Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Read online

  • Cure for a Fever: Go to a stream or creek before sunrise and dig a hole in the bank, using a shovel that has never been used before. Pee into the hole; then fill it with dirt while saying, “Fever stay here! Do not come to me! Dry up in dust, come unto me when no water is in the river.”

  • Cure for the Toothaches of Children: Save whatever teeth fall out during your child’s seventh year. Then, whenever he or she has a toothache, throw one of the teeth into a stream to cure it.

  • Cure for Backaches: “He who turns three somersaults at the first sound of a thunderstorm will be free from back pains for twelve months.”

  HAIR DO’S (AND DON’TS)

  • If you see a strand of human hair lying in your path, step over or around it but not on it! If the hair is from a lunatic, you too will go insane.

  • To ensure an easy childbirth, put some red hair in a small pouch and wear it on the belly against the skin during pregnancy. The red hair brings good luck.

  • If you’re having nightmares involving a dead person, sew some of your hair into an old shoe and then give the shoe to a beggar. That will keep the dead person’s spirit away from you. (No word on what happens to the beggar.)

  New England is larger than England; New York is larger than York; New Jersey is larger than Jersey.

  HAIR AND RELATIONSHIPS

  • If a woman wants to win the heart of the young man she desires, she must steal a strand of his hair and mix it with dirt taken from one of the young man’s footsteps. Then she must burn both to powder and somehow trick the young man into eating the ashes.

  • For a woman to obtain complete mastery over a man, more-drastic steps are necessary. She must strip naked and sneak into his room while he’s asleep. If she can snip off a lock of his hair and retreat from the room without awakening him, he will be under her spell. The woman must wear the lock of hair on her person, perhaps in a small bag or in a ring. One caveat: If the man catches her with it, the spell will turn against her.

  FAMILY PLANNING

  • If a woman who wants children is having trouble conceiving, she should eat grass growing atop the grave of a woman who died during pregnancy. Another solution: the husband should poke a tiny hole in each end of a raw egg and then blow the contents into his wife’s mouth, and she must eat them.

  • How to tell if you’re pregnant: Take an axe or a hammer to a place where two roads cross, and stand there nine nights in a row. On the ninth night, pee on the implement and bury it there. Wait nine days and then dig it up again. If the implement is rusty, you’re pregnant.

  • To ensure that her children are healthy and strong, the expectant mother must wear a necklace made of bear claws and children’s teeth. Avoid eating fish and snails during pregnancy; otherwise, the child will be as stupid as a fish and as slow as a snail.

  • Avoid cemeteries during pregnancy. If the shadow of a cross on a grave falls on a pregnant woman, she will have a miscarriage.

  Snails breathe through their feet.

  (Note: The wishes of any naughty gypsy who “anticipated the privileges of matrimony” notwithstanding, this is not an effective means of contraception.)

  MISCELLANEOUS ADVICE

  • If your child is born during the light of the full moon, it will go on to have a happy marriage.

  • If you are the victim of a burglary or a robbery, buy a black hen and fast with the hen for nine Fridays in a row. If the thief does not return your property, he will die.

  • Avoid dustdevils and whirlwinds. They are signs that the devil is dancing with a witch, and if you approach too close you can be carried away, body and soul, straight to the depths of hell.

  • If your cow wanders away and gets lost, jam a pair of scissors into the crossbeam running across the living room ceiling, if it has one. This will protect the cow from witches.

  • If a cow “makes water” (pees) while being milked, she is bewitched.

  • It is bad luck to meet up with a priest or a nun, especially if they’re the first person you meet in the morning. Conversely, it is very lucky to meet with a woman “of easy virtue—the easier, the better.”

  STRANGE SPORT: MOUNTAIN UNICYCLING

  Where It Originated: Seward, Alaska

  How You Do It: Called MUni for short, mountain unicycling was invented in the mid-1980s by a local judge named George Peck, who customized his unicycle with a bigger tire. A mountain unicycle can go anywhere a mountain bike can, but it’s much safer because it can turn sharp corners and its “direct drive” prevents you from coasting down steep hills at high speeds. Still, competitive MUni riders fall frequently and are required to wear helmets at tournaments, which take place in North America, Europe, and Australia. Carefully maneuvering a unicycle down a mountainside, Peck explains, is “not exactly exhilarating…but it is a series of little joys.”

