Two common ingredients in dust: human skin flakes and dust mite skeletons.
YOUR 1981 GROCERY LIST
Uncle John’s family never throws anything away. (Hey, you never know what might make a good Bathroom Reader page!) He was recently helping his sister clean out her apartment and came across a Grand Union supermarket circular from 1981. (She actually had two copies.) So we used it to make this shopping list for a family of four. Times—and prices—sure have changed.
PRODUCE
Head of romaine lettuce (1) 394
Tomatoes (2 pounds at 394/pound) 784
Potatoes (5 pounds) 894
Onions (5 pounds at 394/pound) $1.15
White grapefruit (bag of 5) 994
Carrots (1-pound bag) 494
Red Delicious apples (3-pound bag) $1.19
DEN AND DAIRY
Butter (1 pound) $1.99
Eggs (dozen) 904
Milk (gallon) $2.25
Philadelphia Cream Cheese (8-ounce package) 694
Sliced ham (1-pound package) $2.99
Bologna (1-pound package) $1.39
Swiss cheese (1-pound package) $1.59
Hot dogs (1 package) $1.19
Oscar Mayer sliced bacon (1 pound package) $1.89
Knockwurst (12-ounce package) $1.29
FROZEN
Downyflake Waffles (12 count) 794
Frozen peas (1-pound package) 894
Frozen baked ziti (10-ounce package) 894
Orange juice concentrate (1) $1.29
One of the sounds used to make the dinosaur noises in Jurassic Park: recordings of tortoises mating.
BAKERY
English muffins (8 count) 594
Bread (2 loaves) 984
Hot dog buns (1 package) 894
BUTCHER
Sirloin tip steak (2-pound package) $5.18
Chuck for stew (3-pound package) $5.97
HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
Charmin toilet paper (4 rolls) 894
Paper napkins (1 package) 794
Paper towels (3 rolls at 694 each) $2.07
Kitty litter (1 bag) $119
Joy dish detergent (1 bottle) $1.69
Crest toothpaste (1 tube) $1.29
Ziploc sandwich bags (1 package) $1.45
Cat food (12-ounce bag) $2.69
CANNED AND PACKAGED
Instant oatmeal (1 box of 8 packets) $1.19
Maple syrup (1 bottle) $1.89
Kellogg's Corn Flakes (18-ounce box) $1.25
Ground coffee (1 pound) $1.49
Instant cocoa (1 box of 8 packets) 694
Wishbone Italian dressing (1-pint bottle) $1.39
Velveeta (1-pound box) $1.99
Spaghetti (2 pounds at 594 each) $1.18
Spaghetti sauce (2-pound jar) $1.49
Rice-A-Roni (6-ounce box) $1.29
Peas (17-ounce can) 594
Beans (16-ounce can) 394
Cookies (1 package) 894
TOTAL COST: $67.30
Chicago’s Wrigley Field didn’t get electric lights until 1988.
PRESIDENTS WHO PARTOOK
American presidents are just like anyone else—some of them drink a little…and some of them drink a lot.
FRANKLIN PIERCE (1804–1869)
•Pierce, who took office in 1853, was one of the heaviest drinkers ever to occupy the White House. When he ran for president, his opponents derided him as “the hero of many a well-fought bottle.”
•Pierce endured more than his fair share of tragedy in life and may have been seeking refuge in liquor. All three of his children died in childhood: Franklin Pierce Jr. died when he was just three days old in 1836, and four-year-old Frank Robert Pierce died from typhus in 1843. Benjamin “Benny” Pierce, 11, died two months before his father’s inauguration in 1853 when the train he and his parents were riding in derailed and tumbled down an embankment. Both Franklin and his wife, Jane Appleton Pierce, watched their son die; neither ever got over it. Mrs. Pierce, who also suffered from tuberculosis, was so distraught that she did not attend her husband’s inauguration, and was unable to fulfill her social duties as First Lady. She deferred to an aunt, Abby Kent-Means, who served as White House hostess while Mrs. Pierce hid upstairs in her room writing letters to her dead son.
BAD TIMING
•Pierce also held office at a difficult period in American history: the country was deeply split over the issue of slavery and sliding toward civil war, which was eight years away. Pierce was a pro-slavery Northerner, which pleased no one, giving him another reason to drink. By 1856 he was so unpopular that he felt compelled to hire a full-time bodyguard, the first president to have one.
•After losing the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term, Pierce supposedly exclaimed, “There’s nothing left but to get drunk.” He fought a losing battle with alcoholism for the rest of his life and died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1869.
ANDREW JOHNSON (1808–1875)
•Johnson’s reputation as a drunkard dated to the day he was sworn in as Abraham Lincoln’s vice president in March 1865. Johnson, who was the military governor of Tennessee at the time, was recovering from typhoid fever and had begged off attending the inauguration, but Lincoln insisted. Already in a weakened state, Johnson had had too much to drink at a party given in his honor the night before the inauguration. Then on the morning of the inauguration, already hung over from the night before, Johnson drank two or three more shots of whiskey to steady his nerves. Disheveled, red-faced, and reeking of liquor, he delivered a rambling 15-minute inaugural address that shocked the assembled dignitaries. “It was lucky you did not come to the inauguration,” Congressman (and future president) Rutherford B. Hayes wrote to his wife Lucy: “Andy Johnson’s disgraceful drunkenness spoiled it.”
