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

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  In one year, Americans throw out enough soda cans and bottles to reach the moon 40 times.

  DON’T MIND IF I DON’T

  But where his own material comfort and well-being were concerned, Elwes would not part with a penny. Where once he had dressed in rags only to impress his uncle, he now wore them all the time, and never cleaned his shoes—that might wear them out faster. Friends said he looked “like a prisoner confined for debt.”

  Like his uncle, Elwes allowed his estates to fall into ruin. He refused to buy a carriage and wondered how anyone could think he could afford one. Riding a horse was cheaper, especially the way he did it: Before setting off on a journey, he filled his pockets with hardboiled eggs so he wouldn’t have to pay for meals in taverns. He rode in the soft dirt by the side of the road rather than on the road itself, so that he wouldn’t have to buy horseshoes for his horse. He traveled hours out of his way to avoid toll roads. If he needed to stop for the night, he’d find a spot by the side of the road that had lots of grass (so that his horse could eat for free) and sleep beneath a tree to save the price of a room at an inn.

  Elwes’s mania for frugality extended to his own family. He had two sons out of wedlock (because marriages cost money) and refused to pay for their education. “Putting things into people’s heads,” he explained, “was the sure way to take money out of their pockets.”

  MISER OF PARLIAMENT

  In 1774 Elwes was offered a chance to succeed a retiring Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons, and accepted…provided he wouldn’t have to spend money on his campaign. He spent just 18 pence—on a meal for himself—and won the election. Politics didn’t change him, though. During his 12 years in office, Elwes dressed as shabbily as he ever had. He walked everywhere, even in the rain, to save the cost of sharing a coach with other MPs. He looked so destitute tramping around London that people often stopped him in the street to force pennies into his hand. If he arrived home drenched from a downpour, like his Uncle Harvey he’d sit in his wet clothes rather than light a fire.

  Yet even though Elwes lived so frugally, he continued to lend generously to friends and to invest in their speculative ventures. In all, it’s estimated that he lost some £150,000 in bad loans and investments. No matter: His fortune kept growing. By the mid-1780s, he was worth nearly £1,000,000 (about $290 million).

  Einstein’s eyes are currently sitting in a safe deposit box in New York City.

  A MOVEABLE FEAST

  In 1784 Elwes retired from Parliament rather than spend even a pittance on what would have been certain re-election. With the distraction of public office gone from his life, his penny-pinching intensified. His diet suffered most of all. On one occasion he ate a dead bird that a rat had dragged out of a river; on another he caught a fish with a partially eaten smaller fish in its stomach. “Aye! This was killing two birds with one stone!” he said, then ate them both.

  On those rare occasions when Elwes bought lamb or other meat from the butcher, he bought the entire animal to get the best price, and then ate every bit of it. In an age before refrigeration, this meant that he often ate meat that had reached “the last stage of putrefaction,” a friend wrote. “Meat that walked about on his plate, would he continue to eat, rather than have new things killed before the old provision was finished.”

  OPEN HOUSE

  Elwes had inherited several properties in London, and he added to their number until he owned more than 100. Keeping them rented took work, and yet for all the time Elwes spent in London, he never set up a household for himself. He and the old woman who served as his cook and maid stayed in whichever of his properties was vacant, but only as long as it took to find a tenant. Their household possessions were limited to a bed for himself and one for the maid, a table, and a couple of chairs. When a tenant was found, sometimes after Elwes and his maid had spent just a night or two in the place, they packed their things and moved to another vacant property.

  The constant moving almost cost Elwes his life. Once when he and his maid both fell deathly ill at the same time, nobody knew where they were. Luckily for Elwes, his nephew went looking for him and found a boy who’d seen “a poor old man” enter one of Elwes’s properties on Great Marlborough Street. The nephew rushed there and found Elwes near death. He was too late to save the maid: Her body was found in another room; she’d been dead for two or three days.

  Oldest surviving stadium in the NFL: the Chicago Bears’ Soldier Field, built in 1924.

  CASH ON HAND

  Elwes recovered physically from the ordeal, but his mental state, already declining due to his penurious lifestyle and advancing age, got worse. His obsession with money narrowed until he became fixated on the change he had in his pocket. He’d wrap each coin in a piece of paper and hide it somewhere in his rooms, then stay up half the night wandering the house in an agitated state, trying to remember where he’d hidden the coins. In time he came to believe the change was all the money he had in the world. Terrified of dying penniless, he often woke in the middle of the night screaming at imaginary thieves: “I will keep my money, I will! Nobody shall rob me of my property!”

  In November 1789, Elwes fell ill and took to his bed. He died eight days later. “I hope I have left you what you wish,” he told one of his sons before he died. He probably did: Each of them inherited nearly £500,000 ($145 million).

  As far as anyone knows, neither of them ever became a miser.

  A LITERARY INSPIRATION

  Edward Topham was fascinated by his friend’s odd lifestyle, and in 1790 he wrote The Life of the Late John Elwes, Esquire. The book was a bestseller, with 12 printings by 1805. Its success inspired other books and articles, and Elwes’s name soon became a household word, one synonymous with penny-pinching.

