Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Donald Trump has chirophobia, a fear of shaking hands.

  UNLIKELY BENEFACTORS

  When people die—or even before—they don’t always give their money or assets to their friends and family. Sometimes, often through roundabout circumstances, it ends up in some very unlikely places.

  MARGARET WISE BROWN AND GOODNIGHT MOON

  Margaret Wise Brown wrote more than 100 children’s books. The most famous is Goodnight Moon, a bedtime story in which “goodnight” is said to all the objects in a room. It’s sold 11 million copies, making it one of the most popular children’s books ever. Brown died of an embolism while visiting France in 1952 at the age of 42. Her will gave all royalties from future sales of Good-night Moon (at the time, it had sold only about 3,000 copies) to Albert Clarke, a nine-year-old boy whose family lived in the apartment next-door to hers in New York City. Sales of the book slowly grew, and by the time Clarke got access to his inheritance at age 21, there was $75,000 waiting for him, which he blew on a new car and expensive clothes. His lawyer put him on a weekly allowance, but it was still enough to allow Clarke to wander around the United States, spending the money on drugs, cars, bad real estate deals, and legal fees (he was arrested dozens of times on various charges). Over the past 50 years, Clarke accumulated more than $5 million in royalties from the sales of Goodnight Moon. When a reporter tracked him down in 2000, he had only a few thousand dollars left.

  MARILYN MONROE

  At the time of Monroe’s death in 1962 at age 36, her estate was worth about $1.6 million. She willed it to the two people she trusted most: her acting teacher, Lee Strasberg (75 percent), and her psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris (25 percent). When Kris died in 1980, her portion of the Monroe estate—which had grown substantially in the past two decades due to merchandising Monroe’s image and the enduring popularity of her movies—went to the Anna Freud Centre, a children’s psychiatric research hospital in London. It earns about $500,000 a year from the Monroe estate.

  Some butterflies have ears on their wings.

  IKEA FURNITURE

  Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in Sweden in 1943 as a mail-order consumer goods business and began opening stores a few years later. Today, Kamprad is worth $30 billion. In 1982 he donated his ownership stake in the IKEA stores to a Dutch charity called the Stichting Ingka Foundation, which operates them through a for-profit subsidiary. With annual profits in the billions, the foundation is technically the world’s richest charity. Its goal is to “promote and support innovation in architectural and interior design,” but it distributes less than 1% of its earnings to colleges and other institutions…because it’s not really a charity. The Foundation is run by a five-member board, headed by Kamprad, who still makes millions of dollars each year because the Foundation only owns IKEA stores, not the IKEA trademark or concept (they’re still owned by Kamprad). Every IKEA store in the world pays Kamprad a franchise fee, totaling about $631 million a year. The whole system was set up so that IKEA was protected against a hostile takeover and so Kamprad could pay less in taxes. For example, in 2004 IKEA made a profit of 1.4 billion euros, but paid only 19 million euros in taxes.

  YANKEE STADIUM AND RICE UNIVERSITY

  In 1955 businessman John Cox acquired all the stock of the Yankee Stadium Holding Company, making him the sole owner of Yankee Stadium and allowing him to lease the stadium back to the team at a lucrative rate. Seven years later, Cox died, leaving Yankee Stadium to his alma mater, Rice University in Houston, Texas. In 1971 New York City invoked the right of eminent domain and forced the university to sell them Yankee Stadium for a $2.5 million “condemnation fee.” (The university had a partner: the land under the stadium was owned at the time by the Knights of Columbus. It had been sold to them by its previous owner, John Cox.)

  J. M. BARRIE’S PETER PAN

  In 1929, eight years before he died, Scottish writer J. M. Barrie gave the copyright to his most famous work—his original 1904 stage version of Peter Pan—to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. The millions in royalties they’ve earned since then on productions of the play have enabled the London institution to become England’s top children’s hospital.

  According to statistics, approximately 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year.

  BEDTIME STORIES

  We won’t be offended if you doze off while reading this page.

