Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - WWDTM: Ally the Piper

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

This week, bagpipe superstar Ally the Piper joins panelists Hari Kondabolu, Faith Salie, and Alex EdelmanLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR, and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. From NPR and WBEC, Chicago, this is, wait, wait, don't tell me the NPR news quiz. I'm the voice so strong it can open that jar of. pickles for you. Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater

at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Seigle. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody. Great to be with you. We have a great show for you today. But before we get to that, we are so happy to be able to report this news. This week,

our beautiful home of Chicago, Illinois, was named the number one big city by Kandei Nast Traveler magazine. We're very proud. And even more incredible and more flattering, it was the same month that we were named the number one big city to invade by National Guard Illustrated. That's it tough. We're very proud. Later on, we're going to be talking to the musician who has made bagpipes hot again, Ali the Piper, but first, we want to hear you play something. So give us a call. The number is 1,000. Wait, Wait, Wait, That's 1, 888, 9248-924.

Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, I'm Kimberly, and I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, Kimberly, what do you do there in Charleston? I am an accounting professor. A professor of accounting. That's correct, yes. Are more, oh, hey, yeah.

Hey, thank you. People are thrilled. Are more and more people interested in going into the very useful field of accounting? Yeah, please, I'd like to say, that the increase in enrollment is correlated with my employment at the university, but there's probably other stuff, too. Really? So it's possible that people who might have had dreams of careers and, say, the arts are flocking to your university to study accounting because of your example. Yes. And accounting is an art if you have the right accountant.

Fair, yes. Well done. Well, Kimberly, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian who will be headlining the Denver Comedy Works October 30th and November 1st. And we'll be at the Den Theater here in Chicago on November 15th. It's Hari Kandabolu. Hello?

Hello? Next, she is a contributor to CBS Sunday morning and host of the Audible Original podcast, Envi Enlightened. It's our friend, Faith Sailing. Hi. And we are very excited that he is making his debut on our panel this week. You can see him in the paper on Peacock or see his one-man show just for us, recorded and available on HBO Max. It is Alex Edelman.

Hi, Professor. Well, Kimberly, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time? Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations we found in this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, will win our prize. Any voice from our show you might choose for your voicemail. You're ready to go? Yes. Your first quote, Kimberly, is French President Emmanuel Macron. We will recover the works and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.

So, uh, which works have not been recovered and which perpetrators have not been brought to justice? I think they're valuable jewels that used to be in the Louvre. Yes, the Louvre heist. Le Heist, they say. So, by now, you have heard about, or perhaps you were lucky enough to be one of the thieves who stole priceless jewels from the Louvre Museum in broad daylight early this week. The thieves, if you haven't seen this, it's amazing. The thieves dressed as construction workers. They used a ladder truck to get up to the right windows.

They cut through them, grabbed the loot, and ran. It took less than seven minutes, and they made off with a hundred million dollars worth of irreplaceable jewels. They also took the Mona Lisa, but they put it back after realizing it was a little underwhelming. On behalf of all the colonized countries whose gems were taking to make these jewelry... A ha ha. Yes.

Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. I heard that it was actually a 60-second heist with a six-minute cigarette Brett break in the middle. It's a union thing. It's a French thing.

That's what they were, they seemed so brazen. Like it feels so French and audacious because you say seven minutes like that's, like that's quick. That's a long time for a heist at 9.30 in the morning. I mean, the Louvre opens at 9. There were tourists watching them.

Wait, I didn't know that it was open in open gallery. There were people watching them do this. I would just love to be like, I don't get this performance art. These French people. It happens every Tuesday at 9.30 in the morning. Well, what's funny is that you may be wondering, well, what about those museum guards?

We see them in museums. Why didn't they stop it? Well, they were trained, the guards at the Louvre, they have been trained that if something happens, like, say, the noise of people smashing glass and breaking in, their job is to get the visitors out of the way. So they all ran in the other direction with the visitors. And I guess nobody was hurt.

