WWDTM: Roy Choi

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet. Explore more at patagonia.com slash impact.

Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News quiz. I'm Alzo Slade, the man they bring in when the show conflicts with Bill Curtis's daily Manny Petty.

Speaker 3 And here's your host at the Sagerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, Peter Sager.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Alzo. Thank you, everybody.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much. We are delighted.

Speaker 1 We are absolutely excited to be here in Orange County. Now, that is a beautiful part of Southern California, where people are always quick to tell you that, no, no, no, this is not LA.

Speaker 1 unless of course the dodgers happen to win the world series

Speaker 1 later on we're going to be talking to chef roy choi the man who pretty much created the modern food truck scene but first we want to find out what you're cooking up the number to call to play our games is one triple eight wait wait that's one eight eight eight nine two four eight nine two four now let's welcome our first listener contestant this week hi you're on wait wait don't tell me hi this is tammy i'm from flagstaff but i'm emigrating to portugal Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 You're like, all right.

Speaker 1 You wanted us to know that up top, so in case we went to find you,

Speaker 1 we know we'd be out of luck. Okay, so right now you're in Flagstaff, Arizona.
What do you do there?

Speaker 5 My husband and I were both retired teachers.

Speaker 1 Right, what did you teach?

Speaker 5 We were both music teachers.

Speaker 4 You were.

Speaker 1 Oh, I don't make fun of music teachers. You guys are like teaching them like wizardry and magic, and I think that's awesome.
Tammy, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week.

Speaker 1 First, say hello to a comedian and writer for TV shows like Netflix's A Man in the Inside out with a second season on November 20th. It's Karen Chi.

Speaker 1 Hi, Jammy.

Speaker 4 Hi, Karen.

Speaker 1 Next, a comedian you can see on his Grateful Bread stand-up tour. You can find info at tompapa.com.
That's right, it's Tom Papa.

Speaker 6 Hi.

Speaker 7 Hey, Tom.

Speaker 1 And you can see her in Washington, D.C. at the Atlas Performing Arts Center and the Muslims are coming stand-up comedy show on December 12th.
It's Nagin Farsad.

Speaker 1 Yay!

Speaker 1 So, Tammy, welcome to our show this week. You, of course, are going to play Who's Alzo this time? Alzo Slade, filling in Fitbill Curtis.

Speaker 1 We're going to read for you three quotations from this week's news. You know the rules.
All you need to do is identify or explain two of them.

Speaker 1 Two out of three, you'll win our prize, the voice of anyone you might choose from our show. Are you ready to go?

Speaker 5 I think so.

Speaker 1 I hope so, because it's happening.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 Your first quote is somebody being gracious on election night Tuesday.

Speaker 3 I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utter his name.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 1 who will be too busy being mayor of New York to talk about Andrew Cuomo?

Speaker 5 That's Mananti?

Speaker 4 Close enough. Mamdani.
Mamdani.

Speaker 1 Mamdani. Wait a minute.

Speaker 1 Is the mayor himself there correcting you?

Speaker 1 Yes, it was Zoran Mom Dani. The election was one of a number of big races Democrats won on Tuesday.
And in New York, they were absolutely giddy about it.

Speaker 1 People were walking down the street going, hey, I'm walking here.

Speaker 4 And isn't it great?

Speaker 8 I am so excited to say that I cast a vote for Mom Dani because I live in New York City.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I just want to say it was my first time voting for Muz. That was exciting.

Speaker 8 You know, and look, he's going to be sworn in as mayor on January 1st, which means January 2nd, Sharia law. Am I right?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 Did you see this?

Speaker 1 I was wondering, especially, Naguin, if you saw this, that Mamdani brought his parents to the victory party on Tuesday night, which was adorable, really.

Speaker 1 But people are already saying he's too young for the job. It does not help that he did his victory speech wearing a daddy's little mayor t-shirt.

Speaker 6 Well, that's what's so exciting is that we actually have someone in office whose parents are still alive.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 8 knowing a thing or two about immigrant parents from the East, they're probably still disappointed that he's not a doctor.

Speaker 7 It is nuts to have such a young politician. Like he's young enough that he met his partner on Hinge,

Speaker 7 who he's married to, which is crazy because I feel like he's inspiring everybody to get more like civically involved. And he's inspiring me to get back on the apps.

Speaker 1 All right, here is your next quote: Bring on the Dorito.

Speaker 1 Now, that was the Wall Street Journal reacting to the surprising news that what fancy, healthy supermarket chain is going to start selling junk food.

Speaker 5 I would go with Whole Foods.

Speaker 1 That's a very good choice. Whole Foods, yes.

Speaker 1 Finally, Whole Foods, famous for their, you know, healthy foods, will be selling Pepsi and Doritos and Chips Ahoy cookies. Oh, I'm sorry.
That is, of course, free-range Chips Ahoy cookies.

Speaker 8 But I kind of object to the characterization that they don't already sell junk food. They sell junk food.
It's just in packaging that looks like it has a master's degree.

Speaker 4 Right, exactly.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 When they brought in Pirates Booty, I knew something was up. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I was like,

Speaker 4 they're up to something.

Speaker 6 But I mean, to be, you know, I get it. These are times that are tough and you want a reward.
It's difficult to go through whole foods and be like, I've had a hard day. I deserve it.

Speaker 6 And just get a big raw carrot and nibble on it.

