Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader Read online

  Walk the plank. Appear in a police lineup.

  Barber a joint. Rob a bedroom while the occupant is asleep.

  Chop a hoosier. Stop someone from betting because they’ve been continuously winning.

  Dingoes. Vagrants who refuse to work even though they claim to be looking for a job.

  California blankets. Newspapers used to sleep on or under.

  Wise money. Money to be wagered on a sure thing.

  Ride the lightning. Be electrocuted.

  Rolling orphan. Stolen vehicle with no license plates.

  Put [someone] in the garden. Swindle someone out of their fair share of money or property.

  Swallow the sours. Hide counterfeit money from the police.

  Frozen blood. Rubies.

  Square the beef. Get off with a lighter sentence than expected.

  Toadskin. Paper money—either good or counterfeit.

  Vinegar boy. Someone who passes worthless checks.

  Trojan. A professional gambler.

  White soup. Stolen silver melted down so it won’t be discovered.

  Grease one’s duke. Put money into someone’s hand.

  Irish favorites. Emeralds.

  Fairy grapes. Pearls.

  High pillow. The top man in an organization.

  Nest with a hen on. Promising prospect for a robbery.

  Trigging the jigger. Placing a piece of paper (the trig) in the keyhole of a door to a house that is suspected to be uninhabited. If the trig is still there the next day, a gang can rob the house later that night.

  The muscles that power a dragonfly’s wings make up 23% of its bodyweight.

  FICTIONARY

  The Washington Post runs an annual contest asking readers to come up with alternate meanings for various words. Here are some of the best (plus a few by the BRI).

  Carcinoma (n.), a valley in California, notable for its heavy smog.

  Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

  Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

  Unroll (n.), a breadstick.

  Mortar (n.), what tobacco companies add to cigarettes.

  Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you’ve gained.

  Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

  Innuendo (n.), an Italian suppository.

  Semantics (n.), pranks conducted by young men studying for the priesthood.

  Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

  Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

  Instigator (n.), do-it-yourself reptile kit. Just add water.

  Laughingstock (n.), an amused herd of cattle.

  Coffee (n.), one who is coughed upon.

  Hexagon (n.), how a mathematician removes a curse.

  Reincarnation (n.), the belief that you’ll come back as a flower.

  Paradox (n.), two physicians.

  Prefix (n.), the act of completely breaking a partially broken object before calling a professional.

  Atheism (n.), a non-prophet organization.

  Rectitude (n.), the dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

  Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that transports the victims of steamroller accidents.

  Eyedropper (n.), a clumsy optometrist.

  Zebra (n.), ze garment which covers ze bosom.

  Think (Boston) tea is Massachusetts’s state beverage? Try again—it’s cranberry juice.

  THE COST OF WAR (MOVIES)

  Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the role the Pentagon plays in shaping how Hollywood depicts the military.

  PROFITEERS

  If you’re going to make a war movie, chances are you’re going to need army tanks, fighter planes, ships, and maybe even submarines to film some of your scenes.

  There are two ways to get them: One is to pay top dollar to rent them on the open market from private owners or the militaries of foreign countries like Israel and the Philippines. That can add tens of millions of dollars to the budget. The other is to “borrow” them from the U.S. military, which makes such items available to filmmakers at a much lower cost.

  Critics charge that Pentagon cooperation with the film industry is a waste of taxpayer money, but the all-volunteer U.S. military sees it differently: Supporting a movie like Top Gun, for example, doesn’t cost all that much, and the resulting film is a two-hour-long Armed Forces infomercial starring Tom Cruise.

  NO FREE LUNCH

  The catch is that the military will only support films that cast the Armed Forces in a positive light. If a movie producer submits an unflattering script, the Pentagon will withhold its support until the script is changed. If the producer refuses to make the recommended changes, the Pentagon withholds its support, and the cost of making the film goes through the roof.

  The original script for Top Gun, for example, called for Tom Cruise’s character to fall in love with an enlisted woman played by Kelly McGillis. Fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel is against Navy rules, so the Navy “suggested” that producer Jerry Bruckheimer rework the McGillis character. “We changed her to an outside contractor,” Bruckheimer told Brill’s Content magazine. The resulting movie was such an effective recruiting tool that the Navy set up booths in theater lobbies, to sign up enthusiastic recruits after they saw it.

  Q: What’s the potato’s closest edible relative? A: The eggplant.

  THE PENTAGON SEAL OF APPROVAL

  Here’s a look at a few films that have been through the Pentagon’s screening process:

  Independence Day (1996), starring Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum

  Story Line: Evil aliens try to destroy the world.

  Status: Cooperation denied. “The military appears impotent and/or inept,” one Pentagon official complained in a memo. “All advances in stopping aliens are the result of civilians.”

  G.I. Jane (1997), starring Demi Moore

  Story Line: A female Navy recruit tries out for the Navy SEALs.

