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 Peter Grosz, Roxanne Roberts and Paula Poundstone. And here again is your host at the Music Hall in Dallas, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: Thank you. Right now it is time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
AARON DIAZ: Hi, this is Aaron Diaz. I'm calling from Atlanta, Ga.
SAGAL: Hey, Atlanta.
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SAGAL: How are things in Atlanta?
DIAZ: Very warm as of late.
SAGAL: Yes, that's what it will be like, I guess, the Georgian spring. What do you do there?
DIAZ: I'm a Lyft driver.
SAGAL: You are? You're a Lyft driver? That's great. I think I've met a lot of people who seem very happy to do that. What is, can I ask, the worst problem about driving a Lyft? What's, like, the thing people have to watch out for?
DIAZ: Picking up people.
SAGAL: Yes.
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PAULA POUNDSTONE: Did you - have you ever had Trump pull out in front of you in a big truck?
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DIAZ: I believe I have, yes.
SAGAL: Yeah, probably.
POUNDSTONE: Vroom (ph), vroom.
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SAGAL: Well, Aaron, welcome to the show. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Aaron's topic?
KURTIS: Get a job, snake.
SAGAL: Who doesn't love a snake? Everybody, that's who. But that does not mean our parseltongued friends cannot be put to work. This week we read about a snake joining the work force. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's not lying and you will win our prize, the voice of Carl Kasell on your voicemail. You ready to play?
DIAZ: I am, sir.
SAGAL: All right. First let's hear from Peter Grosz.
PETER GROSZ: The area around the city of Hanamaki, Japan has always been a habitat for snakes. And a highly venomous Mamushi snake is feared there much in the same way we fear rattlesnakes. Recently, a local physician, Dr. Hiroyuki Sakai (ph), decided to use fear of the Mamushi snake to his advantage. Dr. Sakai had seen an uptick in obesity in some of his patients and he had been looking for an all natural way for them to lose weight. Well, this week he found it. He decided to scare the hunger out of them.
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GROSZ: Dr. Sakai's method involves asking his patients to identify their favorite unhealthy food and then putting them in a room with a plate of that food laid out on the table sitting next to a deadly Mamushi snake. Then he leaves the room, locks the door, observes what happens. Turns out 100 percent of his patients end up banging on the door and screaming, get me out of here instead of going and taking a bite of food.
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GROSZ: Dr. Sakai told a local TV station, I want my patients to look at fatty desserts or fried fast food and think, these foods are poisoning me. I thought the best way to make that association was with an actual poisonous snake. Forget the Atkins diet. This is the "Clockwork Orange" diet.
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GROSZ: Unconventional as they may be, Dr. Sakai's methods are working. I was skeptical at first, says one patient, but I have lost 20 pounds in one month and I only soiled my pants that first time.
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GROSZ: So far, business is booming. And the good doctor is even setting up a side practice to treat people who have developed a debilitating fear of snakes.
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SAGAL: Snakes used to put people off their food as a diet method. Your next story of a snake finding a good honest job comes from Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: We all know Germans love their spas and massages. Remember when George Bush gave Angela Merkel a shoulder rub? Now a hair salon in Dresden offers a new unusual masseuse, a 4-foot snake. Haar Mode Team owner Frank Doehlen says Monty, a 13-year-old ball python - get it? Monty Python.
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ROBERTS: Is ideal for the job because his body is 90 percent muscle. In nature, pythons kill prey by wrapping and squeezing. But Doehlen says Monty's trained not to strangle his customers.
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ROBERTS: So he curls the snake around their necks and they love it. Quote, "in the beginning, I was a little afraid," said Nadine Knect, "I thought the snake would be cold. But I should say no, it's warm and very pleasant feeling when it pulsates."
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ROBERTS: Monty's in such high demand that he's booked two days a week. Doehlen charges 35 euros for 30-minute sessions, so it's fair to say that at least he's putting the squeeze on his clients.
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SAGAL: In Germany, a snake being used for message therapy - a ball python named Monty, in fact. And your last story of a snake at work comes from Paula Poundstone.
POUNDSTONE: Esquela de Buenos Aires bandleader Ramon Olivera (ph) is also an ophiologist, one who studies snakes. It was this combination of skills that led him to the discovery of the use of small green snakes to clean the spit out of wind instruments.
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POUNDSTONE: Green snakes are harmless nonvenomous snakes and they actually love music, chuckles Olivera in an earlier interview. Before they are full grown, I've they can quickly slither through a piccolo or a tuba. And although they are not absorbant, they work as a squeegie.
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POUNDSTONE: And are more effective at removing saliva from an instrument than a - just shaking an open spit valve. We keep a tank of them in the music room and my students love it. They find it educational and fun. Surprisingly, the green snakes also seem to enjoy the wind and vibrations inside the instruments. A recent incident during a performance involving the mistaken identity of a small emerald tree boa has, however, permanently ended the practice. I just pulled a snake out of the tank as I normally do, says Carlos Rodriguez (ph). I tried to slip it into my trombone just before we began to play, but it wrapped itself around my wrist. I could only scrape it off with my slide in time to play. But then it would not release the slide, and I only had half a range for "Louie Louie."
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SAGAL: All right. Aaron, here are your choices. From Peter Grosz, snakes in Japan used to put people off their bad food habits by scaring them away. From Roxanne, a German spa using snakes for neck massage. And from Paula Poundstone, Chuckles Olivera of Buenos Aires using snakes to clean his band instruments sliding right through. Which of these is the real story of a snake with an honest job?
DIAZ: That's a really tough question.
SAGAL: It is.
DIAZ: I'm going to go with Roxanne's story about the snake at the hair salon.
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SAGAL: The audience here approves. So you've selected Roxanne's story of massage therapist who is in fact a ball python. To find out the correct answer, we spoke to someone, well, familiar with snakes.
TERRY PHILLIP: There's an individual in Germany that has a ball python. He says that he has it trained to massage people's necks.
SAGAL: That was Terry Phillip at the Black Hills Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, S.D., talking about Monty the python, the massage therapist in Germany. He, by the way, is skeptical that the python is really massaging anyone. That's just what it does.
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SAGAL: But you earned a point for Roxanne. Simply for telling the truth, you have won our prize. Carl Kasell will record the greeting on your voicemail, whatever you want it to say. Well done, Aaron. Thank you so much.
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DIAZ: Thank you very much. Have an amazing day.
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