Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  THE PLAN: In 1959 a program was started to aggressively introduce wild turkey populations to California. Officials hoped having the game birds would mean big revenue from local and out-of-state hunters.

  IT WORKED...By 1969 there were enough turkeys for a regular hunting season. By the 1980s, there were tens of thousands of them.

  ...TOO WELL! In 2003 California officials began introducing programs to get rid of wild turkeys. There were more than a quarter million of the birds living in the state, and they were wreaking havoc. Biologists said they were invading habitats of native birds, consuming endangered species of plants and animals, damaging crops, ruining gardens, fouling backyards—and sometimes even attacking children.

  THE PLAN: In May 2003, German advertising firm JC Decaux presented fashion chain H&M with a marketing plan for a new line of bikini swimwear. The idea was simple: plaster the country with posters of German supermodel Heidi Klum wearing the sexy swimsuits.

  IT WORKED...The Klum ads became one of the most successful advertising campaigns in the country’s history. H&M reported huge sales.

  ...TOO WELL! More than half of the posters were immediately stolen. Not only that, people smashed display cases to get them. JC Decaux president Hans-Peter Bischoff said, “We put up 750 small posters, and they were all gone within a few hours. It’s madness.” The company had to hire guards to protect the display boxes while they figured out a solution. The solution: H&M started giving the posters away for free.

  Is your second toe longer than the rest? If so, 15% of the population has toes just like you.

  THE PLAN: After a hole was discovered in the ozone layer above Australia in the mid-1980s, the government began aggressive ad campaigns to warn people about the risks of getting too much sun. The ozone layer acts as a filter against the dangerous ultraviolet rays in sunlight, and the country already had the highest skin cancer rates in the world. One of the most popular campaigns was “Slip, Slop, Slap”: “Slip on a shirt, Slop on sunscreen, and Slap on a hat!”

  IT WORKED...National health associations credited the campaign with making sunscreen usage a normal part of life for many Australians, saving countless lives.

  ...TOO WELL! In 2000 officials announced that nearly 25% of Australian adults were vitamin D deficient. How do you get vitamin D? Primarily by exposure to sunlight—the skin produces it in reaction to the sun’s rays. Lack of the vitamin can cause a host of health risks, including osteoporosis, and is believed to be linked to breast, colon, and prostate cancer.

  THE PLAN: To get its citizens to spend money, and thus boost the country’s faltering economy, in 1999 South Korea instituted a program making it easy for anyone to obtain a credit card.

  IT WORKED...The nation’s economic growth climbed by 10% in the first year alone.

  ...TOO WELL! By 2003 the average South Korean worker had four credit cards and consumers had rung up more than $100 billion in debt. There were so many unpaid credit card accounts that the nation’s largest credit company had to stop issuing money from their ATMs and had to get an emergency loan just to stay afloat. Credit card debt was also blamed for a rash of suicides, thefts, kidnappings, and prostitution cases. “Koreans ate a poison pill,” economist Kim Kyeong Won told Time magazine, “It tasted sweet at the time, but was still poison.”

  TWO REAL NOTES GIVEN TO TEACHERS

  “Dear School: Please excuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”

  “Sally won’t be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.”

  Before the Civil War, the average work week was 11 hours a day, 6 days a week.

  WHERE’S YOUR MECCA?

  You’ve probably heard of the pilgrimage to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is a requirement of the Islamic faith. But have you heard about the Kumbh Mela? How about the...

  HOLY SITE: Sites around Mecca, Saudi Arabia

  THE JOURNEY: The Hajj pilgrimage is the duty of all Muslims, if they are physically and financially able to make the journey. It always takes place in the 12th (and holy) month of the Islamic year, Ramadan. Some requirements of the Hajj: Pilgrims are not allowed to hunt, wear perfume, have marital relations, or argue; they must walk around the Ka’aba—the ancient mosque said to be built by Islam’s patriarch, Abraham, and his son Ishmael—seven times. (The Ka’aba is the direction that all Muslims face during prayer.) They must also stone the three pillars of Jamraat, which represent Satan, symbolizing Abraham’s rejection of temptation. More than 2 million people make the Hajj to Mecca every year.