  Status: Cooperation denied. The title was bad, for one thing, because “G.I.” is an Army term and there are no G.I.s in the Navy. The military also objected to a bathroom scene in which a male SEAL who shares a foxhole with Moore has difficulty urinating in front of her. As one naval commander put it, “the urination scene in the foxhole carries no benefit to the U.S. Navy.”

  Goldeneye (1995), starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond

  Story Line: Russian mobsters and military men are out to rule the world using the GoldenEye—a device that can cut off electricity in London to control world financial markets.

  Status: Cooperation approved. The military did, however, object to one character in early drafts of the script, a U.S. Navy admiral who betrays America by revealing state secrets. “We said, ‘Make him another Navy,’” the Pentagon’s Hollywood liaison, Philip Strub says. “They made him a French admiral. The Navy cooperated.”

  Forrest Gump (1994), starring Tom Hanks

  Story Line: The life story of a developmentally-disabled man named Forrest Gump, who spends part of the movie fighting in Vietnam.

  Status: Cooperation denied. The Army felt the film created a “generalized impression that the Army of the 1960s was staffed by the guileless, or soldiers of minimal intelligence,” as one memo put it, arguing that such a depiction is “neither accurate nor beneficial to the Army.” Separately, the Navy objected to the scene where Gump shows President Lyndon Johnson the battle scar on his buttock, complaining that “the ‘mooning’ of a president by a uniformed soldier is not acceptable cinematic license.”

  The Great Salt Lake is six times saltier than seawater.

  Windtalkers (2002), starring Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater

  Story Line: Based on true events, the film is about Navajo Indians who served as “code-talkers” during World War II. Their Navajo-based code so confused the Japanese military that they were never able to crack it. The top-secret code-talkers were so valuable that each was protected by a bo
dyguard who also had instructions to kill him rather than let him be captured by the Japanese.

  Status: Cooperation approved…but only after the producers agreed to tone down the “kill order.” The characters imply that there’s an order to kill, but they never get to say it because the military “would not let them say the words ‘order’ or ‘kill.’”

  Courage Under Fire (1997), starring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan

  Story Line: A military investigator (Washington) tries to solve the mystery of how a helicopter pilot (Ryan) died in combat.

  Status: Cooperation denied. “There were no good soldiers except Denzel and [Meg],” says the Pentagon’s Strub. “The general was corrupt. The staff officer was a weenie.”

  Apocalypse Now (1979), starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen

  Story Line: An Army officer (Sheen) is sent to Vietnam to “terminate” a colonel who has gone insane (Brando).

  Status: Cooperation denied. Apocalypse Now ran into the same problem with semantics that Windtalkers did: the military balked at supporting a film that portrays it ordering one officer to kill another. Director Francis Ford Coppola refused to change the word “terminate” to “arrest” or “detain,” so the Pentagon withdrew their support. Coppola ended up having to rent helicopters from the Philippine Air Force. That cost a fortune and helped put the film months behind schedule…because the helicopters kept getting called away to battle Communist insurgents.

  40% of U.S. Army personnel are members of an ethnic minority.

  HEADLINES

  These are 100% honest-to-goodness headlines. Can you figure out what they were trying to say?

  Factory Orders Dip

  SUN OR RAIN EXPECTED TODAY, DARK TONIGHT

  PSYCHICS PREDICT WORLD DIDN’T END YESTERDAY

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT BILL CALLED “DEATH ORIENTED”

  CHICAGO CHECKING ON ELDERLY IN HEAT

  TIPS TO AVOID ALLIGATORS: DON’T SWIM IN WATERS INHABITED BY LARGE ALLIGATORS

  Here’s How You Can Lick Doberman’s Leg Sores

  Coroner Reports on Woman’s Death While Riding Horse

  CHEF THROWS HIS HEART INTO HELPING FEED NEEDY

  CINCINNATI DRY CLEANER SENTENCED IN SUIT

  High-Speed Train Could Reach Valley in Five Years

  FISH LURK IN STREAMS

  KEY WITNESS TAKES FIFTH IN LIQUOR PROBE

  JAPANESE SCIENTISTS GROW FROG EYES AND EARS

  SUICIDE BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN

  DONUT HOLE, NUDE DANCING ON COUNCIL TABLE

  POLICE NAB STUDENT WITH PAIR OF PLIERS

  MARIJUANA ISSUE SENT TO JOINT COMMITTEE

  Girl Kicked by Horse Upgraded to Stable

  KILLER SENTENCED TO DIE FOR SECOND TIME IN TEN YEARS

  COURT RULES BOXER SHORTS ARE INDEED UNDERWEAR

  Nuns Forgive Break-in, Assault Suspect

  ELIMINATION OF TREES COULD SOLVE CITY’S LEAF-BURNING PROBLEM

  No wonder they’re skinny: lobsters can crawl as far as a mile a day looking for food.