That's good. But it's still a black eye that the thieves were able to pull off the heist, complete the headphone audio tour of the whole museum, and have a snack in the cafe before they made off with a loo. Kimberly, your next quote

is the president of the United States. But I hear the sound of construction, it reminds me of money. President Trump was enjoying the sound of construction where? The White House, East Wing, specifically. Yes, the White House. This week, without any warning at all, workers demolished the entire east wing of the White

House in order to build the president's new enormous ballroom. Oh, I see some people don't like fun. Fine. But it is a little weird. It's like, okay, you're torn down this historical structure. You're going to build this enormous. And it's just a ballroom? I mean, man, get a lazy river in there.

Are you dumb? My guess is that the ballroom that goes up will be subtle and understated. It will be. Actually, he was showing off these renderings, and it is large, and it is guilt, and a lot of people look at those renderings, and they say, well, that's just like,

it's going to be just like the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, but that's not true. Among many differences, Jeffrey Epstein won't be hanging out at this one. You know, This is a very controversial renovation. It is. And it's really the most controversial renovation

since Bill Clinton asked for mirrors to be put on all the bedrooms here. By the way, and I don't understand this. He says it will have a capacity of 999 people, which is a weird number. Do you know what that number is? That's the number of ghosts in the haunted mansion in Disney World.

Oh, my God. It is when you go through, they say, we have 900. But there's room for one more. That's where he got it from. And J.D. Vance is standing outside and going, You mean me? And they're all like, no, sir. No. Kimberly, your last quote comes from,

this is actually from the documentation in a big legal indictment that dropped on Thursday. Co-defendants include Big Bruce, Pookie, Sugar, Albanian Bruce, the wrestler, Flappy, and Spanish G. The FBI says that all those colorfully named people were part of a big illegal gambling ring involving

what major sport? Oh, basketball, basketball! Very good. In the NBA, on Thursday, the FBI arrested 30 people in an alleged gambling ring that includes NBA stars and four New York City Mafia families, which kind of explains why last season

in addition to all the usual ACL tears There were all these players out for three games because they somehow broke both their legs? Cash Patel looked shock when he delivered the news, but he always kind of looks like that. He does. Yeah. I'm joking, Cash, don't deport my family. What are the nicknames

because they sound like off-brand Looney Tunes? All those nicknames, those were Big Bruce, Pookie Sugar, all those other ones, Albanian Bruce. Those were all like mafia guys who were involved in the scheme, right? They were hanging around. They were setting up to poker. I like Albanian, Bruce.

It sounds like what Melania does on vacation or something like that. Bill, how did Kimberly do in our quiz? She did great. Big Kimberly. Yeah, I'll go with that. Albanian Kimberly. Kimberly, thank you so much for playing.

Thank you for having me. Bye, bye. Thank you. Right now, panel. We have some questions for you about the week's news, Alex. Yes. On Monday, Amazon Web Services went down, taking a lot of popular services around the world offline for a few hours.

But it also caused massive and even dangerous malfunctions in some people's what? Titanic submersibles? I don't know. Oh, yes. All the people going down to the Titanic and their private submersibles got in so much trouble. The Alexis?

The Alexis? No, not their Alexis. Another kind of smart device in their home. I'll give you a hint. It's terrible, among other things, thousands of individual sleep numbers were revealed. Their mattresses?

Close enough. They're beds. Yes, owners of high-end smart beds. woke up on Monday morning to find their mattresses trying to kill them what you're lying so these

you lie like a rug not lying this is all true scooching them like a taco well like on some of the beds these are like motorized heated beds that you control with your phone and on some of them the heating elements were turned

all the way up to maximum on on others were like suddenly moving and locking into the vertical position some of them it was both the heat and the vertical position, turning the beds into massive toasters with you as the bread. That cannot be real. It is real.

That's the most horrific dystopian way to die. It really is. If you get to heaven, they're like, how are you killed? And he's like, well, I put too much trust in Jeff Bezos. Pretty much, yeah. And my duvet strangled me. Tonight the devil's in your bed. So turn your head.

Coming up our panel's in your bed. Coming up, our panelists pulling all-nighter in our bluff to listener game. Call 1-8-8 Wait-Wait-to-play. We'll be back in a minute with more. Wait, wait, wait, don't tell me. From NPR. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from the estate of Joan B. Croc, whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio. and seeks to help NPR be the model for high-quality journalism in the 21st century. From NPR and WBEC, Chicago, this is, wait, wait, don't tell me, the NPR News Quiz.

