Uncle John's Electrifying Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  • Hospitals often have no room 13.

  • Many cities don’t have a 13th St.

  • The lotteries in France, Italy, and many other countries never sell tickets with the number 13.

  • Many athletes refuse to wear 13 on their jerseys.

  • 13 is the death card in a tarot deck.

  • There are 13 witches in a coven.

  • Airlines skip the 13th row of seating.

  13 People = Bad Luck for Hindus

  Hindus have long believed that it is unlucky for 13 people to gather anywhere.

  13 at the Last Supper = Bad Luck for Christians

  For Christians, the number 13 also brings bad luck. The superstition stems from the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot became the 13th guest to sit at the table. Judas later betrayed Jesus, leading to his crucifixion. To this day, it is considered very bad luck for 13 people to sit down for dinner together. It is believed that one of the dinner guests will die within the year.

  Just like teenagers: House cats spend about 70% of their day sleeping and 15% grooming.

  XIII = Bad Luck for Romans

  Ancient Romans also believed the number 13 was bad luck. They associated it with death and misfortune. Why? There were 12 months in a year and 12 hours in a day (according to the Roman clock), so 13 was seen as a violation of the natural cycle.

  Unlucky Apollo 13

  Apollo 13’s mission lifted off at 13 minutes past the 13th hour on 4/11/70 (4 + 1 + 1 + 7 + 0 = 13) from Pad #39 (39 = 3 x 13). On April 13, an oxygen tank exploded, almost killing the three astronauts inside.

  Friggatriskaidekaphobia (Fear of Friday the 13th)

  Why is Friday so feared? Some people say it’s because Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden on a Friday. Others say it’s because Noah’s flood started on a Friday. Whatever the reason, fear of Friday the 13th is one of the most widespread superstitions of all. Some people won’t go to work on that day. Others won’t eat in restaurants or drive. Many wouldn’t think of setting a wedding on that date. But too bad for those people—the 13th is more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day of the week.

  Lucky 13: The Great Seal of the United States has 13 stars, 13 stripes, 13 olives 13 arrows, and 13 letters in the motto. Why? To honor the original 13 colonies.

  EARTHQUAKE!

  Earthquakes are among the most destructive forces on Earth because they can cause the most damage in the least amount of time. Even more than your brother.

  FEELING SHAKY?

  Don’t get up now, but there’s a 100% chance that an earthquake is going to register somewhere in the world while you’re reading this page. That’s because there are about a million earthquakes per year—about one every 30 seconds. You probably won’t even feel it, though: humans feel only about 60,000 earthquakes a year—about one every 10 minutes somewhere on the planet. And most of these don’t do any damage at all.

  The average earthquake lasts less than a second, but the most damaging ones, called great earthquakes, can last for as long as several minutes. Fortunately, there’s only about one of these a year.

  TIDAL WAVE!

  Earthquakes can also cause huge high-speed waves known as tsunamis (soo-NAM-mee), or tidal waves. (Volcanic eruptions can also cause these.)

  When an earthquake occurs somewhere beneath the ocean, the ocean floor shifts, creating a huge ripple in the water. This ripple spreads out in a circle, at speeds up to 600 miles per hour. Because the ocean is so deep, the ripple is barely noticeable…at first. But as the ripple nears the shallows and the shore, a wall of water is pushed upward, creating a devastating tsunami.

  Because they appear with hardly any warning, tsunamis have wreaked havoc on coastal communities for centuries. Today they can be detected by satellites, which gives local authorities time to evacuate people in danger. But just in case you’re alone on a secluded beach, here’s nature’s warning sign: If the ocean’s water level drops drastically in a very short period of time, get to high ground as fast as you can. A tsunami is coming!

  THE BIG ONE OF ’64

  Many people think the earthquake capital of the U.S. is California, but it’s actually Alaska. More quakes occur there per year than in the rest of the country combined.

