Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  What Happened: NASA and other space agencies have sent unmanned missions to Mars, but none of them have seen fit to put this or any other Martian calendar to use. They just count forward from the day the mission arrives on Mars (Day 1, Day 2, and so on). But if there ever is a human settlement on the Red Planet, it’s a pretty good bet that the calendar they use will be similar to this one.

  Statistically speaking, the odds are that the sports team wearing red uniforms will win.

  PLAIN DRESSING

  The Amish and similar groups call themselves “plain people.” Here’s the plain truth about the “plain” way they dress.

  HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

  In the 16th century, a radical group of Protestant Christians from Switzerland and Germany formed their own sect based on the belief that only adults could make the conscious choice to accept God. So even though they had been baptized as infants, this new group had themselves re-baptized, earning them the name Anabaptists (ana is Greek for “repeat” or “again”). Humility was the cornerstone of Anabaptist belief. They rejected pride, shunned non-believers, and refused to take part in any military action. They took no oaths, not even wedding vows, and firmly believed in the separation of church and state.

  The Anabaptists were fiercely persecuted in Europe, which led to mass migrations in the early 19th century to the more tolerant United States. By this time the Anabaptists had split into a number of separate sects, most of them named after their spiritual leaders: the Amish, led by Jakob Amman; Mennonites, founded by Menno Simons; the Hutterites by Jacob Hutter; and the Brethren in Christ. Each branch established its own rules for living and for what devotees could and could not wear. They lived simply and dressed simply, which earned them the nickname “plain people.” Their style of dress became known as “plain dress.”

  OLD-FASHIONED

  Plain people believe that beauty comes from within. Any sort of fancy dress or ornamentation that calls attention to the physical body is against their ordnung, or church rules. Their dress is an expression of humility, and non-conformity with the outside world. Many people assume that plain dress is a 16th-century style, but it’s really a mishmash of styles from different time periods. Today plain women wear 17th-century long-sleeved dresses with 18th-century bonnets and 19th-century shawls. Many plain men wear a style of frock coat that Ben Franklin might have worn in the 1700s, but instead of Ben’s knee breeches, they wear long broadfall pants held up by suspenders, both of which date from the 1800s. Instead of a button fly, broadfall pants are faced with a wide swath of material that buttons at each hip, similar to sailor pants. Their black felt, broad-brimmed hats date from the 16th century and are similar to those worn by Hasidic Jews. No two communities are exactly alike in their fashion choices and plain dress can vary by the width of a hat brim or the choice of a button over a hook and eye on a coat. Having hooks and eyes on men’s black coats and vests is important to the Amish but not necessary for Mennonites.

  It is possible to produce electricity from elephant dung (but not recommended).

  FABRIC OF SOCIETY

  Even color can make a statement. When black became fashionable in the 19th century, plain men changed to grays, browns and navy blues. Many have since returned to basic black.

  The Amish wear solid, bright colors like blue, burgundy, and the recognizable purple of the oldest-existing settlement in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Mennonites, Hutterites and Brethren tend to mix it up with patterned fabrics because those don’t show dirt as easily. The patterns are, of course, small and unobtrusive. Hutterite women are especially fond of polka dot headscarves. Black stockings of varying thickness are worn by women in most sects, as are linen caps, which come with or without ties and pleats. In some sects, unmarried women wear black linen caps to church. Women’s hemlines vary but always hover somewhere between well below the knee and just above the ankle.

  No jewelry is allowed, not even wedding rings. Watches can be worn, but only if the wristband looks like a band, not like a piece of jewelry. Eyeglasses must be non-decorative, which is why one Mennonite sect requests eyeglass makers remove any gold that glimmers on any part of a frame. Women never cut their hair and wear it parted in the middle and pulled into a bun. Men cut their hair, but avoid anything that looks like a hairstyle with blunt bangs and a chopped look for the rest. In some sects, the men wear chinstrap beards; in others they are clean-shaven.

