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Mystery Guest

JONATHAN COULTON: This is ASK ME ANOTHER, NPR's hour of puzzles, word games and trivia. I'm Jonathan Colton here with puzzle guru Art Chung. And now, here's your host, Ophira Eisenberg.

(APPLAUSE)

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Thank you, Jonathan. Now, before the break, our contestant Mary won her way to the final round at the end of the show. And we're going to find out who will face off against her a little later. But first, it's time for a game we call Mystery Guest. A stranger is about to come onto the stage. Jonathan Coulton and I have no idea what makes this person special, but puzzle guru Art Chung does. Jonathan and I can only ask yes-or-no questions to try to figure it out. Art Chung, please bring our mystery guest out.

ART CHUNG: Please welcome today's mystery guest, Rebecca McMackin.

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EISENBERG: Hi, Rebecca.

REBECCA MCMACKIN: Hi.

CHUNG: Now, Rebecca works in Brooklyn, and she has hired some temporary workers to help her out with an interesting problem this summer. So, Ophira and Jonathan, you have to figure out who are these workers and what do they do?

EISENBERG: OK.

CHUNG: All right. Ophira, you're first.

EISENBERG: Does - most of the work these temporary workers are doing, is most of it underground?

MCMACKIN: No, it's very far above ground.

COULTON: Are we talking about trees?

MCMACKIN: No, but warmer.

COULTON: Is this a problem with an organic thing, a thing that is growing?

MCMACKIN: Yes.

COULTON: Is it vines or plants of some kind?

MCMACKIN: Yes.

COULTON: Not vines, not trees.

EISENBERG: Bamboo, is it bamboo?

MCMACKIN: No.

EISENBERG: Again, in Brooklyn, what grows in Brooklyn?

COULTON: A tree grows in Brooklyn.

EISENBERG: A tree (unintelligible) Brooklyn. What else grows...

CHUNG: What grows that are problems?

COULTON: Weeds.

EISENBERG: Weeds, dandelions. It's a weed problem.

MCMACKIN: Correct.

COULTON: You have some very tall weeds.

EISENBERG: But they're growing somewhere that is problematic.

MCMACKIN: Yes.

EISENBERG: Oh, are they growing on subway tracks?

MCMACKIN: No.

CHUNG: Yes, Art?

CHUNG: We've also lost the workers issue.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

CHUNG: Who are these workers?

EISENBERG: I don't know.

COULTON: Who are these workers?

EISENBERG: They sound like they come very cheap.

COULTON: Are they...

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: Or are these workers gardeners and weeders?

MCMACKIN: They are weeders, not gardeners.

COULTON: Wait, are the workers even human?

MCMACKIN: No.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: You've hired some animals to do some work for you.

MCMACKIN: Yes.

EISENBERG: Oh, this problem of introducing an animal to fix a problem has never gone wrong.

CHUNG: All right. We're going to - we'll give you each one question to figure it out.

EISENBERG: Oh, no. OK. Are you dealing with animals that will eat a certain kind of weed to deal with the problem?

MCMACKIN: Yes.

EISENBERG: All right.

CHUNG: All right. Jonathan, you want one question and then you guys get one guess.

COULTON: What is the animal?

CHUNG: That's...

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: Yes or no, what is the animal?

CHUNG: That is the question.

COULTON: Is the animal a mammal?

MCMACKIN: Yes.

COULTON: That narrows it down.

EISENBERG: OK.

CHUNG: All right. What's your guess?

EISENBERG: OK. I think that she is hiring - that's an interesting word to use because I don't know what the pay rate is, but you somehow have rodents that are really after a certain kind of weed and you've released them in major thoroughfares in Brooklyn. And they are eating up the weeds, and that's the end of that story.

MCMACKIN: No.

EISENBERG: OK (laughter).

COULTON: You are a rat breeder and your rat hutches are filled with trees and you've hired beavers...

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

COULTON: ...To get rid of all the trees. Do I - am I close?

MCMACKIN: (Laughter) No.

COULTON: No.

CHUNG: All right. So the answer is Rebecca is the horticulture director at Brooklyn Bridge Park, and there is a hill separating the park from the highway that's infested with, yes, weeds. So she's hired some goats to eat the weeds.

EISENBERG: No way. So how much does a goat go for?

MCMACKIN: Only $400 a season.

EISENBERG: You get them for the whole summer.

MCMACKIN: Yes.

EISENBERG: And where are the goats hanging out when they're not working?

MCMACKIN: We have a shed for them.

EISENBERG: And where is that shed?

MCMACKIN: It's top secret.

EISENBERG: Oh, interesting.

COULTON: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: It's, like, basically someone's apartment.

COULTON: Wait, so there's - where are you get - is there a company that you can just rent a goat?

MCMACKIN: There is. There's a very interesting character who has a monopoly on goat rental for the eastern seaboard.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: It's a nice hill covered with weeds. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

EISENBERG: And why did you choose goats?

MCMACKIN: There were a few other options. We could either spray herbicides all over the hill...

EISENBERG: Which we don't want to do.

MCMACKIN: ...Which would be crazy. We're also an organic park and we try to manage the wild areas for migratory birds and pollinators, et cetera, so bad news. We could also do it ourselves and have gardeners climbing all over the berm, but it would be - it's very, very steep. It would be difficult, a lot of work, and we might damage it with our large, human feet. And so, yeah, goats were really the only logical option.

EISENBERG: And how many goats do you have employed?

MCMACKIN: Four.

CHUNG: And they have names, right?

MCMACKIN: Yes. It's Hector (ph), Horatio (ph), Eyebrows (ph) and Minnie (ph).

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

COULTON: I want to meet Eyebrows.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

COULTON: Eyebrows sounds great.

EISENBERG: Yeah, Eyebrows.

COULTON: And when the goats are done, you just - what do you do? Do you just get a bunch - you hire a bunch of lions to come and eat the goats?

(LAUGHTER)

MCMACKIN: They go back to the farm. And then when the weeds regrow, we'll bring them back.

EISENBERG: Oh, so they really have figured out some job security, these goats.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Rebecca, thank you so much for playing our game. Everybody, give it up one more time for Rebecca McMackin.

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