•Johnson never lived down the incident. For the rest of his career, his opponents derided him as “the drunken tailor” (his former profession) and “Andy the sot.” Just six weeks after the inauguration, Lincoln was assassinated and the drunken tailor became president.
•In August 1866, President Johnson embarked on a 2,000-mile speaking tour of the northern states to drum up support for his policies. His behavior at many stops, as he angrily shouted down hecklers, once again invited speculation that he was under the influence. One journalist wrote that Johnson appeared “touched with insanity…stimulated with drink,” and U.S. Senator John Sherman complained that he had “sunk the Presidential Office to the level of a Grog House.”
100 percent humidity doesn’t necessarily mean rain. It just means that the air is saturated with moisture and can’t absorb any more.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
•All three of his Johnson’s sons were drunks. His eldest son Charles, a Union Army surgeon during the Civil War, became addicted to “medicinal” alcohol and died in 1863 after he was thrown from his horse. He was 33.
•Johnson’s second son, Robert, a Union Army colonel, was forced out of the army during the Civil War due to drunkenness. Johnson then hired Robert as his personal aide, and brought him to the White House when he became president. There Robert’s drinking continued; he brought scandal to his father’s administration by openly consorting with prostitutes in the White House. He was also linked to a “pardon broker” named Mrs. L. L. Cobb, who used her feminine wiles to obtain presidential pardons for former Confederates. A few months after his father left office in 1869, Robert, 35, committed suicide.
•In 1874 ex-president Johnson delivered a speech in Nashville after winning reelection to the U.S. Senate. He was drunk again. “It was a pitiful sight to see him standing there,” one witness remembered, “holding onto the iron railing in front of him and swaying back and forth, almost inarticulate with drink. It was a sight I shall never forget—the bloated, stupid, helpless look of Mr. Johnson, as he was hurried away from the balcony to his rooms by his friends and led staggering through the corridors.” A few months later, Johnson suffered a series of strokes and died in 1875 at the age of 66. (Four years
later, Johnson’s third son, Andrew Jr., died from alcoholism and tuberculosis. He was 27.)
In the two days following a Daylight Saving Time switchover, there’s an 8% increase in the rate of strokes.
ULYSSES S. GRANT (1822–1885)
•Grant battled alcoholism his entire adult life. A West Point graduate, his drinking derailed his military career in 1854 when he was forced to resign from the army due to drunkenness. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 was likely the only thing that saved him from a life of poverty and obscurity. He rejoined the army and rose quickly through the ranks; by 1864 he’d been promoted to lieutenant general and was commander of all the Union armies. The surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in 1865 made Grant a national hero, and in 1868 he was elected president.
•Grant was a binge drinker who succumbed to temptation when bored and away from his wife Julia. Luckily for him, the presidency kept him occupied and close to his family. He was careful not to overimbibe, at least not when people were watching. How much he drank when away from the White House and socializing with friends in private clubs is open to speculation.
ON THE ROAD
•The most colorful account of Grant’s drinking to excess took place after he left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-year, around-the-world trip. During a stop in India in 1879, the viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, claimed that at one dinner, “Grant, who got drunk as a fiddle, showed that he could also be as profligate as a lord. He fumbled Mrs. A, kissed the shrieking Miss B—pinched the plump Mrs. C black and blue—and ran at Miss D with intent to ravish her. Finally, after throwing the female guests into hysterics by generally misbehaving like a must elephant, the noble beast was captured [and]…deposited in the public saloon cabin, where Mrs. G[rant] was awaiting him…This remarkable man satiated there and then his baffled lust on the unresisting body of his legitimate spouse, and copiously vomited during the operation. If you have seen Mrs. Grant you will not think this incredible.”
To be fair, his biographers “have rightly found this story to be suspect,” historian Ron Chernow writes in Grant. “Grant had no history of groping women, much less his wife, and Lytton left Calcutta the day before the dinner in question. Still, one wonders whether this patently embellished story, obviously based on hearsay, may have had a kernel of truth. This was the sole allegation of Grant’s getting drunk on his extended trip, despite numerous temptations.”
18th-century British kids went door-to-door on Valentine’s Day singing songs and begging for treats.
TERRIBLE TYPOS
Typos are a dish best served clod.
In a Reebok ad that was apparently written too quickly:
Not Eveything Needs to be Done in a New York Minute
On the door of a credit union in Wales:
Due to the weather we are closed Sorry for any incontinence
On a “No Parking” sign (with a happy ending):
Violators Will Be Towed and Find $50
On a sign outside an elementary school:
LETERACY NIGHT
On a sign outside another school:
Congradulation Spelling Bee Winners
On a billboard advertising ABC Children’s Academy:
ABC Chilren’s Academy
Seen in a Power Point presentation (and posted on Reddit):
The Average North American Consumes more than 400 Africans.