Speaker 4 You know?

Speaker 1 To hell with my diet. I'm having a persimmon.

Speaker 4 You need to stuff a whole can of Pringles down your throat in order to feel good in these dark times.

Speaker 1 I personally do not need Whole Foods to start selling junk food. I need them to start selling cleaning products that actually work.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 1 I mean, you've tried this. Their dish soap, it's just an empty bottle that says, scrub harder.

Speaker 3 A friend of mine got some organic roach killer from Whole Foods, and I was like, yeah, that ain't going to do the trick.

Speaker 1 I bet the roaches liked it.

Speaker 4 look down the roaches were like this stuff's good

Speaker 4 you think organic for who for the roaches

Speaker 1 okay your last quote is a mixed review of a new twenty thousand dollar piece of home technology it fetched me a bottle of water which took much longer than if I'd simply grabbed the water myself.

Speaker 1 That was a reporter for Fast Company magazine talking about the fact that finally you can buy a human-sized and human-shaped watt for your help around the house.

Speaker 4 A robot?

Speaker 1 A robot helper. It's here.
We have dreamed of this for a century and now it is here.

Speaker 1 Meet Neo, the $20,000 humanoid chore robot who walks around your house doing all the things that you do, but slower and worse.

Speaker 1 So this reporter who tried out NEO in his home found it could fetch a bottle of water five times slower than he could do it.

Speaker 1 And in just under five minutes, this is amazing, it loaded two glasses and a fork into the dishwasher.

Speaker 6 So they're saying it's not good?

Speaker 6 I really want it to be good. You do?

Speaker 4 You want to do it?

Speaker 6 I've been buying everything that comes out. I got that Roomba, that little vacuum thing.
I was like, oh, this is great. I'll never have to vacuum again.
And then it went over some

Speaker 6 cat crap and smeared it

Speaker 6 all across the rest of the place.

Speaker 6 All right, no, out. Please tell me this thing works.

Speaker 8 I saw like an earl, like maybe six or eight months ago, an on-stage test of it so they could share it with an audience of 2,000, okay?

Speaker 8 And me and 2,000 other people were sweating watching this robot try and water a plant.

Speaker 8 And I swear to God, the spokesperson said, he's still working out handles.

Speaker 8 Because he had a hard time getting his hand around the watering pot.

Speaker 6 I know, but with all technology, I mean, you know, we can all pretend we want it to load the dishwasher, but the majority of people out there want to know, can I have sex with it?

Speaker 6 It happened to the copy machine.

Speaker 6 It happened with faxes.

Speaker 4 Can you, Peter?

Speaker 8 Yeah, this is a very NPR question.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I'm just making a note never to buy any used technology from Utah.

Speaker 4 Don't.

Speaker 4 Not me, I'm saying people. People, not you.
People, people.

Speaker 1 Now, you might be wondering, okay, we've been dreaming of this for years, like the Jetsons and everything. How can they finally have a robot that can do anything you ask on its own?

Speaker 1 And the answer, says the company, is that actually it can't. But it will eventually learn.

Speaker 1 And until then, your NEO, the one you paid for in your house, will be remotely controlled by a human back at company headquarters

Speaker 1 using a VR headset to see what it sees and control.

Speaker 6 I'm going to take back what I said about having sex with it.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's a shame because my understanding is one of those operators is getting pretty excited about getting to your house.

Speaker 1 Also, how did Tammy do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 She did amazing. Three out of three.

Speaker 1 Congratulations, Tammy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good luck in the big move. Take care.

Speaker 5 Yay, thanks. Take care.

Speaker 1 Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news.

Speaker 1 McGeeen, as part of the investigation into the massive jewel heist at the Louvre a little while ago, we have learned the password to the museum's security camera system.

Speaker 1 You get one guess what that password was.

Speaker 8 Was it it

Speaker 8 one, two, three, four, five?

Speaker 1 No, it was not. All right, you don't know.
I'm actually asking the other panelists. Do you have any idea, Karen?

Speaker 7 No. Was it password?

Speaker 1 It wasn't. The password for the security system at the Louvre was

Speaker 4 the Louvre. Exactly right.

Speaker 1 Password for the security cameras at the Louvre was Louvre.

Speaker 1 They must have thought, well, no one will ever be able to spell Louvre.

Speaker 4 It's such a weird word.

Speaker 1 They, of course, now that it has been exposed, they quickly have rectified the situation. The password is now Louvre1.

Speaker 6 They caught them, right?

Speaker 1 They caught the. They have caught a bunch of them.
Yes. A bunch.
How many were there?

Speaker 1 It was a whole crew, and I'm not quite sure how many there were who did the robbery, but they have arrested a number of suspects.

Speaker 8 Was it George Clooney, Brad Pitt,

Speaker 4 Matt Taman?

Speaker 1 Coming up, forget LinkedIn. You've got everything you need in our Bluff the Listener game, call 188, WaitWait to Play.
We'll be back in a minute with more of WaitWait, Don't Tell Me from NBR.

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Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet.

Speaker 1 Out now is Patagonia's 2025 Work in Progress Report, a behind-the-scenes look into its impact initiatives from quitting forever chemicals and decarbonizing its supply chain to embracing fair trade.