I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Faith Saley, Alex Edelman, and Haricandabolu. And here again, your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Segal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you all so much. Right now, though, it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Bluff the listener game, call 1-T-8 Wait-Wait to play our game in the air. How you are on, Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me. Hi, this is Chandraette calling from Crofton, Maryland.

Hey, Chondriette. What do you do there in Crofton, Maryland? I'm a lawyer for the federal government. Oh, ha, ha. Hang up. Hang up. Hang up. Sorry, I'm sure you're lovely.

You were a lawyer for the federal government. So you're not too busy right now. No, she just wrote a check for $230 million earlier today. No, that wasn't me. That wasn't her. That wasn't her. Well, welcome to the show, Chandrae. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction.

Bill, what is Chandraette's topic? I can't sleep. People lose sleep for all sorts of reasons, as you might know. Anxiety, too much coffee, the constant hammering from the construction. of your new ballroom. This week we heard about somebody losing sleep for a surprising reason. Our panelists are going to tell you about it.

Pick the real one, and you'll win the wait-waiter of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to play? Yes. All right. First up, let's hear from Hari Kandabolu. Several months ago, Sam Terry of Seattle woke up to a knocking sound

coming from near his bedroom window. He discovered a rare Bernhard's woodpecker going ape on his house at 11 p.m. And continuing to do so until 7 a.m. Why a woodpecker would have a night shift of pecking is unknown, but it has kept Mr. Terry awake for months. I had tried everything to get rid of it. I said, shoo. I said get. Like I said, I tried everything. Out of desperation, he put up a cardboard cutout of a hawk, a woodpecker predator, to scare away the bird. The woodpecker instead has fallen in love with the hawk. And now peckers.

in a more frenetic sexual way. It's much worse, says Terry. Then he put up a bird feeder filled with seeds and peanuts to distract the woodpecker, but that just seems to make it stronger. I'd call this situation a nightmare, except then I'd actually be asleep. A man with a woodpecker who simply will not stop pecking. Your next story of somebody tossing and turning comes from Faith Saly. Recently, in Murthia, Spain, a woman named Juana called the police to report something terrifying.

All night, a recording of children singing Happy Birthday, or Complianos Feliz, had been emanating from the local school's PA system on a continuous loop at full volume. And the adorable, creepy voices were keeping the entire neighborhood awake. The song blasted through the town for five hours, which is four hours, 15. minutes and 30 seconds longer than anyone wants to hear happy birthday. Wanah finally phone the police at 4.30 a.m. because she says she had a really bad headache. I told them to call the mayor or whoever, and the police officer who answered the phone started laughing, she explains. Indeed, a local firefighter named Paco reports, the call was

treated as an emergency, but it's true, we were already laughing from the start. When the party poopers, I mean fire brigade, arrived. They said it was like walking into a pitch black birthday party until they shut that creep show down. At least they got there before the kids' voices could start chanting, Césiete. A middle, excuse me, a school in Spain broadcast a creepy version of happy birthday all night, keeping the entire neighborhood awake. Your last story of a sleepless night comes from Alex Edelman. It was the latest salvo in a long-running dispute

between Beverly Miller and Danica Conkel, both 47, both of Pauling, New York, and both the parents of teenage boys. Archer Conkel had taken up first chair in the Pauling Central High Cazoo Orchestra. Practice took place in the Conkles' garage post-dinner and Beverly Miller,

who works the early shift at one of Duchess County's largest Christmas ornament stores, claimed it was preventing her from sleeping, causing her to miswork and lose income. Out of spite, the Conkel's solicited kazooists from all over upstate, accruing the nation's third largest in one of its most in-tune kazoo orchestras. A return to small claims court seemed imminent, but in the nick of time, a video of the orchestra playing radio heads, fake plastic trees, mashed up with Leonard Cohen's hallelujah, when semi-viral and the 65-strong honking.

