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Limericks

PETER SAGAL, 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. That's waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming shows August 29 and 30 at Wolf Trap just outside Washington D.C. in Northern Virginia and September 12 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

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

REBECCA RUBIN: Hi, this is Rebecca Rubin calling from New Haven, Conn.

SAGAL: Hey, how are things in New Haven?

RUBIN: They're good.

SAGAL: And what do you do there?

RUBIN: I work at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

SAGAL: Oh, really? Well, what do you do at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence?

RUBIN: I work with educators who want to implement social emotional learning, mostly in K12 schools.

SAGAL: Really? OK, trying to make kids more emotionally, sort of, capable and open and aware.

RUBIN: Yes.

SAGAL: Well, good for you. And welcome to the show, Rebecca. 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 in two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. You ready to play?

RUBIN: Yeah.

SAGAL: All right, here is your first limerick.

BILL KURTIS: Avocado toast will not control me, but demand is up. It shocks me wholly. Now tacos and chips resort to faux dips. They have to use fake...

RUBIN: Guacamole.

SAGAL: Guacamole, yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Avocados are getting more and more expensive. And Millennials have already taken out second mortgages to afford them as it is. So restaurants have started making guacamole without avocado. It's true. This mock guac is made often with a Mexican squash called calabacitas. It's fun to say, but it's just not the same. Chefs say the flavor is almost identical. The only difference is in the texture. Calabacitas tend to be thinner and runnier because who hasn't looked at a bowl of guacamole and thought, you know, I wish this was damper?

(LAUGHTER)

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh, yeah. That's why you got to have the kind where they come over, and they make it right at your table.

SAGAL: So you can tell.

POUNDSTONE: And when they're about to cut it, you go, let me look at that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: Grab your clubs. To the church, we will strut, strut. Pray for par with no if and or but, but. A cross that turns slowly. The water traps holy. We are going to church to play...

RUBIN: Putt-putt.

SAGAL: Putt-putt, yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Rochester Cathedral...

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: ...Outside London is almost 1,000 years old, and it has the distinction of being one of the holiest places in England. Not only is it a church, but it is now a church with an indoor mini-golf course. The course only opened recently, and clergy around the world are quick to condemn it, describing it as an act of desecration. But some religious scholars believe the course has a place in the church. For example, Jesus would be a great golfer. He never loses his ball in a water hazard, or if he's in a fun mood, a wine hazard.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: When I work out, get anxious or fret, I get stains, funky smells and regret. So I wear a new fabric that's woven of magic. It smells really good when I...

RUBIN: Sweat.

SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Scientists have created a new fabric that turns your body odor into a fresh, lemony aroma. Instead of smelling like an old, wet shoe, you'll smell like someone who just drowned in lemonade two weeks ago. Special cotton fibers in the clothes bind with the proteins in your sweat to release a pleasant scent. So essentially, the grosser you are, the better you smell. If you think about this, this technology could lead to total chaos. Suddenly, tons of BO is a sexy thing to list in your dating profile.

POUNDSTONE: Huh, I kind of like that idea, actually.

SAGAL: I do, too. As someone who's constantly conscious of how much I might be smelling because I'm a big sweater, I think that would be nice.

POUNDSTONE: I think, though, that, you know, sometimes what other people - like, for example, a car air freshener, which I would rather be in the car with, you know, vomit and dog waste than the smell of a car air freshener. So maybe it depends what you think is a pleasant smell.

SAGAL: That's true.

POUNDSTONE: But on the off chance that it really is a pleasant - a lemony pleasant, lemony smell, I think I might look into such a garment.

SAGAL: I think so, too.

ADAM BURKE: You know, Vomit and Dog Waste are playing Lollapalooza, so there's a chance you might...

(LAUGHTER)

KURTIS: ...You might be in the car with them.

POUNDSTONE: I love them. *****************

SAGAL: If this takes off, we might even get more flavor options - pumpkin spice sports bras, chocolate mint undershirts, banana-scented sweatpants. And there'll always be the one weirdo who chooses beef stew yoga pants.

(LAUGHTER)

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

KURTIS: She's emotionally perfect at three right.

SAGAL: Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing.

RUBIN: Thank you.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SWEAT (A LA LA LA LA LONG)")

INNER CIRCLE: (Singing) A la la la la long, a la la la la long long li long long long - Push it, push it some more. A la la la la long, a la la la la long long li long long long. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.