A: A dead ringer
Q: How do vampires travel?
A: By blood vessel
Q: What do you get when you cross a were-wolf with a snowball?
A: Frostbite
TONGUE-TIED PROFESSOR
This is what happens when your brain runs faster than your tongue.
Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930) was Dean of New College in Oxford, England. He was a short albino with a head too big for his body. But it wasn’t his looks that set him apart from others—it was the way he mixed up his words.
He once fumbled a toast to Queen Victoria when he raised his glass and said, “We must drink a toast to our queer old dean.” And during a wedding, Spooner told the groom, “Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride.”
Reverend Spooner made so many memorable tongue-twisting mistakes that the tendency was named after him.
SPOONERISMS
He Meant To Say. . .
But He Said. . .
You have wasted two terms.
“You have tasted two worms.”
Which of us in his heart has not felt a half-formed wish?
“Which of us in his heart has not felt a half-warmed fish?”
Is the dean busy?
“Is the bean dizzy?”
Pardon me Madam, this pew is occupied. May I show you to another seat?
“Mardon me padam, this pie is occupewed. May I sew you to another sheet?”
GERM WARFARE
Watch out! They’re everywhere!
IN THE BATHROOM...
• Every time you flush, water mists into the air and 600,000 bacteria land on everything within six feet of the bowl, including your toothbrush, makeup, hairbrush, and towel.
• Also living in your towels: bacteria and fungus from dead skin.
• One bacteria cell in your loofah can sprout into a billion overnight.
IN THE LIVING ROOM...
• Your couch is crawling with dust mites.
• The household dust on your shelves and coffee table is mostly dead skin.
• Old newspapers are covered in bacteria.
• Watch out for doorknobs and telephones! Danger! Danger! Viruses!
IN THE KITCHEN...
• Your sink is germ heaven. Especially for deadly bacteria like salmonella and campylobacter.
• Use dishtowels once and bacteria begin growing immediately.
• Yersinia bacteria, which causes diarrhea, can be found inside your refrigerator.
• Bacteria from raw meat and unwashed produce live on your cutting board.
IN THE BEDROOM...
• As many as two million dust mites can call one double bed home.
• Dust mites and spiders love the inside of a closet.
• Watch out for your computer keyboard and mouse! Danger! Danger! Viruses!
ON YOUR PETS...
• Dogs can carry salmonella, ticks, fleas, poison oak, and poison ivy.
• Cats can carry parasites like ring worm, roundworm, and toxoplasma.
LUCKY FINDS #2
Some people have all the luck...like these guys.
FOUND: A winning ticket
WHERE: In a cactus tree
THE STORY: Evans Kamande, a 17-year-old Kenyan, was playing in a park in Nairobi when suddenly he had to “go.” So he found a spot—a nearby cactus tree—and noticed a little box stuck in the fork of the plant’s branches. Inside the box: the winning ticket in a treasure hunt sponsored by a local radio station…worth $5,000!
FOUND: A legendary baseball
WHERE: Grandma’s attic
THE STORY: In 1996 a New Jersey kid named Mark Scala told his 87-year-old grandmother that he wanted to be Babe Ruth for a school project. She remembered that her late husband had won a signed Babe Ruth baseball back in 1927 when he made the all-state baseball team. Sure enough, they found the ball in an old box up in her attic and were stunned to find out it was the ball from Babe Ruth’s very first home run in Yankee Stadium. They sold it in 1998 for $126,500.
THE FIND: A precious gem
WHERE: A mine in North Carolina
THE STORY: Ten-year-old Larry Shields was poking through a bucket of dirt that had been thrown away by a commercial gem mine near his home. He found an interesting rock and decided to keep it because he “liked the shape.” Good idea—it turned out to be a 1,061-carat sapphire worth more than $35,000.
THE FIND: A Wendy’s cup worth $200,000
WHERE: In the garbage
THE STORY: A sharp-eyed trash collector named Craig Randall from Peabody, Massachusetts, was loading some garbage into his truck when he spotted a Wendy’s contest cup sticking out of a trash bag. “I won a chicken sandwich the week before,” he said later, “and I figured, hey, I’d get some fries to go with it.” When he peeled off the sticker he found a message that read, “Congratulations. You have won $200,000 towards a new home.”
THE FIND: The Declaration of Independence
WHERE: Inside a picture frame
THE STORY: In 1989 a Philadelphia man paid $4 for a painting at a flea market, just because he liked the frame. As he was removing the picture from the frame, a piece of folded-up paper fell out. It was a copy of the Declaration of Independence, yellowed with age but otherwise in good condition. The man took it to Sotheby’s auction house, where it was found to be one of the original copies from 1776. It sold for a cool $8.14 million.
BABYSITTER TOPS THE CHARTS
Davy Crockett’s niece was only a teenager when she wrote America’s best-known lullaby.
In 1872 a 15-year-old girl named Effie Crockett was babysitting a very fussy baby. Trying to calm him down, Effie sang a tune, using the words to an old nursery rhyme. The song worked like a charm. Later, when Effie was given a banjo for Christmas, she plucked out the melody for her music teacher. He liked it so much he sent her to a music publisher in Boston, who liked it, too. Effie wrote some more verses, the lullaby was published—and it was a hit. Now, more than a hundred years later, babysitters still croon Effie’s tune to restless children:
Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop, When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all.
