Read Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
A page of stories that will clear the room
.
R
AN OUT OF GAS
In 1996 six police cruisers in Edmonton, Alberta, descended on an armored car and forced it to the side of the road. The driver had been opening and closing his door—which the police assumed was a signal for help. It wasn’t. He was simply airing out the cab of the truck because of his partner’s…emissions.
CAN’T BLAME THE DOG ANYMORE
In 2006 a company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, introduced underwear for dogs (“thong design”) with a charcoal filter to neutralize the offending odor of dog farts.
HE SHOULD GET HAZARD PAY
Goran Andervass of Stockholm, Sweden, won an unfair-dismissal lawsuit against his former employer, the Swedish bank Riksbanken, and was awarded the equivalent of $100,000. Court papers said that Andervass verbally abused a co-worker after being “provoked by a disgusting fart—a right stinker—at 7:30 a.m. in my office.” He’d complained to a supervisor, but the colleague “would neither admit nor confirm that he farted.” Unable to cope with the controversy that followed, Andervass took an extended leave—and was then fired. As a result of the lawsuit, employees at the bank were warned about “farting too obviously near others.”
HATE YOUR JOB? IT COULD BE WORSE!
In
Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra-Strength Bathroom Reader
(published in 2000), we told you about Dr. Michael Levitt, a Minneapolis-based gastroenterologist who invented a breath test to determine a person’s propensity for flatulence. In October 2003,
Popular Science
magazine compiled a list of the “Worst Jobs in Science.” Included on that list: Dr. Levitt’s employees (“flatus odor judges”). Their job is to feed test subjects pinto beans, collect the gas that results using plastic tubing, and sniff them—as many as 100 a day—to determine the strength of the farts.
Arctic Circle is the name of a street in Santa Claus, Indiana.
We were driven to write this page on unusual cars
.
P
HILION ROAD CARRIAGE:
One of the oldest American automobiles, patented in 1892 by showman Achille Philion. It had a 2-cylinder, 1 horsepower, steam-powered engine; had a movable steering wheel (it could go on the front or back of the car); and could reach 8 mph. The chauffeur sat in the back to maintain the steam boiler. Only one was built: It was a big hit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Want to see it? It appeared in the 1942 Orson Welles film,
The Magnificent Ambersons
, and now resides at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
AWZ P70:
This East German car looked like the typical boxy Euro-sedan from the 1950s, but the “P” in AWZ P70 stood for “plastic”—that’s what the body was made of (there was a steel embargo imposed on Soviet Bloc countries). Today it’s not unusual for cars to be made of plastic, but the P70 was one of the world’s first. (Another early plastic car: the 1953 Chevy Corvette.)
S-CARGO:
Escargot
is French for “snail,” and that’s what this Nissan car/van looked like, with a tiny hood and a large, bubble-shaped body. (Nissan claimed S-Cargo stood for “small cargo.”) Available only in Japan, about 12,000 sold between 1989 and 1992.
DYMAXION:
The brainchild of R. Buckminster Fuller,
Dymaxion
stood for “dynamic, maximum, and tension.” This 3-wheeled, bullet-shaped car was 20 feet long, had a Ford V-8 engine driving the two front wheels, and was steered via the single rear wheel, which allowed it to turn on a dime. It had room for 11 passengers and could travel at a top speed of about 120 mph, getting an unheard-of 25 to 30 mpg. And it had a periscope…instead of a rear window. A test run of the prototype at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair resulted in a rollover, killing the driver. The crash was blamed on the steering, but many say another vehicle caused it. In any case, financial backers pulled out, and only three cars were built in 1933 and 1934. Just one exists today.
Estimated weight of Egypt’s Great Pyramid: 6,648,000 tons.
People of the world, rest easy: We’ve discovered proof that your tax dollars are being well spent
.
T
he
Hindustan Times
reported in 2005 that the city of New Delhi employs 97 paid rat-catchers. What’s odd about that? They haven’t caught a single rat since 1994. (And, according to the
Times
, there are a
lot
of rats in New Delhi.)
• In October 2005, the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $36,300 grant to the state of Kentucky. Purpose of the grant: to prevent terrorists from using bingo halls to raise money.
• Father Anthony Sutch had to call an electrician to change four lightbulbs on the 40-foot ceiling of St. Benet’s Church in Suffolk, England. In the past he used a local firm to do it and paid them £200 ($370), which he thought was pretty steep to change four bulbs. But government safety regulations now prohibit the workers from using a ladder—they have to erect scaffolding instead. Result: In 2005 the church spent £1,300 ($2,450) to change the bulbs.
• In 2003 Congress agreed to subsidize the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, a salmon industry trade organization. The AFMB used the money to paint an Alaska Airlines 737 jet to look like a salmon (the jet’s nickname: “Salmon-Thirty-Salmon”). Cost: $500,000. The subsidy was proposed by Sen. Ted Stevens, whose son, Ben Stevens, happens to be the chairman of the AFMB.
• The Youth Outreach Unit of Blue Springs, Missouri (population: 48,000) received $273,000 to combat teenage “goth” culture.
• In 1981 the U.S. Army spent $6,000 in federal funds to create a 17-page manual for government agencies on how to properly select and purchase a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.
