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 Paula Poundstone, Adam Felber and Amy Dickinson. And here again is your host at the Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, N.Y., Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. It's 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.
DAVID FINNEGAN: Hello, Peter. This is David Finnegan.
SAGAL: Hey, David. Where are you calling from?
FINNEGAN: South Bristol, N.Y.
SAGAL: South Bristol, N.Y.
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SAGAL: I'm guessing that's local?
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FINNEGAN: Uh-huh, yeah, about 30 miles due south, a little further.
SAGAL: I see. Well, welcome to our show. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is David's topic?
KURTIS: I want my 56 bucks back.
SAGAL: There are plenty of ways to waste $56 - going out to eat instead of cooking at home, becoming a member of your local public radio station...
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SAGAL: ...Donating to the Green Party candidate for president.
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SAGAL: This week, we read about a new way you could blow exactly $56 and not get your money's worth. Our panel is going to tell you about it. Pick the real one, you'll win our prize, Carl Kasell's priceless voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
FINNEGAN: Yes.
SAGAL: All right, first let's hear from Adam Felber.
ADAM FELBER: There's a new set of leaks this election cycle. And they can be yours if you navigate your way to trumpyleaks.org (ph). The website promises to sell you any one of Donald Trump's three big secrets - his plan to defeat ISIS, his plan to replace Obamacare and his new international trade deal. Each secret is priced at 17.97, which the site says, quote, "is the last time we had a decent president - sad."
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FELBER: You can also get all three for 56 bucks, saving $3. We took the liberty of purchasing all three, and they arrived in large envelopes marked top secret. And when you open them, spoiler alert, you find index cards that read, respectively, something terrific, something fantastic and not going to be a problem.
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FELBER: TrumpyLeaks' founder, Taylor Wherley, says your contribution also gives you a code for exclusive access to TrumpyLeaks online forums where those in on the secrets can discuss them openly and, quote, "speak from their hearts or their minds or their wherever."
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SAGAL: Trumpyleaks.org, for 56 bucks you learn all of the candidate's secrets. Your next story of somebody wasting $56 comes from Amy Dickinson.
AMY DICKINSON: Boozehounds suffering from hangovers and women with PMS all know that the best cure for, well, everything is to stick your head into a bag of greasy, salty potato chips. Here in Rochester, people might prefer shoveling Wise brand chips into their chip holes. But in Sweden, a beer maker has created a potato super chip that is almost too special to eat.
For a little more than $11, St. Erik's Brewery is selling its extra special potato chips. Now, you might think that $11 is a lot to pay for chips, but for these chips you will pay $11 per chip. The box of five cost 56 bucks. Once you open your special box of five chips, you will see that each single potato chip is nestled into its own cubby hole eliminating, crumbs at the bottom of the box and also joy.
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DICKINSON: And what makes this chip so special? The spokesman says, (imitating Swedish accent) it took a delicate - how's Swedish accent?
FELBER: (Imitating Swedish accent) It took a delicate...
DICKINSON: (Imitating Swedish accent) It took a delicate touch, a finely honed sense of taste and time to ensure that each chips would achieve a perfect balance between ingredients.
Was that Swedish?
FELBER: More or less.
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SAGAL: Fifty-six dollars for a bag of exactly five potato chips. Your last story, $56 down the tube, comes from Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: While many newspapers struggle to stay alive, the Yard Monitor is an ambitious, weekly, typically four-page school paper published at McArthur Elementary School in Hollywood Hills, Fla. How do they do it? A year's subscription costs a whopping $56. My third grade son, Whitney, writes for the paper. He covers sports. So naturally, I want to support the paper, but $56? His last article drilled down on the addition of squat thrusts to the PE calisthenics program. It was a paragraph, says parent Jenna Owen. Parents are choking on the subscription fee. But the school claims it's the bare minimum price required to churn out such captivating headlines as, "Cardboard Acorns Tacked Up On Main Hallway Bulletin Board."
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POUNDSTONE: Tough investigative journalism producing articles like, "Greg Grinow Lands On The Principal's Couch Again"...
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POUNDSTONE: ...Is not cheap. It involves minutes upon minutes interviewing witnesses and victims of yet another malicious wet paper towel on the ceiling incident. The halls still buzz daily with discussion of the article, "Carrot Sticks: A Healthy Snack Or A Menacing Cafeteria Projectile?"
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SAGAL: These are your choices.
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SAGAL: One of these things costs $56, and people don't think it's worth it. From Adam Felber, trumpyleaks.org, which will send you the details of all of Trump's elaborate plans for his vast success, for 56 bucks. From Amy Dickinson, 56 bucks for five brilliant, Swedish potato chips, the best you've ever had. And Paula Poundstone, $56 for a subscription to an elementary school newspaper that really is not exactly all the news that's fit to print. Which of these is the real story of $56, perhaps, unwisely spent?
FINNEGAN: Well, I think they're all probably unwise. But I'm going to have to go with Amy and the potato chips.
SAGAL: You're going to choose Amy and the potato chips.
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SAGAL: Well, to bring you the truth, we spoke to a reporter familiar with the real story.
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TIM NUDD: They do look like Pringles. Something tells me they're a little bit nicer tasting. They're some seriously fancy chips.
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SAGAL: That was Adweek's Tim Nudd on the world's most expensive potato chip. Congratulations, David. You got it right.
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SAGAL: You've won our prize and a point goes to Amy just for telling the truth. You've won our prize, Carl Kasell recording a greeting on your voicemail. Well done, Sir.
FINNEGAN: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Thank you for playing with us today and hello from all your neighbors.
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UNIDENTIFIED ARTIST: (Singing) Too much of a good thing is what she wants. But she can't see too much of a good thing is going to be the end of me now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.