Are You Sh*tting Me?: 1,004 Facts That Will Scare the Crap Out of You

by Cary McNeal

  FACT 209 In Japan, one American dollar will score you a tuna eyeball for lunch.

  FACT 210 Some Asian cultures are fond of dried lizards, which are used to flavor soup and for medicinal purposes.

  FACT 211 Khash is a Farsi word meaning “head and hoof” and is also the name of an Armenian dish made with—you guessed it—the head, feet, and stomach of cows.

  FACT 212 Rich in protein, chapulines (grasshoppers) are a favorite snack in Oaxaca, Mexico.

  FACT 213 Uncooked chapulines are dangerous to eat, as they can carry roundworms.

  FACT 214 Steeped snake wine is made by pickling a poisonous snake in a large jar of rice wine. The snake’s venom is rendered harmless by the wine’s high alcohol content.

  FACT 215 Camel meat is a delicacy in the Middle East.

  FACT 216 The camel hump is the most tender and fatty part of the animal, making it the sought-after part to eat.

  FACT 217 Chef and food writer Anissa Helou tried camel hump in Abu Dhabi and describes its taste as a “cross between beef and lamb. It was from a baby camel—older camels will taste dry and tough.”

  FACT 218 A delicacy in Mexico, chinicuiles are caterpillar worms harvested from the roots of maguey and agave plants. Their meat is protein-rich and highly nutritious.

  FACT 219 Pani ca’ meusa, or bread with spleen, is a specialty of Sicilian street food vendors. The sandwich is made of cheese, lemon, and deep-fried veal spleen.

  FACT 220 Hasma is a Chinese dessert ingredient made from the tissue surrounding the fallopian tubes of frogs.

  FACT 221 If you ever say to yourself, “Ya know, I’m really craving some pork butthole right now,” get yourself to Namibia, where unwashed, lightly cooked warthog anus is a delicacy. Just don’t forget your toothbrush.

  FACT 222 A traditional favorite in Greenland, kiviak is made by stuffing the carcass of a seal with dead birds and burying it in the spring or summer. At Christmas, the fermented meat is dug up so holiday revelers can bite off the birds’ heads and suck out the jellied guts.

  FACT 223 Indonesia is home to the cobra burger, which isn’t just a catchy name: it’s made with real cobra meat.

  FACT 224 Many Taiwanese consider consuming cobra eggs and embryos good for your health.

  FACT 225 In Japan, consuming frog is thought to improve virility.

  FACT 226 Penises of animals such as dogs, donkeys, and oxen are routinely consumed in China, as they are thought to have medicinal properties.

  FACT 227 If you’ve ever wondered what a scorpion might taste like, visit southern China, where the fearsome arthropod is routinely eaten fried or in soup.

  FACT 228 If you’re offered a “pinkie” to eat in Asia, know that you’re getting a baby mouse or rat that’s been deep-fried or grilled whole.

  FACT 229 In Madagascar, poachers illegally kill endangered lemurs and sell the bodies to restaurants as “luxury bush meat.”

  FACT 230 Diners who order frog sashimi in Japan are offered the chance to eat the still-beating heart of the creature.

  OLD JOKE: WHAT’S THE difference between boogers and broccoli? Kids won’t eat broccoli. Neither will some adults, which makes me wonder if they eat boogers, too. Actually, they do, as you are about to discover. I discovered it for myself on the Tube in London last year when I saw an attractive, well-dressed woman absentmindedly pick her nose and then eat it. I’m guessing she was a tourist who couldn’t face another English dinner, so she decided to snack on the train. Bless.

  FACT 231 The technical name for using one’s finger to pick boogers is rhinotillexis. As opposed to using your toes, which has no technical name but is one hell of a trick.

  FACT 232 The act of eating the boogers is called mucophagy.

  FACT 233 About 70 percent of people admit to picking their nose; 30 percent of those confess to eating the boogers they pick. Everyone else sticks them under the chair or on the bathroom wall.

  FACT 234 The average person picks his nose five times every hour.

  FACT 235 Boogers are green because they are rich in iron.

  FACT 236 The color of your boogers can be a clue to your health. Green or yellow boogers indicate illness. Black boogers are heavy with dust and dirt. Orange boogers mean you eat too many Cheetos.

  FACT 237 Red or brown boogers contain blood, which could mean you’re picking too hard or too frequently.

  FACT 238 One Austrian lung specialist, Dr. Friedrich Bischinger, has gained notoriety by recommending that kids eat their boogers to help strengthen their immune systems.

  FACT 239 Bischinger recommends that you use fingers for nose-picking because “you can get to places you just can’t reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.” Never shake hands with this man.

  FACT 240 Other medical professionals counter that inserting germ-covered fingers into the nose is a bad idea, as it introduces more bacteria into the body.

  FACT 241 Bacteria thrive in the warm, moist atmosphere of the nose, where they can cause infection and illness.

  FACT 242 Your body produces about a quart of snot every day, most of which is swallowed. The rest of it is hocked up by baseball players during games.

