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Chapter 1: What are the highlights of the Thanksgiving episode?
From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the person everyone thinks of when they're asked what they're thankful for. Bill Curtis. And here is your host at the Studebaker Theater and the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill.
Oh, thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. We're all excited. Yes, it is Thanksgiving when people gather with family and express their gratitude that they no longer have to argue about the 2024 election. No, I'm kidding. We'll argue about it till we die.
But still, when it comes time for us to express our thanks, we go right to the fact that we've been doing this show for more than a quarter century. And despite that history, interesting people still agree to come on and subject themselves to our games.
For example, Eric Wyan-Mior, a man who climbed the tallest building on every continent and had many other adventures despite being blind. But as we discussed when he joined us in June, he was perhaps most famous for something else entirely. We first heard about you.
from a video that went viral in 2006. And we're going to play it for our audience. This is just a local newscast with someone who is announcing that they're going to interview you. Let's just listen.
Right after the break, we're going to interview Eric Weihandmayer, who climbed the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. He's gay.
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Chapter 2: Who is Eric Weinmeier and what is his story?
I mean, he's gay, excuse me, he's blind. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, so a couple questions, a couple questions. I assume you've heard that before.
I've heard it a thousand times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what they didn't realize, they think it's funny, but I'm like, no way, man, you made my career. No one heard about climbing Everest, but everyone heard about my gay video.
Yeah, I guess. So I guess now that we've established that, I should say, first of all, happy pride. Secondly... So this local news anchor was going to interview you about your achievement of being the first blind person to climb Everest. Were you standing by as that was said? Did you hear her say that?
Yeah, there's another clip where if you go online, you can see me just completely laughing, cracking up for her. I couldn't even do the interview. And by the way, I just want to say for the NPR audience, nothing funny about being gay or being blind, but I don't know how the two look the same on a strip.
When you have introduced yourself, you say, well, yes, I'm Eric Weinmeier. I climbed Mount Everest. First blind person to do it. First blind person to climb the seven summits. And there's still nothing. And you're like, I'm blind, not gay. And then they go, you! You!
No, no, no. In fact, I like more records than I can get. You know, like, first blind guy to climb Everest, first blind gay man to climb Everest is even better. So I'll take it.
Which also, you actually raised another question. Somewhere out there is the first gay man to climb Mount Everest, and he must be thinking, well, gee, he didn't get the credit. That Weinmeier guy. Yeah, I know. I stole his thunder.
You did.
Now that we have covered that, I actually want to talk to you about the actually impressive things that you did. There might be people out there who say, oh, he's a blind guy who climbed Everest. I guess he just was roped to some guy who did the climbing. No. You do it by feel, right?
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Chapter 3: How did Eric Weinmeier climb Everest despite being blind?
So, Peter, this actor is playing you. How handsome did he tell you he was? LAUGHTER
his he was way handsomer than me i i heard he's a real he's a real handsome man so it occurs to me if you ask me like well how handsome is peter who plays me in the movie i would be stuck because if i say well he's very handsome would that be flattering you oh yeah no you could play me for sure i think you'd from what i understand you'd have to put a wig on though
Maybe two weeks. I'm so disappointed. Who told you? Because this entire conversation, I have felt so free and unburdened. For the first time in years.
Blind people, you know, we're judgy, but we have to get the information in another way.
Chapter 4: What unique challenges do blind climbers face?
Was it the echoes coming off the top of his head?
Well, Eric Weinmeier, it is a pleasure to talk to you.
We've asked you here to play a game we're calling Mountain Climber meets Social Climber.
So since you are an accomplished mountain climber, we thought we'd ask you about another kind of climber, social climbers, people who are trying to rise above their station in society. Answer two or three questions correctly, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of their choice from our show on their voicemail. Bill, who is Eric playing for?
Lilac Rain Thompson of Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Lilac Rain Thompson. All right, Eric, here is your first question. Two of the most famous social climbers in recent history were Tariq and Michaela Salati, who famously crashed a 2009 White House state dinner to which they were not invited. Now, what did Ms. Salahi go on to do after that? Was it A, she joined the CIA as an infiltration expert?
