Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & Mistaken Identity

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Guest hosts Karen Chee and Josh Gondelman dive head first into alternate universes. Plus we get to the bottom of the Masters tournament mistaken identity kerfuffle.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, everyone. I'm the inspiration for Dennis the Menace, Karen Chee. And I'm sentient gingerbread man, Josh Gondelman. Welcome to Everyone and Their Mom from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yay! You might notice that neither of us is Emma Choi. She's off on vacation across the pond. Hi, Emma. Or as she might say now, pip-pip cheerio, Emma. Yeah, well done.

Let's get on with the show. It was almost time for the 2023 Masters Tournament, a major golf championship, and three-time PGA Tour winner Scott Stallings still had not received his invitation. What was going on? Had he been disqualified? Was someone running the Masters Tournament exacting a slow burn revenge? Alas, there was a simpler explanation. His invite ended up in the soft hands of a mild-mannered real estate agent, also named Scott Stallings. It was a good old-fashioned name mix-up.

Okay, so then Real Estate Scott Instagram DM'd Golf Scott about this and then kindly mailed him the invitation. Golf Scott then posted a screenshot of the exchange online, which also revealed that not only do they share the same name, but actually their wives also share the same name, Jennifer Stallings. This all raises the question, which Scott is the evil one that must be defeated at all costs? We're gonna have to do more tests. Also, which Jennifer is the evil one that must be defeated at all costs? So then what happened was Golf Scott kindly invited Real Estate Scott, who plays golf for fun, out for a nice dinner and around. Sounds sweet, but it'll be weird when they meet in person and realize they also look and sound exactly the same.

they meet in person and realize they also look and sound exactly the same. The most shocking part of this whole story is that professional athletes with thousands of followers actually check DMs from strangers. So if you're listening to this, shoot your shot. And Kevin Durant, if you're specifically listening to this, hello, I'm single. Ooh. I know KD is a big fan. I know he's disappointed that Emma is not hosting this week, but the potential for romance has him hooked now. Okay, Karen, if this had happened to you, this like mistaken identity, you get invited to a big athletic tournament

under someone else's identity, what would you have done? I absolutely would have gone. Listen, there's an invitation with my name on it and my address on it. It's asking me to do this athletic thing. I'm absolutely going to be there. Josh, I'm so lonely and bored. I'll do anything. So this is more just a getting out of the house thing. Yeah.

Okay. If you were competing as an imposter, what sporting event do you think you would do the best at? Okay. I think I would be so good at ice hockey. Mostly because I can't really ice skate, but I do know that in ice hockey, it's like part of the rules that you're allowed to fight, right? Let's get ready to rumble. Just to explain, I'm bad at ice hockey, but I'm so good at fighting. Wait, you're good at fighting?

I would not have guessed this. If I had to guess whether you were good at fighting or ice skating, I would have guessed ice skating for sure. That's why they call you Josh Dumb Man Gondelman. I was wondering why people have been calling me that. Yeah, yeah. Wait, so you said you think you'd be good at fighting. What gives you that impression? I just feel like I really have the element of surprise on my side because I think physically don't seem intimidating. And also, you know, if you look at my face, you can tell, oh, that girl

is a little scared at all times. So I think if I went in for the kill, people would not see it coming. Everything you say raises more questions to me. You think the point of a hockey fight is to kill? Yeah. Isn't it last man standing? Is that not how hockey works? Right. You know, hockey, classic, whatever, 12 men enter, one man leaves, one young woman leaves. Thank you. Thank you. Wait, I do have a question for you though, which is the reverse of this situation. Which athlete do you think would stand the best chance at pretending to be Josh Gondelman for a day?

Oh, interesting. Well, physically, I think it would be tough. There's not a lot of professional athletes that are kind of my dimensions, kind of out of shape, late 30s. Like a retired athlete. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I should pick a retired athlete.

Or honestly, there are some really funny athletes, and I'm worried that they're getting too funny and they're going to take our jobs. Who are you thinking of? Like a Blake Griffin is very funny. He does a little comedy and he's very funny. Yeah, so I'm worried that he's coming for what we have. We're going to have to start dunking. A very funny athlete is like LeBron James. Yeah.

And I could see him being you for a day and nobody would notice. People would not notice. They'd be like, Josh, are you a little taller today? He was really good. He was really funny in Trainwreck, which is slightly disappointing. That's what I was thinking. Because I auditioned for the role of LeBron James in Trainwreck. Okay.