Speaker 1 Explore more at patagonia.com/slash impact

Speaker 3 from NPR and WBEZ Chicago. This is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.
I'm Alzo Slade. We're playing this week with Tom Papa, Naguin Farsad, and Karen Cheed.

Speaker 3 And here again is your host at the Sagernstrom Hall in Costa Mesa, California, Peter Sago.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Alzo. Thank you, everybody.

Speaker 4 Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 I'm excited too, because right now it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me bluff the listener game call one triple eight wait wait to play our games on the air how you're on wait wait don't tell me hi this is ian wood calling in from grand rapids michigan i love grand rapids what do you do there i am a student at calvin university what are you studying environmental health and conservation oh that's very cool

Speaker 1 What year are you in? I'm a freshman. You're a freshman.
Okay. Well hopefully there will still be some left for you to conserve by the time you graduate.

Speaker 1 Keep the faith. Well Ian welcome to the show.
You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Alzo, what is Ian's topic?

Speaker 3 Jobs of the future.

Speaker 1 They say that AI is going to take all of our jobs. Well we're always going to need artists and craftspeople to feed to the robots.

Speaker 1 Our panelists are going to tell you about another new job for real human beings. Pick the one who's telling the truth and you'll win the weight waiter of your choice in your voicemail.

Speaker 1 Are you ready to play?

Speaker 4 Born ready. All right.

Speaker 1 First off, let's hear from Karen Chi.

Speaker 7 As AI quickly encroaches on our daily lives and leaves people jobless, there is one career that is surprisingly very secure, the amusement park carny.

Speaker 7 In fact, you'll probably start seeing them everywhere. AI is replacing waiters, cashiers, and salespeople, but marketing experts know that there's just something magnetic about a carney.

Speaker 7 That sketchy guy who definitely doesn't want to be working at the carnival, but also was maybe born there.

Speaker 7 So, they predict, all kinds of businesses will now have designated carneys who will attract consumers and make them feel great about their experiences.

Speaker 7 These designated carneys will add to consumer interactions by smoking in front of children, handing out merchandise with the deadest of eyes, and loudly swearing while families are within earshot.

Speaker 7 They'll also mark where their employee entrances are by standing in front of them and vigorously making out.

Speaker 7 Another advantage, an element of danger. With a Carney standing there, even using the self-checkout at places like Target will have that, I might die on this tilt-a-whirl feeling that keeps you young.

Speaker 1 Carney is soon to be everywhere to provide that

Speaker 1 creepy, exhilarating feeling while you deal with the machines. Your next job of the the future comes from Tom Papa.

Speaker 6 As people worry about AI replacing us, David Rischer, the CEO of Lyft, assured us that our jobs won't be going away, they'll just be changing.

Speaker 6 As an example, when Lyft starts using robo-taxis to drive people around, that doesn't mean a job will be eliminated.

Speaker 6 He floated the idea of a car tender, a human who isn't driving but sits in the car along with you.

Speaker 6 Because as we all know, the main reason to book book a ride share is for the sharing part.

Speaker 6 Rischer added that the car tender could help with your luggage, make you drinks, and answer questions as the local guy.

Speaker 6 Because who hasn't been in a ride share with a creepy driver and thought, I wish this guy was talking to me more

Speaker 6 and also trying to give me some of his alcohol.

Speaker 6 AI,

Speaker 6 there's nothing to worry about.

Speaker 1 In the future, your rideshare driver will become your rideshare cartender.

Speaker 1 Your last profession preview comes from Naguine Farsan.

Speaker 8 When you call a 1-800 number, your main goal as a human being is to say, agent, agent,

Speaker 8 at increasing volume levels and with an expanding sense of existential dread.

Speaker 8 When the agent finally comes on the phone, you yell at them. At one point you stop and say, I'm so sorry to get upset.
I realize you're just a messenger. And then you continue yelling.

Speaker 8 This yelling is a time-honored capitalist tradition. But what happens when AI takes over the job of the agent? Where does the yelling go?

Speaker 8 The boutique staffing agency TechForce is prepared for this very moment. They believe a new spate of human jobs will open up in the field of getting yelled at, or GYA for short.

Speaker 8 These venting specialists as they're called don't fix your problem but they do let you yammer on about it while making empty threats about leaving a bad review and or saying stuff like I swear to God I'm changing my cell phone carrier.

Speaker 8 The agency is also hoping to expand operations to offer an in-person combat experience where you can just punch a representative of your internet service provider right in the gut.

Speaker 4 All right

Speaker 1 Let's say you lose your job to AI. If so, you might be able to get one of these jobs of the future.

Speaker 1 Was it from Karen Chi, the universal carney, bringing that aura to every kind of consumer interaction?

Speaker 1 From Tom Papa, the car tender, since humans will no longer be needed to drive the cars, or from Naguin Farsad, the venting specialist, the person whose job it is will be to get yelled at by people frustrated by the AI.

Speaker 1 Which of these is a real potential job of the future?

Speaker 9 Well, everyone loves self-driving cars, so I think I'm going to go with Tom Papa's.

Speaker 1 You're going to go with Tom's choice of the car tender. All right, well,

Speaker 1 we actually spoke to somebody who has not yet lost his job to an AI to bring you the real story.

Speaker 10 I don't know how you would stock a car for a full-service bartender. Seems like a nightmare.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was

Speaker 1 Riff Richards, a bartender at Do Do or Dive in Bedstead, Brooklyn talking about the potential of having cartenders in your ride shares sometime soon. Congratulations Ian you got it right.