B, she became a life coach promising to help clients, quote, get past any velvet rope holding you back? Or C, she left her husband to marry the founder of the rock band Journey in a wedding broadcast live on pay-per-view? Hmm.
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Chapter 5: What was it like for Eric to have a movie made about him?
Wow. The third one sounds so specific. But maybe I'll go B. Wait a minute. I'm just going to go through. No, no, no. I'm going C. All right. There you go.
Lightning reflexes. Yes, it is C. She ran off. One day, her husband, Tariq, filed a missing persons report because he didn't know where she was. It turns out she had ran off with Neil Schoen, co-founder of Journey, and she eventually married him in a pay-per-view event in 2013. They are still apparently happily married. Wow. I know. Wow. Just a small-town girl. Sneaking to the White House.
Yeah.
All right, next question. A woman named Rachel Lee loved celebrity style, and she wanted to dress just like her favorite celebrity fashion icon, so she did what? A, she created a wearable digital screen that could deploy images of any look she wanted. B, she sent every celebrity a version of her favorite dress, so eventually they'd be copying her.
Or C, she just broke into celebrities' houses and stole the outfits she liked. I'll go A. You're going to go with A. No, it was actually C. She broke into their homes and stole their outfits. What? She did. This was a big deal. She and her accomplices became known as the Bling Ring. Should have known. Yeah. Here's the funny thing, too.
Their first victim was Paris Hilton because they figured Paris Hilton would never lock her door, and they were right. All right. Last question. If you win this, you have summited... One of the most famous social climbers of recent years was Anna Delvey. She pretended to be a wealthy heiress as she scammed other people out of money to fund her lifestyle.
After her conviction for fraud, which of these did she really say when a reporter visited her at Rikers Island prison? Was it A, I'd be lying to you if I said I was sorry for anything? B, would you mind loaning me $75,000? I'm good for it. Or C, the last thing I remember is hitting my head on a car door in 2012. Where am I? Hmm. A sounds kind of plausible. You're going to go for A?
All right, we'll do it. You're going to go for A. All right, yes, it was A. I'd be lying to you if I said I was sorry for anything. Thank you. These people must have seen the Netflix series about her. Bill, how did Eric Weinmeier do on our quiz?
He got two out of three, and that's enough for a win.
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Chapter 6: How do social climbers relate to our quiz game?
That's when we return with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Hey, it's Peter Sagal. Before we get back to this show, I just want to take a moment to talk about what makes Wait, Wait and everything you hear from NPR possible. And that is drumroll. Somebody do a drumroll. Or I'm assuming somebody out there is doing a drumroll right now. You! Yes, you.
NPR is, as we often tell you, public media. That means we rely on the public, and the public is everyone. Good people and people who eat deep dish pizza. Think of NPR as kind of like infrastructure. It's just like the roads and the highways and the sewers are available to everybody. So are we. We connect people. We give people something they all can complain about, something they can all use.
Everybody's got it. It is a public good. But like any kind of infrastructure, it needs maintenance. It needs support so that everybody can keep enjoying it. Otherwise, like Steve Inskey develops terrible potholes, the problem is he kind of expands things. in the heat and then shrinks when it's cold and you end up getting cracks. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
The point is that we need your help to keep this infrastructure of information healthy. Giving Tuesday is coming up, so if you haven't made the leap yet to contributing, now's a good time and a great way. To support us is to sign up for NPR+. It's a program especially for our podcast listeners. As an NPR Plus member, you'll get to hear this and other NPR shows without the sponsor messages.
And you get other perks, too, like a chance to play our special quiz, the Wait, Wait, Way Back machine, where we invite one of you on with me in the studio to try to answer questions from our show 20 years ago. To learn more, just go to plus.npr.org. Or you can always make a gift at donate.npr.org.