Battalion is now touring sizable venues all across the lower 48. The neighbors have quashed their beef, and the conchles can finally conk out. All right, let me review your choices. So somebody was kept up all night in the news. Was it from Harikanda Bolu, a guy whose war with a woodpecker, who pecked all night, ended up with him in the losing side, from Faith Saly, a neighborhood in Spain, where a school broadcast a creepy version of children singing happy birthday over and over and over and over all night,

or from Alex Edelman a complicated battle which ended up with the accidental creation of the most successful kazoo orchestra in America. Which of these is the real story of a loss of a good night's sleep? I think because it's almost Halloween, which is also my mom's birthday, I'm going to go with the creepy singing children, and so I'm going with faith. All right.

You're going to choose faith story. Well, this is interesting. To bring you the real story, this is what kept people awake. That was just a tiny bit of the recording of Coupilanos Feliz, in this case, sung by Parkis, that played all night long

in a town in Spain. Congratulations, Chondriette. You got it right. Faith is telling the truth. You have won. Thank you so much. This is a bucket list item, so I appreciate it. My pleasure.

Thank you, Chandraette. Take care. Bye. Can't sleep. Still get sleep. And now the game we call Not My Job. Our guest today, Ali, the Piper, was an award-winning bagpiper

before she started putting out TikToks if her playing bagpipe covers of songs by bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden. And she won millions of fans, including Metallica and Iron Maiden. She's been called the most famous Piper in the world, and she joins us. Now, Allie the Piper, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, thank you much. Hello, it's so good to see you.

I mean, you are not, I think, what anybody would expect when somebody says, oh, we're going to go meet a bagpiper. Most people associate bagpipes with elderly Scottish men. You were born in 1995, and you took up the bagpipes when you were quite young. May I ask, why? Fair enough. It's actually a nice story.

I wanted to ruin my brother's life before he went to college. My stepdad legally adopted me when I was 12, and I got a hyphenated last name. name, which carried Duncan with it. That was my new one, and I wanted to learn more about my family's heritage and the history I was adopted into. And so I heard the bagpipes for the first time, and I couldn't figure out how they worked just by looking at them. I just became really obsessed with how they worked. It was the first time I'd seen an instrument so unique. They called to me, if you will. I was reading about the bagpipe, and it seems like it's such a

hard instrument to play, that it takes months of practice when you start before you can even play a tune. That's actually very true. I played for almost a year on a practice version of the instrument before I started playing the full loud bagpipe. But that's why everybody thinks they sound so bad is because it's, you know, beginners at full volume all the time. Wow. You know you walk around, you just see so many people practicing the bagpipes at full volume. Yeah. What did your neighbor say? Shut up. They all moved.

No, fortunately, when you play indoors and just ruin your family's lives, your neighbors can't hear you too much outside. So I tried to do a lot of my practicing indoors, and then I would just more so go outside when I had things polished

to play outdoor. And then you became, and I love this, you became part of, and a champion in the youth competitive bagpipe circuit. What a dark world. It really is something. I hear about, like, youth competitive,

the global youth competitive bagpipe circuit, and all I want to know is what were the parties like? Well, there actually weren't a lot of... There was one competitive youth bagpipe band here in the United States, and I was in it. But we went over to Scotland, and there were the rest of them. And do you, when you compete,

do you yell things like, we blow, you suck? we had the t-shirts we didn't yell that though you did oh my gosh I want to see the dance mom equivalent of like a bagpipe parent like come on my day like you got to I was just I was actually thinking like you're the American team the one American team you show up to do this competition with all these Scottish teams this is like a great karate kid like movie right underdogs from America co-op I hope did you kick their asses or whatever the bagpipe equivalent of ass kicking is

And we won the world championships. Hey. Oh. USA. USA. USA. So, but, and that was great and quite impressive, but you became famous, your road to where you are now, let's say, started, if I'm right, during the pandemic, when you started putting

out videos on TikTok and elsewhere of you playing the bagpipes, and they went immediately viral. Do you remember like the first one and what your reaction was? Yeah. Well, it all happened by accident. I had all of my gigs canceled because of COVID. It happened to a lot of musicians and it was really dark time for a lot of people. So I wanted to take to an app or an online platform where none of my friends were so that I could kind of post anonymously but have some kind of encouragement or, you know, people to encourage me to keep doing it. So I posted on TikTok because none of my friends were there. And it backfired immediately because I posted one video and that one video got 150,000 views that day, which means that my attempts at not being perceived. You have utterly failed

in remaining anonymous. We will admit that. You did not know that there was this thirst out there for good bagpiping. The people need what they need. That's true. Now, I don't know what the first song was, but you became really well known for doing bagpipe covers or bagpipe versions of songs you would not associate with the bagpipe, including like, Enter Sandman by Metallica. Is that right? Yeah, I became really, really invested in transcribing guitar solos for the pipes. Sure. The big thing. So taking all of those big shreddy guitar solos that are just classic, We love them and either really, really blowing people's minds or ruining these songs for people forever. Yes.

