Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

3. Fox

  4. Horse

  5. Ground squirrel

  6. Cat

  7. Pig

  8. Dolphin

  9. Wolf

  10. Yak

  11. Cow

  12. Sheep

  13. Elephant

  14. Orangutan

  15. Turtle

  16. Hare

  17. Deer

  18. Gerbil

  19. Frog

  20. Killer whale

  21. Hawk

  22. Guinea pig

  23. Gila monster

  24. Kangaroo

  25. Water buffalo

  a. Porcine

  b. Acrine

  c. Ursine

  d. Butine

  e. Feline

  f. Ovine

  g. Spermophine

  h. Bovine

  i. Cavine

  j. Bosine

  k. Cervine

  l. Rhombomine

  m. Equine

  n. Lupine

  o. Terrapine

  p. Vulpine

  q. Macropodine

  r. Lapine

  s. Proboscine

  t. Columbine

  u. Orcine

  v. Delphine

  w. Bubaline

  x. Pongine

  y. Helodine

  THE PROVERBIAL TRUTH

  You know that “all that glitters isn’t gold,” but there are countless

  other proverbs that you may never have heard. Here are

  some of the BRI’s favorites from around the world.

  If everyone gave one thread, the poor man would have a shirt.

  Russian

  If begging should unfortunately be thy lot, knock at the large gates only.

  Arabian

  No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor.

  Danish

  Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.

  Swedish

  When you’re thirsty it’s too late to think about digging a well.

  Japanese

  To request timidly is to invite refusal.

  Latin

  Slander slays three persons: the speaker, the spoken to, and the spoken of.

  Hebrew

  To take revenge is to sacrifice oneself.

  Congolese

  Who does not discipline his child will later punish himself.

  Persian

  A half-truth is a whole lie.

  Yiddish

  He who marries might be sorry. He who does not will be sorry.

  Czech

  Beware the man who does not talk and the dog that does not bark.

  Portuguese

  To you your religion; to me my religion.

  Muslim

  Those who give have all things; those who withhold have nothing.

  Hindu

  Who gossips to you will gossip of you.

  Turkish

  A wise man changes his mind, a fool never does.

  Spanish

  Who accepts nothing has nothing to return.

  German

  The tongue is but three inches long, yet it can injure a man six feet high.

  Japanese

  He who has not yet reached the opposite shore should not make fun of him who is drowning.

  West African

  What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.

  French

  He who laughs, lasts.

  Norwegian

  IT (PROBABLY) WON’T KILL YOU TO EAT…

  All sorts of “natural” stuff you would never want to eat is consumable by

  humans. You shouldn’t actually do it (you really, really, shouldn’t),

  but, technically, all of these things are edible.

  …Leather. It’s made from the skin of a cow, so it’s actually beef—very, very chewy beef. But don’t think you can just feast on that old motorcycle jacket in the back of the closet—most leather has been treated with dyes and chemicals to make it durable.

  …Raw meat. People all over the world eat it every day. Steak tartare, for example, is a European gourmet dish that consists of spiced raw ground beef. (Lamb tartare is a British version.) And don’t forget Japanese sushi, which often contains raw fish.

  …Sand. You probably eat sand already. Finely ground common silica , or beach sand, is an ingredient in anti-caking agents used in many packaged foods, such as sugar and flour. But it’s a very small amount—too much can scratch your teeth.

  …Paper. As it passes through the body, fiber attracts cholesterol and other unwelcome substances. Fiber exits your body largely intact—in other words, it is not digestible. Most paper is made of wood cellulose, which is fiber. But the bleach that makes paper white, the dye that colors it, and the ink that printers print it with are all toxic to humans.

  …Packing peanuts. Some—but not all—brands are made of highly processed, molded cornstarch. Not only does that make them biodegradable, but technically it makes them edible, too. Chemicals are added, which aren’t good for you, but if you had to eat a mouthful, they would probably taste like a rice cake.

  …Flowers. Botanically speaking, many common vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, are flowers. Other safe-to-eats: dandelions (they’re sweet like honey), carnations (also sweet), mums (tangy), marigolds (like saffron), and sunflowers (like artichokes).

  IRONIC, ISN’T IT?

  There’s nothing like a good dose of irony to put the

  problems of day-to-day life into proper perspective.

  DE-PROGRAMMED

  In July 2008, California didn’t have enough money to pay all state employees, so Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger laid off 10,000 workers. A week later, state controller John Chiang discovered that the money-saving expenditures couldn’t be applied to state payroll records because the system was written in an old computer language called COBOL…and the only state employees who knew how to use it were the ones who had just been fired.

  WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN

  Slate Rock Park in Providence, Rhode Island, commemorates the spot where the state’s founder, Roger Williams, first arrived in 1636. Williams stepped off a boat on the Seekonk River and onto a slate ledge, which was marked with a plaque. In 1877 workers were attempting to expose more of the underground slate to create a larger monument to Williams. They accidentally dynamited the entire piece of slate…and now there’s no slate in Slate Park.