Speaker 1 You've earned a point for Tom. You've won our prize.
The voice of your choice on your voicemail thank you so much for playing. Thanks for having me on.
Take care. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 And now the game we call not my job.

Speaker 1 Roy Troy trained as a chef but found himself burned out working in gourmet restaurants in New York, so he came back to his hometown of Los Angeles and eventually opened a food truck selling Korean tacos, which first, yes.

Speaker 1 You wish you thought of that.

Speaker 1 And those food trucks first revolutionized the food truck scene and then the LA food scene and then the food scene everywhere.

Speaker 1 He now runs a bunch of trucks and brick and mortar restaurants here in Southern California. He co-hosted the chef show on Netflix and has written a best-selling memoir in a cookbook.

Speaker 1 Roy Choi, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 1 So first things first, you drove from LA where you live to be with us today. Now, whenever you drive somewhere, do people just expect you to show up driving a food truck?

Speaker 10 They don't expect me to show up, but on the freeway when we're driving them, they expect us to throw them food.

Speaker 1 Do they really?

Speaker 10 They expect the food to be ready.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I was about to make a joke.

Speaker 10 Because it's almost like a reptilian or instinctive thing.

Speaker 4 Yeah, like an instinctual thing.

Speaker 10 Yeah, the instinctual thing they see.

Speaker 1 They start to salivate like Pavlov's dogs.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I was about to make a joke about them wanting you to throw them a taco at 80 miles an hour, but then I remembered this is L.A. They want you to throw them a taco at 5 miles an hour.

Speaker 4 5 miles an hour.

Speaker 4 If they're lucky.

Speaker 1 Right, exactly. So you grew up in L.A.

Speaker 1 L.A. boy.
We understand that you were involved in the food industry from an early age. Is it true your mom kind of got you involved in the business?

Speaker 10 I ate a lot of food that my mom cooked.

Speaker 10 I grew up in a house

Speaker 10 where she was cooking constantly

Speaker 10 for many people, but there were only three of us in there.

Speaker 4 Really? Yeah, but

Speaker 10 she was cooking for like hundreds of people at all times. So I ended up eating most of it.
And

Speaker 10 early on, my mom used to make the kimchi in the house. Very much like you would see mothers right now making pozzole or menudo.
Sure.

Speaker 10 Putting it in big igloos and then putting it out on the corner and selling them in styrofoam cups yeah it was the same thing we were doing but in kimchi jars but we had a big 1976 Thunderbird and a 19 like set mid late 70s station wagon so there was a lot of room to store a lot of kimchi right

Speaker 10 these trunks were huge and so she would stuff all of them and we would go around we would hit up people like at a stoplight really it was like it was like a drive-by but with kimchi.

Speaker 10 Like we would just roll up on the stop and I was the one, I was in shotgun and I would roll down my window and then we would just talk to the person at the stoplight and say, you want to buy some kimchi?

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 we would

Speaker 4 start.

Speaker 10 She was ready to roll at any time. She had she.

Speaker 4 How old were you when you were doing this?

Speaker 10 Started when I was like five.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Because you could sit in front seats back then. Oh, sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. That's why most of us were killed.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 We were the only ones that really left. The only ones left.
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 So a big moment in your career is you got fired from this big restaurant, and then you,

Speaker 1 as history now celebrates, opened a food truck. What was the inspiration for it? You know what I really want in my moment of getting fired?

Speaker 10 But I think that, you know, because I've had time now to reflect and look back and...

Speaker 10 I truly believe it was something spiritual that happened. I do, you know.

Speaker 1 It wasn't like you were walking down the street with some bulgogi. Some guy was walking down the street with a taco.
You hit each other.

Speaker 4 Fell to the ground. You got my bul goge.

Speaker 10 Not like that. That would have been like a Mentos commercial.

Speaker 10 That would have been really nice if it happened that way. But unfortunately, I had to go through all of these trials and tribulations.
And from that came the soul of this Kogi taco.

Speaker 10 But I think that I had to fail. I had to have this amnesia and have no other opportunities out there.

Speaker 1 Now you have how many food trucks out there you're operating and how many restaurants?

Speaker 4 Can you even keep counting? Not that many. Not that many.

Speaker 10 We only have four trucks.

Speaker 10 We're a company that looks bigger than we are. Right.
Yeah. And

Speaker 10 I have three restaurants.

Speaker 1 I got two more things before we play our game. Sure.
First of all, we live in an age where, like...

Speaker 1 All of a sudden everybody's interested in the lives of chefs, right? TV shows. You actually were a consultant on a movie called Chef that your friend John.
It's That's really weird.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Which basically, for people who haven't seen it, the character played by the director and writer John Feffreaux basically recapitulates your life.

Speaker 4 Sort of, kind of.

Speaker 1 Sort of.

Speaker 4 Sort of, kind of.

Speaker 1 What do you think of any of these shows that you like? I mean, do you watch The Bear, for example, and say, oh my god, that's exactly what it is?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 7 Yeah, like, do you watch Ratatouille and go, that's exactly what it is?

Speaker 4 I'm more Ratatatouille. Yeah, really.

Speaker 1 As far as you, best way, just between you and me, as far as I know, that's the only movie she's ever seen.

Speaker 4 Go with it. Go with it.