  Charles Dickens knew the story and mentioned Elwes both in letters and in his 1865 novel Our Mutual Friend. Though he apparently never said so explicitly, Dickens is widely believed to have modeled Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser in A Christmas Carol, on Elwes. The artwork in the first edition of the story, published in 1843, bears this out: Dickens worked closely with his illustrators to create images of his characters that were exactly as he envisioned them—and the illustrations of Ebenezer Scrooge bear a striking resemblance to John Elwes.

  Don’t be stingy—spend your time wisely

  and learn how Scrooge (maybe) got his

  name. That story is on page 529.

  Armadillos jump straight up when surprised, often into the undersides of passing cars.

  SHOE FADS

  These once-popular shoes aren’t what you’d call “sole survivors.”

  THE REEBOK PUMP (1989)

  This innovative sneaker featured an inflation system with a basketball-shaped pump on the tongue of each shoe that created a tighter “custom fit” around the ankle and top of the foot. Despite a retail price upwards of $150, stores could hardly keep them in stock, probably because they were endorsed by NBA All-Star Dominique Wilkins and Slam Dunk champion Dee Brown. When they started to cut into Nike Air Jordan’s market share, competitors introduced similar air-pump shoes, such as L.A. Gear’s Regulars and Nike’s Air Pressure. Neither could touch the Pump, but the fad was over by 1993—basketball players both pro and amateur went back to their Air Jordans.

  LIGHT-UP SHOES (1992)

  L.A. Lights, produced by L.A. Gear, were introduced at Foot Locker stores and sold for around $50. They featured red LED lights, embedded in the soles, that lit up every time the wearer took a step. The shoes became a hit with teens and adults, but despite selling 40 million pairs at Foot Locker in the 1990s, L.A. Gear filed for bankruptcy in 1998. Light-up shoes are still moderately popular…among children. A different company, Skechers, controls that market today.

  HEELYS (2000)

  Heelys, marketed to teens and pre-teens, were sneakers with retractable wheels in the soles. They allowed the wearer to rollerskate around one second and casually walk the next by simply shifting their weight onto a trigger locat
ed in the heels. Predictably, the “heeling” fad led to numerous of accidents and injuries and at least one death, according to the U.S. Product Safety Commission. Heelys eventually became considered dangerous (and annoying) enough to warrant them being banned in schools, stores, and amusement parks across North America and Europe.

  The Arabs invented caramel and used it as a hair remover for harem women.

  SINE OF THE TIMES

  Do these math puns add up? We’re divided.

  “Help me, Doc,” said the math book. “I’ve got problems.”

  A nice view out the window is a weapon of math disruption.

  That mathematician ate the bunch of fruit so fast that it was gone in a bananasecond.

  Trigonometry for farmers: swines and coswines.

  Algebra is the loneliest of the maths because it always wants you to find its X.

  “My life is pointless,” said the retired geometry teacher. (At least he’s not going in circles.)

  Don’t worry about running out of math teachers. They’re always multiplying.

  For a good prime, call 555.793.7319.

  The math teacher’s pet parrot refused to eat, so he called it Polynomial. Then it died, so he called it Polygon.

  There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

  I didn’t say you were average, just mean.

  “Three!” said one math prof. “No, five!” said the other. They were at odds.

  I’ll do trigonometry, I’ll do algebra, I’ll even do statistics, but graphing is where I draw the line!

  I personally found Newton’s Principia Mathematica to be quite derivative.

  I didn’t understand addition, so the teacher summed it up for me.

  Who’s the fattest knight at the Round Table? Sir Cumference. Why so big? Too much pi.

  Pickup line: Don’t think me obtuse, but you’re acute girl.

  The geometry student was denied a loan because he couldn’t get a cosine.

  I’m partial to fractions.

  Atheists can’t solve exponential equations because they don’t believe in higher powers.

  I failed math so many times I’ve lost count.

  Uncle John’s favorite three-digit number? Too farty.

  The Apollo Lunar Module weighed more than 36,000 pounds.

  POP MUSIC: 1987

  Why 1987? That’s when the Bathroom Reader was born. Rad!

  Billboard’s top 5 singles of the year:

  1. “Walk like an Egyptian” (The Bangles)

  2. “Alone” (Heart)

  3. “Shake You Down” (Gregory Abbott)

  4. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (Whitney Houston)

  5. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (Starship)

  Notable one-hit wonders:

  • Cars bassist Benjamin Orr, “Stay the Night”

  • Bruce Willis, “Respect Yourself”

  • The Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey” (a #9 hit)

  • On average, in most years, there are nine #1 hits. In 1987 there were 30—a Billboard record.

  The 5 bestselling albums:

  1. Slippery When Wet (Bon Jovi)

  2. Graceland (Paul Simon)

  3. Licensed to Ill (Beastie Boys)

  4. The Way It Is (Bruce Hornsby)

  5. Control (Janet Jackson)

  Two covers of songs by the 1960s band Tommy James and the Shondells that went to #1 in 1987:

  • Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now”

  • Billy Idol’s “Mony Mony”

  Going solo for the first time:

  • George Michael (Wham!)

  • Belinda Carlisle (Go-Gos)

  • Bobby Brown (without the rest of New Edition)

  Grammy winners:

  • Album of the Year: U2’s The Joshua Tree, which won over Whitney Houston’s Whitney, Prince’s Sign o’ the Times, and Michael Jackson’s Bad.

  • Record of the Year: Paul Simon’s “Graceland.”

  Oscar winner for Best Song:

  “Take My Breath Away” from Top Gun by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock

  MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist:

  Crowded House. They hit #7 with “Something So Strong” in 1987…and never again had a hit in the United States.

  People with myopia can see better underwater than people with normal vision.

  ONE-MAN BANS

  More stories of literary vigilantes who took book censorship into their own hands.

  Book: The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don’t Want to Live Anymore, by Andy Riley (2003)

  Vigilante: Taffey Anderson, who was living with her 13-year-old son in Halsey, Oregon, in 2008

  Story: In October 2008, Anderson’s son checked Bunny Suicides out of the Central Linn High School library. The book features a series of cartoons in which one or more bunnies try to kill themselves using cigarettes, bowling balls, electric toasters, hand grenades, and other means. Anderson’s son thought the book’s dark humor was hilarious; so did his friends. But when his mom found the book in his backpack, she was mortified. She threatened to burn the book rather than return it to the library, where some other kid might read it. “I saw poor bunnies going through meat grinders—people, like, throwing them in there. And they’re getting shot out,” she told a reporter. “It’s not a kid’s book. I feel it’s not even an adult book. It’s not okay.”

  Outcome: The school board considered a ban…and then voted to keep the book. Anderson claimed she was “disappointed” with the decision. “It’s not funny. Not at all,” she said.

  Books: Mystery novels based on the Murder, She Wrote TV series

  Vigilante: Unknown

  Story: In 2004, an unidentified patron of the Davis County Library in Layton, Utah, began crossing out words like “God,” “hell,” and “damn” (with a pen), and replacing them with milder versions like “gosh,” “heck,” and “darn.” The damage was discovered by Charlene Heckert, a library patron and regular reader of the novels. “It bothers me because I’m trying to read a book,” she told the Deseret Morning News. “It’s distracting.”

  Outcome: The damaged books were tossed out; to this day no one knows whodunit to the whodunits. If the vandal is ever caught, he or she could be in big trouble: In Utah, defacing library books is punishable by up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

  Under the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, most countries signed a treaty agreeing not to use war to resolve disputes or conflicts. (It didn’t work, but the treaty is still in force.)

  Books: Dozens of titles in the Crandall Public Library

  Vigilante: Raymond Barber, 79, a retired truck driver and decorated World War II veteran living in Glens Falls, New York, in 2004

  Story: Over a three-year period, Barber used an ink pen to cross out the swear words in more than 300 library books, replacing them with religious phrases and often writing “God Is Enough” inside the front cover.

  Outcome: When the library discovered the damage, they notified the police, who traced the trouble back to Barber. When confronted, He confessed, and was arrested and charged with second-degree criminal mischief, a felony. Estimated value of the books he damaged: $9,255. Barber’s family was humiliated when his crimes made the front page of the local newspaper and the evening news. “Murderers and rapists get no TV coverage. He scribbled in some books, and he gets crucified on TV,” his wife complained to a reporter (before slamming down the phone).

  Book: Dozens of mystery novels in the library in Ledbury, England

  Vigilante: Unknown

  Story: Why stop with naughty words? In the late 1990s, someone began correcting misspellings, factual errors, and bad grammar with a pen, and using correction fluid to obliterate bad words, love scenes, and the names or descriptions of private anatomical parts.

  Outcome: The mystery remains unsolved, but not for lack of trying. Ledbury is the kind of town where everybody knows everybody, and for months, the place was abuzz wi
th speculation on who might be to blame. The community split on the issue of whether the culprit was a male or a female. Sharon Lippell, a woman in her late 40s who worked in a gift shop, thought the vandal had to be a man. “He’s a middle-aged dapper chap, who’s living a modest lifestyle but who’s got a grudge,” she told London’s Independent newspaper. “Somebody foreign. I don’t know why; I’ve just got a funny feeling.”

  * * *

  “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

  —Francis Bacon

  THE POLICE BLOTTER

  Actual police reports from around the country.

  • “A caller in Amherst said a prowler was ringing the doorbell and banging on the door. Police determined that it was the complainant’s brother, who should have gone to school.”

  • “Cheektowaga homeowners reported suspicious people in their backyard, which turned out to be a deer.”

  • “Caller reports chicken in the back parking lot of Wilson’s Department Store. Officers sent, but unable to locate. Chicken possibly crossed the road.”

  • “Police were called to Market Square for a report about a ‘suspicious coin.’ Investigating officer determined it was a quarter.”

  • “Custer, South Dakota—Suspicious people were reportedly doing something with flashlights by the side of 5th Street. A deputy checked and found the people were not suspicious; they were Canadian.”