FANCY FOOTWORK
When he is regularly using the toilet with his front feet out of the bowl (and some cats naturally start from this position), begin lifting a hind foot out and placing it on the seat, roughly halfway between the front and the back. Your cat will probably find this awkward at first and try to replace the foot in the litter. Be persistent. Move that foot four times in a row if you have to, until it stays there. Praise and/or treat.
Repeat with the other hind foot, until your cat learns to balance in that squat. Note, too, that there will actually be two different squats, a low one for urine elimination and a high one for bowel movements. Once he’s getting all four feet regularly on the seat, it’s all downhill from there.
That’s fortunate, because the last bit is also the most unpleasant. I suggest you postpone this stage until you have at least a weekend, and preferably several days, when you or another responsible party will be at home most of the time. I skipped through this part in about two days; I only hope that your cat allows you to move along that fast.
Because it can’t even support the weight of cats.
ARE WE THERE YET?
Begin reducing the litter in the bowl. Go as fast as he’s comfortable with, because as the litter decreases, the odor increases. You’ll want to be home at this point so that you can praise him and dump out the contents of the bowl immediately after he’s finished, to minimize both the smell and the possibility that your cat, in a confused attempt to minimize the smell on his own, tries to cover it up with litter that no longer exists and ends up tracking unpleasantness into the rest of the house.
By the time you’re down to a token teaspoonful of litter in the bottom of the bowl, your next-door neighbors will probably be aware of the precise instant your cat has used the toilet. This is as bad as it gets. The next time you rinse out the metal bowl, put a little bit of water in the bottom. Increase the water level each time, just as you decreased the litter level. Remember—if at any point Felix looks nervous enough about the change to give the whole thing up and take his business to the corner behind the door, back up a step or two and try the thing again more slowly.
Once the water in the mixing bowl is a couple of inches deep and your cat is comfortable with the whole thing, you get to perform the last bit of magic. Take the mixing bowl away, leaving the bare toilet. (Lid Up, Seat Down.)
Voilà! Your cat is now toilet trained.
BIRD VIOLATES CANADIAN LANGUAGE LAWS
“According to a Canadian Press report in September, a customer at a Napierville, Quebec, pet shop threatened to report the shop to the government’s French language monitoring office because she was shown a parrot that spoke only English.”
—News of the Weird
When they’re floating in space, U.S. astronauts eat a 3,000 calorie-a-day diet.
AMAZING COINCIDENCES
We’re constantly finding stories about amazing coincidences. Here are a few more of Uncle John’s favorites.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Charles Coghlan was born on Prince Edward Island in 1841. He became a successful stage actor and toured the world, but the island was always his home. In 1899, during an appearance on Galveston Island, Texas, he fell ill and died, and was buried in a Galveston cemetery. On September 8, 1900, a hurricane struck Galveston, washing away most of the town and swamping all the cemeteries. Seven years later, a fishermen from Prince Edward Island noticed a large box in the water. He towed it to shore, chipped off the barnacles, and discovered the coffin of Charles Coghlan, beloved native son. It had floated into the Gulf of Mexico, been caught by the West Indian current, carried into the Gulf Stream, and deposited on shore only a few miles from his Canadian birthplace.
MONSTER TRUCK
Christina Cort lived in Salvador, Brazil, in 1966 when an out-of-control truck crashed into her house. In 1989, she was still living in the same house when another out-of-control truck crashed into it. It was the same truck driver who had barreled into her home 23 years earlier.
TELL-TALE SKULL
In 1983, a man cutting peat for fuel near Cheshire, England, uncovered a human skull, which he took to the police. Forensic scientists examined the remains and announced they belonged to a European middle-aged woman who had been buried for not less than five but not more than 50 years. After investigating, the police found that a Mrs. Malika Reyn-Bardt had mysteriously disappeared from the area in 1961. When police confronted Peter Reyn-Bardt with the evidence, he broke down and confessed to murdering her and burying pieces of her body at various locations. Before the trial, however, the skull was sent to Oxford University’s lab for additional testing. Those tests revealed that the skull actually belonged to a woman who had died around 410 A.D. Reyn-Bardt pleaded not guilty, but was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. No trace of his dead wife has ever been found.
Holy molar! In its lifetime, an alligator will go through as many as 3,000 teeth.
THE LONG WAY HOME
Actor Anthony Hopkins, while playing a role in a movie based on a book called The Girl from Petrovka by George Feifer, looked all over London for a copy of the book but was unable to find one. Later that day he was waiting in a subway station for his train when he noticed someone had left a book on a bench. Picking it up, Hopkins found it was…The Girl from Petrovka. Two years later Hopkins was filming another movie in Vienna when he was visited on the set by author George Feifer. Feifer complained that he no longer had even a single copy of his own book because he’d loaned his last one to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. Feifer added that it was particularly annoying because he had written notes in the margins. Hopkins, incredulous, handed Feifer the copy he had found in the subway station. It was the same book.
THREE STRANGE COINCIDENCES FROM INSIDE THE BRI
• We once printed a fact that said: “Moo. Country star Lyle Lovett is afraid of cows.” Not long after the book was released, Lyle Lovett was attacked by a bull.
• Our 2002 Page-A-Day calendar was written in 2001. The page for March 27, 2002, had a funny story about Milton Berle, who just so happened to die on…March 27, 2002.
• Sad coincidence: In 2000, we put together a page of odd holidays for our All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader. We found a great one called “No News is Good News Day.” The date of the holiday: September 11.
That’s gotta hurt: Actor Jackie Chan once dislocated his cheek bone filming an action movie.
ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER
Here’s a gut-wrenching story with a happy ending.
TOOL TIME
One day in 1964, an 18-year-old high school kid named Peter Roberts was tinkering around in his dad’s garage. His father repaired lawn mowers in his spare time to earn pocket money and sometimes Peter helped him. Repairing lawn mowers would be a lot easier, he thought, if his socket wrench had a button that would release the socket from the grip of the wrench. So he kept tinkering and by the end of the day he had invented the ratchet wrench.
Peter worked part-time at the local Sears-Roebuck, so he took his new wrench to his boss…who showed it to his boss…who showed it to all the execs at Sears headquarters in Chicago.
GETTING SCREWED
Nearly a year went by and Roberts never heard back from them, so he assumed no one was interested in his invention. Then one day a lawyer showed up and informed him that Sears was prepared to offer him two cents for every one of his ratchet wrenches they sold—with the stipulation that they wouldn’t owe him any further royalties after he reached the $10,000 mark. The lawyer said it was going to be difficult and time consuming for Sears to manufacture the wrenches, so it might take Roberts years to collect the maximum amount of royalties. He signed over the patent to Sears.
A year later, he was amazed to receive the entire $10,000 in a single check. Suspecting that he’d been had, Roberts hired his own lawyer and took Sears to court in 1969. They argued that Sears was guilty of fraud—they’d led Roberts to believe that they’d only be able to
sell a few wrenches a year when in reality they’d already sold more than a million. More importantly, Roberts had been a minor (under 21) when he’d signed the contract. After 20 years of legal wrangling, they finally settled…and Roberts collected $8.2 million.
Staying in shape: Trash in landfills keeps its original weight, volume, and form for 40 years.
A LIGHT IN THE NIGHT
Before radio, sonar, and GPS, lighthouses provided the only way for sailors to visually locate the shore at night or in foul weather. Here are a few facts about a forgotten piece of history.
No one knows for sure when or where the very first lighthouse was built. Early lighthouses were too simple to be recorded; some were little more than candles placed in the windows of tall buildings at night. Others were hilltop structures on which large fires could be built. The earliest known lighthouses were built on the Mediterranean Sea in the seventh century B.C.
• The Great Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Completed around 280 B.C., it stood about 450 feet high on the island of Pharos in the Alexandria harbor. Still in operation as late as 1115, it was destroyed by earthquakes in the 1300s.
• The oldest American lighthouse is the Boston Light, in Boston’s outer harbor. Built in 1716 on Little Brewster Island, it was destroyed by the British during the American Revolution. It was rebuilt in 1783 and still stands today.
• The oldest working lighthouse in the world is Spain’s Tower of Hercules, built by the Romans in 20 B.C.
• Before electricity, lighthouses provided light via wood or coal fires, or even candles. These were replaced by whale-oil lanterns, which gave way to kerosene lanterns in the 1800s. Keeping such a light continually lit wasn’t easy. In the United States, most lighthouses had a full-time keeper (nicknamed “wickies” because they kept the lantern wicks trimmed), who lived at the lighthouse and made sure it stayed lit.
• No more—now every working lighthouse in the United States is automated. The last manned lighthouse, Maine’s Goat Island Light, became automated in 1990.
• First American lighthouse to use electricity: the Statue of Liberty, which served as a lighthouse in New York Harbor until 1902.
Michigan borders no ocean…but has more lighthouses than any other state.
STRANGE LAWSUITS
These days, it seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are more real-life examples of unusual legal battles.
THE PLAINTIFF: Toshi Van Blitter
THE DEFENDANT: Harrah’s casino
THE LAWSUIT: After losing $350,000 playing blackjack, Van Blitter decided to sue the Las Vegas casino. She filed to have her debts canceled, claiming that Harrah’s was negligent—they should have told her that she was an incompetent blackjack player.
THE VERDICT: The gamble didn’t pay off. A federal judge dismissed her claim.
THE PLAINTIFF: Timothy Ray Anderson, an armed robber
THE DEFENDANT: John Hobson, a security guard at a McDonald’s restaurant
THE LAWSUIT: Anderson was robbing a McDonald’s at gunpoint; Hobson ordered him to drop the weapon. Anderson spun around, aiming his gun at Hobson, but Hobson shot first, hitting Anderson in the stomach. Anderson was subsequently convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 15 years.
Anderson then sued Hobson, the firm Hobson worked for, and the owner of the McDonald’s, claiming “excessive force” was used against him. His argument: “The mere fact that you’re holding up a McDonald’s with a gun doesn’t mean you give up your right to be protected from somebody who wants to shoot you.”
THE VERDICT: The case was thrown out of court.
THE PLAINTIFF: Boomer, a golden retriever
THE DEFENDANT: Invisible Fence Co.
THE LAWSUIT: According to a petition filed in Common Pleas Court in Dayton, Ohio, in May (2001), Boomer, is suing the fence company because the electrical charge to his collar, triggered when he attempts to leave his guardians’ yard, was too strong and, according to an Associated Press dispatch, caused him severe emotional distress, for which he asks $25,000. Boomer’s guardians, Andrew and Alyce Pacher, who purchased the “invisible fence” and permitted the electrical charge, were not sued.
In 1920 Detroit became the first U.S. city to put in a stoplight.
THE VERDICT: Unknown.
THE PLAINTIFF: Robert Lee Brock
THE DEFENDANT: Robert Lee Brock
THE LAWSUIT: Brock, an inmate serving 23 years for grand larceny at the Indian Creek Correction Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, filed a $5 million lawsuit against himself. He claimed that he violated his own religious beliefs and his own civil rights by forcing himself to get drunk—and because of this self-induced drunkennes, perpetrated several crimes. Brock wrote, “I partook of alcoholic beverages in 1993. As a result I caused myself to violate my religious beliefs.” He went on to claim, “I want to pay myself $5 million for violating my own rights but ask the state to pay it in my behalf since I can’t work and am a ward of the state.”
THE VERDICT: Judge Rebecca Smith dismissed the claim.
THE PLAINTIFF: Ned Searight
THE DEFENDANT: State of New Jersey
THE LAWSUIT: In a $14 million lawsuit, Searight claimed he had suffered injuries while in prison in 1962. He charged he was injected with a “radium electric beam” against his will. As a result of the injection, Searight claimed he began hearing voices in his head.
THE VERDICT: The U.S District Court dismissed the claim… not on the grounds that it was frivolous, but because the statute of limitations had run out. In his opinion, the judge also offered this strange lesson in physics: “Taking the facts as pleaded…they show a case of presumable unlicensed radio communication, a matter of which comes within the sole jurisdiction of the FCC.…And even aside from that, Searight could have blocked the broadcast to the antenna in his brain simply by grounding it…Searight might have pinned to the back of a trouser leg a short chain of paper clips so that the end would touch the ground and prevent anyone from talking to him inside his brain.”
Misnomer: The titmouse is actually a bird.
22% of U.S. teenagers can’t name the country the United States declared its independence from. Can you?
DISRAELI, REALLY
Ever heard of Benjamin Disraeli? He was British Prime Minister (1868, 1874–80), a staunch supporter of Queen Victoria, and the British Empire…and very wise.
“Justice is truth in action.”
“The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.”
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.”
“What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.”
“Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.”
“We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.”
“Man is only truly great when he acts from passion.”
“There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honor.”
“You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.”
“Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.”
“Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret.”
“Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.”
“One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”
“To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.”
“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.”
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
THE VI
DEO GAME HALL OF FAME
Today most video games are played in the home, but in the 1970s and 1980s, if you wanted to play the newest, hottest games, you went to an arcade. Here are the stories of a few of the classics we played back in the golden age of arcade games.
SPACE INVADERS (Taito, 1978)
Object: Using a laser cannon that you scroll back and forth across the bottom of the screen, defend yourself from wave after wave of aliens descending from the top of the screen.
Origin: Space Invaders started out as a test that was used to measure the skill of computer programmers, but someone decided that it might also work well as an arcade game. They were right—the game became a national craze in Japan.
Introduced to the U.S. market by Midway in October 1978, Space Invaders became the biggest hit of the year. It made so much money—a single unit could earn back its $1,700 purchase price in as little as four weeks—that it helped arcade games break out of arcades and smoky bars into nontraditional venues like supermarkets, restaurants, and movie theaters.
TEMPEST (Atari, 1981)
Object: Shoot the moving shapes—red brackets, green spikes, yellow lines, and multicolored balls, before they climb up and out of the geometrically shaped “well” they’re in and get you.
Origin: Atari game designer Dave Theurer needed an idea for a new video game, so he went to the company’s book of potential themes compiled from brainstorming sessions. The idea he chose to develop was “First Person Space Invaders”—Space Invaders as seen from the perspective of the laser cannon at the bottom of the screen.
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