Speaker 3 Ratsatatouille is still the gold standard.

Speaker 4 It really is. It really is.
It really is. You're telling me of all

Speaker 1 the movies TV about chefs and restaurants, that's the one that's closed.

Speaker 4 That's the one that no one has talked about. That's true.

Speaker 4 Wait, your story is.

Speaker 1 I just realized that's why you have the big hat.

Speaker 1 I got one more thing.

Speaker 1 This is a point of personal privilege. I found out just recently that you are responsible for my very favorite recipe ever, which happens to be in the New York Times cooking app.

Speaker 1 And that is instant ramen with American cheese.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 So now that I have you, I'm going to ask you, what exactly is American cheese?

Speaker 4 Do you know? It says it's...

Speaker 10 from the land of process.

Speaker 4 That's true.

Speaker 4 From the region of processed. Yeah,

Speaker 10 it's a terroir in America.

Speaker 10 Actually,

Speaker 10 it sounds like a stoner food, and it really does feel like something you would make in the depths, but it's actually

Speaker 10 what parents feed their kids if you're Korean.

Speaker 10 Any Korean people?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 1 You grew up eating that?

Speaker 4 Your parents gave you a break?

Speaker 7 I feel like my parents were like, this is unhealthy, but that would be like a treat, would be Robin Hood.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's our treat. Because our whole life is healthy.
Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's the inverse of like growing up in America.

Speaker 4 Like

Speaker 10 everything we eat are shoots and roots and vegetables and pickles and

Speaker 10 fermented things and dried fish and all these things. And so the ramen with the cheese was like our lucky charms.

Speaker 7 Lucky charms.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I'm just saying this. I'm saying this to people here.

Speaker 1 Hopefully it will make the broadcast.

Speaker 4 You got to try this.

Speaker 1 It's amazing. Well, Roy Choi, it is a pleasure to talk to you.
We have invited you here to play a game we're calling Food Trucks Meet These New Trucks.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 1 you invented the modern food truck, as we have discussed, so we're going to ask you three questions about other kinds of trucks.

Speaker 1 Get two out of three right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone from our show they might choose. Also, who is Roy Choi playing for?

Speaker 3 Ryan Santos of Hanford, California.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 1 Ready?

Speaker 1 Here's your first question. Now, the most expensive truck ever made was the Darts Prombron Black Diamond.
That is a $7 million custom-built armored SUV made for the most discerning billionaire.

Speaker 1 One of the early editions of this incredibly high-end luxury truck featured what luxury feature? Was it A, a built-in parachute in case you ever happened happened to drive off a cliff?

Speaker 1 B, seats upholstered with leather made from the foreskins of whales.

Speaker 1 Or C, an entertainment system that included a small stage for live performances.

Speaker 10 It's gotta be B.

Speaker 1 You're gonna choose B as your final answer? That's right, it's B.

Speaker 4 It's

Speaker 1 whale foreskin leather.

Speaker 4 Although

Speaker 1 they changed that after the outcry. Next question.
Next question. Everybody loves fire trucks.
We all love fire trucks. Sometimes to excess, like in like which of these people?

Speaker 1 A, baseball hall of famer Rube Waddell, who used to run off the field during games to follow a fire truck if it happened to go by the stadium.

Speaker 1 B, President Luis Lacale of Uruguay, who insisted on using a fire truck as his presidential limo.

Speaker 1 Or C, Mark Zuckerberg, who likes to drive a custom-made full-size working replica of the play school fire truck he had as a child.

Speaker 1 Baseball, you're going to go with B, the president of Uruguay. No, it was actually the baseball player.
This is a guy from the early days of baseball, early days of the 20th century.

Speaker 1 He was a great player, but everybody knew that if a fire truck went by the stadium, he would just disappear and run after it.

Speaker 1 All right, this is not a problem. You got one right with one to go.
If you get this, you'll win.

Speaker 4 Here we go.

Speaker 1 Every now and then, as we all know,

Speaker 1 a truck on our highways might spill its cargo and cause some pretty serious problems.

Speaker 1 As in which of these cases, was it A, a truck in Kentucky that spilled its entire load of pancake syrup after colliding with the buttermilk pike overpass?

Speaker 1 B, a truck in Idaho that spilled 20 million bees on the highway, causing the driver to run for his life, or C, a truck in Oregon that spilled 7,000 pounds of live eels.

Speaker 4 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 You got to go see? You're going to go see? You're right, but they're all true.

Speaker 4 Those all happen.

Speaker 1 The game is fixed.

Speaker 4 The game is fixed.

Speaker 1 Sadly in your favor, though.

Speaker 1 And by the way, the eels in that truck and argon are the one you like. Not just eels, but slime eels.
Also, how did Chef Roy do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 He cooked up a win.

Speaker 4 He did.

Speaker 1 There you go. You've won on behalf of our listener.

Speaker 1 Chef Roy Choi's newest book is The Choy of Cooking. Roy Choi, thank you so much for joining us on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
Give it up for Chef Roy.

Speaker 1 In just a minute, we go into the brine and our listener limerick challenge called 1888 Wait Wait to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Alzo Slade.
We're playing this week with Naguin Farsad, Karen Chi, and Tom Papa.

Speaker 3 And here again is your host at Sagerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa, California, Peter Sago.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Alzo. Thank you, everybody.
In just a minute.