  FACT 243 The purpose of snot, or mucus in the nose, is to protect the lungs by trapping particles we inhale, such as dust, dirt, pollen, and smoke.

  FACT 244 If foreign particles reach the lungs, they can cause irritation and possibly infection, as well as breathing difficulty.

  FACT 245 Cilia, or hairs inside the nose, work in tandem with snot to move trapped particles to the front of the nose or back of the throat.

  FACT 246 Boogers are formed when snot and trapped debris clump together.

  FACT 247 Sneezes leave the body at nearly a hundred miles per hour.

  FACT 248 Every sneeze helps us by expelling thousands of germs, including bacteria and viruses, from our bodies.

  FACT 249 Stifling a sneeze can cause middle and inner ear damage, including a ruptured eardrum.

  FACT 250 Snot is disgusting, but it serves an important purpose: to flush germs from the body before they can spread. We get stuffy when we have colds because the body produces extra snot to fight the illness.

  FACT 251 When you cry, your nose runs because your tears drain through tear ducts that empty into your nose, mixing with the mucus already there.

  FACT 252 When you breathe in cold air, the blood vessels inside your nose dilate, warming the air and producing more mucus, creating a runny nose.

  FACT 253 Colds are the most common illness among children and typically last about a week.

  FACT 254 On average, preschool-age children have about nine colds per year, while adolescents and adults have about seven colds per year. Lucky kindergartners average twelve colds per year.

  FACT 255 The face fly lives on farm animals and feeds on boogers, tears, spit, poop, and blood.

  FACT 256 In 2008, a UK man died from a nosebleed brought on by his compulsive nose-picking habit.

  YOU’VE HEARD THE WORD schadenfreude, right? The literal translation from German is “harm joy,” but the word means to take satisfaction at the misfortunes of others. It’s not usually a nice thing to do, but when it comes to idiots who try to break the law but fail miserably and hilariously, I will make an exception. In other words, laugh it up! But be afraid, too—these people walk among us.

  FACT 257 In May 2013, two identity thieves were arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after posting photos of themselves on Instagram enjoying a fancy steak dinner on their victim’s dime. The picture was used as evidence in court to identify the thieves.

  FACT 258 In 2008, Joseph Goetz’s attempt to rob a bank fell apart after the first teller f
ainted and the next two didn’t have any cash in their drawers. Goetz left in a fury, promising to write an angry letter to the bank for bad service.

  FACT 259 In 2008, two men in Sydney, Australia, were arrested and one was hospitalized after attempting to rob a nightclub during a monthly bikers’ meeting. Oops. The would-be robbers were beaten by dozens of bikers until police arrived.

  FACT 260 An Augusta, Georgia, man was arrested for forgery in 2007 after he tried to open a bank account with a $1 million bill—a bill that doesn’t exist.

  FACT 261 A Marin County, California, man was arrested in 2009 for driving a stolen car to court—while he was on trial for stealing another car! The thief was caught after courthouse bystanders noticed that dogs had been left in the vehicle on a hot day and alerted police.

  FACT 262 In 2008, an Ontario, Canada, man telephoned a local convenience store to ask how much money was in the register. When the would-be robber arrived at the store, police were waiting and arrested him.

  FACT 263 Polish author Krystian Bala was convicted in 2007 of murdering a man in Wrocław in 2000. Bala might have gotten away with it had he not written a novel in 2003 that was eerily similar to the unsolved case, tipping police to investigate.

  FACT 264 The expression sent up the river, which means “going to jail,” dates back to the 1800s when criminals were sent up the Hudson River to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.

  FACT 265 In 2007, a robbery suspect in Denton, Texas, spent ten hours in a narrow drainage pipe after getting stuck there while trying to hide from pursuing police.

  FACT 266 Did you hear the one about the hit-and-run driver who was caught after leaving his false teeth at the scene of a crash? It’s not a joke; it happened in Sacramento, California, in 2011.

  FACT 267 In 2004, ninety-two-year-old J. L. Hunter Rountree became the oldest person in U.S. history to be convicted of bank robbery. Rountree was sentenced to twelve years in prison for robbing a Texas bank.

  FACT 268 If you want to get caught robbing a bank, just write your holdup note on the back of one of your own checks or deposit slips. It happens about forty-five times a year in the United States, according to the FBI.

  FACT 269 A man claiming to have a bomb burst into a radio station in Wanganui, New Zealand, in 1996 and demanded that the DJ play “The Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog.

  FACT 270 Like beef? So do two Spring Valley, California, geniuses who pilfered a commercial freezer in 1996. Unfortunately for them, the freezer belonged to an animal hospital, and the “meat” they stole wasn’t steak and chicken but the frozen corpses of cats and dogs.

  FACT 271 In 1993, convicted serial killer Randy Kraft filed a $60 million libel lawsuit against publishers of a book about his crime spree. He argued that Angel of Darkness portrayed him as a “sick, twisted” man “without any moral values.” Kraft had been convicted for the sexual torture murders of sixteen men, though authorities believe he may have been involved in more killings.