And by the way, if you've already signed up for NPR Plus or if you've donated to your local station, we really appreciate it. And we are taking your money and we're filling in the gaps on Steve Inskeep right now. Thanks.
From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater and the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill.
Thanks, everybody. As you are all listening to this, we are lying around in a tryptophan haze from our Thanksgiving meal, reminiscing about all the amazing people we got to talk to this year.
And since we consider you family, we're going to share a few of them with you. But don't hog them like you did the sweet potatoes.
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Chapter 7: What funny stories come from bringing kids to work?
Absolutely. Okay, that's a good choice. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone who reported on the real story. I'd generally be mad if anybody was drilling into my head. If they didn't wake up and find out I was a 13-year-old girl, I would hope that she at least watched some YouTube videos about it or something.
That was Louis Prada, a writer from Vice, who reported on the junior brain surgeon in Vienna. Congratulations, Cassidy. You got it right. You earned a point for Emmy just for telling the truth and for acting out the scenario. Thank you, Emmy. But you have also won our prize. Any voice from our show, you might choose. Thank you so much. Thank you.
And then, since the Paris Olympics had just ended, we decided to talk to an actual Olympian about what it was like. And now the game we call Not My Job.
The best thing about this summer's Paris Olympics was that thanks to streaming, you could watch any sport you liked, and the best sport to watch was weightlifting. No, like, complicated tricks with weird names, no incomprehensible judging, just people picking up enormous weights or not.
In the course of just four years, Mary Tyson Lappin went from complete rookie to Olympian weightlifter representing the U.S. at the Paris Games. She grew up just over the border in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We are delighted to have her with us here. Mary Tyson Lappin, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I wasn't kidding. I watched weightlifting because I was able to.
Thank God you finally got some attention. And I was fascinated because I don't understand the first thing about it. So let's start at the basics. You pick up weights. Is that right? You lift them.
Yes. I mean, obviously there's a little bit more to it than that. But at the end of the day, it's a very simple sport. It's whoever lifts the most weight wins the meet. And you want to try to be as strong as you can. And that's who gets to win.
So in the Olympic weightlifting, there's basically two different events. And you're going to say them because I can't without blushing.
Okay, so we snatch. And then we clean and jerk. You snatch and clean and jerk. Yes, the snatch is from the floor and you're going straight over your head without stopping. The clean and jerk is you're going to clean it, pull it to your shoulders, take a little rest, a break. Not a break, it's like a second. You don't stop and go get a cup of coffee and come back. No.
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Chapter 8: What insights can we gain from the weightlifting discussion?
Wow. Yeah. And just for comparison, what was your starting weight at the Olympic finals?
Um, like 306.
That's it. That's all you got to say.
That's all you got to say. That's all you got to say.
We believe you. We believe you, yeah. Mary Tyson Lappin, it is just a pleasure to talk to you about what you do. And we have asked you here, though, to play a game that this time we're calling... The Bad Kind of Lifting. So, you're an expert on weightlifting, as we have been discussing, but what do you know about shoplifting? LAUGHTER
correctly answer two of our questions about the five finger discount and you'll win our prize one of our listeners bill who is mary playing for jessica nelson of saint paul minnesota ready to go sure here's your first question we also have three of these three tries at this so you're used to this sort of format yeah yeah right Here's your first question.
Not every shoplifter is caught, but a man in Scotland who stole a bottle of vodka from a liquor store was almost immediately apprehended because he did what? A, he took two steps out of the store, guzzled the entire bottle, then passed out right there. B, asked the cashier on a date and left her his full name and telephone number.
Or C, came back 20 minutes later and said, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to steal some tonic water. I'm going to go with B. You've met men. Yes, you're right. Yeah, you know. All right, here's your next question. You handled that well. That was an easy lift for you, as it were.
When a security guard at Target once caught a teenager shoplifting, as he said later, he didn't want to, quote, ruin a kid's life for stupid mistakes. So what he did was he just called the police department. They said, send over an officer and just give this kid a, you know, scared straight type speech. One problem. What?
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