  COVERING UP

  Men’s clothing isn’t designed to hide anything, but concealment is a large part of the women’s design. In nearly every sect, women wear a “cape” called a hals duch (neck cloth). It’s really just a folded triangle of cloth that drapes across her shoulders. The center point, which can be a matching or contrasting color, drapes down her back. The other points cross in the front and are pinned at the waist. If they don’t cross, they are pinned straight down in front to the waistband. Designed for modesty, a hals duch conceals a woman’s neckline and bust. Add an apron to cover the stomach and it’s difficult to determine any real shape under all the fabric. The idea of maternity clothes has been a subject of debate in many sects and rejected. Why? Because it announces the wearer’s condition, which is just another way of saying, “Look at me!” and vanity of any kind is frowned upon.

  The sound created by crashing waves comes mostly from popping air bubbles.

  KID STUFF

  Children have a little more fashion freedom than adults, only because they don’t become members of the church until they are baptized—generally between age 16 and 25. During the rite of passage known as rumspringa (German for “running around”), Amish teens get the opportunity to wear what other teens are wearing: short skirts, sport shorts, tank tops, high-heels, and sneakers. Rumspringa is the plain people’s way of allowing kids to experience the outside world before making a fully-informed commitment to the Amish way of life. Once they make that commitment and are baptized, they go “full-plain.”

  PLAIN FACTS

  • The largest populations of plain people are in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio.

  • There are more than 250,000 Amish in the United States. Of these, 150,000 can trace their roots to 200 Swiss-German founding members. The number of Amish in the U.S. continues to grow because the average number of kids in a family is seven.

  • Old Order Amish will not use technology that is connected to electrical or telephone lines because those lines connect the community to the outside world. (Some wireless technology is ok.)

  • Automobiles may not be owned because of the prideful “Look at me, I own a car” factor. However, the Amish may ride in cars—they simply hire drivers.

  How about you? Less than 1% of the world’s population is truly ambidextrous.

  SILVER LININGS

  A lustrous look at all things silver.

  There is no word in the English language that rhymes with the word “silver.” Except chilver—a female lamb—although many sources list this as obsolete.

  The word silver comes from the Old English word for the metal, seolfor. It shares a root with the words for silver in several other languages: German is silber; Dutch is zilver; Swedish is silver; Danish is sølv; Basque is zilar.

  The Latin word for silver is argentum. This is why the chemical symbol for silver is Ag, and it’s also the source of the word for silver in languages such as French—argent; Romanian—argint; and Irish Gaelic—airgead.

  The Spanish word for silver, plata, derives from the Latin plata, meaning “flat piece of metal,” which comes from the ancient Greek platys, “flat, broad.” The English word plate, as in “dinner plate” and “silver-plated,” comes from the same root.

  The British pound is also known as the “pound sterling,” which basically means “a pound of silver.” This goes back to the year A.D. 775, when the Anglo-Saxon currency was silver pennies. That’s where the monetary unit came from: 240 pennies weighed exactly one pound.

  In the 13th century, those silver pennies became known as “sterlings.” Exactly
why is unknown. The Oxford English Dictionary says it was most likely a derivation of the Old English steorling, meaning “little star.” Not because these silver coins shined like stars, but because many early versions of them had depictions of stars on them—so the coins became known as “little stars.”

  Quicksilver is a common name for the element mercury. The name comes from the Old English cwicseseolfor, which meant “living silver”—an allusion to mercury’s silvery look and its natural liquid state.

  The term “silver screen” comes from a type of movie screen used in the early days of motion pictures that was embossed with actual silver, which made it highly reflective. As projector and screen technology improved over the years, the use of silver in screenmaking became unnecessary, but “silver screen” remained as a nickname in the Hollywood film industry.

  In 1124 King Henry I of England ordered 94 mint workers castrated for producing bad coins.