  America’s strongest and largest recorded earthquake rocked the southwest coast of Alaska on March 27, 1964. Earthquake waves swept through the land at more than 7,000 miles per hour. Buildings, bridges, and roads crumbled. Railroad tracks bobbed up and down, hurling trains into the air. In some areas, the earth dropped 35 feet, in others it rose 50 feet. Even thousands of miles away, the ground was affected—NASA noted that it lifted 2 to 4 inches in Florida and in Texas.

  Tsunamis caused by the great Alaskan quake swamped at least 68 fishing boats, and crashed into the shores of Canada and Hawaii. Amazingly, in all this devastation, only about 115 people died. The reason? Few people lived in Alaska in 1964.

  There are more than 600 active volcanoes on Earth. At least 80 of them are in the ocean.

  HAUNTED SUMMER

  The original Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t from a movie or a comic book, it was a character created by a teenage author named Mary Shelley…more than 180 years ago.

  IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

  Lightning flashed outside the huge mansion on Lake Geneva as rain pelted the windows like thousands of hands hammering to get in. The four friends at Lord Byron’s manor moved closer to the fireplace. Was there nothing they could do to stop this endless rain?

  It was the summer of 1816. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his fiancée, 19-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft, were on holiday in Switzerland. But they hadn’t seen the sun since their arrival. They were going stir-crazy.

  A NOVEL IDEA

  On this particular night, Mary and Percy were visiting their neighbor, 28-year-old Lord Byron and his friend, Dr. Polidori. As the storm raged outside, they entertained each other by reading ghost stories aloud.

  Then Byron closed his book, and as lightning lit the room, he whispered, “I have an idea. We shall each write a ghost story.” They agreed to retire to their rooms and see who could write the most frightening story.

  The storm raged on. They toiled away, but it was harder than they thought. Because they were all poets, writing stories of horror did not come naturally to them. That night, Mary tossed and turned in her sleep. She was determined to come up with the best story—one which “would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror.” Yet she couldn’t come up with anything.

  Q: What do you call someone who studies caves? A: A speleologist.

  The next morning, the group shared their results. Byron had the start of a story about a man who returns from the dead. Percy had written a story that they all agreed was forgettable. Dr. Polidori’s tale was a genuine spine-tingler called “The Vampyre.” The main character, Lord Ruthven, was “a jaded, charismatic nobleman who must feed upon the blood of the living in order to continue his unnatural existence.” (Years later, Polidori’s character was adapted into a play, a novel, and then a movie: Dracula.)

  Mary was the only one who hadn’t come up with anything. Days passed. Every morning, her companions asked, “Have you thought of a story?” And each morning, she “was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.”

  A FLASH OF INSPIRATION

  One evening Mary sat by the fireplace, listening to her husband and Lord Byron talk about the possibility of reanimating a corpse with electricity, giving it what they called “vital warmth.” The discussion came to an end well after midnight, and Percy went off to bed. But Mary couldn’t sleep.

  “When I placed my head upon the pillow,” she recalled, “I did not sleep, nor could I think.” Her imagination led her into a dream world filled with pictures of a pale young man kneeling beside a strange device he had built. The hideous shape of a dead body was stretched out on an operating table before him. Then she saw the corpse, under the power of some strange engine, jerk and shudder back to li
fe. This “horrid thing” then stood up and looked at his creator with “yellow, watery eyes.”

  There are 2 television sets per person in the United States—the highest ratio in the world.

  Mary sat up in terror. She looked around the room for something to reassure her that it was only a dream, but she couldn’t shake the image of the hideous creature. That was when she realized her vision was, in fact, the story she’d been searching for.

  Every known living thing has a two-part Latin name. Yours is Homo sapiens (“wise man”).

  “I have found it!” she thought. “What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the specter which haunted my midnight pillow.” The next day, Mary announced to the group that she had finally thought of a story. It was called Frankenstein.