  Andorra has the world’s lowest unemployment rate (0%) & the highest life expectancy (83.48 yrs.).

  HEEERE’S BABY!

  Millions of babies are born every day, but only a select few of these births are weird enough to make it into a Bathroom Reader.

  STRINGS ATTACHED

  In December 2006, Sharon Taylor was rushing into the hospital in West Yorkshire, England—she could feel her baby coming and wasn’t sure she could “hold it” until she reached the delivery room. She couldn’t. Once inside the doors, the newborn “shot out” of Taylor so fast that her boyfriend tried to catch it. He couldn’t. According to reports, baby Ashleigh landed on the floor and skidded a few feet, but then—thanks to the umbilical cord—was retracted right back up into her mommy’s arms.

  JACKPOT!

  While playing the slot machines at an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino, Nyree Thompson started going into labor, even though her baby wasn’t due for another month. She alerted a security guard, but he didn’t believe her…until her water broke. With Thompson lying on the floor of the crowded casino, a guard yelled, “Don’t push!” Thompson replied, “Forget you! This baby is coming right now!” And she was right. The baby boy, who she named Qualeem, was wrapped up in a casino jacket and placed in his mother’s arms. Casino spokesman Steve Callender told reporters, “We’ve had people die here, but this is the first time we’ve had people born here.”

  LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

  At 3 a.m. on a March night in 2007, Lisa Tauer, a 28-year-old retail manager from Hurley, Wisconsin, started feeling contractions. They were only 10 minutes apart, so she and her husband Jereme thought they had plenty of time. But as their Dodge Neon sped down Highway 2, the contractions got much closer. “You need to get us there, like now!” Lisa said from the passenger seat. As the speedometer wavered between 90 and 100 mph on the empty highway, Jereme turned on the interior light and saw his baby boy’s head crowning. “So he was holding onto the head, while I was trying to push,” recalled Lisa. She was scooted so far back on the reclined seat that Jereme Jr. landed right on the seat cushion. Jereme Sr. recalled, “I just kind of cradled him as he came out, and watched him, watched the road, watched him, watched the road.” Shortly after, the couple found a police car that escorted them to the hospital, where Jereme Jr. was reported to be in excellent condition.

  Poll results: Americans in their thirties are 26% less likely to make a New Year’s resolution than people in their twenties, but are 26% more likely to keep it.

  BIG THINGS DO COME IN SMALL PACKAGES

  Due to a genetic bone disorder, 33-year-old Stacey Herald is only 2'4" tall. “My whole life, I’ve been told that I wasn’t able to have children, that the baby would grow up underneath my lungs and smother out my heart, and we would both die. Something inside me just didn’t believe that.” So Stacey and her husband Wil convinced their doctor to let her try. First, the couple had Katira, born with the same small stature as her mother. But when Stacey became pregnant again, there were no signs of the defect; it was going to be the size of a regular baby, growing inside the frame of a very small woman. “If I laid down, I looked like a snail.
That’s how big my belly was. I looked like an Idaho potato with arms and legs. I couldn’t see my feet.” In February 2008, baby Makaia, measuring 18 inches, was born successfully to Stacey, who measures 28 inches. (To put it in perspective, it’s equivalent to a 5'8" woman giving birth to a 4' baby.)

  ROCK-A-BYE BABY, IN THE TREETOP

  As floodwaters raged through Mozambique in 2000, 23-year-old expectant mother Cecilia Chirindza and her family took refuge on a makeshift platform in the top of a tree for three days. There was no sign of rescue…and Cecilia went into labor. Only an hour after baby Rositha was born, a military helicopter arrived. As news cameras rolled, a rescuer lowered himself down and cut the baby’s umbilical cord before pulling the family to safety one by one. The footage made Cecilia and Rositha the faces of the disaster.