On a McDonald’s sign:
Over 10 Billion Severed
Outside a Louisville, Kentucky, auto dealership:
We Bye Used Cars
On a wedding invitation:
Love is Sweat
On a sign at a cake shop (not a great advertisement):
Cake Writting $2.00
In a textbook:
Beethoven was in a flurry of musical writing. Being dead did not stop him in the slightest from recovering quickly and going on with his music.
(Beethoven was deaf—not dead. The dead part came later.)
In a TV station’s on-screen graphic for a story about the Lance Armstrong doping scandal:
Report: Armstrong Used Rugs
On a restaurant awning (in the Sahara?):
Cakes & Other Deserts
In a TV weather report’s on-screen forecast:
Warming Up, Not Ass Cold
On a restroom door:
Toilet ONLY for Disabled Elderly Pregnant Children
Another sign that missed the mark:
No Skatedoarbs
In a dialogue box that popped up on a computer screen:
Are you sure you want to exist? Yes No
The sides of the head are called “temples” because the hair there is often…
WANTED: PLANETARY
PROTECTION OFFICER
Here’s a mind-blowing fact: Every time a space vehicle visits another planet, it runs the risk of accidentally delivering bacteria that will cultivate new colonies and change that world forever. And every time it returns, we face the possibility that it’s bringing some alien bacteria that could wipe out our entire planet. Luckily, there’s someone at NASA whose sole job is to keep us safe.
MEETING OF THE MINDS
In the years following World War II, the scientific community was well aware that outer space had to be the next frontier. So in 1956—a year before Russia launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite—scientists from around the world gathered in Rome to discuss the possible dangers that went along with space exploration. In 1958 the United Nations and the Committee for Space Research (known as COSPAR) suggested a code of conduct for protecting Earth and other planets. The job of Planetary Protection Officer was created by the U.S. government after the UN General Assembly adopted the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which states that the international signers of the treaty who pursue “studies of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies” promise to do so only for peaceful purposes.
OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD JOB
The Planetary Protection Officer, who receives an annual salary of $187,000, visits NASA’s ten space centers, checking planet-bound robots and probes to make sure they are sterilized and have a less than a 1-in-10,000 chance of contaminating an alien world. If any aliens or alien microbes enter our biosphere, the officer works to develop plans, like quarantine programs, to protect Earth. Astrobiologist Dr. John Rummel, who served for 17 years as NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer, puts the potential danger in historical context by comparing it to our own experience with the exploration of North and South America: “We brought smallpox to the new world when the Europeans came over, and they took home syphilis.”
NO-GO ZONES
NASA and the commercial company SpaceX are now making plans to send a manned mission to Mars, causing scientists to worry about alien microbes that could sicken astronauts or cause infections if brought back to Earth. Part of the Planetary Protection Officer’s job is to map out “no-go zones”—areas of Mars to be avoided, such as streams of water, because they are most likely to harbor Martian life-forms. Because of this worry, scientists are considering the possibility of astronauts landing on Mars’s moon Phobos and exploring Mars with robots.
…the first to go gray, marking the passage of time—tempus in Latin.
ONLY EARTHLINGS MAY APPLY
The job has been around since the 1960s, but when NASA posted the want ad for Planetary Protection Officer on their website in 2017, it generated a lot of excitement. As would be expected, being the person in charge of protecting not just Earth but all of the planets in our solar system has some pretty stiff requirements. According to the job listing at NASA, the Planetary Protection Officer must have an advanced degree in physics, engineering, or mathematics. The candidate must have at least one year of experience as a top-level civilian government employee, and have experience “planning, executing, or overseeing elements of space programs of national significance.” But the job has such a “wow” factor that even those tough requirements didn’t stop a number of unusua
l people from applying, including Jack Davis of New Jersey, who submitted this application:
Dear NASA,
My name is Jack Davis and I would like to apply for the Planetary Protection Officer job. I may be nine but I think I would be fit for the job. One of the reasons is my sister says I’m an alien. Also I have seen almost all the space and alien movies I can see. I have also seen the show Marvel Agents of Shield and hope to see the movie Men in Black. I am great at video games. I am young, so I can learn to think like an Alien.
Sincerely, Jack Davis
Guardian of the Galaxy
Fourth Grade
NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN
On January 19, 2018, NASA announced that Lisa Pratt, an astrobiologist from Indiana University, had been hired as the new Planetary Protection Officer. In an official statement, Dr. Pratt said, “I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the mission of planetary protection at a defining moment in human evolution and the advancement of science. We are on the verge of becoming a spacefaring species, and I feel privileged to be invited into an extraordinary conversation, pushing the frontiers of science, exploration and discovery at NASA. This position plays a direct role in seeking evidence to address a profound question: Are we alone?”
A photon would take 40,000 years to travel from the sun’s core to its surface—but only 8 minutes from there to Earth.
REAL ESTATE “HOLDOUTS”
Sometimes when a developer wants to build a big building, such as a skyscraper or a shopping mall, they have to buy out a number of smaller property owners to get the land to do it. If the price is right, they usually succeed, but every once in a while there’s a holdout: someone who refuses to sell.
Holdout: Austin Spriggs, an architect who operated his business out of a town house on Massachusetts Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets in Washington, DC
Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader Page 24