  HOLY SITES: Four cities in India

  THE JOURNEY: The Kumbh Mela is the world’s largest religious pilgrimage. It centers around a Hindu myth: Long ago the gods and demons fought a battle over the Kumbh, a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality. During the battle, four drops of nectar spilled onto the Earth. Those drops fell in the Indian cities of Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain, and Haridwar. Every three years a mela (fair) is held in one of the cities, rotating so that each is visited every 12 years. The Guinness Book of World Records called Allahabad’s 1989 gathering “the largest number of human beings to ever assemble with a common purpose in the entire history of mankind.” An estimated 25 million people—nearly the population of Canada—attended.

  HOLY SITE: Ise Jingu (The Grand Shrine of Ise), Mie, Japan

  THE JOURNEY: The Ise Jingu is the Shinto shrine dedicated to Amaterasu Omikami, the Great Sun Goddess and mythological ancestor of the Japanese royal family. In the 600s A.D., Emperor Temmu declared it the most important shrine in Shintoism. At first, only Japanese royalty were allowed in, but it in the 1600s it was opened to the public. Ise Jingu also has the distinction of being one of the oldest—and newest—pilgrimage sites in the world. Every 20 years it undergoes shikinen sengu—all the shrine’s buildings are destroyed and rebuilt, using the same construction techniques that were used 13 centuries ago. (The next shikinen sengu is in 2013.) Today more than 6 million make the trip every year, with more than a million showing up around New Years Day alone.

  Can you wiggle your pollex? Probably...it’s your thumb.

  HOLY SITE: Chek Chek shrine near Yazd, Iran

  THE JOURNEY: Zoroastrianism was founded in the 6th century B.C. and was the official religion of the ancient Persian Empire. Legend says that in 640 A.D. Muslim armies chased the daughter of Persian Emperor Yazdgird III to the mountains near Yazd. There she prayed to the Zoroastrian creator, Ahura Mazda, for her freedom, and the mountain opened up and saved her. A holy spring still runs at the site (Chek Chek means “drip drop”). Every June, thousands of pilgrims make their way up the mountain to a sacred cave, where they pray and drink the water from the spring.

  HOLY SITE: Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York

  THE JOURNEY: Hill Cumorah is where Joseph Smith had visions in the 1820s, upon which the Mormon faith is based. There, Mormons believe, Smith was visited by the Angel Moroni, who gave him the Book of Mormon—the history of the New World on gold tablets. A huge statue of Moroni stands on the hill, and every July, nearly 100,000 Mormons come for “The Cumorah Pageant: America’s Witness for Christ,” during which dramatic reenactments of the Book of Mormon are performed.

  HOLY SITE: The Saut d’Eau waterfall near Ville Bonheur, Haiti

  THE JOURNEY: Many Haitians follow a combination of Voodooism and Christianity. In 1847, believers say, an image of the Virgin Mary was seen in a tree near the falls. In the Voodoo faith, the Virgin Mary is often associated with Erzuli, the Voodoo goddess of love. Every July, pilgrims journey to Ville Bonheur (the Village of Bliss) and the Saut d’Eau falls. There they stand in the falls and sing, chant, and pray to Mary and/or Erzuli and other Voodoo spirits. Anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of Haitians (depending on political conditions in the country) make the trip each year.

  Pound for pound, the hummingbird has the most powerful muscles of any animal.

  WAS IT...MURDER?

  A mysterious death reveals a deep, dark secret. Lives are chan
ged forever; the community is shocked. Mrs. Uncle John finds her husband in the arms of—no, wait! That’s not part of the story.

  LAST NIGHT

  On the evening of March 18, 2003, a 75-year-old Tampa, Florida, socialite named Jean Ann Cone drove to the home of friends to help plan the annual benefit gala for the Tampa Museum of Art. She had a few drinks while she was there, and when it came time to leave, another woman, Bobbie Williams, followed behind Cone’s Rolls Royce to make sure she got home safely. Cone’s husband, Douglas, was away on business, so she appreciated the offer.

