Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Read online

  “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

  —Sylvia Plath,

  The Bell Jar

  “In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.”

  —Ludwig Bemelmans,

  Madeline

  “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”

  —Norman Maclean,

  A River Runs Through It

  “Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.”

  —Stephen King, Carrie

  “All nights should be so dark, all winters so warm, all headlights so dazzling.”

  —Martin Cruz Smith,

  Gorky Park

  But can it bury its poop? A zebra’s night vision is about as good as a cat’s.

  “When I think back now, I realize that the only thing John Wilson and I actually ever had in common was the fact that at one time or another each of us had ran over someone with an automobile.”

  —Peter Viertel,

  White Hunter Black Heart

  “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.”

  —D. H. Lawrence,

  Lady Chatterley’s Lover

  “A throng of bearded men in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.”

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne,

  The Scarlet Letter

  “If you’re going to read this, don’t bother. After a couple of pages, you won’t want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while you’re still in one piece. Save yourself.”

  —Chuck Palahniuk,

  Choke

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares?”

  —Carrie Fisher,

  Postcards from the Edge

  “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.”

  —John Steinbeck,

  The Grapes of Wrath

  “The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.”

  —Arthur C. Clarke,

  2001: A Space Odyssey

  “One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.”

  —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

  “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”

  —Charlotte Brontë,

  Jane Eyre

  “All children, except one, grow up.”

  —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

  Worldwide, more than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day—twice as much as the time spent on Google.

  HOW TO MAKE

  PRISON WINE

  The bad news: You’re in jail. The good news: You can still enjoy one of the finer things in life—wine. You just have to make it yourself. In the toilet.

  WHAT YOU’LL NEED: several thick black garbage bags; a few slices of bread or rolls; some warm water; a straw; sugar packets or cubes; and something fruity with sugar in it, such as fruit juice, tomatoes, or Kool-Aid packets.

  DIRECTIONS

  Step 1. You’ll start by making a double- or triple-thick brewing chamber. Do this with a plastic trash bag stuck inside another trash bag stuck inside another trash bag.

  Step 2. Pour in a gallon of warm water.

  Step 3. Add as much fruity material as you can muster. This can be anything from leftover fruit juice to orange rinds, raisins, tomatoes, Kool-Aid, even ketchup packets…or a little bit of each—whatever you can salvage from the limited offerings of the prison cafeteria. The fermentation process turns sugar into alcohol, so the more sugar or sugar-rich foods and liquids you have, the stronger the wine will be. Throw in about 50 sugar packets or sugar cubes, and add a new one every other day or so.

  Step 4. Fermentation is triggered by the addition of yeast. Since yeast packets aren’t readily available in prison, you’ll have to get creative. Bread has yeast in it, but what really has a large concentration of yeast is bread mold. So snag some bread from the cafeteria when it’s still fresh and moist and put it on a shelf for a few days until it starts to get moldy. When the mold forms, the bread is ready to go into the wine bag. Think ahead: The moldy bread should go into the chamber at the same time as the fruity material.

  Step 5. Seal the bag by knotting it tightly. Run it under hot tap water every day for about 15 minutes and wrap it in a blanket to keep it warm.

  Step 6. As the yeast in the bread mold ferments the sugar into alcohol, it creates carbon dioxide as a by-product, and that has to have some way to escape. So ventilate the chamber by cutting a tiny hole in the garbage bags and inserting a straw.

  Step 7. Hide it. (Is there a prison anywhere in the world that lets inmates make their own liquor?) Three days will produce a slightly alcoholic wine, but wait a week and the wine will ferment into a strong—but horrible-tasting—brew of about 13 percent alcohol, the higher end of commercially available wine’s alcoholic content.

  Step 8. When the week is up, wait. You can’t drink it quite yet. You have to “shock” the wine to stop the fermentation process. Here’s how: Place the bag (careful of the straw and straw-hole) in the toilet bowl. Flush the toilet every few minutes for about an hour to allow the cold water to wash over the outside of the bag, cooling the wine and ending fermentation.

  Step 9. Enjoy. (And try not to get caught.)

  SORRY, WRONG NUMBER

  In January 1971, President Miton Obote of the central African republic of Uganda learned that the head of the country’s army, a former Ugandan heavyweight boxing champion named Idi Amin, was planning a coup. Obote left for a planned trip to Singapore, and while there telephoned his ministers and instructed them to remove Amin from command. Big mistake: The operator handling the call was a member of the country’s Kwaka tribe—the same tribe as Amin. Obote was a member of the Lango tribe. The operator passed the information on to Amin, and on January 25, 1971, he ordered the army’s mostly Kwaka troops to seize the capital city of Kampala, along with Obote’s official residence. Amin ruled the country for the next eight years—all because of an ill-placed telephone call.

  The backs of your knees are home to more species of microbes than your gut is.

  THE #2 AMENDMENT

  Now that more states are allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons in public, gun-toters face a problem that’s plagued law enforcement for years: When you have to use the restroom, what do you do with the gun?

