Uncle John’s Briefs

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  So if you’re expecting a future with someone based on the jolt you got when your eyes met—slow down. You’ll have to engage some other part of your brain to find out whether the two of you actually get along.

  A SHOWER OF STATS

  According to surveys, 57% of Americans shower daily, 17% sing in the shower, 4% shower with the lights off, and 3% clean their pets by showering with them.

  Q: Which three ships were boarded during the Boston Tea Party? A: The Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver.

  MYTH AMERICA

  A few things you probably didn’t know about the founding fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution.

  THE MYTH

  The men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were a sober, well-behaved group. They showed up on time, stuck it out ’til the end, and were all business when it came to the important task at hand.

  THE TRUTH

  Not quite. According to historical documents found by researchers at the National Constitution Center in 1992:

  • Nineteen of the 74 people chosen to attend the convention never even showed up. (At least one of them had a good excuse, though—William Blount of New York refused to make the horseback ride to Philadelphia because of hemorrhoids.)

  • Of the 55 who did show up, only 39 signed the document. Twelve people left early, and 4 others refused to sign. “A lot of them ran out of money and had to leave because they were doing a lot of price gouging here,” observes researcher Terry Brent. Besides, he adds, the hot weather and high humidity must have been murder on the delegates, who wore wool breeches and coats. “They must have felt like dying. Independence Hall must have smelled like a cattle barn.”

  • And how did the Founding Fathers unwind during this pivotal moment in our nation’s history? By getting drunk as skunks. One document that survived is the booze bill for a celebration party thrown two days before the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. According to the bill, the 55 people at the party drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 large bowls of alcoholic punch. “These were really huge punch bowls that ducks could swim in,” Brent reports. “The partiers were also serenaded by 16 musicians. They had to be royally drunk—they signed the Constitution on the 17th. On the 16th, they were probably lying somewhere in the streets of Philadelphia.”

  WERE YOU RAISED

  IN A BARN?

  Tell the truth—how are your manners? Maybe you need some help from these old etiquette books. You may not believe it, but these are all real.

  “Although asparagus may be taken in the fingers, don’t take a long drooping stalk, hold it up in the air, and catch the end of it in your mouth like a fish.”

  —Etiquette (1922)

  “Do not move back and forth on your chair. Whoever does that gives the impression of constantly farting or trying to fart.”

  —On Civility in Children (1530)

  “If a dish is distasteful to you, decline it, but make no remarks about it. It is sickening and disgusting to explain at a table how one article makes you sick, or why some other dish has become distasteful to you. I have seen a well-dressed tempting dish go from a table untouched, because one of the company told a most disgusting anecdote about finding vermin served in a similar dish.”

  —Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette (1866)

  “It is not the correct thing to put the spoon or fork so far into the mouth that the bystanders are doubtful of its return to the light.”

  —The Correct Thing in Good Society (1902)

  “No decent person laughs at a funeral.”

  —The Bazar Book of Decorum (1870)

  “When you have blown your nose, you should not open your handkerchief and inspect it, as though pearls or rubies had dropped out of your skull. Such behavior is nauseating and is more likely to lose us the affection of those who love us than to win us the favor of others.”

  —The Book of Manners (1958)

  “Never put your cold, clammy hands on a person, saying, ‘Did you ever know anyone to have such cold hands as mine?’”

  —Manners for Millions (1932)

  The word “arena” is from the Latin word for “sand.”

  “It is unmannerly to fall asleep, as many people do, whilst the company is engaged in conversation. Their conduct shows that they have little respect for their friends and care nothing either for them or their talk. Besides, they are generally obliged to doze in an uncomfortable position, and this nearly always causes them to make unpleasant noises and gestures in their sleep. Often enough they begin to sweat and dribble at the mouth.”

  —The Book of Manners (1958)

  “Peevish temper, cross and frowning faces, and uncomely looks have sometimes been cured in France by sending the child into an octagonal boudoir lined with looking glasses, where, whichever way it turned, it would see the reflection of its own unpleasant features, and be constrained, out of self-respect, to assume a more amiable disposition.”

  —Good Behavior (1876)

  “If you ask the waiter for anything, you will be careful to speak to him gently in the tone of request, and not of command. To speak to a waiter in a driving

  manner will create, among wellbred people, the suspicion that you were sometime a servant yourself, and are putting on airs at the thought of your promotion.”

  —The Perfect Gentleman (1860)

  “It is bad manners, when you see something to nauseate you by the roadside, as sometimes happens, to turn to your companions and point it out to them. Still less should you offer any evil smelling object for others to sniff, as some people do, insisting upon holding it up to their noses and asking them to smell how horrible it is.”

  —The Book of Manners (1958)

  “When not practicable for individuals to occupy separate beds, the persons should be of about the same age, and in good health. Numerous cases have occurred where healthy, robust children have ‘dwindled away’ and died within a few months, from sleeping with old people.”