  FAMILY ISSUES

  Attendees of a May 2008 New York concert by the band Ellis Unit got a gift with their $20 admission: a free one-year subscription to the music magazine Blender. The lead singer and guitarist for Ellis Unit is Gus Wenner, son of Jann Wenner, publisher of Blender’s chief rival, Rolling Stone.

  STONE COLD DEAD

  A 77-year-old man went to visit the graves of his parents in the St. Gregoire Cemetery in Buckingham, Quebec, in 2008. For some reason, he decided to rearrange some ornamental rocks around one of the tombstones. Bad idea: The rocks were holding the tombstone in place, and as the man was digging around in the dirt, the tombstone fell, struck him on the head, and killed him.

  KURBY AND KRYSTAL GO TO WHITE CASTLE

  After a year of dating, Kurby and Krystal of London, Kentucky, were married in March 2009. They met when both were employed by the local White Castle fast food restaurant, so they decided to make their wedding White Castle-themed—it was held at “their” White Castle and the cake was shaped like a hamburger. Congratulations to Kurby and Krystal...McDonald.

  SWEET IRONY

  In 2008 a semi-truck overturned at the intersection of Highways 6 and 59 in Texas. Its cargo: sticky-sweet molasses. More than 5,000 gallons of the sugary stuff leaked onto the road, causing road closures and traffic delays into the nearby city of Sugar Land.

  CUTTING REMARK

  Though it’s a very common practice in the United States, some parents choose not to circumcise their newborn boys. In 2009 a co-director of newborn nurseries at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston came out in favor of the procedure in an interview wi
th Men’s Health magazine, saying that its sanitary benefits outweigh fears of surgical complications. His name: Dr. Wang.

  HAMBURGLAR

  In 2008 McDonald’s went on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to solicit amateur musicians’ takes on hip-hop updates of its Big Mac “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese” jingle. One of the finalists—Tamien Bain, who’d finished in fourth place—was disqualified because he’d recently served 12 years in prison…for robbing a McDonald’s restaurant at gunpoint.

  IT’S USUALLY THAT

  “In January 2007, a rotten-egg smell descended on Manhattan for hours, causing several buildings to be evacuated and frightened throngs to wonder if terrorists were attacking the city with gas. Officials later blamed swamp gas from New Jersey.”

  —The Week

  ADVENTUROUS SPIRITS

  Every culture, advanced or primitive, makes some type of alcoholic

  beverage. What they make depends on what ingredients are

  available…which might account for these.

  VINE SNAKE

  WHISKEY. Mescal is traditionally bottled with a worm inside. This concoction goes a step further. The whiskey, made in Thailand, is flavored with a coiled vine snake right inside the bottle. Good news: It’s only mildly venomous.

  CYNAR. Liqueurs are heavily sweetened alcoholic drinks flavored with fruit, nuts, or spices. Cynar is an artichoke-flavored liqueur. It is the same greenish color as a pan of water in which you’ve just cooked your artichokes, and it’s very popular in Italy, its country of origin.

  GRAPPA. It’s a kind of pom-ace , which is a brandy (distilled grape juice) made from the leftovers of winemaking—grape seeds, grape skins, and stalks.

  FERNET. This liqueur is used as medicine in Italy, but in Argentina they drink shots of it. It’s made from many

  different fruits and herbs, including myrrh, aloe, rhubarb, saffron, and grapes. It’s described as tasting like minty charcoal.

  AGWA. The manufacturers promise an “energy boost” with this liqueur, which makes sense because it’s made with coca leaf, which is also what cocaine is made from. But it doesn’t actually contain any cocaine…it’s just flavored to taste like it does.

  PELINKOVAC. Many spirits, such as anisette or Jager-meister, taste like licorice. This Balkan liqueur does, too, only there’s no sugar added, so it tastes like bitter licorice, supposedly like chewing on licorice root.

  ADVOCAAT. Popular in the Netherlands, this is a creamy drink that tastes like pudding and has the consistency of pancake batter. That’s because, like pancake batter, it contains raw egg yolks.

  DUMB CROOKS: SILLY WEAPONS UNIT

  “Give me all your cash or I’ll shoot you with this flip-flop!” rook: Michael Reed of Fort Worth, Texas

  Weapon: A tree branch

  Story: In December 2008, Reed stormed into Eddie’s Fried Chicken, waving the tree branch around, and demanded all the money in the register. But the 50-year-old robber’s branch was no match for a 56-year-old employee’s broom. After a brief battle, Reed was de-branched and ran away empty-handed. He hid in a nearby dumpster and was captured by police a short time later.

  Crook: Karen Lee Joachimi of Lake City, Florida

  Weapon: An electric chain saw

  Story: In 1996 the 20-year-old attempted to rob a Howard Johnson’s. Her chances of success would have been better had she plugged in her chain saw first. She was easily apprehended.

