women could, you know, we're going to take your, the bra becomes a mask. Yeah, like I'm wearing a bra anymore. 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. And if you want more Wait, Wait in Your Week, check out the Wait, Wait quiz for your smart speaker. It's out every Wednesday with me and Bill asking you questions only in the comfort of your home. It's just like human contact, at least as far as we remember. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hey, Peter, it's Alec Wedge from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hey, how are things in Minneapolis, one of my favorite places? It is absolutely wonderful. There is sometimes sunshine. There are sparkling lakes. Everybody's in their garden.

We are actually practicing physical distancing. Well, you're Minnesotans. Minnesotans traditionally at Very Good are like staying away from each other. Yeah, people say that this whole six feet thing, that's kind of a little too close for their comfort, if you would. It really is. Well, welcome to the show, Alec. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with a last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in

that last word or phrase correctly into the limericks, you'll be a winner. Here is your first limerick. Though reptilian coolness offends, at my parties a core group attends. We find it a bliss to just gossip and hiss. Yes, we snakes have a few long-term... Friends. Yes, friends. Very good. Yes, indeed.

Scientists put a bunch of snakes in a room and when the researchers weren't too busy screaming, they noticed snakes would continue to gravitate to the same other snake, suggesting they preferred some snake's company over others. And they can be friends now because they could never hug anyway, so they're not missing anything. Many of them seemed to bond over how bad they felt about causing original sin, while the females formed friendships by sharing their old skin.

You should totally wear this. I'm not using it anymore. All right, very good. Here is your next limerick. For hybrids, the business is booming. Though some mythic creatures bring doom men. There's the harpy and sphinx, and for current hijinks there's a mouse that is 4% human. Yes, indeed! Jinks, there's a mouse that is 4%... Human.

Yes, indeed. Using an advanced stem cell transfer, scientists created a mouse that has 4% human cells. They're part human. Congratulations, mouse. Now you can get coronavirus. We all know how this movie ends, right? It starts off, you know, they're partly human mice, and we use them for experiments,

and then finally they become sentient, and they rebel, and they get, like, willered to lead them on this revenge rampage through our lives. I just am saying I'm not very comfortable with this. All right, Alec, here is your last limerick. You dumped me once. You've had your fun, hon. But you and I are not quite done, son.

Rub these bulbs on your eye, and you'll learn how I cry. I have sent you a truckload of... Onions? Onions, yes. A woman in China got revenge on her ex-boyfriend by sending him one ton of onions. In the hopes, she said, he would cry as much as he had made her cry. Bad news for the boyfriend, worse news for the nearby food shelter,

which will be serving onions surprise for the next decade. Couldn't she just send him a copy of Field of Dreams to make him cry the way most men do? The onions feel like a lot of work. I know, really. I want you to chop these. No, chop them finer. Now saute them. Are you crying yet?

Bill, how did Alec do on our quiz? Alec is impressive, scoring three times right. Congratulations, Alec. Thank you so much, Alec. impressive, scoring three times right. Congratulations, Alec. Thank you so much, Alec. Thank you. This message comes from NPR sponsor BetterHelp, the online counseling service dedicated to connecting you with a licensed counselor to help you overcome whatever stands in the way of your happiness.

Fill out a questionnaire and get matched with a professional tailored to your needs. And if you aren't satisfied with your counselor, you can request a new one at any time free of charge. Visit betterhelp.com slash wait to get 10% off your first month. Get the help you deserve with BetterHelp. Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Buzz has four, Allison has three, and Tom has one.

I'm pacing myself. You are. All right, Tom, you're in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the House from accessing grand jury documents from blank's investigation. The Mueller investigation. Right. This week, a new study said that almost 40,000 COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented if the U.S. had begun blanking one week earlier.

Social distancing. Yeah, blanking one week earlier. Social distancing. Yeah, sheltering in place. On Tuesday, thousands of residents had to be evacuated after a blank collapsed in Michigan. Oh, a dam. Yeah, Caribou Coffee is asking workers to sort through their pre-pandemic supply of cup sleeves and remove the ones that say blank.

Oh, that say go outside. Close enough. It says fight the urge to remain indoors. Following a study linking it to cancer, Johnson & Johnson announced they would stop selling blank in the U.S. Oh, that baby powder, the talcum powder. Yeah, talcum powder. Isn't that weird? After 17 years underground, millions of blanks are expected to emerge on the East Coast this week. Oh, the locusts, right? They're cicadas. There's cicadas, yeah. This week, a team of researchers announced a new way to test for COVID-19.