  Four months later, mother and child were flown around the world as part of an appeal for aid to the poor country still reeling from the floods that left two million people homeless. Cecilia told reporters she hoped the attention would not only help her people, but also give her child an opportunity to one day become a “great leader.”

  LET’S GO STREAKING

  Uncle John has mentioned Elvis Presley in 21 consecutive Bathroom Readers. Here are some more notable streaks.

  • Most Consecutive Academy Award Nominations: Walt Disney was nominated for Best Animated Short Subject every year from 1942 to 1963—a span of 22 years. He won four times.

  • Most Consecutive Seasons Without Winning a World Series: The Chicago Cubs hold baseball’s longest futility streak—100 seasons without a championship (and counting).

  • Most Consecutive Emmy nominations Without a Win: Susan Lucci was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her role as Erica Kane on All My Children 13 years in a row, from 1981 to 1993. On her 19th (nonconsecutive) nomination in 1999, she finally won.

  • Most Consecutive Razzie Award Nominations: The Razzies are the Oscars of bad movies. Sylvester Stallone was nominated for Worst Actor 13 years in a row (1985–1997). He won five times.

  • Most Consecutive #1 Songs by a Single Artist: From 1985 to 1988, Whitney Houston had seven straight singles reach #1. They were: “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “Greatest Love of All,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go.”

  • Most Consecutive Nominations for U.S. President: Eugene Debs was the Socialist candidate in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912. (How’d he do? Have you ever heard of President Eugene Debs?)

  • Most Consecutive Games Started in the NFL: Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre started 253 straight games from 1992 to 2008. His closest rival is the Colts’ Peyton Manning, with 160 consecutive starts over nine years.

  • Most Consecutive Blockbuster Movies: Tom Hanks starred in 10 consecutive movies that made more than $100 million at the box office. They were Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story (voice only), Saving Private Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, Toy Story 2 (voice only), The Green Mile, Cast Away, Road to Perdition, and Catch Me If You Can.

  • Most Consecutive Postseason Bowl Game Appearances: The University of Michigan football team (the Wolverines) has played for 32 straight seasons.

  • Most Consecutive Years of Drought: Geologists have determined that in the “four corners” region of the United States (where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet), there was no rainfall between 1276 and 1299, making that 23-year period the longest drought in “American” history.

  • Most Consecutive “Most Points Scored” Titles in the NBA: Michael Jordan scored more points than anyone else for 10 consecutive seasons (not including a two-year hiatus to play baseball), from 1987 to 1998. The streak ended when he retired.

  • Most Consecutive Years in Primetime: Gunsmoke aired first-run shows on television for 20 years straight, from 1955 to 1975.

  • Most Consecutive Sellouts: The Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA sold out 814 straight home games between 1976 and 1996.

  • Most Consecutive Years With a Hit Song: Each year from 1970 to 2000, Elton John charted at least one single on the Billboard Hot 100—a period of 31 years. (The first: “Border Song.” The last: “Someday Out of the Blue.”)

  • Most Consecutive Sports Broadcasts: Chick Hearn started calling Los Angeles Lakers basketball games on the radio in 1961. Between November 1965 and December 2001, he never missed a single game. Grand total: 3,338 games.

  • Most Consecutive Emmy Award Wins: The Oustanding Reality-Competition Series award was created in 2002. As of 2007, the only program to ever win the award—a total of five times—is The Amazing Race.

  On the island of Cyprus, the archbishop is the only person allowed to write with purple ink.

  No streak: Ray Stevens’s song “The Streak” spent one consecutive week at #1, in 1974.

  TOM SWIFTIES

  This classic style of pun was originally invented in the 1920s. They’re atrocious and corny…so of course we couldn’t resist them.

  “I’m taller than I was yesterday,” said Tom gruesomely.

  “Well, that certainly took the wind out of my sails,” said Tom disgustedly.

  “I’m waiting to see the doctor,” said Tom patiently.

  “I have no idea,” said Tom thoughtlessly.

  “I have diamonds, clubs, and spades,” said Tom heartlessly.