  Crook: A 22-year-old man (unnamed) from Fresno, California

  Weapon: A kielbasa

  Story: The man entered a home in the middle of the night in September 2008 and stole some cash while the residents were asleep. Then for some reason the intruder took a piece of sausage out of the refrigerator, went into the bedroom, and began hitting the sleeping couple with it. They awoke and chased him out of the house. He was easy to find because he’d left his wallet behind.

  Crook: Gelando Olivieri of Deland, Florida

  Weapons: A palm frond and a pair of flip-flops

  Story: In 2009 Olivieri pulled his T-shirt up over his head and entered V and F Discount Beverage. He waved the pointy end of a palm frond at the clerk and repeatedly said, “Give me 50 dollars!” while he tapped the palm frond on the counter and occasionally slapped the clerk’s hand with it. According to witnesses, Olivieri was also brandishing a pair of flip-flops. The robbery was thwarted by another odd weapon when a customer picked up a bar stool and pointed it at Olivieri, who then ran out of the store. He was quickly apprehended.

  Crook: William McMiller of Indianapolis, Indiana

  Weapon: A screwdriver

  Story: In 2006 McMiller walked into a Kentucky Fried Chicken, waited in line, ordered some food, and then told the cashier, “Give me the money before I shoot you.” He reached into his back pocket, as if he were going for a gun, but all he had was a screwdriver. Another customer did have a gun…and pointed it at McMiller until police arrived and took away the screwdriver (and McMiller).

  Crook: An unidentified man from Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Weapon: A Klingon Bat’leth

  Story: In February 2009, the masked man robbed two 7-Eleven stores in one night with a replica of the sword used by the alien race on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Neither clerk was injured because neither tried to fight back, possibly because of the imposing appearance of the curved implement with two sharp blades on each end. Bucking the “dumb crooks” trend, this thief was never caught; police still aren’t sure if his “weapon” was made of metal or plastic.

  Crook: Michael Kaminski of Akron, Ohio

  Weapon: Cheap cologne

  Story: In 2008 Kaminski attempted to rob two men in the parking lot of a video store using a gun-shaped cologne dispenser. Bad move: One of the “victims” was a martial arts expert who easily pinned Kaminski to the ground. Adding insult to injury, the cologne bottle broke and spilled all over Kaminski, who spent a fragrant night in jail.

  “A lot of people think kids say the darnedest things, but so would you if you had no education.”

  —Eugene Mirman

  THE POTTY POLLS, PT. II

  More information on bathroom habits collected by pollsters in the

  United States and around the world. (Part I is on page 168.)

  YOUR TOOTHBRUSH AND YOU

  • 54% of Americans polled in a 2007 survey commissioned by Phillips Sonicare, a brand of electric toothbrushes, said they’d continue to use their toothbrush after dropping it on the bathroom floor. 9% of American men say they’ve reused a toothbrush after dropping it in the toilet.

  • 44% of Americans say they’d be willing to share their toothbrush with their spouse in a pinch; 8% say they’d share with a friend.

  CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO…IMPOSSIBLE

  • 47% of Americans say they clean the bathroom once a week, and 88% say they at least replace the hand towels that often, according to a 2008 study of bathroom habits.

  • Cleaning the toilet is—understandably—one of the least-popular bathroom jobs. According to a 2008 study by S.C. Johnson & Son, makers of Scrubbing Bubbles, 28% of Americans say they’d rather pay bills than clean the toilet, and a third of Americans polled say they put off cleaning it until it starts to look dirty.

  IN THE SHOWER

  • 14% of Americans and Canadians surveyed in 2007 by Grohe, a manufacturer of bathroom products, say they clean the bathtub or shower every time they use it. 20% of Americans and 24% of Canadians say that they clean the shower while taking a shower.

  • 28% of people who sing in the shower say they sing rock ’n’ roll tunes; 19% sing country tunes.

  • Five most popular songs sung in the shower: 1) “Singin’ in the Rain,” 2) “Amazing Grace,” 3) “Splish Splash,” 4) “Hey Jude,” 5) songs the bather makes up. (Uncle John sings “Rubber Duckie.”)

  • 22% of Americans say they’ve showered with another person for amorous purposes. This includes 26% of American men…and only 18% of American wo
men. With Canadians the roles are reversed: 24% of women and only 19% of men.

  • If you could take a shower with anyone in the world, who would it be? Top three shower-worthy female celebrities: 1) Angelina Jolie, 2) Jessica Alba, and 3) Pamela Anderson. Top three males: 1) Brad Pitt, 2) George Clooney, and 3) Johnny Depp. (In Canada, Depp is tied with Mel Gibson.)

  • One third of all Scots surveyed in a 2008 poll said they’d consider sharing a shower or bath with another person “in order to save money.”

  GOING GREEN

  • 91% of Americans say they have modified their bathroom behavior to save water, according to the 2008 survey. Most popular method of conservation: not running the water while brushing teeth—71% of Americans surveyed say they keep the water off.

  • In the same survey, nearly half of respondents say they’ve cut back the amount of time they spend in the shower, and just under a third say they take fewer showers and baths. A similar number said they flush the toilet less often than they used to.