STRANGE AND SILLY RECORDS
What will they think of next?
LEAPFROGGING: In 1991 fourteen students from Stanford University leapfrogged their way to a new world distance record when they hopped 996 miles—almost the entire length of California. (It took them more than 13 days to do it.)
VW BUG CRAMMING: The record was broken on April 29, 2000, when 25 people in Kremser, Austria, stuffed themselves into a new Volkswagen Beetle.
PILLOW FIGHTING: On September 29, 2004, 2,773 warriors (and their pillows) met in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, for the largest pillow fight in history.
WHOOPEE CUSHIONSITTING: In March 2004, 3,614 people simultaneously sat down on whoopee cushions for the biggest-ever whoopee fart-a-thon.
GROUCHO-ING: On June 2005, the Toukey Junior Rugby Club set a new world record for the largest “Groucho Gathering” when 1,437 members of the team crowded onto Darren Kennedy Field in NSW, Australia wearing Groucho Marx–style glasses, noses, and moustaches.
DID YOU KNOW?
A few odd facts to entertain your friends and family.
• After the Pilgrim ship Mayflower sailed to America, it was taken apart and made into a barn.
• Benjamin Franklin invented the rocking chair.
• A whistle sounds louder just before it rains.
• The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
• Shelby Park, born on February 10, 2001, was the first baby to have her birth broadcast live on the Internet.
• Most lipstick contains fish scales.
• In 1996 the Boy Scouts created the new “Public Relations Skills” merit badge. (It has a cell phone on it.)
• Some women in Costa Rica decorate their hair with chains of glowing fireflies.
•
In Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait, Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
• While it was being developed, the Segway scooter had a top secret code name: Ginger.
• President Andrew Jackson believed the earth was flat.
• Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, never called his wife or mother…because they were both deaf.
ROYAL PIG OUT
If you could eat anything you wanted...
VITELLIUS (AD 15–69). This Roman emperor once served 2,000 fish and 7,000 birds at one single feast. His strangest, most famous dish—called “The Shield of Minerva”—consisted of fish livers mixed with peacock brains, tossed with flamingo tongues and the guts of lamprey eels.
HELIOGABALUS (AD 203–222). Only 14 when he became emperor of Rome, he loved to throw huge feasts. Favorite dishes were made of camel’s heels, small rodents, and powdered glass. He once served 600 roasted ostriches (with brains), and then dropped so many roses from a false ceiling that some guests drowned in the blossoms.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR II (605–562 BC). He built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. But this king had much simpler tastes than the Romans. He ate grass. Why? According to legend, he thought he was a goat.
BODY PARTS
Some famous people didn’t go to their graves with all of their parts. Here’s why.
MISSING BODY PART: Albert Einstein’s brain
FOUND: Under a kitchen sink in Kansas.
HOW IT GOT THERE: Einstein had asked that his friend Dr. Harry Zimmerman examine his brain after he died. So during the autopsy following Einstein’s death in 1955, pathologist Dr. Thomas Harvey removed Einstein’s brain, cut it into 200 pieces, and gave some of it to Zimmerman as Einstein had requested. But Harvey took the rest to his home in Lawrence, Kansas. For the next 40 years, Harvey stored Einstein’s brain in jars filled with formaldehyde under his kitchen sink, occasionally giving out specimens to research scientists. One scientist kept his portion of Einstein’s brain in his refrigerator in a jar marked “Big Al’s Brain.”
MISSING BODY PART: Galileo’s middle finger
FOUND: In an Italian museum
HOW IT GOT THERE: Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who made important discoveries in physics and astronomy. In 1737, nearly a century after his death, Galileo’s body was being moved from a storage closet to a mausoleum, and a nobleman named Anton Francesco Gori cut off three fingers as a souvenir. The middle finger was eventually acquired by the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy. (The other two fingers are in a private collection.)
MISSING BODY PART: Buddha’s teeth
FOUND: In Beijing, China, and Taipei, Taiwan
HOW THEY GOT THERE: Legend has it that two teeth found in Buddha’s cremated remains after his death 2,400 years ago were taken to temples in the Far East.
MISSING BODY PART: Stonewall Jackson’s arm
FOUND: On an old battlefield in Virginia
HOW IT GOT THERE: In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, Confederate general Jackson was accidentally shot by his own troops. A bullet hit his left arm, which then had to be amputated above the elbow. His troops buried the arm in a nearby field, complete with a religious ceremony and a marble tombstone. When Jackson died from complications eight days later, the rest of him was buried in Lexington, Virginia.
GHOSTLY HITCHHIKERS
Here are three good reasons not to pick up hitchhikers.
THE GHOST OF HIGHWAY 48
In South Carolina, worried motorists reported seeing a young girl carrying a suitcase walking along Highway 48. When the drivers offered her a ride, she told them she was going to visit her sick mother in Columbia. She gave them the address and as they got to the outskirts of Columbia, she suddenly disappeared. One couple who picked her up went to the address and described the girl to a man who lived there. He replied that it was his sister and that she had been killed by a hit-and-run driver in the 1950s while walking to visit their sick mother.