  “I can’t walk. My leg hurts too much,” reported Tom lamely.

  “I wonder if there’s a number between seven and nine,” said Tom considerately.

  “I’m the butcher’s assistant,” said Tom cuttingly.

  “Don’t you have any oranges?”

  Tom asked fruitlessly.

  “Someday, I want to teach at a university,” Tom professed.

  “I can’t remember anything from the last 24 hours,” said Tom lackadaisically.

  “Your Honor, you’re crazy!” said Tom judgmentally.

  “Elvis is dead,” said Tom expressly.

  “I can take photographs if I want to!” Tom snapped.

  “Congratulations, you graduated,” said Tom diplomatically.

  “I love mustard on my hot dogs,” said Tom with relish.

  “I hate this Chardonnay,” Tom whined.

  “Has my magazine arrived?” Tom asked periodically.

  “Stop, horse! Stop!” cried Tom woefully.

  “I think that wasp is in pain,” Tom bemoaned.

  “Look! Here comes a big black bird,” Tom crowed.

  “I love the taste of orange peels,” said Tom zestfully.

  “I’ve only enough carpet for the hall and landing,” said Tom with a blank stare.

  50% of lingerie purchases are returned to the store.

  CABLE PIONEERS

  Uncle John’s grandpa had a motto for success in business: Find a need and fill it. That’s more difficult than it sounds, because you have to be in the right place at the right time…but as these folks prove, it does work.

  ON THE AIR

  Today, almost 90% of American viewers get their television signal by paying for a subscription service—either cable or satellite. The days of rabbit ears and rooftop antennas are nearly gone. Cable TV has become a $75 billion a year business, but it started out as the hobby of small-town tinkerers and entrepreneurs.

  Back in the late 1940s, television was the latest technological marvel. In those days, TV sets had to be within 50 or 75 miles of a broadcast station in order to receive a clear signal. Since there were so few stations—just 98 in the entire country in 1950—the only people who could watch TV were those who lived in and around major cities. That also meant they were the only people who had a reason to buy a TV.

  Small-town appliance dealers hoping to get in on the lucrative new business became the pioneers who brought television to rural America. They created the first cable systems in the late 1940s and early ’50s, calling them “Community Antenna TV,” or CATV. Though cable TV appears to have been developed simultaneously by several diff
erent people in several different places, the story of John Walson of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, exemplifies the experience.

  OVER THE WIRE

  Walson started out working for Pennsylvania Power & Light (PP&L), running electrical cables from utility poles into people’s houses and repairing electrical appliances—which, in those days, were leased from the power company. When PP&L decided to get out of the appliance business, Walson saw an opportunity and took advantage of it by opening an appliance store and showroom in Mahanoy City.

  What’s a scroggling? A small, runty apple left on the tree after a harvest.

  He began carrying television sets in 1947, but didn’t sell very many at first. The problem: The nearest broadcast stations were 80 miles away in Philadelphia, and Mahanoy City, located in a valley and surrounded by mountains, just couldn’t get any reception. He did have potential customers—the nearby towns of Frackville, Volcan, and Hazeton were built on mountaintops and could tune in a few stations, but those people wanted to see the product demonstrated before they were willing to shell out $500 for a brand-new 121½" black-and-white TV.

  So Walson bought a piece of property on top of a local mountain, where he fixed an antenna to the end of a 70-foot utility pole. If a customer was serious about purchasing a set, Walson would drive them up the hill and show them how well it worked by plugging it into his giant antenna. This was better than nothing, but what he really wanted was TV reception in his showroom. There was only one thing he could do to get it.

  THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

  First Walson bought a mile of U.S. Army surplus cable and a bunch of set-top amplifiers designed to boost television signals. Then, in the summer of 1948, he set out to connect his store to the mountaintop antenna. He had to modify the amplifiers and insert them into the line every 500 feet to maintain the strength of the signal, but when he was done, he had all three Philadelphia stations playing in his store window—with speakers wired up outside so that locals could stand out on the sidewalk and fully enjoy the first television reception in town.