I posted a medley of a few of their songs, because I'm a Metallica fan, too. Of course. And I posted that on TikTok and kind of went about my day. And then a hate comment came in, and it said, bagpipes do not belong in Metallica. James would not approve. And this commenter emphasized to seriousness with an angry emoji. Oh, well then. I know.

He was passionate. And so I left it alone, and I let five minutes elapse, and then Metallica was there in the comments. I love it. They offended me into the hate commenter. They said that this guy doesn't speak for us. They told me to keep doing what I'm doing. And we chatted a little bit in the comments, and then this commenter decided to go after them. No.

No. Seriously? He turned on Metallica? No, one guy versus Metallica, and he did not live to tell that's him. No, I was about to say. Well, Allie, it is a pleasure to talk to you. We've asked you here to play a game. We're calling Bagpiper meet Piping Bag.

So you are a master of the bagpipes, as we have discussed. So we're going to ask you about people who use piping bags. That is cake decorators. Answer. Answer three questions about unusual cakes who will win our prize for one of our listeners, Bill, who is Allie the Piper playing for? Drew Menning of Denver, Colorado.

All right, you ready to do this, Allie? I won't let you down, Drew. Okay. First question, the show Cake Box featured some amazingly realistic cakes over the years that it ran, including which of these? A, a cake Taylor Swift that can sing

four of her biggest hits. B, a cake toilet that actually flushed or see a street-legal Maserati sports car cake. It's a flushy. We're going with B. It's the toilet. Yes, of course it is. The actual flushing cake toilet was made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of a local

plumbing company. All right, that's very good. Here's your next question. People often order custom cakes to send a message, right? Like a Louisiana woman who did what in 2017? A, instead of leaving her money to any of her children, she just left them a cake saying, Eat it.

B, she sent a cake to the cop she had tried to bite with the message, Sorry, I tried to bite you. Or C, she told her husband she wanted the divorce by smashing him in the face with their wedding cape, which she had kept in the freezer for that purpose for 12 years. I'm going to have to go with A. I'm afraid it was, uh, I'm sorry I tried to bite you.

The woman had been, she was a college student. She had been over-served at a wine tasting, and she felt really bad about what she did when a police officer tried to arrest her for public intoxication. All right, here's your last question. This is okay, because if you get this right, you will win. Sometimes people who order custom cakes

give the baker a flash drive containing the image they want on the cake. Now, that method doesn't always work like when which of these actually happened. A, the baker just drew a frosting picture of the flash drive on the cake. B, the baker took a photograph of the flash drive and printed that onto the cake.

Or see, the baker decorated the cake with the words Happy birthday, the picture is on the flash drive. Oh, wow, they're all really good. All right, let's go with C. This one's for Drew. That's right, but in fact, all of them were. Oh.

All of those happen when people made the mistake of trying to give the Baker what they wanted on a flash drive. I do not recommend that. Bill, how did Allie the Piper do on our quiz? when you get two out of three, you have won. So you are now our favorite Piper. Congratulations. Allie the Piper's new album, The Session, is out now, and you can see her on tour.

Starting in just a little while, more information is at Piperalley.com. Allie the Piper, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Wait Wait a Tom Cruise. Give it up for Allie the Piper right there. Just a minute. We moonwalk through our listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-3-8 Wait-W-W-W-T-W-E-E-C challenge.