NOW YOU SEE HER—NOW YOU DON’T
Frightened bus drivers in Taiwan have refused to drive to a remote village outside of T’ai-nan because of one ghostly girl. Drivers report stopping at a shadowy area near a sugarcane plantation. A young girl gets on the bus but never gets off. She simply vanishes before the bus gets to town.
RESURRECTION MARY
Nearly every year on the anniversary of her death, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl in a flowing dress can be seen standing on the side of Archer Road in Chicago. Some unsuspecting drivers think she’s hitchhiking or in trouble and offer to give her a ride. They report that she gets into the car and says, “I have to go home.” When the car nears the gates to Resurrection Cemetery, she cries, “Here! Stop here!” and simply disappears into thin air. It seems that Mary had been to a dance at the O’Henry Ballroom in the 1930s. When she got in a fight with her boyfriend, she left the dance and started to walk home. On a curve along Archer Road, near Resurrection Cemetery, Mary was killed by a hit-and-run driver. For 75 years, Mary’s ghost has been doomed to wander the dark stretch of road looking for “a ride home.”
THE WHO?
Where do rock bands get those strange names?
LIMP BIZKIT. Singer Fred Durst got the idea from his dog, Biscuit, who has a limp.
SMASH MOUTH. Taken from the slang term football players use for any game with a lot of blocking or tackling.
THIRD EYE BLIND. It’s said that our “third eye” is the imagined one that gives us a sixth sense. The band felt that when it comes to ESP, most humans are blind.
HOOBASTANK was a word the band members invented when they were in high school. They used it as slang to describe everything.
NICKELBACK got their name from bass player Mike Kroeger, who once worked at Starbucks in Vancouver. At the time, most coffee drinks cost $2.95, $3.95, or $4.95. Kroeger got so used to saying, “Here’s your nickel back,” that when the band was trying to come up with a name, all he could think of was the phrase “nickel back.”
THE WHO. The group, first called The High Numbers, was looking for a new name. Every time someone came up with an idea, they jokingly asked, “The who?” Finally a friend said, “Why not just call yourselves ‘The Who’?” So they did.
LIZARD MAN
Erik Sprague loves lizards. In fact, he loves them so much that he has spent almost 650 hours (spread over 10 years) in tattoo parlors, transforming himself into a “lizard man.” Some of the changes: Sprague was one of the first people to have his tongue surgically forked like a lizard’s. Then he had little Teflon balls implanted in his brow. He went on to have his face, eyelids, and most of his body tattooed and pierced to make him look even more lizardlike. Sprague, who was a National Merit Scholar finalist, now tours in his own “freak” show, where he eats fire, swallows swords, gobbles live worms, and shoots darts out of his nose. His plans for the future? A tail implant.
RIDICULOUS RECORDS
LONGEST DISTANCE RUN BACKWARD
In 1984 Arvind Pandya of India ran backward 3,178 miles, from Los Angeles to New York, in 107 days.
FARTHEST SPAGHETTI NOSE BLOW
On December 16, 1998, with a single blow, Kevin Cole of Carlsbad, New Mexico, blew a strand of spaghetti out of his nose for a record distance of 7.5 inches.
BIGGEST BUBBLE GUM BUBBLE
Susan Montgomery Williams claimed her fourth world record for the biggest bubble gum bubble in 1994 when she blew a monster bubble larger than a basketball—23 inches in diameter—with just three pieces of Bubble Yum gum. Williams claimed her first world record for a bubble gum bubble in 1970 when her 19-inch bubble won her a lifetime’s supply of gum.
FASTEST RUMPJUMP
David Fisher of Chicago, Illinois, set a world record in 1998, when he “rumpjumped” 56 times in one minute. What’s a rumpjump? Jumping over a jumprope with only your butt.
TALLEST GOLF BALL TOWER
On October 4, 1998, Don Athey of Bridgeport, Ohio, broke the record for building a golf ba
ll tower when he stacked nine balls on top of each other without using any kind of glue.
GREATEST TONGUE-TIE
On January 26, 1999, Al Gliniecki of Gulf Breeze, Florida, tied 39 cherry stems into knots in a record three minutes…using his tongue.
LONGEST DOMINO SETUP
China’s Ma Li Hua single-handedly set up the greatest number of dominoes ever—303,628 tiles snaked through a massive maze that covered the floor of the Singapore Expo Hall in Singapore. And then, on August 18, 2003, she toppled them. (All but seven of the dominoes fell over.)
MOST GLASSES BALANCED ON CHIN
On April 26, 2001, Ashrita Furman of New York City balanced 75 pint beer glasses on his chin for 10.6 seconds.
BLACK HOLES
We can’t see them. We can’t feel them. But we know they’re there.
WHAT ARE THEY?
The bigger a star, the stronger its force of gravity. When a big star explodes (astronomers call that a supernova), its dust is scattered throughout the universe. All that’s left is a gigantic gravitational force called a black hole.
Uncle John's Creature Feature Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! Page 18