  “Sterling silver” eventually became the name of an alloy of silver mixed with small amounts of other metals. Pure silver is too soft to be useful in common applications, such as in coin- and jewelry-making, and mixing it with other metals made it much harder. This was first achieved at least 1,000 years ago. Sterling silver today is 92.5 percent silver and 7.5 percent other metals, usually copper.

  Nickel silver is an alloy first produced in China centuries ago. It was introduced to European metal manufacturers in the 18th century, and is still used today—most commonly in industrial machine parts, and for musical instruments such as flutes and saxophones. Interestingly, nickel silver looks a lot like silver, but it contains no silver at all. It’s made of copper, nickel, and zinc. It’s also known as German silver, new silver, and alpaca or alpacca silver—the last one apparently because it is commonly used in faux silver jewelry from South America.

  * * *

  ROBOT FIRSTS

  • First robot to perform surgery: In 1995, the FDA approved Robodoc to perform hip replacements. It can cut bone with 40 times more precision than a human surgeon.

  • First robot duck: French scientist Jacques de Vaucanson invented one in 1737. Made of wood and the size of a real duck, it could be wound up to fly, swim, and mock-defecate.

  • First robot to knight a king: In the 14th century, King Alfonso XI of Castile wanted to be knighted (even though he was already a king), and custom said he couldn’t knight himself, and neither could a person of lower rank. Since no one outranked him, he had an automaton of St. James built, and then it knighted him.

  Children’s dreams are shorter than adults’ dreams.

  FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE

  Over the years we’ve stumbled on a lot of weird-but-true book titles. Hard to believe, but these titles were chosen and published in all seriousness. How would you like to spend an evening reading…

  If God Loves Me, Why Can’t I Get My Locker Open?, by Lorraine Peterson (2006)

  Johnny’s Such a Bright Boy, What a Shame He’s Retarded, by Kate Long (1977)

  Pooh Gets Stuck, by Isabel Gaines (1998)

  Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: A Personal View, by Henry D. Janowitz (1985)

  Build Your Own Hindenburg, by Alan Rose (1983)

  The Inheritance of Hairy Ear Rims, by Reginald Gates (1961)

  The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination, by Alain Corbin (1986)

  Whose Bottom Is This? A Lift-the-Flap Book, by Wayne Lynch (2000)

  Who’s Who in Barbed Wire, Rabbit Ear Publishing (1970)

  My Invisible Friend Explains the Bible, by J. G. Bogusz (1971)

  Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy, by Louise Ames (1980)

  Beyond Leaf Raking, by Peter L. Benson (1993)

  The Best Dad is a Good Lover, by Charlie Shedd (1977)

  The Baby Jesus Touch-and-Feel Book, by Linda and Alan Parry (1995)

  Welcome to Your Face Lift, by Helen Bransford (1997)

  Home and Recreational Use of High Explosives, by Ragnar Benson (1988)

  The Lull Before Dorking, (Chiswick Press, 1871)

  All About Scabs, (Genichiro Yagyu, 1998)

  I Was a Kamikazi, (Ryuji Nagatsuka, 1973)

  During the famous “chest bursting” scene in Alien (1979), director Ridley Scott unexpectedly showered the actors with real animal guts.

  UNDERWEAR IN THE AIR

  Look—up in the sky: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…underwear?

  NO BUTTS ABOUT IT

  In June 2011, a University of New Mexico football player was arrested and removed from a US Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Phoenix, Arizona, after he refused a crew member’s instruction to hike up his sagging pajama pants. The airline claimed that part of the man’s rear end was showing; the player’s lawyer said his client’s butt was not visible, and that he was singled out because he is African American. The situation got worse when a US Airways passenger circulated a photo she’d taken of a white businessman in his mid-sixties who was allowed to board her flight, even though he was dressed only in ladies’ underwear, a see-through top, thigh-high black stockings, and black high-heeled shoes. So does US Airways have a double standard? Not according to the airline: “We don’t have a dress code policy,” an airline spokesperson told the London Daily Mail. “But if they’re not exposing their private parts, they’re allowed to fly.”

  THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

  In July 2010, a New York financial consultant named Malinda Knowles boarded a JetBlue flight to Florida dressed in an oversized T-shirt and short shorts. The T-shirt completely obscured her shorts, prompting a JetBlue supervisor to wonder if the T-shirt was the only thing she was wearing. The supervisor tested his theory by putting the antenna of a walkie-talkie between her legs. “He said, ‘I don’t want to see your panties or anything, but do you have any on?’” Knowles said. “It was really crazy. I’ve never had a corporate employee ask me about my underwear.”

  Knowles was escorted off the plane and taken to a hangar, where she was told to lift up her T-shirt to prove she wasn’t naked from the waist down. That satisfied the JetBlue dress code, but Knowles had been delayed so long that she couldn’t get back on the flight. Instead, she had to catch a different flight four hours later. She sued the airline for assault and battery plus intentional infliction of emotional distress.

  EARLY BIRD

  During a company-wide drive to improve on-time arrivals in the late 1990s, a British Airways crew working a flight from London to Genoa, Italy, bet each other on whether the flight would arrive 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Flight attendant Andrea O’Neill bet that it wouldn’t…and lost. Her punishment: run around outside the plane wearing only her underwear, the captain’s hat, and a fluorescent orange safety vest. Afterward, one of O’Neill’s co-workers complained to the airline, and she was placed under investigation for “inappropriate behavior.” British Airways let her off with a reprimand. “She has apologized for the prank, and we are treating the incident with leniency,” an airline spokesperson told reporters. “I guess we ought to take our hats off to her—but nothing else—for achieving such wonderful exposure of our brilliant timekeeping record.”

  BY THE SEAT OF THEIR (UNDER)PANTS

  On a 13-hour flight from Buenos Aires to London in 1994, a fun-loving British Airways crew (pilot, co-pilot, and navigator) decided to make the entire flight wearing only their underwear and headsets. Unluckily for them, a British Airways executive was a passenger on the flight, and when he found out what was going on in the cockpit, he reported it to his superiors. The two senior-most crew members had their pay docked and the third was given a dressing down (so to speak). “This was obviously a practical joke,” a British Airways official told reporters, “but not the sort of thing we expect from our flight crews.”

  * * *

  MOVIE STARS WHO HATED THEIR MOVIES

  “It’s the worst film I have ever made. When my kids get out of line, they’re sent to their room and forced to watch it 10 times.”

  —Arnold S
chwarzenegger, Red Sonja

  “The worst film I’ve ever made by far. Maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen.”

  —Sylvester Stallone, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!

  30% of Dutch women opt for home births. Less than 1% of American women do.

  AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

  Some things that seem like they belong to the modern world actually date back much further.

  PARKING FINES

  Assyria’s King Sennacheribe (705–681 B.C.) had signs posted along the highway that read, “Royal Road—let no man decrease it,” meaning don’t park chariots on the shoulder. How high was the fine? Anyone illegally parked would be “put to death, with his head impaled on a pole in front of his house.”

  CLOTHES DRYERS

  Invented by a Frenchman named M. Pochon in 1800, the “Ventilator” was a hand-cranked metal drum that the user placed over an open fire. Freshly washed and wrung clothes were put in the drum and the crank turned. If the fire was small enough and the crank turned quickly enough, the clothes came out only smelling like the fire, not burned by it. Whether they were still clean was another matter. Most people preferred the clothesline, for obvious reasons. The Ventilator never caught on.

  PERSONAL ADS

  The oldest one found to date was posted in Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, an English publication, in 1695. It read, “A Gentleman about 30 Years of Age, that says He has a Very Good Estate, would willingly Match Himself to some Good Young Gentlewoman, that has a Fortune of £3,000 or thereabout, and he will make Settlement to Content.” No word on whether there were any takers.