We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, from NPR. From NPR and WVEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, we're playing this week with Alex Edelman, Harikandubolu, and Faith Saley. And here again is your host at these two-de-vicker things. theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Seigle. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody. In just a minute, the game ranked the Irishest part of our show

for the 200th week running, the listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-3-8-8-8-8-8-2-4. That's 1-88-9-24. Right now, panel, though, some more questions for you from the week's news. Faith, get your stopwatch ready, because according to a new survey, most people can only do what for about three hours? Listen to their middle schooler,

listen to Hamilton. I need a hint. I'll give you, this is why people generally do the Irish goodbye at around two hours, 50 minutes. Just socialize? Yes, people can hang out with other people for, generally speaking, a maximum of three hours before they can't do it anymore.

That sounds about right. It does. I never thought of it. you think about it, you're like, yeah, you mean a good party. You're enjoying it. You're having a lovely time. About three hours, you're like, I got to go home. And then there's always that one person who stays late when you invited people over and you're like, sorry, Colin, I got to unplug you. So Alex, you seem to be indicating that that person is you. It's you. It's you. Okay. It's me. So you're the guy who's at the party and everybody else leaves and you're hanging out

there and you're like, yeah. So anyway, so aren't you, but are you not aware? Because you seem to be now. I'm aware, but for me, the party starts when people are upset that I'm there. That's when the fun starts happening. Yeah, absolutely. There was a party that was at for two weeks. It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. Wow.

The study was conducted by the dating app Hinge, and they asked 10,000 people for what they thought about socializing all these questions. And the author suggests that what people need to do is find your own social sweet spot, and that helps you decide when it's time to leave, right? So you just think about it for yourself.

If you need external clues, I'd say it's probably whenever the conversation at the gathering turns to TV shows. Nothing tells you it's time to go home, like hearing, yeah, it's called The Diplomat. It's on Netflix? You always want to leave him wanting more. Exactly. Hari, the Catholic Church of Kenya had to find a new brand of wine to use for communions at masses after a problem developed with the previous wine it was using.

What was that problem? It was too good. Exactly. What for real? It was too good. People liked it too much. The Catholic Church of Kenya made the change after discovering that their official communion wine

had become very popular in bars and restaurants. Right? And they were like, we can't have that. But didn't Jesus? Jesus? Didn't Jewses? Gordian slipped. Jesus was what his name was

before he changed it to assimilate. It was Jonathan Leibovitz, but now it's... But Jesus, I thought, wanted people to enjoy communion. He said, this is my body and this is my blood, which pairs wonderfully with my body. Well, so people are just drinking Jesus' blood all over the place? All the time. The church realized it was getting to be a problem when people would line up for communion, they're online there in church at mass, and some people would turn and look at all the people

behind them and say, hey, hey, should we just get a bottle? Hurry, officials in a town in the UK are asking people to please avoid swimming in their local river as it is currently, well, what? It is filled with poisonous

fish. No. I'll give you a hand. Think of getting like a perfectly made cappuccino. It's filled with coffee? No. the top of the river is covered with... Foam.

Yes, it is covered in thick foam. What the BBC described as a large stretch of thick white foam appeared this week on the river set in Norwich in England. But does it have a design of like a maple leaf on it? No, that would be really cool. Or a heart. The river was completely covered with this opaque foamy coating that looks really just like a bubble bath

and a PG-13 movie, right? So officials told the locals do not swim in the river and don't drink the river water either why do they have to say that were they constantly being approached by residents holding spoons

saying can I try the foam yet I do envision the meeting where they're like no one can drink the river water and everyone's got like foam moustaches I wasn't going to drink it I'm going to drink I'm going to drink today if it kills me

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 1-3-8-8-8-8-8-8-2-4. That's 1-88-9-24. You can see us most weeks at the Studio Baker Theater in downtown Chicago or catchers in the road. We will be in Costa Mesa, California, on November 6th. And on Friday, November 7th, the very next night,

you can catch our stand-up show, The Comedy Grab Bag, at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles. Angeles. Also, Slade will be hosting and joined by some of our panelists and friends. There will even be some games and prizes for you, real prizes for once. Tickets and info about all our shows are at NPRPresents.org. Hi, you're on. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Hi, this is Beth from St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, I love St. Louis. What do you do there? I am a veterinary technologist. A veterinary technologist. Do you enjoy that work? Do you have pets yourselves? Yes, I tend to bring work home with me quite frequently. I have three dogs and two cats.

a husband. Oh, in that order. Beth, welcome to the show. Bill Curtis right here 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, and two of the limericks will be a winner. You ready to go? I'll do my best. Okay, here's your first lemurick. Around hot people, I do not blush. And my insides don't turn into mush. I've lost the sensation of infatuation.