Speaker 1 In just a minute, America's number one ant, only remaining source of natural limericks, our our listener limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1888-WAITWETHET.

Speaker 1 That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Speaker 1 Tom, NFL legend, Tom Brady just welcomed a new pet into the family after losing his beloved dog, Lua, a little while ago. But he has just revealed that the new dog is what?

Speaker 6 A clone of his old dog.

Speaker 1 That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 Yes, he's done the dog cloning thing. Brady, widely regarded as professional football's greatest of all time, time, but pretty iffy in all other areas of life,

Speaker 1 cloned his beloved Pitbull Mix dog, Lua, after she died in 2023.

Speaker 1 Brady, of course, it turns out, is an investor in the company that did it, Colossal Biosciences, and he made the announcement alongside his new girlfriend, Gazelle 2.

Speaker 6 Does it have the personality of your old dog?

Speaker 6 How How close is it to your old dog?

Speaker 1 Well, famously, the stories we hear about these is people think they're going to get their old dog renewed, right? A new copy, but it never quite works out because they're different animals. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Even though they have the same DNA, they could be very different.

Speaker 6 So it looks like your old dog, but at night it just growls in the corner at you.

Speaker 4 Presumably, yes.

Speaker 6 Wondering how it could eat you.

Speaker 4 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 8 You're like just saw alien Earth, I feel like.

Speaker 6 I haven't, but I have a dog that I would like to take some parts out of.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 6 If you had the chance. If I had the chance.

Speaker 1 To futz with the recipe.

Speaker 6 Yeah, like maybe change some of its bad habits.

Speaker 4 For example.

Speaker 6 Using the litter box as a buffet.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wouldn't you take that out if you could?

Speaker 6 I would totally take that out.

Speaker 1 I wonder if there's a gene for that. Karen, this week a court in Canada ruled in favor of a woman who withheld part of an ex-roommate's security deposit as compensation for what?

Speaker 4 For playing music too loud. No.

Speaker 7 For eating all of her food.

Speaker 1 Very close. In fact, I'll give it to you for eating her candy.

Speaker 4 Whoa. Yes.

Speaker 1 She withheld $4.60.

Speaker 1 And the judge allowed this when he took her to court to get the money back. The judge said, quote, That might be petty, but it's not improper.

Speaker 1 Which I will be using so much as an excuse in the future that I will have it printed on a t-shirt to save time.

Speaker 1 But on the other hand, knowing you can be held legally liable for stolen candy just sent a chill through every parent whose kid went trick-or-treating last week.

Speaker 6 How long are you allowed to keep Halloween candy in your kitchen after Halloween?

Speaker 1 I think ultimately my rule is forever until you finish it.

Speaker 6 So you're cool with getting to Easter and still having some Kit Kats around?

Speaker 1 God, yes.

Speaker 8 Yeah, what it, you, is that too?

Speaker 8 You're too good for that, or what's happening?

Speaker 4 Yeah, who do you think you are?

Speaker 6 Oh, I just, you know, I just kind of live a more conservative life than you guys.

Speaker 1 I'm just imagining when your daughters were young, you're holding them back with one hand when holding up the candy, going, no, I'm sorry, dear. It's expired.

Speaker 4 It's awesome.

Speaker 8 I know, it's not broccoli. No,

Speaker 1 but it's depressing.

Speaker 6 It's It's like when you leave the Christmas lights up too long and it's spring and it's raining and there's like Christmas lights. It's like you gotta move on.

Speaker 8 It's the same candy off-season as it is in season.

Speaker 6 No, it's not. It's Halloween candy.
It's very different from regular candy.

Speaker 6 We all know you break it out and you're like, hey, I got you some candy, you're gonna know.

Speaker 4 No, no.

Speaker 6 This has little kids' hands on it.

Speaker 1 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 and leave a message at 1888-WAIT WAIT.

Speaker 1 That's 1-888-924-8924. You can catch us most weeks back at the Studio Baker Theater in Chicago or in the road in Phoenix, Arizona on December 4th.
Tickets and info at nprpresents.org.

Speaker 1 Hi, Iron. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 11 Hi, Peter. This is Danielle from Santa Barbara, California.

Speaker 4 Santa Barbara, California.

Speaker 1 Bit of a ways up the coast. What do you do there?

Speaker 11 I work at an interactive science museum that is geared towards STEAM education.

Speaker 1 STEAM education. What's your favorite exhibit?

Speaker 11 We have an exhibit where kids can build race cars and then race each other or they're adults and it's always fun to see the competitiveness that comes out in that.

Speaker 1 I'm looking at Karen Shee here on on stage and it's everything she can do to keep from leaping up and running to where you are now to try you.

Speaker 4 I'm going to be there tomorrow. Well we welcome you.

Speaker 1 Well welcomer to the show Danielle. Also Slade is going to read you three news related limericks a last word of phrase missing from each.

Speaker 1 If you can fill in that last word of phrase correctly in two of the limericks you will be a winner. You ready to play? I'm ready.
Here is your first limerick.

Speaker 3 At Jimmy John's, our chefs are fickle. Our sandwich won't crumble, it trickles.
The subs that we sell have a crunchy wet shell. We're replacing the bread with a

Speaker 4 pickle. A pickle? A pickle, yes.

Speaker 1 Have you ever sat down to lunch and said to yourself, wow, this sandwich is good, but what if it were wetter?

