BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Amy Dickinson, Alonzo Bodden and Demi Adejuyigbe. And here again is your host, a man who just managed to water his office plants through Zoom, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill goes for a joyride in his Rhyme-borghini (ph). If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, it's time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Amy, according to The Washington Post, in addition to everything else the pandemic has taken from us, we are probably going to permanently lose America's beloved what?
AMY DICKINSON: "The Star-Spangled Banner"? No.
SAGAL: No, I'll give you a hint. We're going to - you know? It's one of the few places you can get roast beef or chicken wings or butterscotch pudding and melon balls altogether.
DICKINSON: Oh, like a - not a salad bar but a buffet.
SAGAL: A buffet, yes.
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DICKINSON: A buffet.
SAGAL: We are losing our buffets. Someday, you'll be telling your grandkids what it was like to compose the perfect lunch - one heap of lo mein, another of croutons all topped with Russian dressing.
DICKINSON: (Laughter).
SAGAL: But buffets, of course, are pretty much a petri dish. Here, have a heaping plate of food a thousand other people just breathed on. Sure, some kid put his finger into the mac and cheese half an hour ago, but what you don't know won't kill you. Oh, wait. Yes, it will.
ALONZO BODDEN: Is that a rule? Like, Hometown Buffet and Golden Corral - are they going to have to close? Because if you think Oklahoma and Alabama were mad about the mask thing...
SAGAL: (Laughter) You make a good point.
BODDEN: You start shutting down the buffets - there's going to be trouble.
SAGAL: Oh, man.
DEMI ADEJUYIGBE: I think it's going to be like the Prohibition era again. There are going to be underground Ponderosas popping up.
DICKINSON: (Laughter).
SAGAL: You mean they'll be like speakeasies?
ADEJUYIGBE: Yeah.
SAGAL: You knock on the door, and they let you in. And they...
ADEJUYIGBE: Exactly. You do the secret knock and they're like, all right, steaks in the back.
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah.
DICKINSON: (Laughter) Exactly.
SAGAL: Alonzo, across the country, young people are being criticized for not wearing masks. But the New York Post reports that some teenagers in various places are enthusiastically putting on masks just so they can do what?
BODDEN: Rob banks?
SAGAL: (Laughter) No, not in the - in the - using the traditional sense, I guess.
BODDEN: Can you give me a hint?
SAGAL: Yeah, they're also wearing gloves, gray wigs and cardigans in case it's chilly in the beer aisle.
BODDEN: So they can pretend to be old people and get drinks or whatever?
SAGAL: That's right.
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SAGAL: So they can dress up as old people and buy liquor. Some kids have realized with their faces already covered, it's easy to just go on to disguise themselves as an older person to buy booze without getting carded. It's amazing. Masks can prevent you from getting coronavirus but can get you Corona Light.
BODDEN: Yeah. I love that level of ingenuity and not taking the chance of, I'm pretending to be a 23-year-old. No, I'm going to go for senior citizen...
SAGAL: Exactly.
BODDEN: ...Because who's going to question Grandma?
ADEJUYIGBE: Absolutely.
SAGAL: We know about this in the same way we know about anything that teenagers are up to. The only way we know is they put it on TikTok. One person - one girl put on her mask and then, like, this Halloween mask and glasses and a headscarf to look old enough to successfully buy Mike's Hard Lemonade at a 7-Eleven. Here's a tip, though, for the cashiers of America. If there's an 80-year-old woman buying cans of Mike's Hard Lemonade, it's totally a teenager in disguise.
ADEJUYIGBE: Or maybe she was just really cool.
SAGAL: (Laughter).
DICKINSON: I think for one of those teenagers to be really convincing, you do have to have butterscotch candies in your pocketbook.
SAGAL: Absolutely.
BODDEN: But that's what would give them away. They'd have, like, Apple Pay or something like that. That would be the...
DICKINSON: You have to write a check. If they go out...
BODDEN: They need to write a check. They need to start writing a check.
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SAGAL: Demi, a scientist in North Carolina has just completed a study based on 39 years of data. And we finally know that 83 is the maximum number of what?
ADEJUYIGBE: Clowns in a clown car.
SAGAL: No, although you're kind of close. It's that kind of human achievement. I'll give you a hint. Before, this secret was only known to eating champion Joey Chestnut.
ADEJUYIGBE: Hot dogs that can be eaten in an hour?
SAGAL: Exactly.
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ADEJUYIGBE: What?
SAGAL: That is the maximum number of hot dogs a human can eat in 10 minutes. It's 83. They used...
ADEJUYIGBE: I don't know. Give me a shot. Give me a shot.
SAGAL: They used 39 years of data from the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, including some wins by Joey Chestnut. And Dr. James Smoliga has determined that the absolute max number of hot dogs you can eat in 10 minutes is 83. So don't put more than 83 on your plate. You can always get seconds if you eat them.
BODDEN: I simply don't believe that. I think that that gauntlet has now been thrown and that one of these hot dog eaters is living to eat 84. There's somebody right now training during the quarantine. When Coney Island reopens, he's going to be there with 84 hot dogs and a 10-minute timer.
SAGAL: It's like...
ADEJUYIGBE: It's the same thing that got us to the moon.
SAGAL: Right. The...
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SAGAL: In the eventual movie about this guy, the training montage is going to be absolutely disgusting.
DICKINSON: I think we just figured out the next thing for Maria to do. That should be her next achievement, yeah.
SAGAL: There you are, competitive eating. Absolutely.
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