© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Panel Questions

BILL KURTIS: 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 Mo Rocca, Amy Dickinson and Negin Farsad. And here again is your host, a man who just finished a pickup game of hopscotch, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill reads from "Limerick Shrugged" by Ayn Rhymed (ph). If you'd like to play, give us a call, 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. But right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Mo, researchers have discovered that when a certain type of sea slug has parasites in its body, it simply does what to get rid of them?

MO ROCCA: Some kind of liposuction.

AMY DICKINSON: (Laughter).

ROCCA: Sort of like - a sea slug will just cast them off, will...

SAGAL: No.

ROCCA: ...Cut off part of her body?

SAGAL: You're almost there.

ROCCA: All of the body, like leave the body behind.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It will remove its own head from its body and use its little head to crawl away.

ROCCA: Oh, my...

SAGAL: And the head will then grow a new body. New body, new you, new - this...

ROCCA: So it's really like a mind-body disconnection.

SAGAL: Yes, almost quite literally. This particular slug can pull its own head off and just crawl around as a disembodied head for a few days. And then it will grow a completely new healthy body. I can't decide if I'm revolted or, you know, just jealous. I mean, I'm growing a new body, too. I'm just expanding my regular body.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: I've got a head for business and a body for parasites.

(LAUGHTER)

NEGIN FARSAD: Wait. So does the slug get to choose, like, the size of its hips in the next body?

SAGAL: Wouldn't that be great?

FARSAD: Or, like, how does that work? Do you get a better model?

SAGAL: No, apparently, it just grows back a healthy version of its old body, apparently.

ROCCA: That's kind of great.

FARSAD: It's actually very - it's, like, very generous of the slug.

SAGAL: Oh, here - you can have it. I don't need it.

FARSAD: You can have it, like, you know, in the spirit of giving. It's very Christian.

DICKINSON: But there are, like, no...

SAGAL: I was about to say it's a very Jewish mother of a slug. Oh, no, have my body.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm - I don't need it. I don't need it. I can just be a head. Negin, a restaurant in Toronto has figured out a way to help people expense their lunch hour. How?

FARSAD: Oh, like, even though they're working from home?

SAGAL: Well, keep in mind, this is Canada, where people are actually allowed to go back to work and have normal lives 'cause they handled the pandemic better than we did.

FARSAD: OK. Can I get a hint?

SAGAL: Sure. I think I'll have the stapler with a side of wireless mouse.

FARSAD: Because there's going to be office supplies at the restaurant that are wirelessly connected to your office?

SAGAL: Not exactly. The - how to get you there. You're ordering office supplies, but it's really just...

FARSAD: Yeah, food.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: They have named all their menu items after office supplies. Get it?

FARSAD: Oh, that's fun.

SAGAL: You see? Now, we've all done it. We've tried to expense a double cheeseburger as an emotional support entree, but it never works.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

SAGAL: So now if you have lunch or dinner at the Good Fortune Burger restaurant in Toronto, you'll get a receipt listing your purchases of office supplies, including wired earphones with mic, which is a veggie burger, and the mini dry erase whiteboard, which is the chicken burger. Also, a mini dry whiteboard is an honest description of a chicken burger.

(LAUGHTER)

FARSAD: But wait, if the name of the restaurant is, like, Sushi World, then, like, it's going to be like - wait, you went and bought staplers from Sushi World?

SAGAL: Yes, that's sort of the problem.

FARSAD: And they were like, they have really great fresh staplers.

SAGAL: Yes.

ROCCA: Do they serve alcohol? Because three-hole punch...

SAGAL: They do.

ROCCA: ...Sounds like a really good drink.

SAGAL: It does actually, yeah.

FARSAD: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET")

THE BEATLES: (Singing) Listen. Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa, closer. Let me whisper in your ear, say the words you long to hear. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.