  THE HORROR CONTINUES

  The first version was just a short story, but after they were married, Percy encouraged Mary to develop it further, and she eventually turned it into a novel. It was published anonymously in three parts in 1818.

  “Mary,” notes one modern critic, “did not think it important enough to sign her name to the book. And since her husband wrote the book’s preface, people assumed he had written the rest of the book as well.… It was not until a later edition of Frankenstein that the book was revealed as the work of a young girl.”

  ***

  CREATURE FEATURES

  More than 60 movies have been based on Mary Shelley’s creation. Here are a few of the odder titles:

  • Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)

  • Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1965)

  • I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)

  • Frankenstein General Hospital 1988)

  • Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1973)

  • Frankenstein’s Great-Aunt Tillie (1983)

  Pikachu is Japanese for “electric mouse.”

  WHERE’S THE JOHN?

  Uncle John used to be a little sensitive about bathrooms being called johns. But he got over it. Turns out that there are a lot of other names for the bathroom. Here are a few of our favorites.

  A JOHN BY ANY OTHER NAME…

  The Restroom

  The Loo

  The WC

  The Head

  The Potty

  The Comfort

  Station

  The Water Closet

  The Latrine

  The Little Boys’ (or Girls’) Room

  The Can

  The Throne

  The Biffy

  The Necessary

  The Lav

  NAMES ON PUBLIC RESTROOM DOORS:

  Men and Women

  Pointers and Setters

  Guys and Dolls

  Johns and Janes

  Jacks and Jills

  Knights and Dames

  Combs and Brushes

  Lads and Lassies

  His and Hers

  Bucks and Does

  Kane and Wahini (it’s Hawaiian)

  Buoys and Gulls

  OTHER WAYS OF SAYING YOU HAVE TO GO

  I have to…

  “shake a leaf.”

  “see a man about a horse.”

  “powder my nose.”

  “water the garden.”

  “strain the potatoes.”

  “catch a mouse.”

  “drop the kids off in the pool.”

  In the U.S., one pound of potato chips costs 200 times more than one pound of potatoes.

  A SLICE OF LIFE

  Here is Uncle John’s history of one of the best foods ever invented—pizza.

  PIE’S THE LIMIT

  The ancient Greeks were the most accomplished bakers of the ancient world. They made a variety of breads topped with spices, herbs, and vegetables. These concoctions—a kind of “edible plate”—were the first pizzas. How did pizza become Italian? The Greeks occupied part of Italy for six centuries, and one of the things they brought with them was pizza.

  Early pizzas featured cheese, herbs, vegetables, and fish or meat—but no tomatoes. Tomatoes, a New World food, didn’t reach Italy until the mid-1500s and didn’t become popular until the 1800s because some people believed they were poisonous.

  CREATING THE CLASSIC PIZZA

  In 1889 King Umberto and Queen Margherita of Italy visited Naples and wanted to sample the most popular local food, which was pizza. They sent word to Chef Raffaele Esposito, and he brought them a local favorite, pizza alla mozzarella (toppings: tomato, basil, and mozzarella cheese).

  Why he chose those particular ingredients is unknown. Some historians say he wanted to make a pizza in the colors of the Italian flag—red, white, and green. But whatever the reason, the queen loved it. She sent him a thank-you note and he returned the compliment by dedicating the pizza alla mozzarella to her and renaming it Pizza Margherita in her honor. It is considered the classic by pizza chefs and is still called Pizza Margherita. One more thing makes that particular pizza a classic: it’s the first-known pizza delivery.

  Egg-straordinary fact: Bird species outnumber mammal species 2 to 1.

  PIZZA IN THE NEW WORLD

  • The first American pizzeria was opened in New York’s Little Italy in 1905.

  • By the early 1920s, pizzerias were popping up all over the American Northeast, but pizza was still considered an exotic food.