  When the two women arrived at the Cone residence, Williams watched as Cone pulled into her garage and closed the automatic door behind her; then Williams drove home.

  It was the last time anyone saw Mrs. Cone alive.

  NOBODY HOME

  At 5:00 p.m. the following day, the part-time housekeeper, Norma Gotay, arrived and noticed that Cone’s bed was neatly made. That was unusual because it was Gotay’s job to make it, but she assumed that Cone must have slept at a friend’s house.

  A little later, a friend of Cone’s came by to take her to a baseball game they had planned to see together. All Gotay could tell the friend was that Cone was not home and that she had no idea where she was. At 7:00 p.m., Gotay finished her work and went home without ever seeing her employer. It wasn’t until Cone missed a lunch appointment the next day that people began to worry.

  Someone called Cone’s daughter Julianne McKeel to ask if she knew her mother’s whereabouts. McKeel promptly went over and searched the house but couldn’t find any sign of her mother—until she checked the garage and saw the Rolls Royce parked in a puddle of green antifreeze. The windows were rolled up, all four doors were locked, and there, slumped in the driver’s seat, was Jean Ann Cone. She was dead.

  Earthquakes travel at speeds of up to 4.8 miles per second.

  WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE

  Considering the unusual circumstances surrounding Mrs. Cone’s death and her prominence in Tampa society, the investigation into her death was surprisingly short.

  Facts of the case:

  There was no indication that Cone was despondent or suicidal in the days leading up to her death.

  The garage door was in the closed position when the body was discovered, and so was the door into the house.

  Cone was on medication, and the autopsy revealed that her blood-alcohol level at the time of her death was 0.18 percent—twice the legal limit. She had had a history of episodes of light-headedness caused by her medications, something that alcohol might have made even worse.

  Her car key was still in the ignition of the Rolls Royce, and it was turned to the on position, even though the engine was not running when she was found.

  Julianne McKeel confirmed that her mother was in the habit of pulling into the garage and closing the garage door behind her before shutting off the engine, unlocking the door, and getting out of the car.

  The police considered all the evidence and concluded that Cone’s death was accidental. They surmised that when she arrived home on the evening of the 18th, she pulled into her garage, closed the door behind her, and then passed out behind the wheel of her car before she could shut off the engine. The victim of too much alcohol and prescription drugs, she did not regain consciousness in time to turn off the ignition, and suffocated on the exhaust fumes that filled the closed garage. The car kept running until it overheated—which explained the puddle of antifreeze—and then stalled.

  THE PLOT THICKENS

  When Mr. Cone returned home, having heard of his wife’s death, he was crying and inconsolable. He behaved just as you’d expect a man to behave after losing the woman he’d loved for 52 years. “He was really depressed,” the housekeeper told reporters. “They cared about each other. They had been married for so many years.”

  A whistle sounds louder just before it rains.

  Nothing Mr. Cone said or did aroused even a hint of suspicion...at first.

  Then, just 13 days later, friends of the family happened to read a baffling wedding announcement in the local newspaper. Less than two weeks after his wife’s death, Douglas Cone had remarried—and he hadn’t bothered to tell his three grown children. Now that could be considered suspicious behavior.

  Had Mrs. Cone been murdered? Was Douglas Cone her killer? What was going on? Their son Doug Jr. asked the police to take another look into his mother’s death.

  MYSTERY MAN

  The first thing they did was investigate the woman Cone had just married. Here’s what they found:

  Her name was Hillary Carlson and she was already married.

  Few of her acquaintances had ever met her husband, Donald Carlson, who worked for the U.S. State Department and was always traveling.

  They had been married for more than 20 years, had two grown children, and lived on a 67-acre gated estate 20 miles north of Tampa.

  Then the investigators discovered some bizarre coincidences: The Carlsons and the Cones traveled in the same exclusive social circles. The two families had both sent their children to the same prestigious Berkeley Preparatory School, and Hillary Carlson and Jean Ann Cone had served together on the school’s board of trustees. Both families had given lots of money to the school—the library named in honor of Mrs. Cone was just yards away from the baseball field that was named for Mrs. Carlson.