Speaker 4 We got great news.

Speaker 1 Jimmy John's is now offering the Pickle Witch, a sandwich that replaces the bread with a giant hollowed-out dill pickle holding all your meat and cheese.

Speaker 1 Best thing, the Pickle Witch is is part of Jimmy John's new as if dad packed your school lunch menu.

Speaker 7 Oh, I'm so sad dad got divorced.

Speaker 4 Do they have like a special holder?

Speaker 8 I'm just curious about the logistics.

Speaker 1 I think they wrap it in the traditional paper and they hand it to you.

Speaker 4 That would be my guess.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Niggen, what were you picturing?

Speaker 8 I thought maybe there'd be some sort of fun,

Speaker 8 like water-resistant holder of some kind.

Speaker 4 Oh, like a roll?

Speaker 4 Yeah, something like that. Like something bread-like.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 Danielle,

Speaker 1 here is your next limerick.

Speaker 3 Food mashups, some people are boreal. But I say, yes, queen, give me Morio.

Speaker 3 Cream corn is the boss, as is cranberry sauce, a Thanksgiving meal in an

Speaker 4 Oreo.

Speaker 1 Oreo, yes, the Oreo cookie, a new limited edition Thanksgiving Oreos.

Speaker 1 They're great. They cover the entire meal from the turkey Oreo that comes with a stuffing Oreo and a creamed corn Oreo,

Speaker 1 all the way to the apple pie Oreo and the pumpkin pie Oreo.

Speaker 8 I feel like the audience is about to do an insurrection with this information.

Speaker 4 This great.

Speaker 1 You can get them all together. The whole meal is a gift set online.
Reviews have been mixed, with one customer calling it the Thanksgiving meal no one wants.

Speaker 6 And you can buy this at Whole Foods?

Speaker 4 I can now.

Speaker 4 Pretty good.

Speaker 1 You got to go around back and knock in the door though.

Speaker 1 Here is your last limerick.

Speaker 3 Past your 20s, design should show upper care.

Speaker 4 Get nice dishes to store your old supper there.

Speaker 3 You need nothing drastic, just no mismatched plastic. So get some nice organized

Speaker 4 Tupperware? Tupperware, yeah.

Speaker 1 We did food, food, and now food storage.

Speaker 1 House Beautiful provided a list of things you simply cannot have in your home once you're 30.

Speaker 4 Sorry.

Speaker 1 And high on this list, mismatched Tupperware.

Speaker 1 You're a grown-up now. Your Tupperware carpet better match the drapes.

Speaker 1 The problem is,

Speaker 1 nobody, nobody has perfectly matched Tupperware containers and lids. That's because you never throw out any of it.
Yeah, the lid for this one is missing, but you have to believe it'll come back.

Speaker 4 You can't give up on little Liddy.

Speaker 8 Early in my relationship, my now-husband threw out a bunch of lids inexplicably.

Speaker 4 What? What?

Speaker 8 He thought they didn't go with something, but they totally went with five somethings.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I still think, it's been 10 years, and

Speaker 8 I still think about those lids.

Speaker 4 Really?

Speaker 4 And threw out.

Speaker 6 And you still married him?

Speaker 8 It was a tough call,

Speaker 8 but I did it, yeah.

Speaker 1 She was hoping that for some sort of wedding present, he'd give her the lids back.

Speaker 1 Also, how did Danielle do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 Three out of three, amazingly.

Speaker 4 Well done, Danielle. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for playing. Take care.

Speaker 2 This message comes from NPR sponsor SAP Concur.

Speaker 2 Latora Jackson, Senior Manager of Finance Projects at HRecure, shares how SAP Concur solutions helped them automate outdated procedures so employees could focus on purposeful work.

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Speaker 1 Now it's time for 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.

Speaker 1 Each correct answer is now worth two points. Alzo, can you give us the scores?

Speaker 3 Absolutely. Tom has four points.
Karen has two, and Naguin is struggling with one.

Speaker 4 Why did you add struggling?

Speaker 4 We didn't need editorializing for you.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 1 Well, Naguine, since you only have one point, that means you're in third, so you're going to go first. Here we go.
The clock will start when they begin your first question. Fill-in-the-blank.

Speaker 1 On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the White House to fully fund blank benefits this month. Snap.
Right. On Tuesday, former Vice President Blank passed away at the age of 84.
Dick Cheney. Right.

Speaker 1 On Monday, two people were arrested in connection with an explosion at Blank's medical school.

Speaker 1 Harvard? Yes, Kia Motors complained after discovering a dealership in Finland had been offering customers of their electric cars blank.

Speaker 8 Whitefish.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 1 They've been offering the electric car drivers an air freshener that smells like gasoline.

Speaker 1 According to new data, 66 poultry flocks have been infected with blank in the past month.

Speaker 4 Bird flu? Right.

Speaker 1 On Thursday, Blank released the annual list of her favorite things.

Speaker 4 Oprah.

Speaker 1 Right. A report this week said that while unemployment is up, more people than ever have been finding jobs as blank.

Speaker 8 A white fisherman.

Speaker 4 Stick to the theme. No.

Speaker 1 More people than ever are employed as Timothy Chalamet lookalikes.

Speaker 1 A group of men may remember that a couple of months ago there was this very high-profile Timothy Chalamet look-alike contest in New York, and a lot of those participants have seen this huge boom in employment opportunities since then.