  GUN OWNER: Dean Wawers, 57, a deputy with the Cass County Sheriff’s Department in Fargo, North Dakota

  ARMED & DANGEROUS: In January 2008, Wawers had to make a pit stop at the county courthouse, where the sheriff’s department has its offices. As he prepared to answer nature’s call, he removed his .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic from its holster and hung it—from the trigger guard—on a coat hook inside the stall. For those readers who do not handle firearms regularly, the trigger guard prevents the trigger from being struck by foreign objects, like, say, coat hooks, which might cause the gun to go off when you don’t want it to. Detective Wawers was reminded of this when he reached for the gun as he was preparing to exit the stall: The trigger caught on the hook, causing the gun to fire a round into the ceiling.

  WHAT HAPPENED: Thankfully, the only injury was to the detective’s reputation. No charges were filed against Wawers, a 35-year veteran with the sheriff’s department, but at last report an internal investigation was underway.

  GUN OWNER: Dr. Richard L. Pinegar, 52, an emergency-room physician at Salem Hospital in Massachusetts

  ARMED & DANGEROUS: Pinegar
was working the night shift at the hospital when he had to use the bathroom. He set his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver on the counter…and then when he was paged by another physician, he quickly left the restroom, forgetting to take the gun with him. Another hospital staffer found it and alerted security, who called the police.

  WHAT HAPPENED: Dr. Pinegar was suspended while the incident was investigated; then he was fired. Pinegar wasn’t available for comment, but his lawyer, Paul Cirel, says he wasn’t aware of the hospital’s anti-firearm policy. (Even hospital security guards aren’t allowed to carry guns.) “He grew up in Iowa around guns,” Cirel said. “He’s a member of a sportsmen’s club, and he keeps his gun locked in a gun safe. He also works crazy hours in a hospital ER and has to find his car in the parking lot at night. It’s his decision to carry a gun and he’s done it following the law.”

  After the U.S., what’s the largest software-producing country in the world? Ireland.

  GUN OWNER: Cheri Maples, captain of the Madison, Wisconsin, police department

  ARMED & DANGEROUS: In February 2004, Maples attended a training session at a local community college. After the session, she went to the restroom. While there, she checked her handgun to be sure that it was properly loaded…and it went off, firing a bullet into the restroom wall.

  WHAT HAPPENED: Maples was suspended for one day (without pay).

  FOOTNOTE: Her punishment was similar to the one Madison Police Chief Richard Williams received in 1998 when he hid his service weapon in his oven at home, then forgot about it until he preheated the oven—BANG!—to cook a turkey.

  GUN OWNER: Debra Monce, 56, of Land O’ Lakes, Florida

  ARMED & DANGEROUS: In July 2009, Monce was at the Clarion Hotel in Tampa, Florida, when she had to visit the ladies’ room. As she was taking care of business, the gun she was carrying slipped out of her waist holster, clattered to the floor, and went off. The bullet struck the woman in the next stall, 54-year-old Janifer Bliss, in the lower left thigh.

  WHAT HAPPENED: Bliss was taken to Tampa General Hospital with minor injuries. At last report the State Attorney’s Office was still debating whether to file charges against Monce, who had a concealed weapons permit. “The holster was an open holster with no snaps or clips to hold the gun in place,” a police spokesperson said.

  THE 7 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

  THAT STILL HAVE MONARCHIES

  Spain, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands,

  Belgium, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

  And yours? 50% of laundry is washed in warm water, 35% in cold, and 15% in hot.

  EAT THE WORLD

  Have you ever noticed that a lot of the food Americans eat comes from other countries? It’s almost like the entire supermarket is one big “ethnic food” aisle. Here are some examples.

  KIELBASA: These sausages come from several places in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland and the Ukraine. The word kielbasa is Polish, and simply means “sausage.” It entered the English language relatively recently—in the 1950s.

  PESTO: This thick basil-and-pine-nut sauce comes from the Liguria region of northwest Italy, where it’s been eaten since at least the 1600s. The earliest mention of pesto in the United States was a 1935 article about Italian food in the Washington Post, but the dish didn’t become popular with Americans until the 1980s. Pesto means “crushed.”

  CASABA: The first of these succulent melons came to the U.S. in the 1880s from Kasaba, Turkey, hence the name.

  DATES: Date palms are native to the Middle East, and were well established around the entire Mediterranean more than 5,000 years ago. The were brought to California by Spanish missionaries starting in 1769, and are still grown there, as well as in parts of Nevada and Arizona. The name “date” comes from the ancient Greek daktylos— which originally meant “finger” or “toe” because of the resemblance of the date fruit to human digits.

  WATERMELONS: The All-American fruit, right? Wrong. They’re native to southern Africa. Watermelons were eaten by Ancient Egyptians 3,000 years ago, and by the Middle Ages, had spread to Asia and Europe. There is some disagreement as to how they first made it to the U.S. Some historians believe early Spanish explorers gave seeds to Native Americans in the Southeast in the 1500s. Others say they were brought by African slaves in the 1600s.