It's years since I laugh. had a... Crush! Yes, crush! Right, exactly. Well done. According to Newsweek, young people, quote, can't remember the last time they had a crush with one person saying, quote,

I don't even have celebrity crushes anymore. It's sad. It's because everybody's saying too much about themselves on social media. We know too much about them. Oh, he's so hot, but no, what's this? He's actually trying to get measles? We should clarify that having a crush

is different than having feelings for someone. Feelings imply a future with that person and real-life consequences. A crush is, you know, just the reason you keep going back to that one coffee shop, just to hear him say, one vanilla frappuccino for Peter? I just thought losing crushes is just a natural part of life as you become number as you get older. Well, I was wondering about this, because I'm pretty old and I'm pretty married, so I don't think I have crushes anymore. You can have platonic crushes.

though. As you go to old, you can just really find yourself super attracted to someone who's, you could just be like, oh my gosh, you're fantastic. I just discovered you. I don't know if that's a crush. Is that a crush? I don't know. What do you think it is? I just think, I don't

know, like a crush always feels like it's more intense. You can't get your mind off the person. You feel go out of your way to see them. See them. You put poetry in all the margins of your math notebooks and She never sees you, and she never sees you, and it doesn't make sense because you gave her flowers,

and there was no reason to give her flowers, but it just felt appropriate at the time, and all you do is... That's... I just don't... All you do is want to love her. You know what I mean, Peter? Yeah, yeah. All right, here is your next limerick.

This old outhouse we once used so well Now has two bedroom suites with no smell Our underground rooms don't release any fumes It's a luxury boutique Hotel? Hotel, yes. How about that? Good for you. The Neti is a posh boutique hotel

In Oxford in the UK that was once a public restaurant It's for anyone who's used a public toilet That's had the thought I wish I could put my toothbrush somewhere down around here. The hotel looks really nice on the website. It looks amazing, and they've got all the modern amenities, and then there are only two suites. It was like they only take two rooms out of it.

So basically, if you go to this place that used to be a public restroom, you can check into number one or number two. Beth, here is your last limerick. As the racers who went round the track heard, it's not dumb, it's a new workout hack, nerd. I break forwards curse, shift my legs in reverse. I get stronger by just walking. Backward? Backward, yes.

Backwards walking and running is the new health trend. Exercise experts say backwards walking increases hamstring flexibility and stimulates underused muscles. while backwards experts say muscles underuse stimulates and flexibility and training in pieces. Bill, how did Beth do in our quiz? She ripped him right down the middle. Good going, Beth. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Now on to our final game. Lightning fill in the blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can, each correct answer. now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Ari in faith, each have three. Alex says two. All right, Alex, you're in second place, so you're up first. The clock will start when they begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, the White House announced new sanctions against two of Blanks' largest oil companies. Russia. Yes, this week, Israel's parliament voted in favor of annexing the blank.

West Bank. Right. On Tuesday, Japan elected the first female blank in their country's history. Astronaut. Prime Minister. Prime Minister, yes. saying, quote, America needs us. The original founders of Blank vowed to bring that company back from bankruptcy. Indian motorcycles?

No. Hooters. Starting November 1st, blank athletes will be allowed to bet on professional sports. E-sports. No, college athletes. This week, a woman in China went viral after security footage caught her blanking after doing sit-ups at the gym. Farting?

No. Falling. sleep for three hours. So, security footage, caught the woman. She comes in, she sits out of the mat. She does a few sit-ups, and then she curls up in the mat and immediately falls asleep. Other people enter and leave, and this is totally true. At one point, a gym employee comes over and puts another mat on top of her like a blankie.

The woman says it was an accident, but I have my doubts, especially because the video shows her pulling out a stuffed animal and telling it to spot her. Bill, how did Alex do in our quiz? Not great. You got three right. That's six more points. You have a total now of eight, and you're in the lead. All right. Let's arbitrarily choose, hurry, to go next. You're up, fill in the blank. On Thursday, a judge extended the block on blank troops being deployed in Chicago.