You just blank on your phone. Oh, you hawk a loogie on it. No, again, Tom, I'm feeling merciful. I'll give it to you. You sneeze on it. Thank you, Bill. According to the developers, all you have to do is attach this sensor to your phone and then sneeze right onto it to find out whether you test positive for coronavirus. It's a huge step forward for testing. It also marks the first time you can sneeze on something and actually make it cleaner.

Bill, how did Tom do on our quiz? Well, Tom had seven right for 14 more points. He now has 15 points in the lead. All right. I believe, Allison, you're up next. Here we go. Okay. Here we go.

Fill in the blank. As of Wednesday, all 50 states had started taking the first steps to easing blanks. Quarantines? Yeah. Lockdown restrictions. On Tuesday, a U.S. appeals court said the New York Board of Elections could not cancel that state's blank. Primary? Yes.

This week, Senate Republicans approved a subpoena for documents relating to blank's work in Ukraine. Hunter Biden? Right. On a tweet on Monday, President Trump threatened to permanently end funding of the blank. Women? No. The WHO. This week, a convenience store in Virginia was robbed by blank.

Bears? By two men wearing watermelons with eye holes cut out of them. Of course. On Thursday, blank claims rose by another 2.4 million people. Unemployment. Right. This week, a woman in Scotland was forced to return to her office after nine weeks away when she realized she had left blank in her desk.

A plant? No no a banana woman had no idea how long she'd be stuck working from home so when she first left the office she only took the essentials which didn't include her just ripe banana two months later she suddenly remembered it was still there and rushed back to find that all that was left was a shriveled pitch black husk she was eager to make that banana bread. Apparently, yes. If it would have been a Twinkie, it would have still been there and just fine. Yeah, I know, man. Just fine.

Pick your snacks with an eye to the future catastrophe. I think that's the lesson. Bill, how did Allison do on her first ever quiz? Well, the marvelous Ms. Allison had four right for eight more points. She now has 11, but Tom still has the lead with 15. Oh, my gosh. How many, then, does Maz need to win? Maz needs six to win. Here we go, Maz. This is for the game.

On Wednesday, the WHO reported the biggest one-day increase in blank cases on record. Coronavirus. Right. Stating concerns over COVID-19, workers for fast food giant blank went on strike on Tuesday. McDonald's. Right. This week, Trump threatened to withhold federal funds to Michigan and Nevada over the state's plans to expand voting by blank. Mail. Right. This week, a British woman told the BBC she was annoyed that people broke quarantine to go to a public beach while she was blanking. While she was sunbathing. While she was sunbathing. On Thursday, actress Lori Loughlin agreed to plead guilty for her part in the blank scandal.

That's the college scandal. The college admissions scandal. Ken Osmond, the actor best known for playing Eddie Haskell on Blank, passed away at the age of 76. I'll leave it to Beaver. Right. Researchers in the Antarctic say they're suffering from effects similar to laughing gas after they inhaled too much blank. In the Antarctic, they inhaled too much stardust.

Too much penguin poop. Oh. It's nice to know that science has finally found the line between too much penguin poop and just enough. The researchers say that the poop is high in nitrous oxide and that inhalation can cause feelings of giddiness and euphoria. It's an interesting scientific find, but it's a little weird that it was discovered by a group of scientists who were there to study glaciers.

Bill, did Moz do well enough to win? He had five rights, one short, ten more points for a total of 14. That means with 15 points, can you believe it? He came out of left field. Tom is our winner. Thank you. Please, everyone, just sit down. I think inhaling the penguin poop threw me off. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict, now that he has graduated high school in Mississippi, what Harry Azcrack will do next. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with particularly urgent haircut productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Philip Godica writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our house manager is Gianna Capodona. Our intern is Emma Day. Our web guru is Beth Novy. BJ Lederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Our most dangerous game champion

is Peter Gwynn. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. The senior producer of our show is Ian Chilog. And the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Michael Danforth. Now panel, what's next for young high school graduate Harry Askrack,

Tom Baudet. Only one destiny for this child, Harry Askrack, plumbing and heating. Alison Leiby. Opening the world's first socially distanced waxing salon. And Maz Jobrani. Harry Askrack is going to go on and play football with Dick Butkus, or he will become a great novelist like the French author Balzac. And if he does any of that, we'll ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Tom Beaudet and Maz Jobrani. Congratulations to Alice and Libby on a fabulous debut. It's great to have you.

Thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal. Tell you what, you stay right where you are, and we'll see you next week. This is NPR.