HTDE: The Breakfast Rule

March 4, 2026·23 min·2 clips

A New York Times writer calls his colonoscopy prep a 'diarrhea vacation'—and the hosts react with disbelief.

The rule starts behind the scenes. Ian and Mike bring in Peter Sagal and Lorna White to talk through the small standard that keeps Wait Wait from putting the wrong picture in a listener's head. Lorna is the firewall, or close enough. She gets described as the show's last defense against mistakes that could get them canceled, which everyone handles about as maturely as expected. The whole conversation has that loose, careful feel of people who know exactly where the bad jokes are buried. Then Autumn's calls in, apostrophe and all. Her siblings got normal names. She got the possessive form of a season because her dad apparently decided Autumn Rain was too hippie and Autumn's Hope was somehow less strange. Nobody finds footing right away. Ian and Mike try to work out what a possessive name can possess, and the answer does not get cleaner the longer they sit with it. Mary Norris steps in next. The longtime New Yorker copy editor hears the evidence, stops at the apostrophe, and gives the blunt diagnosis: the name seems like a mistake. Autumn's already knows. That is why it works. The caller is in on it, the editors are baffled, and one tiny mark of punctuation has somehow wrecked the room. Then the breakfast rule returns. Peter and Lorna explain why Nagin's joke stayed off air. The problem was not the premise. The problem was the picture, involving salad in a leafy, multicolored way nobody needs while pouring coffee. By the end, digestion has become the body's editing process. Gross, close enough to true, and a decent explanation for why some jokes die before airtime.

As heard by us

Lorna White, last line of defense, explains what salad and digestion have to do with breakfast radio.

"The Breakfast Rule" is the HTDE episode where Peter Sagal and technical director Lorna White join hosts Ian and Mike to talk through an in-house editing policy.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

The behind-the-scenes reason a salad joke got cut from Wait Wait is funnier than the joke.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!