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Bluff The Listener

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Negin Farsad, Mo Rocca and Amy Dickinson. And here again is your host, a man who just discovered there's a smaller Peter inside of him...

NEGIN FARSAD: (Laughter).

BILL KURTIS: ...And then there's an even smaller Peter inside of that Peter and an even smaller Peter inside of that Peter, Peter Sagal.

SAGAL: Thanks, Bill.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

SAGAL: Right now, it's time 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 are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

KARA DUNN: Hi. This is Kara Dunn, and I'm calling from a quiet corner of Morrisville, Vt., referred to as Mud City.

SAGAL: Mud City. So Morrisville, Vt. - a quiet corner of Morrisville, Vt. I'm assuming that the rest of Morrisville is happening all the time.

MO ROCCA: Spring break - spring break.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

SAGAL: Why is the section of Morrisville, Vt., that you're in called Mud City?

DUNN: Well, I feel like it might be pretty obvious, but it is a muddy little corner that is predominantly a dairy farm area. So it's just very, very muddy.

ROCCA: Wow.

FARSAD: So the mud is more, like, poop-based, like from cows.

DUNN: Absolutely. It's nice and super-sticky.

SAGAL: All right.

KURTIS: Ooh.

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Kara. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Kara's topic?

KURTIS: Home sweet home - more like home sweeter home.

SAGAL: Since we've all been stuck inside, home decorating and renovation is more popular than ever before. We're basically doing to our homes what we wish we could do to our bodies. Our panelists are going to tell you about three new trends in home design. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win our prize. You ready to play?

DUNN: I am super-ready.

SAGAL: Super-ready - great. Here we go. Let's start with Mo Rocca.

ROCCA: The coronavirus is no flu, as we've all learned. But a chimney flue, it turns out, has lately become a great way to earn money. Quote, "when someone from the Pentagon called and said they wanted to use my chimney as a missile silo, I was surprised," says Vandi Walker (ph) of Bronxville, N.Y. Yes, to cut costs, the military is renting out residential chimney flues to use as missile silos. Quote, "we live in a two-story colonial, so we could only accommodate a short-range cruise.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: But no warhead for us, thank you very much. We don't need that kind of heat. For this initiative, the military has partnered with Zillow. That's how they found Anne (ph) and J.B. Borrus (ph) of Denver, Colo., and a home for one of those hard-to-place ICBMs.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

ROCCA: We have a spacious home, but I really didn't think we could handle anything larger than a Tomahawk, says Anne. So when they actually suggested a laser-guided, nuclear-tipped AGM Hellfire, well, let's just say I went ballistic.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

ROCCA: But then J.B. reminded me that we just had our flue lined with high-density tungsten, so what's the worst that can happen?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: People renovating their chimneys into missile silos. Your next story of a home makeover comes from Amy Dickinson.

AMY DICKINSON: Hollywood was abuzz this week when George Lucas' famed visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic announced that the studio was about to launch their latest project. Would it be a new "Jurassic Park" movie? No. The legendary company announced that they were moving into the construction business, creating structures that they are calling Zoom Rooms. A Zoom Room is a prefabricated six-by-eight-foot pod. The company promises that what makes this more than just a fancy garden shed is the software. The entire structure is a screen.

During virtual gym class, the kids can be chased by dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park." Mom can hang out in the snake pit from "Indiana Jones." Grandma could put herself behind Michael Corleone's desk while she's Zooming with her book club.

Unfortunately, early versions of the software revealed some virtual reality crossover. A prototype temporarily terrorized a San Francisco family when the ferocious grizzly bear from the movie "The Revenant" Zoom-bombed and appeared to attack baby Yoda during a young student's online English class.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

DICKINSON: A spokesperson for the company said, that was more confusing than a Zack Snyder supercut. We promise it won't happen again.

SAGAL: Zoom Rooms with technical capacity to make your Zoom meetings even more exciting than they already are. And your last story of the hottest new home trend comes from Negin Farsad.

FARSAD: If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times - bathrooms have too many walls. That's why home design enthusiasts will be pleased to learn about the newest trend in powder room design, open-concept bathrooms. That's right - if you've ever been sitting on a toilet and wishing you could better see the breakfast nook or sitting on a toilet wishing you could operate the TV's remote control or sitting on a toilet wishing you could have a conversation with mother in the kitchen, this bathroom is for you.

Robert Nichols of the Boston Trust Realty Group says it could work if folks can live freely and enjoy it to its full potential. And by full potential, he means smelling up the entire house on those special trips to the commode.

It may surprise some that this writer has experienced her fair share of open-concept bathrooms, by which I mean one. I experienced one in a hotel room. It was my first trip to the tropics with my boyfriend at the time. And let's just say that relationship didn't last after that weekend, because if you can't openly evacuate yourself with a boyfriend you've had for only five weeks, then David Goldberg (ph) was not meant to be.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. One of these three things is the happening thing in home design. Is it, from Mo Rocca, chimneys being converted with the help of the U.S. military into missile silos; from Amy, people installing high-tech Zoom Rooms so that they can have Zoom meetings while in many popular movies; or, from Negin, the open-concept bathroom? Which of these is a real trend in home design?

DUNN: Well, I am disgusted by the open-concept bathroom one...

FARSAD: (Laughter).

DUNN: So I really hope that's not true. I think Amy's story about the Zoom Room is the true story.

SAGAL: All right. You're going to choose Amy's story of Lucasfilm creating Zoom Rooms that people can install in their homes.

DUNN: Yeah.

SAGAL: Well, to bring you the real story, we spoke to someone who knows all about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SPENCER BUELL: There was no wall separating the bathroom from the bedroom. So this was what's known as an open-concept bathroom.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

SAGAL: That was Spencer Buell, the reporter from Boston magazine, who let us all know about the new trend toward, yes, open-concept bathrooms. You picked Amy's story, which wins a prize. But in the meantime, you can comfort yourself to know that you don't have an open-concept bathroom at home.

DUNN: That's right.

SAGAL: Kara, thank you so much for playing and take care.

DUNN: Yes, thank you guys very much.

SAGAL: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN")

BRUNO MARS, ANDERSON .PAAK AND SILK SONIC: (Singing) I'mma leave the door open. I'mma leave the door open. I'mma leave the door open, girl. I'mma leave the door open. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.