  • Studies show that 41 percent of people sleep in the fetal position, 28 percent on their side, 13 on their back, 7 on their stomach, and the rest in two or more positions.

  • Mark Twain wrote most of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in bed. Another author who wrote in bed: Robert Louis Stevenson.

  • 64 percent of women sleep on the left side of the bed.

  • King Louis XI of France received visiting dignitaries in his bed, which he called the Bed of Justice. At one point, he owned 413 beds.

  • Tip: The handles on the side of a mattress aren’t for moving it—that stretches it out. The handles are only supposed to be used to rotate or flip the mattress on the box springs.

  • More than 600,000 Americans are injured by beds every year (mostly by falling out of them or bumping their heads on headboards).

  • World record for making a bed: Wendy Wall of Sydney, Australia, made one in 28.2 seconds (1978).

  • Queen and king-size beds weren’t available until the 1950s. The Simmons company invented them in 1958.

  • Sleep experts say that people who sleep on their right side have better digestion.

  • The word “mattress” comes from the Arabic matrah, for “where something is thrown.”

  • Two adults sleeping in a double bed have less personal space than a baby in a crib.

  • Sleep law: in Tallinn, Estonia, couples are not allowed to play chess in bed.

  • 40 percent of men snore, and 30 percent of women do.

  • Now that’s a king-sized bed: the Great Bed of Ware, built in the 1590s in the town of Ware, England. On display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, it measures 10 by 11 feet and could sleep as many as 15 people.

  Hans Christian Andersen died by falling out of bed. (Odds of this happening: one in 2 million.)

  LIFE IMITATES BART

  The Simpsons is loaded with references to cultural moments, historical people, and current events. But occasionally things happen on The Simpsons first…and then they happen in real life.

  ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 2001 episode “HOMR,” Homer Simpson earns extra money as a medical test subject. Doctors discover a crayon that’s been lodged in his brain since childhood and when it’s removed, Homer’s IQ doubles.

  IN REAL LIFE: In August 2007, 59-year-old Margret Wegner of Germany underwent surgery to cure the chronic headaches and nosebleeds she’d suffered since the age of four. Surgeons discovered—and removed—the cause of the problems: a pencil. Wegner remembers how it happened: As a four-year-old child, she was holding a pencil and tripped, jamming the pencil through her cheek and, apparently, into her brain. After the pencil was removed, Wegner’s symptoms instantly disappeared.

  ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 1993 episode “$pringfield,” a casino opens in town. The entertainment there is a flamboyantly dressed German duo named Gunter and Ernst who perform magic and stunts with big cats. Their show ends prematurely when their white tiger Anastasia viciously mauls both Gunter and Ernst.

  IN REAL LIFE: Gunter and Ernst were an obvious parody of the Las Vegas magic-and-animals act Siegfried and Roy. While performing at a Las Vegas casino in 2003, Roy Horn was attacked and bitten on the neck by a white tiger named Montecore. It ruptured several nerves and only after nearly three years of rehabilitation could Horn walk again.

  ON THE SIMPSONS: In “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love” (1992), Homer hungrily drools over a new kind of fast-food hamburger called the “Good Morning Burger.” The recipe: “We take 18 ounces of sizzling ground beef and soak it in rich, creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried
egg.” The joke is that the sandwich is so disgustingly fattening that only Homer Simpson would ever eat it.

  Insignificant, but interesting: 3.8 million pens are purchased by Walt Disney World each year.

  IN REAL LIFE: Turns out that Homer isn’t the only one who’ll eat those monstrosities. Since around 2003, gigantic thousand-plus-calorie burgers have become standard fare on fast-food menus. Wendy’s now offers a burger topped with six pieces of bacon, Burger King has a quadruple-patty bacon cheeseburger, and Carl’s Jr. makes a burger with a half-pound beef patty topped with a quarter pound of sliced prime rib. And in 2008 a New York chain called Good Burger came out with an actual “Good Morning Burger,” topped with a fried egg.

  ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 1995 episode “Barts Sells His Soul,” Bart sells his soul to his friend Milhouse to prove that souls don’t really exist (and to pocket an easy five bucks). Bart has an anxiety attack, fearing that perhaps souls do exist…and that now he doesn’t have one. He tries to get his soul back, only to discover that Milhouse traded it to the Comic Book Guy for Alf pogs.

  IN REAL LIFE: In July 2008, New Zealander Walter Scott put his soul up for sale on TradeMe, an auction Web site. The listing stipulated that the winning buyer would receive a framed certificate of soul ownership, but wouldn’t be able to control Scott in any way. Ultimately, Scott’s soul was sent to Hell. Hell Pizza, a New Zealand chain, bought it for $3,800 directly from Scott after TradeMe cancelled the auction because they thought it was in poor taste. “The soul belongs to Hell. There is simply no better place for it,” a Hell spokesman told reporters.

  ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 1999 episode “They Saved Lisa’s Brain,” Lisa leads a group of intellectuals to take over the city of Springfield. Among the collective is world-famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who tells Homer that “your idea of a donut-shaped universe intrigues me. I may have to steal it.”

  IN REAL LIFE: In May 2008, researchers at Ulm University in Germany announced that after five years of study, they found evidence that the universe is small and finite (56 billion light years wide), in direct contradiction of conventional wisdom, which suggests it’s infinite. More specifically, the scientists say that temperature fluctuations indicate that the universe is round and tubular… or in other words, it’s shaped “like a donut.”

  An African cicada can produce a 106.7-decibel sound—louder than a subway train.

  30 PEOPLE YOU DIDN’T KNOW WERE CANADIAN

  …or did you? If you didn’t, well, now you know.

  1. Paul Anka, singer/composer (“Diana” and “My Way”)

  2. Norma Shearer, Oscar-winning actress (The Divorcée)

  3. Bat Masterson, Old West lawman

  4. Frank Gehry, architect

  5. Fay Wray, star of the original 1933 King Kong

  6. Peter Jennings, ABC news anchor

  7. Christopher Plummer, star of The Sound of Music

  8. Leslie McFarlane, writer of the first Hardy Boys books

  9. Robert Goulet, singer/actor

  10. Lennox Lewis, heavyweight boxing champion

  11. (and 12.) Scott Abbott and Chris Haney, inventors of Trivial Pursuit

  13. Steve Nash, two-time NBA most valuable player

  14. Conrad Bain, played the father on Diff’rent Strokes

  15. Mary Pickford, silent-film actress nicknamed “America’s Sweetheart”

  16. Wolverine, fictional superhero from the X-Men

  17. Tommy Chong, of Cheech and Chong

  18. Art Linkletter, TV host

  19. Kim Cattrall, actress from Sex and the City

  20. Jack Warner, founder of Warner Bros. Studios

  21. Louis B. Mayer, founder of MGM Studios

  22. James Naismith, inventor of basketball

  23. John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy

  24. Seth Rogen, actor/writer (Knocked Up, Superbad)

  25. Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman

  26. Morley Safer, journalist from 60 Minutes

  27. Linda Evangelista, super-model

  28. Frederick Banting, scientist who discovered insulin

  29. Neil Young, rock star

  30. Monty Hall, host of Let’s Make a Deal

  According to experts, there are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible different sudoku boards.

  BUTT…BUTT…

  What’s so funny about that particular part of the human anatomy? We don’t know—it’s one of the mysteries of nature…like the rings around Uranus.

  GOODNIGHT, MOON

  “Utrecht police say a 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a ‘mooning’ that went horribly wrong. The report says a 21-year-old man and two friends were running down a street in Utrecht with their pants pulled down in the back ‘for a joke.’ At one point the man ‘pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant.’ The glass broke and resulted in ‘deep wounds to his derriere.’ Police detained the three men after the incident, but the cafe owner decided not to press charges after the men agreed to pay for the broken window.”

