Uncle John's Electrifying Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible—it’s made from grape skins.

  THE GREAT MOLASSES FLOOD

  Here’s the story of one of the most unusual—and messiest—disasters in U.S. history.

  PRETTY SWEET

  Have you ever tasted molasses? Made from sugar cane, it’s the stuff they use to make brown sugar brown. It’s also an ingredient in baked beans, candy, and even animal feed. And when mixed with water and allowed to ferment, it becomes an alcoholic beverage called rum. In its pure form, molasses is a very sweet, very dark, and very thick liquid—not as thick as peanut butter, but a lot thicker than honey. And it’s very, very sticky.

  In 1919 the United States Industrial Alcohol Company kept an enormous molasses storage tank in downtown Boston, near the waterfront. The tank was large enough to hold 2.5 million gallons, and on the morning of January 15, 1919, the tank was full.

  STICKY SITUATION

  What started out as a normal day in Boston turned into disaster shortly after noon. People heard a low rumbling sound, followed by a huge crash—the sound of the huge tank bursting open. In seconds all 2.5 million gallons of that gooey molasses suddenly poured out onto the street.

  World population in 1000 A.D.: 300 million. World population in 2003 A.D.: 6.3 billion.

  If you’ve ever been knocked over by a wave at the beach, try to imagine what it would have been like if that wave had been 15 feet tall, made of something thick and sticky like honey or pancake syrup, and was coming toward you at 35 miles per hour. That’s what it was like that afternoon in the neighborhood next to the tank: people heard the crash and looked up to see a huge wave of dark, sticky goo racing toward them, making what witnesses described as a “horrible, hissing, sucking sound” as it destroyed everything in its path.

  GOO-TASTROPHY

  When the tank burst, pieces of it went flying everywhere. One piece smashed into the towers supporting an elevated railway, causing a section of the track to fall to the street just as the wave of molasses was passing by. The train managed to stop before it fell into the goo, but many people on the ground weren’t so lucky. They got caught in the wave and had to “swim” for their lives.

  Next the wave slammed into a nearby warehouse, smashing through the windows and doors and filling the building with so much molasses that the floor collapsed under all the weight. Everything in the building—including the people working there—fell into the cellar. The molasses destroyed other buildings too, including several houses that were reduced to sticky splinters, and the local fire station, which the wave knocked on its side and pushed down the street toward the ocean. (Luckily, it got stuck on some wooden pilings before it hit the water.)

  The story of Cinderella has been filmed more than 90 times.

  RESCUE!

  The whole disaster only lasted a few minutes, but when it was over, several city blocks were left under two to three feet of molasses, and hundreds of people (and animals) were stuck in the mess like flies on flypaper. Firefighters saved more than 150 victims by laying ladders across the goo-soaked wreckage and crawling carefully to pluck them out, one by one. Considering the size of the wave and the amount of damage, it’s a miracle that only 21 people were killed.

  YOU THOUGHT YOUR ROOM WAS MESSY

  The disaster was over, but the mess was just beginning. Removing a couple million gallons of molasses from downtown Boston wasn’t easy: fireboats spent weeks blasting it with water, and when that didn’t get rid of all the goo, workers covered the streets with sand. But it was too little, too late—the mess had traveled all over town. Cleanup workers got covered in the stuff and brought it home with them, as did the thousands of spectators who came down to the waterfront to see the mess for themselves. People got covered in the sticky muck and tracked it everywhere they went, smearing streets, sidewalks, public telephones, and even the seats on streetcars with a sticky, smelly brown layer of slime. Soon it seemed like everything in Boston was covered in the stuff, and it was decades before the smell of molasses finally went away.

  Climb it in December: The Eiffel Tower gets nearly 7 inches taller in hot weather.

  MYSTERY SOLVED

  So what caused the tank to break in the first place? The investigation dragged on for more than six years, and in that time three major theories were proposed: 1) the tank was sabotaged by someone with a bomb; 2) the unsually warm January day had caused the molasses to ferment, giving off gasses that built up under pressure and made the tank explode; and 3) the tank was poorly designed and not strong enough to hold that much molasses. In the end investigators decided that the bad design of the tank was to blame, and the owners had to shell out nearly $1 million to pay for all the damage that it had caused.

  ***

  Q: Why is your nose in the middle of your face?

  A: Because it’s the scenter.

  Hollywood makes more money from video rentals than from movie tickets.

  LOONEY TUNES

  Here are some fun songs to drive your parents nuts on long car rides.

  “Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts”

  (sing to the tune of “The Old Grey Mare”)

  Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,

  Mutilated monkey feet,

  Chopped-up baby parakeet,

  French-fried eyeballs rolling down the dirty street,

  And I forgot my spoon.

  Great big gobs of ooey, gooey gopher guts,

  Oldy, moldy goober nuts,

  Little, turdy birdie feet,

  All wrapped up in marinated monkey meat,

  And I forgot my spoon.

  “My Body Lies Over the Ocean”

  (sing to the tune of “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”)

  My body lies over the ocean,

  My head’s hanging over the rail,

  I’m getting a sick new emotion,

  Will someone please bring me a pail?