  —The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser (1876)

  “Applause is out of order at any religious service.”

  —Your Best Foot Forward (1955)

  Song played by the Titanic band while the ship sank: “Nearer My God to Thee.”

  WHO WANTS TO

  MARRY A MILLIONAIRE?

  Trying to cash in on the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the “we’ll-try-anything” Fox Network came up with this concept for a reality show, easily one of TV’s darkest hours. (Two hours, actually.)

  THE CONCEPT

  Quite possibly the most degrading and humiliating moment in network television history—for contestants and viewers—Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire was exactly what the show’s title suggested: a chance to marry a millionaire live on TV. Fifty eligible females vied to win the hand of a mystery millionaire, who had supposedly been chosen from a pool of more than 100 millionaire bachelors—all of whom presumably would have been willing to marry a “nobody,” only moments after meeting them for the first time, on national TV.

  WHO WANTS TO MARRY A STRANGER?

  The mysterious future husband would remain hidden behind a screen, quizzing his potential mates-for-life as they strutted across the stage in swimsuits, wedding gowns, and other attire. Then, after nearly two hours of edge-of-your-seat suspense, he would step out, reveal his true identity, and marry his chosen bride on the spot. The show was kind of like a high-stakes “till-death-us-do-part” Dating Game…only with better prizes: The bride got a $35,000 engagement ring, a Caribbean cruise honeymoon, and an Isuzu Trooper. Estimated value: $100,000. The husband didn’t get quite as much, but it didn’t matter—after all, he was a multi-millionaire.

  Religious leaders condemned the show for undermining the institution of marriage, but Fox went ahead with it anyway…and on February 15, 2000, more than 23 million people tuned in to watch real estate developer Rick Rockwell, 42
, step out from behind the screen to choose Darva Conger, 34, a Gulf War veteran and emergency room nurse, as his bride.

  Singing cowboy Gene Autry is the only entertainer with five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one in each category: movies, recording, radio, TV, and theater.

  THE MORNING AFTER

  The Rockwell-Conger union wasn’t exactly love at first sight; many viewers found their first kiss almost too creepy to bear, and things got worse after that. They slept in separate rooms during their “honeymoon” cruise, and within a week of returning to port, Conger was in Las Vegas seeking a quickie annulment.

  By then, Rockwell’s Prince Charming image was taking quite a beating. The Smoking Gun website revealed that in 1991 a judge had issued a restraining order against Rockwell after his ex-fiancée accused him of hitting and threatening to kill her. (Rockwell denied hitting her.)

  That was just the beginning—it turned out that Rockwell wasn’t a millionaire real estate developer after all; he was a stand-up comedian and occasional motivational speaker with a lot less than the $2 million in assets he was supposed to have to qualify for the show. The Vancouver Province newspaper quoted real estate agents who described him as a “flake” and a “loser whose only investment property is a low-end condo that leaks.”

  As for Conger, it turns out that she wasn’t what she claimed to be, either. She wasn’t a Gulf War veteran—she spent the entire war stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. “You can’t call yourself a Gulf War veteran if you’ve never been to the Gulf,” retired army colonel Daniel Smith explained to reporters.

  CASHING IN…AND CASHING OUT

  A judge annulled the marriage on April 5, 2000; by that time, Conger and Rockwell both were well on their way to making the most—financially, at least—of their brush with fame. Conger, who donated her $35,000 engagement ring to charity, signed a deal to pose in Playboy for an estimated $500,000. She later launched her own website, www.darvashouse.com. As for Rick Rockwell, his once-sleepy comedy show suddenly sold out all over the country.

  About the only people involved who didn’t cash in were the folks at Fox—as soon as the network learned of Rockwell’s restraining order, it cancelled its scheduled rebroadcast of the show and later announced it was abandoning its entire lineup of upcoming “exploitative reality specials,” including Plastic Surgery Nightmares, Busted on the Job 5, and The World’s Biggest Bitches.

  “They’re gone,” a spokesperson told reporters. “They’re over.”

  I APOLOGIZE

  With our sincerest regrets, we’re very sorry to bring you this collection of some of the funniest and strangest apologies ever uttered.

  “We apologize for the error in last week’s paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce.”

  —Ely Standard (U.K.)

  “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week.”

  —Harry Whittington, Washington lawyer, after Dick Cheney shot him in the face

  “In previous issues of this newspaper, we may have given the impression that the people of France were snail swallowing, garlic munching surrender-monkeys whose women never bother to shave their armpits. We now realise that the French football team can stop the Portuguese from getting to the World Cup Final. We apologise profusely to France. Vive la France!”

  —Daily Star (U.K.), after France beat the U.K.’s rival, Portugal, in the 2006 World Cup semifinals

  “I am so terribly sorry for urinating outside of a public place in your city. It was not a very intelligent thing to do.”

  —a man charged with public urination in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where all offenders now have to write letters of public apology

  “I’m sorry I bet on baseball.”