  Douglas Cone and Donald Carlson seemed to have less in common than their wives did. Cone didn’t travel in diplomatic circles like Carlson—he was in road construction. But had Jean Ann Cone and Hillary Carlson compared notes about their husbands, they might have noticed something unusual: Jean Ann’s husband was away on business during the week and home on weekends, while Hillary’s husband was away on weekends but home during the week.

  And just like Superman and Clark Kent, Douglas Cone and Donald Carlson were never in the same place at the same time.

  In 1014 A.D., Viking ships pulled down the London Bridge, apparently on a whim.

  THE JIG IS UP

  With the cops (and the newspapers) hot on his trail, Douglas Cone had no choice but to reveal his incredible secret: for more than 20 years, he had been living a double life. On weekends he lived with his wife Jean Ann in town, but during the week he posed as Donald Carlson, living with his mistress, Hillary Carlson, and their two children on their large estate.

  He and Hillary had made up the story about the State Department job so they would never have to appear together in public. Douglas Cone’s “business trips” were simply a ruse so he could spend the week with Hillary. She knew everything, but Jean Ann Cone apparently died without realizing that her husband had been two-timing her for over two decades.

  REST IN PEACE

  The police still believe, and the Cone children now accept, that Jean Ann Cone’s death was an accident. “The family was only suspicious because Douglas Cone remarried too quickly,” says Tampa Police Sergeant Jim Simonson. “Turns out that can be easily explained; it’s not like he met the woman two weeks before.”

  RANDOM INSECT FACTS

  •The word “bug” started out as the Anglo-Saxon word bugge or bough meaning a terror, a devil, or a ghost.

  •The word “dragonfly” probably originates with the Greek word drakos meaning “eye.”

  •The hairs on the butt of a cockroach are so sensitive that they can detect the air currents made by the on-rushing tongue of a toad.

  •The praying mantis is the official state insect of Connecticut.

  •Mating soapberry bugs remain locked in embrace for up to eleven days, a period of time which exceeds the life span of many other insects.

  The skin on the soles of your feet is called the stratum corneum (Latin for “horny layer”).

  COMIC RELIEF

  Great lines from great comedians.

  “My doctor told me I had Attention Deficit Disorder. He said, ‘A.D.D. is a complex disorder, blah, blah, blah.’ I didn’t pay attention to the rest.”

  —Kyle Dunnigan

 
“One night I made love for an hour and five minutes. It was the day they pushed the clock ahead.”

  —Garry Shandling

  “Personally, I’m waiting for caller IQ.”

  —Sandra Bernhard

  “A relationship is like a full-time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks’ notice...and they should have to find you a temp.”

  —Bob Ettinger

  “Penguins mate for life. Which doesn’t exactly surprise me that much ’cause they all look alike—it’s not like they’re going to meet a better-looking penguin some day.”

  —Ellen DeGeneres

  “While driving I had an accident with a magician. He came out of nowhere!”

  —Auggie Cook

  “You know the good thing about gangs is, they carpool.”

  —John Mendoza

  “I was on the corner the other day when a wild-eyed sort of gypsy-looking lady with a dark veil over her face grabbed me right on Ventura Boulevard and said, ‘Karen Haber! You’re never going to find happiness, and no one is ever going to marry you!’ I said, ‘Mom, leave me alone.’”

  —Karen Haber

  “I’m not saying my wife’s a bad cook, but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer.”

  —Bob Monkhouse

  “I was on the subway sitting on a newspaper, and a guy comes over and asks, ‘Are you reading that?’ I didn’t know what to say. So I said, ‘Yes,’ stood up, turned the page, and sat down again.”

  —David Brenner

  Rain contains vitamin B12.

  THE BIRTH OF THE MAJOR LEAGUES

  Over the years, the BRI has written a lot about the history of the game of baseball. Here’s what happened when people began to realize that there was a lot of money to be made in the business of baseball.

  PROFESSIONAL BASE BALL