  Come up, come up,

  Come up my dinner. Come up. Come up.

  Come up, come up,

  Come up my dinner. Kerplop!

  Watt? Light travels about a million times faster than sound.

  “On Top Of Spaghetti”

  (sing to the tune of “On Top of Old Smokey”)

  On top of spaghetti,

  All covered with cheese,

  I lost my poor meatball,

  When somebody sneezed.

  It rolled off the table,

  And onto the floor,

  And then my poor meatball,

  Rolled out of the door.

  It rolled in the garden,

  And under a bush,

  And then my poor meatball,

  Was nothing but mush.

  The mush was as tasty,

  As tasty could be,

  And then the next summer,

  It grew into a tree.

  The tree was all covered,

  All covered with moss,

  And on it grew meatballs,

  And tomato sauce.

  So if you eat spaghetti,

  All covered with cheese,

  Hold on to your meatball,

  Whenever you sneeze.

  Anteaters are toothless.

  ANIMAL TALES

  Fun facts about strange animals from the southern hemisphere.

  KANGAWHO?

  The word kangaroo means “I don’t know what you’re saying” in the language of Australian aborigines. When Captain Cook landed there in 1770, he asked members of the Endeavor River tribe what that strange hopping animal was called. They replied, “Kangaroo.” Now there are thousands of “I don’t know what you’re sayings” hopping around Australia.

  THREE-EYED REPTILE

  The lizard-like tuatara of New Zealand has three eyes: two in the center of its head and one on top. The tuatara’s metabolism is so slow that it only has to breathe once an hour.

  PARDON ME, MA’AM

  Harry the giant Galapagos tortoise is one of the oldest living animals on Earth. He was born aro
und 1830—30 years before Abraham Lincoln became president. A scientist named Charles Darwin took the tortoise from the Galapagos Islands off South America in 1835. Darwin named him Harry and took him to Australia to live in a zoo. One problem: Harry isn’t a he. At last report Harriet was spending her days lazing around the zoo in Brisbane, Australia, begging visitors for a neck scratch.

  The average human body contains 30,000,000,000,000 red blood cells.

  THE WHITE HOUSE GANG

  Almost all U.S. presidents have had children. Many have even had an unusual pet, like Thomas Jefferson’s mockingbird or John Quincy Adams’ alligator. But America has never known a first family quite like Teddy Roosevelt’s.

  PRESIDENTIAL PLAYGROUND

  When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, the White House literally became a zoo. Roosevelt had six children, and they had the complete run of the place. They slid down the grand staircase on the family’s good silver trays. Visitors often saw them roller-skating in the East Room. Guards reported being pelted with snowballs. They frightened visiting dignitaries with a four-foot king snake and dropped water balloons on the heads of White House guards.

  One of the kids’ favorite stunts was to crawl through the space between ceilings and floors where no living being other than rats or bugs had been for years. They rode their bicycles up and down the halls, and every member of the family had a pair of wooden stilts. No stairs were too well carpeted for their climbing, no tree was too high to climb, no fountain too deep to take a dip in, and no piece of furniture too good to use for playing leapfrog.

  Besides humans, kangaroos are the only mammals that move mainly on two legs.

  NATIONAL ZOO

  The Roosevelt kids loved animals. The Executive Mansion was filled to the brim with them—dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, guinea pigs, a badger, a black bear, a rat, a parrot, and a green garter snake named Emily Spinach.

  The children’s favorite pet was a pony named Algonquin. They would often bring him to the second floor of the White House in the elevator. The little spotted pony could then wander freely from bedroom to bedroom, visiting the kids.

  Roosevelt led his children—and anyone who happened to be visiting—on obstacle hikes, family picnics, and skinny-dips in the ice-cold waters of the Potomac River. He taught his boys to box and his girls to run.

  ALICE’S WONDERLAND

  Roosevelt’s oldest daughter, Alice, was a teenager when the family took up residence at the White House. She was wilder than her younger brothers and sisters, smoking cigarettes and racing around the countryside in a Packard automobile. Alice was a real handful for her parents and became the talk of the nation. Her father said, “I can be president of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”

  When the White House Gang, as the kids were called, left the White House in 1909, President Roosevelt said, “I don’t think any family has enjoyed the White House more than we have.”

  The real name of Toto the dog in The Wizard of Oz was Terry.

  The Wave

  It’s as much fun to do as it is to watch. Here’s the story.

  CATCH IT!

  You’ve probably seen a Wave—maybe you’ve even been part of one. But did you know that the Wave first became famous during the 1986 Soccer World Cup finals in Mexico? Some fans in the stands leaped to their feet with their arms up in the air and then sat back down. Then the group next to them did the same thing. Then the group next to them did it. If you were on the other side of the stadium looking across the field, or watching on television, you saw a beautifully rhythmic and synchronized movement rolling through the crowd which looked just like…a large ocean wave.