So this story, right, is at its core about being invited to an event that you really didn't have any business being at. If you, Karen G, could be invited to one event by mistake, which event would you most be excited to attend? I'm going to say the funeral of a really famous royal in Europe. Okay. Do you have like a country that you'd want to visit for this funeral? Maybe like Croatia. I don't know if they have a royal family. Sure. I'm just trying to get a free trip to Europe.

Okay, so now that we've launched a full-scale investigation into what our lives could look like in a case of mistaken identity, we decided to talk to the man at the center of this whole alternate universe thing, real estate's Scott Stallings. Can you introduce yourself for us, please, Scott? My name's Scott Stallings. I am the original Scott Stallings. I live in Atlanta, native here, and work as a real estate agent. Everyone in real estate is calling him the fake Scott Stallings. So don't even worry about it. Well, I have 23 years on him. Amazing. And so you accidentally received golf pro Scott Stallings invitation to the Masters Tournament, correct? That is correct. Was there a moment where you were like, no, this is for me?

Well, it was crazy. So I'll back it up a little bit just to show you the coincidence. My wife goes to the door first, and I'm unloading the car, and there's a UPS package envelope leaning up against the door. She rips it open. It has my name on it. It has our address on it. There's no reason to

think that it was for anyone else but us. So she yelled out that we got tickets to the Masters. So then she looked at it closer and she said, oh my God, you've been invited to compete in the Masters. And so, I mean, all the fireworks went off. My mind started racing. I was like, oh, shoot, I need to get to the driving range. I'm a little rusty. And were you surprised that you were able to reach him and get him to call you back so quickly? Yeah, we were. I mean, I was like, this is really a shot in the dark.

Because, you know, I'm sure he gets pinged by people left and right you know others so you know i i had no idea that this would actually happen yeah was there any part of you that like like okay let's say you had gotten the invitation and then instead of reaching out to him you just went in his place how do you think that would have gone? You know, I played that scenario through my head a couple of times. I mean, I had a driver's license that said Scott Stallings on it. I've got an official invitation and a green envelope that has my name on it, calligraphy. So, you know, why not give it a shot? No, no, but if you had gone, how do you think you would have done?

What, playing? Oh, my God. You know, every time I watch the Masters and I see the line of people on the left and right at the tee shot, I'm like, somebody's going to get hurt. Because if I were to play, I would have knocked somebody in the head, I'm sure. Oh, I wish that had happened. It wouldn't have made it too far down the drive. But anyway.

What is your all-time best golf score for a round? Embarrassingly, it's right at the low 90s. Okay. That's not bad. I mean, that was on a really good day. So on a bad day or a regular day, I'm probably hitting it right now. Oh, my gosh. No, these are great numbers.

Low 90s is a solid A-. Yeah. Hey, it's not a 72. It's not a 72. I'm so far from that. I don't even know how these golfers do that. I mean, if I get a birdie, I'm just like doing backflips. No, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

Much less a par. It's usually a double bogey. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. I have an important follow-up question to this, which is, Scott, do you think between you and the other Scott Stallings, do you think one of you should be destroyed? And if so, which one and why? One of us should be destroyed. Yeah, and like there can

only be one sort of a deal. Yeah, kind of a Highlander type situation. Well, I'm going to have to sacrifice him, you know. I've got more life. Yeah. And now for the most evil part of the podcast,

the credits! This show is brought to you by Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and this episode was produced by Haley Faker and Oja Lopez, with help from Lillian King and fake Scott Stallings. Our supervising producer is Kelly Wessinger, and our boy who cried wolf is Mike Danforth, or Michael Danforth when he's in trouble. Once again, Lorna White has quietly saved the universe,

but she does not want any credit for it, so no thank you, Lorna. And thank you to the real Scott Stallings for agreeing to be our spy at the Masters. Thank you to my co-host, comedian, wait-wait panelist, and Phantom of the Opera, Josh Gondelman. You can find him online at Josh Gondelman.

I'm Karen Chee, and you can find me at Karen Chee with an extra E at the end on Twitter and Instagram, where I will be frantically refreshing my DMs in case Kevin Durant, you're listening. And as always, find the show at Wait Wait. This is NPR.