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Limericks

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SARAH DIAMOND PATTERSON: My name's Sarah Diamond Patterson. I'm calling from Knoxville, Tenn.

SAGAL: Knoxville is great. Knoxville is the only city in Tennessee I've not been to. I've been to Memphis many times, Nashville. If Memphis is known for blues and Nashville's known for country music, is there like - is Knoxville known for, like, emo?

(LAUGHTER)

PATTERSON: Football, baby.

SAGAL: Football.

PATTERSON: It's all about Tennessee football.

SAGAL: I understand. You sound so thrilled.

PATTERSON: (Laughter) No. It's not a great year. And we live and die with the Tennessee Vols down here.

SAGAL: I understand.

BILL KURTIS: Oh.

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Sarah. 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 on two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. Ready to play?

PATTERSON: Yes, sir.

SAGAL: All right, Sarah. Here's your first limerick.

KURTIS: I can't keep a significant other. I will nag, fight, repel or just smother. An inherited trait leaves me doomed to just date. Every time I split up, I blame...

PATTERSON: My mother.

KURTIS: Yeah.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Oh, you sound sad. It's not a tragedy. It's somebody else you can blame, Sarah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: According to a new study released this week, next time you're blaming your mom for things, you can add in how bad you are at dating. The study took 24 years to complete. And it compared to the romantic behavior of 3,200 mothers and their children. Mama mia - that's a lot of mamas. Basically, children pick up their mother's approach to dating and relationships, you see. So the creepy things you do, which doom your chances, that's all mom. But don't worry. She didn't sext people out of the blue like you do. She used a fax machine.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here, Sarah, is your next limerick.

KURTIS: With online game blood-lust, I'm grunting. And my pure, vegan heart I'm affronting. To this veggie's shame, I'm loving big game. In this video game, I am...

PATTERSON: Hunting.

SAGAL: Yes, hunting.

KURTIS: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Red Dead Redemption 2 is the hot new Western-themed video game from the makers of Grand Theft Auto. But instead of carjacking prostitutes, now you're horse jacking prostitutes. Also in the game, you have to spend hours hunting, killing and butchering your own meat, which is making vegetarian gamers very uncomfortable. Sorry, wimps. This is the Wild West. You can't order a quinoa tempeh wrap.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is a manly video game about riding horses and collecting pretty jewels.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Video games are getting so realistic, you might as well just live, you know?

(LAUGHTER)

ADAM FELBER: Oh, yeah. But no.

SAGAL: (Laughter) It would be cool if all video games have to deal with real-world stuff. Like, Mr. and Ms. Pac-Man have to go to counseling.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Mario has to forget about rescuing the princess because he has an emergency call to unclog somebody's toilet.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Hello, it's me Mario. Oh, no. What'd you flush down there?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I blame my mom for all of this, by the way.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All her fault. All right. Here, Sarah, is your last limerick.

KURTIS: Many phones have been harmed by our strut. Rear pockets leave screens scratched and cut. At Samsung, we thought we must sit, squeeze and squat. So we're building a fake robot...

PATTERSON: Butt.

KURTIS: Butt.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Reporters recently got a very rare look into Samsung's mobile quality test lab where they saw this giant robotic butt wearing blue jeans rapidly going up and down - basically, a twerking robot.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: At which point, a lab technician feverishly explained, oh, that - that's for testing phones. Yes, testing phones.

MO ROCCA: Is it for butt dialing? Or...

SAGAL: No, it's - what they do is they put a phone in the back pocket of these jeans and then have the robot going boink, boink, boink sit down as it were...

FELBER: Thus taking jobs away from hard-working, regular butts.

SAGAL: I know.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: It's an outrage.

SAGAL: This robutt is...

FELBER: My daddy was a butt tester. His daddy was a butt tester.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: And his daddy before him was a butt tester in the Civil War. What am I supposed to do with my butt now?

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Bill, how did Sarah do on our quiz?

KURTIS: I hope she's still excited because she got them all right.

SAGAL: Congratulations, Sarah. Thank you so much for calling in, Sarah.

PATTERSON: Thank you for everything.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY GOT BACK")

SIR MIX-A-LOT: (Rapping) Baby got back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.