  FACT 272 In 2007, a Woodland, California, dentist lost his license and was charged with sexual battery after he was accused of fondling the breasts of twenty-seven female patients. The dentist claimed that the fondling was an approved treatment for jaw problems until authorities noted that he performed it only on women, not men.

  FACT 273 A Grapevine, Texas, man was arrested in 2008 for impersonating an undercover cop after he pulled over cars using police lights and showed drivers a Chipotle gift card with the word police scratched into it as a badge.

  FACT 274 Two men in Filyro, Greece, were busted in 2007 after turning a Greek Orthodox nunnery into a pot farm. The men pretended to be gardeners, volunteering to help the nuns with their grounds.

  FACT 275 In Slidell, Louisiana, a group of Krispy Kreme Doughnut truck thieves was caught in 2002 when police followed a trail of doughnuts to the perpetrators, who didn’t realize that their “loot” was falling out of the vehicle’s open back door. Krispy Kreme Doughnut trail—that’s like the bat signal for cops.

  FACT 276 When two New Jersey women were caught shoplifting in October 2013, they fled the store and left behind not only the stolen goods but also an eight-month-old infant. The women were caught in the parking lot and arrested for theft, child endangerment, and possession of heroin.

  FACT 277 Two men fleeing police in a high-speed chase in March 2010 abandoned their car and jumped a high fence, which—unfortunately for the men—was around a women’s prison, where they were caught and arrested.

  FACT 278 Bank employees in Fort Worth, Texas, became suspicious in 2008 when a man tried to cash a personal check to start a record business. Perhaps it was the amount of the check that clued them in: $360 billion. The man was arrested for forgery.

  FACT 279 Here’s a tip, job seekers: don’t apply for work at a store using your real name and address if you’re going to rob the place. That’s what an Ocala, Florida, man did in July 2013. He didn’t get the job, but he did get arrested for burglary and theft.

  FACT 280 When a Murfreesboro, Tennessee, man called police in August 2013 to report the theft of his safe, he also told them what was inside the missing safe: a large amount of marijuana and drug money. That’s when the police told him that he was under arrest.

  FACT 281 Minutes after being released from jail on another charge in August 2013, a Chandler, Arizona, man stole an ambulance from a police station parking lot because he didn’t want to walk home. He was quickly located by GPS and returned to jail, where his bed was likely still warm.

  FACT 282 Investigators believe that thieves who broke into a Hooters restaurant in San Diego in 2013 stole the jukebox because they mistook it for an ATM. They likely realized their mistake when they tried to make a withdrawal and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” started playing.

  FACT 283 Police in Cassatt, South Carolina, were able to catch a convenience store burglar in July 2013 by following a trail of Cheetos to his home.

  FACT 284 In March 2013, a Jonesboro, Arkansas, woman suspected of DUI was arrested when she tried to flee police on a battery-powered toy truck after crashing her car.

  FACT 285 A convenience store robber in Euless, Texas, was busted in 2005 after leaving his wallet at the scene of the crime. Police didn’t even have to track the man: they just called and told him he could pick up his wallet at the police station’s lost and found. The man showed up and was immediately arrested. Said one officer, “We don’t even have a lost and found.”

  IF YOU ARE ONE of these people who believe that humans are inherently good, I’m about to challenge that notion. I’m no misanthrope, but the methods we’ve invented to hurt each other over the centuries are just plain barbaric and evil. I’m not saying some of the victims didn’t deserve it, but damn, what happened to good old simple execution? Couldn’t all that creativity have been used in more productive ways, like making an Internet that doesn’t go out when I’m on a book deadline?

  FACT 286 Used during the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648), rat torture involved trapping rats under a bowl on a prisoner’s stomach, then heating the bowl’s exterior to force the rats to eat through the victim’s flesh to try to escape.

  FACT 287 Victims of the iron chair were strapped into a chair covered in iron spikes, then pulled slowly tighter into the chair until the spikes pierced their skin. Fires could also be lit underneath the chair to encourage cooperation or make the execution more interesting.

  FACT 288 The breast ripper (also called the iron spider) used clawlike iron tongs—often blazing hot—to rip a female victim’s breasts from her body.

  FACT 289 Popularized in sixteenth-century Bavaria, the breast ripper was used on women charged with adultery, blasphemy, self-abortion, or witchcraft.

  FACT 290 Crocodile tongs had jagged, teeth-like edges and were used to clamp onto a victim�
��s penis and pull his flesh apart.

  FACT 291 Republican marriage, in which a naked man and woman were tied together and drowned, was an alleged form of execution during France’s Reign of Terror.

  FACT 292 Used in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, the breaking wheel featured victims “tied to a large wooden wheel, which was rotated slowly while the executioner struck down on their limbs with an iron bar or hammer, breaking the bones.”

  FACT 293 Breaking wheel torture was usually carried out in public, and victims’ broken bodies were left on display afterward. Those who didn’t die during the torture would suffer for days before dying of dehydration or shock.