• What did the U.S. government spend $24.5 billion on in 2003? Nobody knows. According to the General Accounting Office, that’s how much the federal government couldn’t account for that year.
Why did the U.S. Treasury start printing paper money in 1862? There was a coin shortage.
Hungry for inspiration? Then tack one of these inspiring quotes to your refrigerator
.
“Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. Believe the answer will come. It will.”
—
Norman Vincent Peale
“Within each of us is a hidden store of determination—determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost.”
—
Roger Dawson
“Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own back yard, if you but dig for them.”
—
Russell H. Conwell
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
—
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them.”
—
Charles Caleb Colton
“Never, never, never give up.”
—
Winston Churchill
“To live long and achieve happiness, cultivate the art of radiating happiness.”
—
Malcolm Forbes
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
—
Helen Keller
“It may be that those who do most, dream most.”
—
Stephen Butler Leacock
“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read.”
—
Mark Twain
“What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?”
—
Dr. Robert Schuller
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
—
Dr. Seuss
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”
—
James Dean
Hindu holy days begin at sunrise, Jewish holy days at sunset, and Christian holy days at midnight.
Some classic brain challenges. (Answers on
page 519
.)
1.
Without being called, they come at night. Without being stolen, they are lost in the day.
What are they?
2.
Two legs have I, and this will confound: Only at rest do they touch the ground.
Who am I?
3.
I went to the woods. That’s where I got it. I brought it home with me because I couldn’t find it.
What is it?
4.
Although I am served, You do not want me. But once you have me, You don’t want to lose me.
What am I?
5.
I lose a head in the morning, but get it back at night.
What am I?
6.
Neither bus nor train, nor cab, nor plane, I transport you once and then never again.
What am I?
7.
I have seven letters: The first two stand for a boy. The first three stand for a girl. The first four are a brave boy. The first six are addictive. But all of my letters together stand for a brave girl.
What am I?
8.
Stand and I disappear. Sit and I reappear.
What am I?
9.
I know what my job is, The point has been made. You say I have a big head? It’s true, I’m afraid. What I need most Is to be driven home. So put me in my place And then leave me alone.
What am I?
10.
Try to keep me, because if you lose me, those around you will lose theirs as well.
What am I?
11.
I do not breathe, yet I run. I do not eat, yet I sleep. I do not drink, yet I swim. I do not think, yet I grow. I cannot see you, but you see me every day.
What am I?
12.
Large as mountains, small as peas, endlessly swimming in waterless seas.
Who are they?
Ready for Jurassic Park? In 2005, scientists found soft tissue—blood vessels—from a T. rex.
Is it a fact that some people live a lot longer than the rest of us? Sometimes it is…and sometimes it isn’t
.
T
HE 100+ CLUB
Humans are living longer than ever—average life spans are greater now than at any other time in recorded history. In the United States alone, there are more than 50,000 people over 100 years of age. Centenarians are the fastest-growing age group in America, projected to top 800,000 by 2050. But there have always been tales of places around the world where people have commonly lived uncommonly long lives, unmarred by disease and full of vigor—even in eras when the average human life span was only 30 or 40 years. One of the most popular tales is that of the Hunza, who live in the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush.
THEY’RE PUTTING YOU HUNZA
Living in a secluded region between towering peaks in the Karakorum Mountains, the people of the Hunza Valley of northern Pakistan have been left to themselves for centuries. In their isolation, they have farmed their terraced fields and enjoyed lives of enviable tranquillity. Throughout central Asia, the
Hunzakut
, as they call themselves, are legendary for their good health. Many Hunza elders claim to be well over 100 years of age, a feat they credit to the simple lives they lead: a diet of fresh vegetables, fruits (including plenty of apricots), nuts, and grains, with very little meat and almost no sugar; plenty of exercise climbing up and down the steep slopes of their valley; respect and veneration traditionally given to the elderly; and a good sense of humor.
The Hunza also lack something that is missing in many under-developed regions of the world that claim to have large numbers of people living to age 120 and beyond: no pesky
birth certificates
to contradict wildly exaggerated claims of longevity. The “myth of the Hunza”—and it is only a myth—was helped along in the 1940s and again in the 1970s when westerners visited the region and passed along tales of locals claiming to be well over 100 years of age without having any way of verifying whether they were true. Subsequent scientific research has demonstrated the claims were false—thanks to poor diet and even poorer access to medical care, the life expectancy of the Hunza people is actually
lower
than that of the United States. The same has been true with other regions that claim extraordinary longevity, including Vilcabamba, in southern Ecuador, and the people of the Caucasus mountains of Georgia, a former republic of the Soviet Union.
It runs hot and cold: Iceland is home to 120 glaciers…and over 100 volcanoes.
RESPECT YOUR ELDERS
What motivates people in some traditional societies to exaggerate their ages so dramatically? Illiteracy and underdevelopment are often factors—accurate birth and death records are not kept, leaving people with little education to guess at their true ages. And in societies where the elderly are held in great esteem and the oldest person in the village occupies a position of especially high status, the temptation to exaggerate one’s age can be overwhelming. It’s also not unheard of for people in traditional societies, the Hunza included, to award themselves what are in effect “extra credit” years for life experience. A 57-year-old Hunza farmer who thinks he’s seen a lot in life, for example, might tack on as many as 70 extra years for accumulated wisdom and claim an age of 127.