  —Pete Rose, written on 300 baseballs that he then sold at $1,000 each

  “Oh, goodness, I regret it, it was a mistake! I’m solely responsible for it, and I’m very, very sorry. It was a mistake, I was wrong, it’s my fault, and I’m very, very sorry to hurt anyone.”

  —Sen. George Allen (R–VA), after referring to an Indian-American constituent as a “macaca”

  “We ate everything but his boots.”

  —part of an apology from the Navatusila tribe of Fiji, who killed and ate a British missionary in 1867, to the missionary’s descendants

  First people to use sails on their ships: the ancient Phoenicians (around 2000 B.C.).

  WRONG WAY CORRIGAN

  While rummaging through our “Dustbin of History” file recently, we discovered the story of this colorful character. He snookered his way into the hearts of people on both sides of the Atlantic by heading in the wrong direction and ending up in the right place.

  THAT’S MY STORY… On the foggy morning of July 17, 1938, a 31-year-old pilot named Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field on a solo, nonstop trip to California. Twenty-eight hours later, he landed in Ireland…with a lot of explaining to do. He had no passport or papers of any kind, nor had he received permission from U.S. officials to make the transatlantic flight.

  Safely on the ground, Corrigan offered this explanation to Irish customs: Heavy fog in New York had forced him to navigate using only his compass. The fog continued all that day and into the night; there was never good visibility. When the sun rose the next morning—26 hours into his flight—he was surprised to find himself over an ocean. Taking a closer look at his compass, Corrigan realized he’d been following the wrong end of the needle—heading due east instead of west! But by now he was almost out of fuel; he couldn’t turn around. His only hope was to continue east and hope to reach land before he ran out of gas. Two hours later he saw fishing boats off a rocky coast and knew he was safe. From there, he made his way to Baldonnel Airport in Dublin. His first words upon exiting the plane: “Just got in from New York. Where am I?”

  …AND I’M STICKING TO IT!

  He repeated the story to the American ambassador and then to Ireland’s prime minister. By this third telling—to the Irish cabinet—the European and American press had got wind of the story and ran with it. When he got to the part about misreading his compass, the cabinet ministers all laughed and Corrigan knew that things would work out. Ireland graciously sent him home without penalty.

  When he got back to New York, Corrigan was amazed to find out he’d become a folk hero. In the bleak days of the Great Depression, Corrigan’s achievement and amusing explanation lifted people’s spirits. Over a million well-wishers turned out for a ticker-tape parade in his honor (more than had turned out to honor Charles Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight). The New York Post even ran a backward headline that read “!NAGIRROC YAW GNORW OT LIAH!” (“Hail To Wrong Way Corrigan!”).

  The first Allied bomb dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

  THE TRUTH

  So what really happened? It’s no secret that Corrigan’s dream was to fly solo across the Atlantic. He got his start in the airplane business in 1927 working for the company that built Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Corrigan helped assemble the wing and install the instrument panel on the famous plane. His greatest honor was meeting Lindbergh. (“Even more than if I had met Abraham Lincoln himself!”) After Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight in 1927, Corrigan vowed to follow in his footsteps.

  He spent the early 1930s barnstorming the country, landing near small towns and charging for airplane rides to pay for gas. In 1933 he bought a secondhand Curtiss Robin J-6 monoplane for $310, which he named Sunshine, and began overhauling it for a trip across the ocean. In 1936 and again in 1937, Federal Aviation officials denied Corrigan’s requests to attempt the Atlantic flight.

  So it’s unlikely that when Corrigan took off from New York in 1938, he didn’t know where he was going. Not only was he an accomplished pilot and navigator who had a history o
f flying without the proper paperwork, but he’d been working 10 straight years toward his dream of flying nonstop to Europe. Wrong Way Corrigan knew one end of a compass from the other.

  COME ON, JUST ADMIT IT

  For the rest of his life (he died in 1995), people tried to get Corrigan to come clean—but he never did, not even in his autobiography. In 1988 Corrigan took Sunshine on a national tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his famous flight. He was continually asked the same question: “Were you really trying to fly to California?” “Sure,” he answered. “Well, at least I’ve told that story so many times that now I believe it myself.”

  Seattle drivers spend an average 59 hours per year stuck in traffic.

  FAMILY REUNIONS

  You know how strange it seems when you find out you have an unexpected connection to someone. But what if the person were closely related to you? These stories are almost too weird for words, but they’re all true.

  WHO: James Austin and Yvette Richardson, brother and sister

  SEPARATION: When James was seven months old and Yvette was three, their father and mother separated. The father took James; the mother took Yvette. That was the last time the siblings saw or heard of each other.

  TOGETHER AGAIN: James went to school in Philadelphia and got a job at the main post office. He worked the 4 p.m. shift, along with 4,100 other people. One day in 1995, he was talking to his shop steward, Barrie Bowens, about his life. As the Boston Globe reported: