Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Longest running product endorsement in history: Bill Cosby for Jell-O.

  THAT’S DEATH!

  We often write about weird things that happen in everyday life. Turns out they happen in death, too.

  DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

  “A Thai ice-cream truck driver died laughing in his sleep, the newspaper The Nation reported. Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes and then stopped breathing. The newspaper said Damnoen’s wife tried to wake him but he kept laughing. ‘It is possible that a person could have a heart attack while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep,’ said Dr. Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director of the Mental Health Department. ‘But I have never seen a case like this before.’”

  —Herald Sun, Australia

  BRITON OF THE SEA

  “An Englishman has applied for permission to be fed to Great White sharks off South Africa after he dies. Robert Blackwood, a property developer, wants his dead body thrown into waters off Gans Bay, Cape Town. He admits he has never seen a live shark or been to South Africa—he made his decision after watching a television documentary by the author of Jaws. Gans Bay resident George Smit, who has been diving with sharks for 23 years, says the idea wouldn’t work because white sharks aren’t interested in human blood. ‘The sharks wouldn’t give it a second glance,’ he said. ‘It would rot and be eaten by crayfish.’”

  —Sunday Times, South Africa

  DEATH INSURANCE

  “A cemetery in Santiago, Chile, is offering its clients coffins with sensors that detect any movement inside after they have been buried. According to a spokesperson for the cemetery, ‘We want to be pioneers and avoid catalepsy cases, in which a person gets completely paralysed for a few hours and ends up buried as if they were dead. We want families to rest assured that if a case like this ever happens their loved ones will be immediately rescued.’”

  —BBC News

  A single tiger can eat six tons of meat a year...the equivalent of 60,000 hamburgers.

  TO MAKE IT UP TO YOU...

  “An Italian family recently learned they had been praying at the wrong grave for 15 years. The Belforte cemetery, near Varese, exhumed the body in an unrelated legal matter and discovered that the tombstone on the grave had been mixed up with that on the grave next to it when the person was buried, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported. The family have said they plan legal action over the mix-up but local authorities have apologised and offered a ‘free grave plot’ as compensation.”

  —Ananova

  SHOTGUN FUNERAL

  “The widow of an expert on shotguns had her husband’s ashes loaded into cartridges and used by 20 close friends for the last shoot of the season. A total of 275 12-bore cartridges were produced from the mix and were blessed by a minister before they were used. The widow, Joanna Booth, of London, said it was a marvelous day out and her husband would have loved it. ‘It was not James’ dying wish,’ she said, ‘but he had read somewhere that someone had done it and he thought it was very funny.’ The special cartridges accounted for 70 partridges, 23 pheasants, seven ducks, and a fox.”

  —The London Telegraph

  DEATH OF THE FUTURE?

  “Concerns about the environmental impact of cremation and burial has led Swedish firm Promessa Organic AB to a chilling alternative—freezing bodies in liquid nitrogen, then using sound waves to smash the brittle remains into a powder. Bodies would be dipped in liquid nitrogen with a temperature of –196°C. Extracted from the super-cold solution, the bodies would be brittle as glass and could be broken down with bursts of sound. ‘The method is based upon preserving the body after death, while avoiding harmful embalming fluid,’ said Susanne Wiigh-Maesak, a spokesperson for Promessa. The remains, buried in a coffin crafted from cornstarch, would take about a year to break down and return to the soil. ‘On top of the grave you can set a plant that would take advantage of the nutrients in the ‘compost’,’ Wiigh-Maesak said, adding that she herself would very much like to become a white rhododendron.”

  —Associated Press

  On average, men spend 45 seconds in a public restroom stall. Women typically spend 80.

  WORD ORIGINS

  Ever wonder where words come from? Here are the interesting stories behind some everyday words.

  MARMALADE

  Meaning: A jellylike preserve made from the pulp and rind of fruits, especially citrus fruits

  Origin: “It was said that when Mary Queen of Scots was out of sorts, she would refuse to eat. The only food that could tempt her was a conserve of oranges. Hence the name of this jam after the Queen’s indisposition: Marie malade (‘sick Mary’). The word’s true ancestor, however, is the Latin melimelum, meaning ‘sweet apple.’” (From The Story Behind the Word, by Morton Freeman)

  OSTRACIZE

  Meaning: To banish or exclude from a group

  Origin: “In ancient Greece, the Athenians voted against a statesman by placing his name on an ostrakon, an earthenware tablet. Six thousand adverse votes constituted a decree of banishment.” (From Classical Word Origins, by Harry E. Wedeck)

  DUMBBELL

  Meaning: A short bar with weights at each end, used for exercise

  Origin: “Some 250 years ago someone noticed that bell ringers attained a remarkable muscular development of the chest, shoulders, and arms. Whoever he was, he invented a device which simulated the bell ringer’s gallery, but without the bells. Because there was no bell attached, it became known as a dumb bell. Someone else discovered that one could get the same exercise without most of the cumbersome contrivance, using only a wooden or metal bar.” (From Thereby Hangs a Tale, by Charles Earle Funk)

  DISMAL

  Meaning: Causing gloom or depression; dreary

  Origin: “First mentioned in 1256 as the Anglo-French name for French les mals jours, the evil days, from the Latin dies mali, or unlucky days. First computed by Egyptian astrologers, the dies mali were the days of the medieval calendar when it was unwise to begin any undertaking: January 1 and 25, February 4 and 26, March 1 and 28, April 10 and 20—and so on, two per month, through the year.” (From More About Words, by Margaret S. Ernst)

  Q: What are ephelides? A: Freckles.

  CAPITAL

  Meaning: Wealth in the form of money or property

  Origin: “From Latin caput, a ‘head’ of cattle. Cattle are one of the oldest forms of wealth: they are movable; grow; bear interest (milk); and provide capital gains (calves).” (From Remarkable Words, by John Train)

  GIBBERISH

  Meaning: Unintelligible or nonsensical talk or writing

  Origin: “This word was influenced by the 11th century Arabian alchemist, Geber, who, to avoid death on a charge of dealing with the devil, wrote his treatises in apparent nonsense.” (From Dictionary of Word Origins, by Joseph T. Shipley)

  CHAUFFEUR

  Meaning: One employed to drive a private automobile

  Origin: “The French word chauffeur comes from the verb chauffer, ‘to heat.’ A chauffeur was originally the ‘fireman’ on a steam train, whose job it was to shovel fuel into the boiler and maintain a head of steam. Steam-powered cars worked on the same principle (it took as long as 15 minutes to produce steam from a cold boiler) but this time the chauffeur was often also the driver.” (From The Chronology of Words and Phrases, by Linda and Roger Flavell)

  JINX

  Meaning: An omen of bad luck

  Origin: “At the turn of the 20th century, some people used animals and birds for fortune-telling. One of the most popular was the wryneck woodpecker—commonly known in the Southeast as the jinx. Many who paid for information from a jinx regretted it: Too often the good predictions didn’t come true, while the bad ones did. Disaster followed a reading so often that the bird’s name came to stand for bad luck.” (From Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)

  In Switzerland, it is illegal to flush a toilet or pee standing up after 10 p.m.

  SPIDER? MAN?

  Can he really do anything a spid
er can?

  COMIC BOOK SCIENCE

  A radioactive spider bit Peter Parker, endowing him with all the power and abilities of a spider: super speed, super strength, the ability to climb walls, and an uncanny “spider sense.” But how truly similar to a spider is Spider-Man?

  •Spider Strength: Spiders aren’t really all that strong. Many insects, such as ants, can carry as much as 60 times their own weight, but spiders, which are arachnids, can’t.

  •Spider Speed: Spiders are not particularly fast for their size. Trying to keep track of eight legs at once, without tying themselves in knots, limits their speed and coordination.

  •Spider Sense: Spiders are covered with setae—stiff hairlike structures that collect sensory information and relay it to the brain. But while setae can detect slight air movement (to determine if captured prey is edible), they can’t warn a spider of imminent danger.

  •Wall Climbing: Only a few of the world’s 35,000 species of spiders have the ability to walk up walls and cling to ceilings. Hunting spiders have a group of hairs, called scopula, located between their claws. The multi-stranded hairs are covered with moisture, which allows them to stick to slick surfaces. This is the only one of Spider-Man’s powers that is directly related to spiders.

  •Web Spinning: In the movies, Spidey shoots webs from his wrists as a natural part of his powers, but in the original comic book, Peter Parker invented his web-shooters and web formula. So far, science hasn’t been able to create a compound that sprays out as a liquid and instantly hardens into a silken rope, sticks to walls (but not hands), or can be formed into a net for capturing criminals.

  Spiders produce the silk for their webs in their abdomens, so if Peter had developed real spider powers, his silk probably would not have come from his wrists. Where would it come from? Well...let’s just say the Spider-Man movies would have lost their PG-13 rating.

  Dirty movie: Tom Cruise went weeks without bathing while filming The Outsiders.

  THAT ’70s BATHROOM

  Step into Uncle John’s Groovy Time Machine and we’ll travel back the 1970s, when no bathroom was complete without...

  RUBBER DUCKIES. After muppets Bert and Ernie first sang the song “Rubber Duckie” on Sesame Street in 1970 the little yellow ducks became a bathroom fixture.

  AQUA VELVA. “There’s something about an Aqua Velva man,” said the beautiful blond woman in the commercial, and millions of men believed her.

  JOHNSON’S “NO MORE TEARS” SHAMPOO. It hit the market in 1954, but it wasn’t until the ’70s that No More Tears became the best-selling American shampoo.

  AN EARTH-TONE BATHROOM SUITE. “Earth tones” were in. Green wasn’t green—it was avocado. Yellow wasn’t yellow—it was harvest gold. Brown wasn’t brown—it was chocolate. By today’s standards, they’re hard to look at (especially in combinations), but they were all the rage in the 1970s.

  FLOWER-SHAPED NON-SLIP BATH DECALS. The last remnants of the 1960s Flower Power fad ended up keeping people safe when getting in and out of the tub.

  THE SHOWER MASSAGE. German company Hansgrohe introduced the first hand-held, adjustable showerhead, the Selecta, in 1968. Soon they were everywhere. In 1974 Teledyne came out with probably the most famous one, The Original Shower Massage.

  A FUZZY TOILET SEAT COVER. Basically a shag carpet on top of the toilet seat cover, it had one major drawback: When guys used the toilet, the thick cover would make the seat fall down... mid-stream, so to speak.

  TIDY BOWL. In the 1970s, blue toilet water was clean toilet water. And then there was the Tidy Bowl Man, that little guy in the captain’s suit in the boat inside the toilet tank.

  AND TO READ? Sadly, there were no good books made especially for the bathroom...yet.

  Bee stings are acidic, wasp stings are alkali.

  THE LOST STAR WARS

  Think you’ve seen every Star Wars movie? Wrong!

  CLONE WARS

  Released in May 1977, Star Wars was one of the highest grossing movies of all time. Cast members became instant stars and any toy or product with the Star Wars logo flew off store shelves. Fans couldn’t get enough. Still, the producers were worried. The sequel wouldn’t come out for three more years. How could they make sure fans wouldn’t lose interest?

  Director George Lucas came up with an idea: “The Star Wars Holiday Special,” a two-hour TV show to air near Thanksgiving, 1978. Lucas wrote a story about how the Star Wars characters celebrated Christmas, or “Life Day,” as they called it. The plot of the program would follow Chewbacca’s family (his wife Malla, son Lumpy, and elderly father Itchy) as they awaited Chewbacca’s return home for the holiday. But Han Solo and Chewbacca would be held up by Darth Vader, bent on ruining Life Day for the entire universe. They’d fight him off and make it home to Wookie world...just in time for “Life Day!”

  THE SAGA BEGINS

  Lucas sold the idea to ABC. Who wouldn’t want a chance to take on Star Wars? It might have been a Christmas classic, but by the time production was scheduled to start, Lucas was too busy with the early stages of making The Empire Strikes Back. ABC left the Holiday Special in the hands of a team of novice staff writers who had worked mostly on short-lived TV variety shows.

  Early on, it looked like the show might be pretty good. Almost all of the original cast agreed to appear. The production team behind Star Wars was on board for special effects and makeup. There would be cameo appearances from some of TV’s biggest stars—Harvey Korman (The Carol Burnett Show), Diahann Carroll (Julia), and Beatrice Arthur (Maude). Advertisements promised never-before-seen action sequences of Han Solo and Chewbecca flying through space fighting Darth Vader’s spaceships. It looked like a surefire winner.

  Q: What do your coccyx and appendix have in common? Nobody knows what they’re for.

  THE MEDIOCRE STRIKES BACK

  The Star Wars Holiday Special aired at 8 p.m. on November 17, 1978. All expectations instantly evaporated during the first fifteen minutes, which consisted of Chewbacca’s family arguing in Wookie language...without subtitles. That foreshadowed the rest of the program: a tacky variety show with a Star Wars theme. It had no plot. It mostly showed Chewbacca’s whining, grunting relatives watching 3-D television, with sequences that included Beatrice Arthur in an off-key song-and-dance number; a virtual reality erotic dance from Diahann Carroll; a performance of “Light the Sky on Fire” by Jefferson Starship; and a cooking show with a six-armed Harvey Korman in drag. It all concluded with a “Life Day” carol sung by Princess Leia—to the tune of the Star Wars theme song. (Actress Carrie Fisher later confessed that she was “highly medicated” during filming.) As the show progressed and each sequence became more outlandish than the last, most of the 20 million viewers flipped over to Wonder Woman.

  REBEL FIGHTERS

  Today, anybody with a DVD player can see any classic movie anytime. In 1978, however, the prospect of seeing Star Wars in your own home was irresistible, which explains why ratings were so high, but despite the initially large audience, reviews were awful and true fans hated it.

  So did George Lucas.

  He was furious that the special had corrupted his beloved characters. Because of his anger (and his clout), Lucas managed to prevent The Star Wars Holiday Special from ever airing again. He assumed that the show would be an unfortunate, but quickly forgotten misstep in his career. But that’s not what happened. 1978 was the beginning of the VCR revolution, so many viewers taped the show, which set into motion a vast bootlegging network that widely distributes this otherwise forgettable flop to this day. Though most copies are of very poor quality, they can still be obtained cheaply over the Internet. Lucas was forced to give up on his goal of cleansing his reputation by erasing the Holiday Special from existence. “If I had the time and a sledgehammer,” he once commented, “I would track down every bootlegged copy of that program and smash it.”

  Makes sense: Streetlamps in Hershey, Pennsylvania, are shaped like chocolate kisses.

  NO WHISTLING!

&n
bsp; Actors are a superstitious lot. For example, productions of Macbeth have a history of injuries and deaths, so to ward off bad luck, actors usually refer to it as “the Scottish play.” Here are some other theater superstitions.

  LEAVE THE LIGHT ON

  Some theaters are old and dingy places, perfect haunts for ghosts. So it’s become standard practice to have at least one light glowing onstage around the clock, even when the theater is empty. This “ghost light” is meant to ward off bad spirits. Some theater companies use an old floor lamp with a bare bulb (which, in a way, casts exactly the eerie feeling it’s meant to dispel).

  GOOD DRESS REHEARSAL, BAD LUCK

  A perfect dress rehearsal is an omen that a play will have a short run. That’s because the cast and crew tend to feel prepared after a good final rehearsal. If they’re too confident, they might lose their nervous edge and goof up. So to avoid a completely perfect final rehearsal, the last line of the play isn’t spoken until the actual performance. If it’s omitted, the rehearsal isn’t “perfect.”

  OLD GEEZERS, GOOD LUCK

  The “front of the house”—the box office and the lobby—has its own superstitions. One of them is that if the first person to purchase a ticket for a play is an old man or woman, it means the play will have a long, profitable run. But if a young person is the first ticket buyer, the play is doomed to close quickly.

  DON’T WHISTLE BACKSTAGE

  Theater people believe that whistling backstage brings bad luck to a production. Like most superstitions, there’s no definitive explanation for the origin—it may date back to when sailors were hired to run the rope system that lowered and raised curtains and scenery. Sailors were a good choice, given their skill with knots and manning sails, but they were used to receiving orders via a bosun’s whistle. Thus, the backstage worry: if a sailor heard a whistle, he might lower a heavy curtain or piece of scenery at the wrong time, injuring the actors onstage.