  • American soldiers returning from Italy after World War II spread pizza’s popularity throughout the United States. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that it became a fad. One possible reason: In the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass, Warren Beatty asks a waitress, “Hey, what is pizza?” Before that, most Americans had never heard of it.

  • Pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping nationwide; anchovies are the least favorite.

  • Today Americans eat more than 30 million slices of pizza a day—or 350 slices a second—and spend $25 billion a year on it.

  Alicia Silverstone began her acting career in a Domino’s Pizza commercial.

  COOKING WITH UNCLE JOHN

  You’ll love this recipe. We brought it all the way from Transylvania. (Don’t fang us now—you can fang us later.)

  VANT A DRINK?

  FAKE BLOOD

  Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

  • 1 tablespoon water

  • 2 to 4 drops red food coloring

  • 3 pinches cornstarch

  • 2 pinches cocoa

  Recipe: Place the corn syrup into a cup and add the spoonful of water. Stir with a toothpick. Then add the drops of red food coloring and stir it again. Pour the mixture into a plastic bag and add the pinches of cornstarch and cocoa. Seal the bag and squish it all together. Voilà! You’ve made blood fit for a vampire!

  Want to pretend you’re Dracula? Drip some of your new fake blood out of the corner of your mouth. Want to fake out your mom? Drip some of it under your nostril and tell her your nose is bleeding. Warning: This blood, like real blood, will stain clothes and carpeting. So it’s best to use it outside.

  About half of the world’s rainforests are in Brazil.

  OLD R.I.P.

  If you’re ever in Eastland, Texas, be sure to visit the Eastland County Courthouse. It is the final resting place of Old Rip, the most famous horned lizard in the world.

  LEAPLN’ LIZARDS

  Old Rip’s story begins back in 1897. In those days, people used to say a horned lizard could live for 100 years without food or water. A local kid named Will Woods wanted to know if that was true.

  About that time, the town was building a new courthouse. During the ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone, Justice of the Peace Ernest Woods (Will’s dad) placed a Bible, a newspaper, and a few other mementos into the cornerstone. Then, as a sort of joke, Mr. Woods dropped in a horned lizard that Will had found out in the desert. The stone was sealed and the courthouse built on top of it.

  A VERY LONG NAP

  Thirty-one years went by. Then, in 1928, the townspeople decided they needed a new cour
thouse. Just as they were getting ready to tear the old building down, some people remembered the horned lizard sealed into it three decades before. Could the lizard still be alive?

  On the day of the demolition, 3,000 people showed up to watch the opening of the horned lizard’s tomb. He was still there, but he was as flat as a piece of cardboard and covered in dust.

  Sliced bread was first introduced in 1930. (It was Wonder Bread.)

  IT’S ALI-I-I-I-VE

  The county judge grabbed the lifeless creature by the leg and held him high in the air for all to see. To the crowd’s astonishment, the lizard’s other leg suddenly quivered. Then the lizard’s body inflated as it took a big gulp of air. That was its first breath of fresh air in 31 years!

  The average life span of a horned lizard is about seven years. But somehow this one had gone into hibernation. People quickly named the lizard “Old Rip,” after the legendary Rip Van Winkle, the man who slept for 20 years.

  DEAD AGAIN

  Old Rip instantly became famous. People wanted to see this creature that had managed to live without food or water for 31 years. Old Rip went on tour. He even visited the White House and met President Coolidge.

  Old Rip lived for another year. When he died, the town had him stuffed and put into a little casket lined with velvet.

  And there he remained until 1962, when Governor John Connally stopped in Eastland on his reelection campaign tour. Unfortunately, at one rally, Governor Connally held Old Rip up in the air for the crowd to see…and dropped him, snapping off one of Rip’s legs.

  Today, Old Rip, minus one leg, lies in his casket in a glass case in the courthouse lobby. If you are ever in Eastland, stop by and say, “Howdy, Old Rip!”

  Peeee-eeew! Osphresiophobia is the fear of body odors.