  SALSA: Mixing tomatoes, chilis, and other ingredients has been done in Mexico since the time of the Aztecs. When the Spanish encountered the condiment in the 1500s, they called it salsa— Spanish for “sauce.” It made its way into English language in the 1840s, and today is the most popular condiment in the United States.

  Too hard to make? 99% of all American households purchase pre-made soup.

  TORTILLA: Probably older than salsa, this cooked flat-bread made from crushed corn has been used by Native Mexicans for wrapping around meats, fish, and vegetables—even insects and snails—for thousands of years. In the native Nahuatl language they were called tlaxcalli; the Spanish changed that to tortilla.

  QUICHE: You may know that quiche came from France, but how many people know they got it from the Germans? It was first made many centuries ago in a German kingdom in what is now the northeastern French province of Lorraine. The name even comes from the German word for cake: küchen. It was first introduced to North America in the 1930s, and became popular after World War II.

  BEETS: They’re native to the Mediterranean region, where beet leaves were eaten and used medicinally for thousands of years. Who started eating the roots? The Romans. But beets only became popular in northern Europe in the 1700s, after German scientists discovered that sugar could be made from them. Beets were first exported to the U.S. in the 1830s, and were first grown here commercially at the farm of Ebenezer Herrick Dyer in Alvarado, California, in 1879.

  MINESTRONE: Italian immigrants brought this hearty vegetable soup to the United States in the 1800s. The name means “big soup.”

  WALNUTS. The trees, commonly known as English walnuts, are native to the Middle East and were cultivated at least 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon. Spanish missionaries first planted them in California in the early 1800s. Also known as mission walnuts and Persian walnuts, almost all commercially-grown walnuts in the United States are this variety, as opposed to black walnuts, which are native to North America.

  “Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with.”

  —Artemus Ward

  Only primate species that regularly walk on two legs: humans and gibbons.

  LAST WORDS

  Everybody loves reading the last words of famous people—Pablo Picasso’s, for example, were “Drink to me.” Not everyone is as famous as Picasso, but their last words can tell quite a story.

  GILES COREY (1611-1692)

  Corey was a British farmer in the town of Salem in Massachusetts Colony. In 1692 the 80-year-old man and his 72-year-old wife Martha were charged with being witches in the infamous Salem witch trials. Ordered to plead “guilty” or “not guilty,” Corey refused. A person who refused to enter a plea could not be tried—but could be induced to plea via the peine forte et dure, which is French for “hard and forceful punishment.” That meant that Corey was stripped naked and forced to lie on the ground. A board was then placed over him, and large stones were laid on it. When ordered to enter a plea, Corey would only say, “More weight,” daring officials to put more stones on the board. They did. After two days of this, with more and more stones crushing his body, Corey once more cried out “More weight!”—and died. (Martha was executed by hanging two days later.)

  MAJOR-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM ERSKINE (1770–1813)

  Erskine was a British Army officer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars that ravaged Europe in the early 1800s, as well as a member of the British Parliament. He was also mentally unstable. One night in 1813, after having served for several years in Portugal, he jumped from a high window in a building in Lisbon. Bystanders rushed to his side and heard Erskine mutter, “Now, why did I do that?” befor
e he fell into unconsciousness. He died three days later.

  MARY SURRATT (1823–1865)

  Surratt was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and that year became the first woman ever executed by the United States government. As she stood on the scaffold and the rope was being placed around her neck, she turned to the guard and said, “Please don’t let me fall.” But she did fall…through the trap door of the scaffold as she was being hanged.

  Price of gold in 1969: $41 an ounce. In 2009: $972 an ounce.

  HECTOR HUGH MUNRO (1870–1916)

  H. H. Munro was a British journalist, satirist, and author better known by his pen name, Saki. When World War I began in 1914, Munro, 43 and officially too old to join, nonetheless enlisted in the British Army as a regular soldier, refusing several officer’s commissions. On the morning of November 13, 1916, he was with his regiment on the front lines in France when a soldier in his group lit a cigarette. According to witnesses, Munro shouted, “Put out that bloody cigarette!” which gave his location away…and he was shot by a German sniper.

  CAPTAIN LAWRENCE OATES (1880–1912)

  Oates was an English explorer of Antarctica. In early 1910, he was one of four men selected to accompany Robert Falcon Scott on his Terra Nova Expedition to be the first to make it to the South Pole. They made it—but found a tent and a note from Roald Amundsen saying he’d beaten them there by 35 days. On the return trip weather conditions rapidly deteriorated and food supplies ran low. One of the four other men died on February 17. On March 16, in terrible health and fearing that he was holding the team back, Oates said to the other men, “I am just going outside and may be some time,” and walked out of their tent. There was a raging blizzard outside, the temperature was about -40°F, and Oates hadn’t even put on his boots. He was never seen again and was likely dead within minutes. Unfortunately, Oates’s sacrifice did not save the three other men, all of whom died nine days later. This story is only known from Scott’s diary, which was found by a rescue team several months later.