  Pretty soon, crowds across the world were doing the Wave during major sporting events. The Mexican Wave, as it was first called, has even had a few moments in Hollywood—once when Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, and Amy Madigan did it in the movie Field of Dreams and another when it swept through the fans watching a jousting event in A Knight’s Tale.

  MAKE YOUR OWN

  Next time you’re at a sporting event, see if you can get the people around you to start your own Wave. There’s nothing like seeing a massive Wave go around an entire stadium that was started by… you!

  Three odd jobs: denture waxer, oyster washer, and sap collector. (No college degree needed.)

  COOKING WITH UNCLE JOHN

  Want to gross out your friends? Then go to the kitchen and let’s start cooking. This recipe looks totally disgusting…but it’s completely edible.

  BARF-O-RAMA

  FAKE BARF Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup applesauce

  • one package unflavored gelatin

  • powdered cocoa

  • oatmeal

  • raisin bran cereal

  Recipe: Ask an adult to help you with this recipe. Put applesauce in a frying pan and warm on medium heat. While the applesauce is heating, stir in the packet of unflavored gelatin. Remove from heat and add 1 to 2 pinches of powdered cocoa; stir well. Pour a small amount of oatmeal into the palm of your hand and sprinkle it into the mixture. Don’t stir it completely—you want to keep some of the chunks. Next, add about the same amount of raisin bran.

  Your brain uses about as much energy (10 watts) as a bulb on a string of Christmas lights.

  When you’re satisfied with the chunk factor, remove the fake barf from the pan and spread it out on a plate in a classic barf shape. Allow it to cool and harden for several hours. After it has hardened, use a spatula to remove it from the plate.

  Now go fake out your best friend: Place it on his front steps, then ring the doorbell. When he comes to the door, remember to clutch your stomach and moan.

  ***

  AND SPEAKING OF VOMIT…

  Twenty ways to say, “I think I’m going to _____!”

  • throw up

  • blow chunks

  • puke

  • barf

  • upchuck

  • zuke

  • hurl

  • heave

  • ralph

  • drive the white Buick

  • hug the porcelain

  • blow lunch

  • negative chug

  • generate eject

  • have an out-of-stomach experience

  • power burp

  • vector-spew

  • toss my cookies

  • yak

  • throw some doughnuts

  Smallest dinosaur: Compsognathus (“pretty jaw”) was about the size of a chicken.

  THAT STINKS!

  We should all take time to stop and smell the roses. But just make sure they’re actually roses and not one of these putrid-smelling flowers.

  CORPSE FLOWER

  The corpse flower is the stinkiest, most disgusting-smelling flower in the world. And if that’s not enough, it also:

  • Grows from a tuber that can weigh more than 170 pounds (normal-size tuber: a potato).

  • Can climb as high as 10 feet.

  • Grows three or four feet in diameter—as big as an umbrella.

  The flower grows in the Indonesian rainforest and can be detected from miles away. When it blooms, it heats up and its aroma quickly spreads through the jungle. The stench smells like a blend of rotting meat, dung, and burnt sugar. Flies and beetles, who love the smell, flock to the flower, which helps to pollinate it.

  But it takes a lot of energy to produce a stench that attracts bugs from miles away, so the actual flower spends only three days in bloom. In fact, the effort is so exhausting that the corpse flower plant might bloom only two or three times during its entire 40-year lifespan.

  The longest documented echo in a building lasted 15 seconds…seconds… seconds.

  SKUNK CABBAGE

  When winter finally fades into spring, the skunk cabbage starts to peek up out of the frozen ground along the edges of wetlands and marshes. But even though it may be the first wildflower you see, don’t pick it! Skunk cabbage smells l
ike a giant stink bomb.

  Like the corpse flower, skunk cabbage generates heat. In fact, it can generate enough heat to melt snow. Its skunky, rotten-eggy, old-farts kind of smell wafts across the marsh. Tricked by the stench (which suggests there’s something dead and good to eat nearby), bugs flock to the skunk cabbage, where they are dusted with the flower’s pollen. Once the bugs are covered in pollen, they go on about their business of looking for dead things to eat and unknowingly pollinate the rest of the marsh. Stupid bugs. Smart plants.

  STINK BUGS

  Stink bugs come in all colors—green, brown, black, and red—and can be found in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. They have flat, shieldshaped bodies and feed on plant juices. What sets these guys apart from other bugs is their defense mechanism. If you try to squish one of them, their body emits a pungent, evil-smelling liquid. It smells like rotting almonds to some people and just plain stink-o-rama to others. But that doesn’t prevent people in parts of Mexico, Africa, and India from eating them. Some people say stink bugs taste just like apples. A stink bug pie? Yum!

  How many people have actually walked on the moon? Twelve.

  LET THERE BE MORE LIGHTS

  If you turn on your local weather forecast tonight, you probably won’t hear about these mysterious weather-related lights…but they’re out there.

  ABOVE-THE-STORM LIGHTS

  Most people have seen electric lights in the sky below the clouds—lightning. But there’s a whole family of glows and flashes in the sky above the clouds, too. Meteorologists call these very weird light phenomena sprites, elves, and blue jets.