  UNCLE JOHN’S STALL OF FAME

  We’re always amazed by the creative way people get involved with bathrooms, toilets, toilet paper, etc. That’s why we’ve created Uncle John’s “Stall of Fame.”

  Honoree: Henry Pifer, a truck driver from Arkansas

  Notable Achievement: Standing up for the rights of workers who are sitting down…you know where

  True Story: In June of 1999 Pifer was hit by a coworker’s truck while he was at work. His injuries were serious enough that he had to take time off from his job, so he applied to the state Workers’ Compensation Commission for benefits…and was turned down. Reason: At the time of the accident, Pifer was returning from a bathroom break. “Doing your business” at your place of business doesn’t count as work, the commission concluded, because it is not an “employment service.” Your boss isn’t paying you to poop.

  Rather than take the decision sitting down, Pifer fought it all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court…and won. In March 2002 the court ruled that Pifer’s bathroom break “was a necessary function and directly or indirectly advanced the interests of his employer.”

  Little Rock attorney Philip Wilson called the ruling “a landmark decision, because it’s the first time the Supreme Court has defined employment services with respect to going to the bathroom.”

  Honoree: The Toto Company of Japan, the world’s largest manufacturer of toilets and plumbing fixtures

  Notable Achievement: Creating the “Miracle Magic Pavilion”

  True Story: In 2002 Toto wanted to make a big impression at Japan’s Kitakyusyu Expo trade show, so they spent a lot of money making a promotional movie touting the company’s plumbing fixtures. Rather than just project it onto an ordinary boring movie screen, the company commissioned the “Miracle Magic Pavilion,” also known as the “Toilet Theater.” It’s just what it sounds like it is: a toilet so big that it can be used as a movie theater. Viewers enter through a door built into the side of the huge toilet bowl, then sit on genuine life-sized toilets to watch the film.

  Parrots never, ever, get appendicitis. (They don’t have an appendix.)

  Have you ever been at a movie and had to use the bathroom really bad, but you didn’t want to leave your seat for fear of missing an important scene? Even in the Toilet Theater, you’d still be out of luck—none of the toilet-seat theater seats are actually hooked up to plumbing. More bad news: Toto has no plans to screen feature films in its enormous toilet, either. You get to watch Toto infomercials. That’s it.

  Honoree: Max Reger, a turn-of-the-century German composer

  Notable Achievement: Being best remembered for something he composed…in the bathroom

  True Story: Have you ever heard of Max Reger? Probably not; his name isn’t even that familiar to music buffs. In fact, Reger is remembered less for his music than for his response to a scathing review of his work written by a critic named Rudolph Louis in 1906.

  “Dear sir,” Reger wrote in reply, “I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.”

  Honoree: The Rowanlea Grove Entertainment Co. of Canada

  Notable Achievement: Putting Osama Bin Laden in his place

  True Story: It wasn’t long after 9/11 that the folks at Rowanlea decided to sit down and be counted: they downloaded a picture of Osama Bin Laden from the Internet and printed it on a roll of toilet paper; now anybody that wants to pay him back with a little “face time” can do it. Rowanlea also prints Osama’s face on tissue paper, garbage bags, air-cushion insoles for your smelliest pair of shoes, and even sponges for use on those really disgusting cleaning jobs. Bonus: printing Osama’s face on toilet paper without his permission violates his “right to publicity.”

  Osama “Ex-Terrorist-Commando X-Wipe” rolls aren’t cheap—they sell for $19.95 for one or $49.95 for a pack of four, plus shipping and handling. The inkjet ink runs and may irritate sensitive skin, which is why Rowanlea recommends an alternative to wiping: “placing a sheet in the toilet bowl before doing your business. Then bombs away!”

  Construction of the Great Wall of China was financed—in part—by lotteries.

  SPECIAL TIPS FOR HIRING WOMEN

  We’ve come a long way, baby. And it should be obvious once you read this article, which originally appeared under the title “Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees” in the July 1943 edition of Mass Transportation magazine.

  There’s no longer any question whether companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The military draft and the manpower shortage have settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and to know how to use them to the best advantage. Here are 11 helpful tips on the subject from Western Properties:

  1. If you can get them, pick young married women. They have these advantages: they usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters; they’re less likely to be flirtatio
us; as a rule, they need the work or they wouldn’t be doing it—maybe a sick husband or one who’s in the army; they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

  2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Most companies have found that older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It’s always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

  3. While there are exceptions to this rule, general experience indicates that “husky” girls—those who are just a little on the heavy side—are likely to be more even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

  4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination—one covering female conditions. This step not only protects against the possibilities of lawsuit but also reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job. Companies that follow this practice report a surprising number of women turned down for nervous disorders.

  Walruses burp.

  5. In breaking in women who haven’t previously worked outside the home, stress the importance of time—the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slow.

  6. Give the female employee a definite schedule of duties so that she’ll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous companies say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

  7. Whenever possible, let the employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be nervous and they’re happier with change.