U.S. military. I'll give it to you National Guard. On Tuesday, President Trump said he might seek $230 million from the blank for their past investigations into him. Pentagon? No, actually the Justice Department. On Thursday, King Charles met with blank at the Vatican. The Pope? Right. This week, a woman in South Korea accidentally set her apartment building on fire when she blanked. When she left her stove on for too long. When she tried to kill a cockroach with a blowtorch. On Tuesday, New Delhi was named the city with the world's worst blank quality. Air quality. Right. On Thursday, musicians and actors reached to deal with

producers to avoid a strike on blank. TV? No, on Broadway. This week, Lay's potato chips announced a massive rebranding after it was revealed that 42% of consumers did not know blank. What was in them? Exactly right. They did not know that potato chips were made from

potatoes. What? Lays announced a branding overhaul in addition to removing all artificial dyes and flavors. They're updating their bags to include big pictures of a potato. Following suit, Doritos announced that their new bags will feature a bunch of question marks on the words your guess is as good as ours.

Bill, how did Harry do on our quiz? Well, I got four rights, eight more points. Total of 11 puts him in the lead. Woo! All right, all right, okay. All right. How many then does Faith need to win? Four to tie, five to win.

All right, here we go, Faith. This is for the game. On Wednesday, Zoran Mandani, Curtis Sliwa, and Andrew Cuomo faced off in the final debate for Mayor of Blank. New York City. On Tuesday, a Russian attack left parts of blank without power. Ukraine. Right.

This week, the U.S. conducted two more strikes against two more blanks alleged to be carrying drugs. Boats. Right. According to new data, new cases of blank flu have affected over 7 million animals. Oh, bird flu? Right. This week, a heavily used mountain pass near tell your ride, Colorado, was blocked by a stuck blank. Moose.

No, a stuck Kia, telluride. On Tuesday, officials. in Iceland noted the first confirmed citing of blanks in the wild on that island. Mosquitoes. Yes, on Thursday, META announced it was cutting 600 jobs from its blank division. Facebook?

AI. This week, a new program was introduced in China that would require people to watch an ad before they could get blank. Get married. Oh, get married. No, before they could get toilet paper in a public restroom.

The new program, which is in early stages, installs dispensers with QR codes into public restrooms, and before you can get any toilet paper out of them, you have to scan the code and watch an ad. Even worse, every ad features those bears that are obsessed with talking about how clean their buses. Bill, did Faith do well enough to win? Well, she got five rights.

It gives her ten more points. Thirteen squeaked out of win for Faith. There you go. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict what will be the next great, exciting heist. But first, let me tell you that, wait, wait, don't tell me, is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago, in association with urgent hair cut productions,

Doug Berman, benevolent overlord. Philip Godica writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our tour manager is Shane Adonald, thanks to the staff and crew at the Stu DeBaker Theater here in Chicago. BJA Leaderman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles, Norma Boss, and Lily and King. Special thanks this week to Vinnie Thomas and Monica Hickey.

Peter Gwyn is our cake boss. Emma Choi is our visual host. Technical direction is from Lorna White, her CFO's Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Schilloch. And the executive producer of Wait Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, is Mike Danforth. Now panel, what will be the next big heist that will capture our imaginations? Hurry, come to Bolo.

An Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell soup can will be stolen and replaced by a painting of a progressive soup can. Faith Saley. Trump is going to steal Pete Hegseth's hair oil for the new East Wing ballroom slip and slide. And Alex

Edelman. Someone is going to have to steal the Bill of Rights to see if we can get one or two of the things in there back. Well, if any of that happens, panel, we're going to ask you about it on, wait, wait, don't tell me. Thank you, Bill Curtis.

Thanks also. To Haricandabulu, Faith Selly, congratulations to Alex Edelman, and a great debut in our show. Thanks to our fabulous audience here at the Sudebaker Theater in the beautiful and blessed city of Chicago, Illinois. Thanks to you all for listening wherever you might be. I'm Peter Sengel. We'll see you next week. This is NPR. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org.