Speaker 1 They've been on Saturday Night Live, they've been in commercials, they were invited to the Golden Globes. Who knew? Looking like a handsome movie star could be so advantageous.

Speaker 1 Also, how did Nagin do in our quiz? She did a little something.

Speaker 3 She got five right for 10 more points, total of 11, and she's in the league.

Speaker 1 All right, Karen Chi, you're up next. Please fill in the blank.
On Tuesday, Abigail Spanberger was elected the first female governor of Blank.

Speaker 4 Virginia.

Speaker 1 Right, this week, former House Speaker Blank announced her retirement from Congress.

Speaker 7 Nancy Pelosi? Right.

Speaker 1 According to a new report, long-term use of blank supplements as a sleep aid can lead to serious health risks.

Speaker 1 Melatonin? Melatonin, yes. After he was arrested for robbing a bank, a man in Ohio asked police if he could blank.

Speaker 7 Use the bathroom.

Speaker 1 No, if he could keep the money, please.

Speaker 1 On Thursday, King Charles officially stripped blank of all of his royal titles.

Speaker 4 Oh, Andrew. Yes, Prince.

Speaker 1 Well, I was going to say Prince Andrew, but no, just Andrew.

Speaker 1 On Monday, the L.A. Dodgers held a parade to celebrate their second consecutive blank win.

Speaker 4 World Series!

Speaker 1 Yes, despite her raising the issue multiple times, a woman in Florida says that a garage door repair company keeps blanking.

Speaker 7 Oh, turning into an alligator.

Speaker 1 No, the company keeps using her address as the location of their business. Okay, it happens sometimes, as I type in an ad, you get calls for like the plumber.

Speaker 1 But this company put up a website with her phone number, her address, and a picture of her house as their headquarters. And if that wasn't bad enough, she was also named employee of the month.

Speaker 1 Also, how did Karen do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 She did pretty good as well. Five right for 10 more points.
That gives her a total of 12, 12, and now she's in the lead.

Speaker 4 Woo!

Speaker 1 And how many then does Tom need to win?

Speaker 3 Four to tie, five to win, and a bonus of a robot.

Speaker 1 All right, Tom, this is for the game. Fill in the blank.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of Trump's global blanks. Tariffs.
Right.

Speaker 1 On Thursday, Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for blank. Elon.
Right. On Thursday, a massive blank made landfall in Vietnam.

Speaker 4 Bird.

Speaker 4 A typhoon.

Speaker 1 This week, disgraced hip-hop mogul blank was transferred to a federal prison.

Speaker 4 Diddy. Right.

Speaker 1 This week, publicly available video of a city council meeting in Glasgow will be edited after a representative accidentally blanked.

Speaker 4 Pooped.

Speaker 1 I'm actually going to give it to you, left his camera on while going to the bathroom. On Wednesday,

Speaker 1 Unionized baristas at blank threatened to strike if their new contract was not approved Starbucks right on Monday People magazine named wicked star Jonathan Bailey the blankest man alive sexiest yes after he was accidentally paid the salaries of 34 of his co-workers a factory worker in Russia announced he would blank

Speaker 1 retire yes pretty much because he's going to keep it all

Speaker 1 after a payroll error meant he was paid 15,000 times more than he was usually paid the factory worker just did the right thing he told his employers see you later, nerds,

Speaker 1 and fled to another city. The case is now headed to Russia's Supreme Court, who are expected to rule in the company's favor unless someone has a bunch of money he could use to bribe them with.

Speaker 1 Alzo, did Tom do well enough to win?

Speaker 3 Ooh, we did he.

Speaker 3 He got seven right for 14 more points, total of 18, and he is the champion.

Speaker 4 There you go.

Speaker 1 In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict, now that they're doing junk food, what will be the next big change over at Whole Foods.

Speaker 1 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 Car Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Speaker 1 Philip Godeka writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman.
Our tour manager is Shane Adonnell. BJ Lederman composed our theme.

Speaker 1 Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Normbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Mohanad El-Sheikhi and Monica Hickey this week.
Peter Gwynn is our humanoid chore robot.

Speaker 1 Emma Choi is our visual host. Technical directionist from Laura White.
Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse.
Our senior producer is Ian Chilog.

Speaker 1 And the executive producer of wait, wait, don't tell me, is Mr. Michael Danforth.
Now, panel, what will be the next big change at Whole Foods? Naguin Farsad.

Speaker 8 They're going to start selling guns.

Speaker 1 Karen G.

Speaker 7 They're going to start selling organic edibles so that you want to buy all the snacks in the back room.

Speaker 3 And Tom Papa.

Speaker 6 They're teaming up with Oreos and launching a new line of deodorants.

Speaker 3 And if any of that happens, we'll ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Alzos.

Speaker 4 Hey!

Speaker 1 Thanks also to Naguin Farsat, Tom Papa, and Karen Chi. Thanks to the staff and crew here at the magnificent Sager Scrum Center for the Arts.

Speaker 1 Especially thanks to John Cohn and everybody over over at LASTN. Thanks to our fabulous audience here who came out to see us.
We love to see you too.

Speaker 1 Thanks to all of you for listening wherever you are. I'm Peter Sager.
We'll see you next week back in Chicago.

Speaker 1 This is NPR.

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