Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell us three stories of the little guy winning.

CARL KASELL, Host:

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 Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts and PJ O'Rourke. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, Host:

Thank you, Carl.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thanks everybody. Right now, it is time for the WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-Wait-Wait to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

NICK DOOLITTLE: Hi, this is Nick Doolittle from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

SAGAL: Hey, Cambridge, I used to hang out in Cambridge. What do you do there?

DOOLITTLE: I am a hospice social worker.

SAGAL: Oh my gosh.

ROXANNE ROBERTS: Another noble person.

SAGAL: So you help people with terminal illnesses.

DOOLITTLE: I do, indeed.

PJ O: We just got to vet these callers.

SAGAL: I know.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm going to have a talk with my screener. This is not good.

ROURKE: No offense, Nick, but we like to have people that we can sort of mildly mock.

DOOLITTLE: Oh I know.

SAGAL: All right, well Nick, welcome to the show. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Carl, what is Nick's topic?

KASELL: That'll learn ya.

SAGAL: This week, we heard a story about the little guy finally scoring some points. Yep, David whipped Goliath's butt. This week, our panelists are going to read you three stories of people fighting back and winning. Choose that true story; you'll win Carl's voice on your home answering machine. Ready to go?

DOOLITTLE: I am ready.

SAGAL: First, let's hear from Charlie Pierce.

CHARLIE PIERCE: The Nyerges of Collier County, Florida have taken revenge for all of us who look at the modern banking system and yearn nostalgically for the pillory and the dunking stool. Five months ago, Bank of American began foreclosure proceedings on the Nyerges, despite the fact that the couple didn't owe one dime on their home. They had paid cash. The Nyerges beat the bank in court and the judge ordered Bank of America to recoup the Nyerges' legal fees. When the bank neglected to pay the bill, the Nyerges foreclosed on the bank.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PIERCE: Sheriff's deputies, moves and the Nyerges' attorney showed up at a Bank of America branch and began to seize computers, desks and whatever cash they could find in the tellers' cages.

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PIERCE: Within an hour, the bank paid the judgment in full.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PIERCE: As a foreclosure attorney, said Todd Allen, who represents the Nyerges, this is sweet justice. Sales of tar and feathers in Collier County remain brisk.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

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SAGAL: A pair of homeowners foreclose on a bank for once. You're next feel good story comes from PJ O'Rourke.

ROURKE: Louisiana restaurateur Bo LeClair is a frequent flier, with all the security hassles that that entails. Plus, he has a six-inch pin in his thigh from an old motorcycle accident that sets off all the whistles and sirens. Bo also happens to own a bar right outside the TSA National Training Center in Shreveport. After a full body search experience that made him late for his plane in New Orleans, Bo advertised free beer at his bar for all TSA personnel. Then, Bo bought a used grocery store checkout counter conveyor belt and a bunch of dirty plastic trays and borrowed a metal detector.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ROURKE: TSA employees were lined up for hours, emptying their pockets, taking off their shoes and going back and forth through a metal detector set to buzz no matter what.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ROURKE: A biker gang was hired to do pat-downs.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

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ROURKE: When the TSA finally made it to the bar, the beer was served only in containers of three ounces.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

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ROURKE: And, said Bo, "I charged them for the peanuts."

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SAGAL: Vengeance taken upon the TSA, as they try to get a beer. Your last story of the little guy finally winning one comes from Roxanne Roberts.

ROBERTS: Jean Kapper was browsing through Martha Stewart's website this spring when she found a recipe for Rocky High Pie. Kapper's own recipe, no doubt about it. The refrigerated concoction was created in 1986 at the University of Colorado by Kapper and her Tri-Delt sorority sisters. They cleaned out the pantry and combined mini marshmallows, bacon, cashews, pineapple chunks, potato chips, chopped Kit Kat bars and Cool Whip in a graham cracker crust.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: "OK, we were stoned, but it was delicious," Kapper told the Denver Post.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: "And it was our invention." The dessert became the sorority's signature dish, which is why Kapper was so cheesed the Stewart claimed it as her own. Her letters of protest were dismissed by Stewart's lawyers with a curt note that recipe ingredients cannot be copyrighted. But Kapper got her revenge last month when she and five Tri-Delts appeared on Rachel Ray's show, where they presented the perky cook with all future rights to the recipe and its new name, the Martha Stewart Stole our Pie pie.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. One of these stories not only was true but gave hope to the huddled masses. Was it from Charlie Pierce, the story of a couple who foreclosed on a bank? From PJ O'Rourke, the story of a bartender who got vengeance on the TSA by making them go through hell to get a drink? Or from Roxanne Roberts, the people whose recipe was stolen by Martha and have now immortalized it with Rachel Ray's own recipe? Which of these is the real story of vengeance in the news?

DOOLITTLE: Those are all very, very tempting, and I greatly enjoyed the TSA story. But I'm going to have to go with the third story.

SAGAL: The third story? Roxanne's story about the pie?

DOOLITTLE: Yeah, I'm going to go with it.

SAGAL: You're committing to that? You're committing to Roxanne's story of the stolen pie?

DOOLITTLE: I'm committing. Yep.

SAGAL: All right. Well, we actually spoke to somebody who was involved in this act of vengeance.

TODD ALLEN: We went to the Bank of America branch to essentially foreclose on them.

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ALLEN: We were prepared to clean the bank out of all their personal property, including the cash in the tellers' drawers.

SAGAL: That was the lawyer for the couple that foreclosed on the Bank of America, Todd Allen of Naples, Florida. As you have no doubt figured out, Roxanne made it up again.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I warn people not to trust her. Sadly, you did. You didn't win our prize. It was obviously Charlie's story that was the true one in this case. On the other hand, to cheer you up, hey, this couple, they got to foreclose on a bank. Isn't that great?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: You did not win our game but you did earn a point for Roxanne for being so convincing. Thank you so much for playing.

DOOLITTLE: Thank you guys, it was my pleasure.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

DOOLITTLE: Bye-bye.

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