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Panel Round Two

CARL KASELL ANNOUNCER: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Amy Dickinson, Paula Poundstone, and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl. In just a minute, Carl makes his rhyme-umphant return in the Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Amy, a new study by the London School of Economics says there's one activity that makes us so unhappy, the only thing we rank worse than it is being physically ill. What is it?

AMY DICKINSON: Is it done in the home?

SAGAL: No. Specifically - well, sometimes some people do it in their home. Gillian Flynn does it in the home.

DICKINSON: Oh, killing.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You went right there, didn't you?

DICKINSON: Butchering.

SAGAL: I'll give you a hint. It's like hi-ho, hi-ho - oh crap.

DICKINSON: Working.

SAGAL: Yes, working.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

DICKINSON: Oh, working at home?

SAGAL: No, working in general is the worst thing ever.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The researchers...

DICKINSON: No way.

SAGAL: Yeah, it's been proved. The researchers sent questions to thousands of subjects at random times of the day via a smartphone app. And they asked what they were doing and how they felt? The people who answered at work reported being more miserable than everybody except for the people who answered, currently vomiting.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: So wait a minute. But they were people working at home or people just working?

SAGAL: People just working. They said...

DICKINSON: No, no, no. I - Peter, again, I...

Take it away, Paula.

PAULA POUNDSTONE: ...I'd like to know how they did the study. I...

SAGAL: Well, I just explained.

POUNDSTONE: OK. Yeah, but to whom did they send the question?

SAGAL: Well, apparently they sent it to appreciatively random enough group of people they could get a good response.

POUNDSTONE: No, no, no, no. Are you working right now?

SAGAL: I am.

POUNDSTONE: Is it a step away from vomiting?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'd have to vomit and see which I prefer.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Maz, a designer from Latvia has come up with an invention that promises to change the world, or at least make some of it cleaner and more efficient. What is it?

MAZ JOBRANI: A vacuum.

SAGAL: No, although a vacuum would be a fine thing. Combination of two things.

JOBRANI: Combination of two things (unintelligible) pieces together.

SAGAL: Very common, very rarely...

DICKINSON: I know.

SAGAL: Well, for starters, there's a soap dispenser next to the flush handle.

JOBRANI: Oh, it's a toilet flushing thing that flushes - it's a toilet flusher obviously. You said a flush handle.

SAGAL: Yes.

JOBRANI: And there's a dispenser.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah, that's basically what I said you just said back to me. But what does...

(LAUGHTER)

JOBRANI: No, I'm just making sure we're on the same page.

SAGAL: Yes, it has those things...

DICKINSON: You know, I actually know the answer to this and it's something I thought guys did anyway, so I didn't know this was an invention.

POUNDSTONE: What, pee on the handle?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Go ahead, Amy, what is it?

JOBRANI: It's a flush handle...

DICKINSON: It's a urinal sink.

SAGAL: That's exactly what it is.

POUNDSTONE: What?

SAGAL: It's a combination urinal sink.

DICKINSON: I thought you guys did that anyway? I don't know.

SAGAL: You thought we did what anyway?

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: I thought you peed in the sink.

SAGAL: No, no. Here's the thing. The problem is that men, as you may know, tend not to wash their hands after doing their business at the urinal, right? And this is because sinks are located sometimes as much as seven or eight feet...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...from the urinal. And it's easier to just wipe your hands on the front of your pants as you come out of the bathroom so it looks like you washed your hands.

DICKINSON: Oh, god.

SAGAL: So designer Kaspars Jursons has come up with a modern solution. It's a urinal with a built-in tap. So you - it automatically turns on when you finished adding to the urinal. It turns on and you can just reach out and wash your hands.

POUNDSTONE: Now, you're going to tell me that a guy who invents a urinal/sink isn't happy in his work?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Paula, according to a new American health study, you can cheer yourself up and ward off cravings for junk food simply by doing what?

POUNDSTONE: Don't just tell me. Just give me a hint and I'll get it.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHER)

SAGAL: Instead of calling Domino's, get out your sketch book.

POUNDSTONE: You can draw a picture of the food?

SAGAL: Yes, you can draw a pizza.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Apparently, if you...

POUNDSTONE: That's ridiculous.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: What the hell do you do all week?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We find...

POUNDSTONE: I've heard you answer people before about how you write the show, how you research.

SAGAL: Yeah, yeah.

POUNDSTONE: And you find, you know, news stories and then you put them - you didn't do that this week, did you?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We do like to look for stories that will set you off, Paula, that's true.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? This is one about peeing on the pizza? What is it? What's the hell is this?

SAGAL: No.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's a...

POUNDSTONE: You don't just draw a picture of pizza and then you're satisfied.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Apparently, you can because this is...

POUNDSTONE: No, you can't.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's the idea.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah.

SAGAL: So everybody knows that it's really funny, like you're feeling a little peckish, you're a little bored, I'm going to order a pizza. You order the pizza, you eat the pizza. There's a lot of pleasure but then there's a lot of regret afterwards you feel full, right?

POUNDSTONE: Absolutely. Yeah.

SAGAL: So what they did is they had people who wanted a pizza just draw the pizza. And apparently just visualizing the pizza enough to draw it released all these endorphins and pleasure centers in the brain. So they actually were happy and didn't want the pizza anymore.

POUNDSTONE: Where do they get the people? Who did they...

(LAUGHTER)

JOBRANI: The same people who are unhappy at work.

POUNDSTONE: So you know what it was? You know what it was? It was...

SAGAL: What was it, Paula?

POUNDSTONE: OK. Sometimes the late night staff at a pizza place, they don't have enough people, you know what I mean? So they're like, you know, they have to say stuff like, yeah, we'll deliver but it's going to be two hours, you know.

SAGAL: Right.

POUNDSTONE: And so finally see some guy, he'll go, you know what, draw it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Just draw, I'm not going to get there in time, draw the damn thing.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, yeah, just draw it and then call me back and tell me how it went.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: I'm doing a study for WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

JOBRANI: But if this is the case, then all Mexico has to do is start drawing burritos.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

POUNDSTONE: Man, when I learn how to draw a Butterfinger I'm going to drop some pounds.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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