  —Yahoo! News

  OFFICER HANDY

  “A Denver sheriff’s deputy has been slapped with a 45-day suspension for slapping another deputy’s buttocks, which prompted the co-worker to quit. While Deputy Francisco Hernandez reportedly resigned after having his rear-end whacked, attorney Derek Cole called Deputy Bobby Rogers’ subsequent suspension an over-reaction. ‘It’s gross overkill,’ Cole said. ‘It’s like executing somebody for blowing their nose and not washing their hands.’ The incident occurred Aug. 30, 2007, when Hernandez bent to pick up some keys only to be ‘slapped hard on the buttocks’ by Rogers. ‘If you’re going to stick it out, I’m going to hit it,’ Rogers allegedly said after the hit, according to city documents.”

  —United Press International

  In the 1860s, the Kansas Pacific Railroad often stopped to allow passengers to shoot at buffalo.

  TOUCHÉ

  “As revenge attacks go, it was pretty cheeky. A ‘cheating’ husband is having to see 200 photos of his naked bottom plastered on walls, lampposts and bus stops all over his home town. Pasha Cummings believes the posters, which show him posing at a barbecue, are the work of ex-wife Carol—who coincidentally emigrated to Cyprus the day after they appeared. Beneath the ‘glamour shot’ the posters read: ‘Pasha Cummings: lying, cheating, two-timing arse! Sandra Beckworth is no better.’ Cummings recently split with his wife after six years together. He claims he did not start seeing Ms. Beckworth—his boss at the care home where he works—until two months later. But his wife believed otherwise. ‘Carol was very bitter when I left her,’ Cummings said.”

  —The Metro (U.K.)

  TAKE A SEAT FOR ART

  “Stephen Murmer, a popular art teacher at Monacan High School in Virginia, has been placed on administrative leave because of his private ‘artwork.’ Working under the pseudonym ‘Stan Murmur,’ he produced pictures by smearing his undercarriage with paint and then sitting on canvas. Far more than your typical ‘pressed hams’ though, Murmer created images of flowers, including ‘Tulip Butts,’ with higher-end pieces selling for as much as $900. Things seemed to be going fine until an interview of ‘Stan Murmur’ wearing only a Speedo, a fake nose, glasses and a towel on his head found its way onto YouTube. According to Chesterfield County schools, ‘teachers are expected to set an example for students through their personal conduct,’ and apparently painting with your backside is not the example they had in mind.”

  —Washington Post

  KICK START

  “Engineers in Idaho have developed an interesting new device designed to motivate employees—the World Famous Manually Self-Operated Butt-Kicking Machine. Creator J. Reese Leavitt says the Butt-Kicking Machine came out of a brainstorming meeting when he and his co-workers were talking about raising employee productivity. How does it work? Just sit firmly on your fanny, fasten the seat belt, apply pressure, and a size-9 Chuck Taylor shoe will hit your hindquarters. ‘That, by the way, is the most expensiv
e part of the machine,’ said Leavitt. ‘The shoe cost us about $40.’ (The total cost is $250.) Leavitt and his associates plan on renting out the machine for fundraisers.”

  —NBC-5, Dallas

  Area code of Cape Canaveral, where the Space Shuttle launches: 321.

  THE FIRST WAR GAME

  If you’ve ever played Risk, Diplomacy, Axis & Allies, Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, or any other game that lets you conquer the world, here’s the war game that started it all—the most influential game you’ve never heard of.

  INSTANT REPLAY

  For as long as armies have gone to war, there’s been a need to remember lessons learned in battle. The losers want to know what went wrong, so that it doesn’t happen again; the winners want to understand why they won, so that they can repeat their success. But how do you pass these lessons on to the next generation of military officers before they’ve even been in combat?

  Card games and chess have both been played in Europe since the 1500s, and over the centuries numerous attempts were made to use them for strategy games that would teach young officers the lessons of war. But no matter how many variations were tried—replacing the jacks, kings, queens, and aces with captains, majors, colonels, and generals, or giving chess more pieces, more players, or a larger or more varied game board—these attempts never came close to recreating the battlefield experience. Their value as an instructional tool for young officers was limited at best.