Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Read online

  WHAT, NO PANDAS?

  In 2003 mall security workers in Edmonton, Alberta, called health inspectors when they found some suspicious items in the freezer of a Panda Garden restaurant. “They took me back to the walk-in freezer and when you open the door there were four carcasses,” said inspector Richard Reive. “Two were inside black garbage bags and the other two were exposed on the floor of the freezer.” They were coyotes. They’d been skinned and gutted, and were definitely intended for human consumption. Amazingly, the owners were never charged with any crime, since serving dog meat is technically legal in Canada. (But the restaurant did have to close due to the bad press.)

  WE PASS THE SAVINGS ON TO YOU!

  In June 2002, a power outage knocked out the walk-in freezer at Ricardo’s Pizza in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and all the food in it had to be thrown out. A few hours later employees were surprised to see that many of the boxes of food—containers of pepperoni, jalapeño peppers, cheese sticks, and other snack items—they had thrown in the dumpster were gone. The owner called the health department because he knew the food was bad and he didn’t want anybody eating it. A few days later, inspectors were doing a routine check of Eleanor’s restaurant, down the street from Ricardo’s… and they found the dumpster food, which was clearly marked “Ricardo’s” and still had the expired “freshness” dates on them. Eleanor’s owner, Gerard Symes, denied taking the dumpster food at first, then blamed it on his employees. Then he was fined (a whopping $197).

  Your voice tires more quickly from whispering than speaking in a normal tone.

  KIDS MENU

  A manager of a McDonald’s restaurant in Roodepoort, South Africa, was turned in to police by her employees because of the contents of the restaurant’s freezer: a six-year-old boy. The child had come to McDonald’s begging for food when the angry manager grabbed him and threw him into the walk-in. She left him there, without shoes or a shirt, for about 10 minutes. As soon as the door was opened, the boy ran away—shivering, according to news accounts. The manager was suspended for two weeks.

  MEMBERS ONLY

  If you go to the Guolizhuang restaurant in Beijing, China, there’s a good chance you’ll find a variety of animal “private parts” in their freezer. The restaurant specializes in dishes made from the odd culinary choice, the BBC reported in 2006, and it’s a popular place too. The male organs of sheep, horse, ox, and seal are all good for circulation, says the restaurant’s “staff nutritionist,” adding that donkey “privates” are good for the skin, and snake “privates” are the cure for impotence.

  ON SECOND THOUGHT, LET’S EAT IN

  In 1996 a crew was sent to repossess equipment from a Middle-Eastern restaurant in Brussels, Belgium, called the Baalbeck when the restaurant owners failed to make their loan payments on time. They found a human hand in a freezer. A subsequent search by police uncovered the remains of three human bodies in the restaurant’s other two freezers. Their investigation found that the bodies were just being hidden—and weren’t intended for consumption. (Three years later three men were convicted of the murders and imprisoned.)

  Brazil produced a coffee-scented postage stamp in 2001.

  THE WEIRDEST GRAVE

  IN THE WEST

  Here’s the story behind one of the most peculiar (and most popular) grave sites in the entire United States. More than 60 years after it was completed, it still attracts tens of thousands of visitors a year.

  FORBIDDEN LOVE

  In the mid-1870s, a college student named John Davis was forced to drop out of Urania College in Kentucky after his parents died and he was unable to pay the tuition. He became an itinerant laborer, taking work wherever he could find it, and in 1879 he signed on as a farmhand for Tom Hart, a wealthy landowner in tiny Hiawatha, Kansas. Davis was a good worker, but that didn’t count for much when the penniless lad fell in love with Sarah Hart, the boss’s daughter. When the two announced their plans to marry, Mr. and Mrs. Hart, furious that Sarah would marry so far beneath her station, disowned her.

  MOVING UP

  Ever heard the expression “living well is the best revenge”? John and Sarah got back at the Harts by becoming one of the most prosperous couples in Hiawatha, though it took them a lifetime to do it. After scraping together enough money to buy a 260-acre farm, they managed it so wisely that they were able to use the profits to buy a second farm, which also did well. Then, after 35 years of living in the country, the childless couple moved to a stately mansion on one of Hiawatha’s best streets. They were still living there in 1930, after more than 50 years of marriage, when Sarah died from a stroke.

  At first John commissioned a modest headstone for Sarah in Hiawatha’s Mount Hope Cemetery, but soon decided it wasn’t enough. He’d never forgotten how Sarah’s family had spurned them when they had nothing; now that they were more prosperous than the Hart clan, he decided that he and Sarah should be laid to rest in the nicest, most expensive memorial in town.

  A third of all pet owners admit to having more photos of their pet than of their spouse.

  EDIFICE COMPLEX

  Davis was friends with a local tombstone salesman named Horace England, and together the two men designed a memorial consisting of life-size marble statues of John and Sarah as they looked on their 50th wedding anniversary. The statues would stand at the foot of the graves and face the headstones; the cemetery plot would also be protected from the elements by a 50-ton marble canopy supported by six massive columns.

  England stood to make a small fortune on such a grandiose memorial. Even so, he suggested that it might be a little much, especially considering that the country was in the depths of the Great Depression and folks in Midwestern towns like Hiawatha had been hit especially hard. Davis thanked him for his opinion and then offered to give the business to another tombstone salesman. England assured Davis that that would not be necessary and committed himself wholeheartedly to the task at hand. As far as anyone knows, he never raised another objection.

  Davis approved the final design and sent his and his wife’s measurements off to Carrara, Italy, where master craftsmen carved their likenesses out of the finest Italian marble. Completed in 1931, the Davis Memorial was easily the most impressive in Hiawatha, probably in the entire state. And yet when Davis got a look at it he felt something was missing. The giant stone canopy dwarfed the pair of statues beneath it. The solution? More statues. “I thought it still looked too bare, so I got me another pair,” Davis explained. The second set of statues depicted John and Sarah as they would have looked on their tenth wedding anniversary, much earlier in life than the first pair of statues showed them.

  NO STATUE OF LIMITATIONS

  By now Davis was pretty much out of loose cash, so he signed over his two farms to Horace England for $31,000—more than enough money to pay for the second set of statues. What did he do with the money that was left? He bought a third set of statues, showing Sarah and himself seated in comfy chairs as they would have looked in 1898, after 18 years of marriage. (John is depicted clean-shaven —in the late 1890s, he had burned his beard off fighting a brush fire and for a time went without his flowing beard.)

  Why stop at three pairs? Davis then decided he wanted a fourth pair of statues. Again John is shown seated, this time missing his left hand, which he lost to infection in 1908 after he injured it while trying to trim his hedges with an axe. (The axe is on display in the nearby Brown County Agricultural Museum.)

  The porcelain god? Cloacina was the Roman goddess of sewers.

  Because this fourth set of statues depict John after his wife’s death, her absence is represented by a statue of an empty chair. (Just in case anyone misses the symbolism, the words “THE VACANT CHAIR” are carved into the chair.) Unlike the other statues, this pair was done in granite instead of in marble. Davis claimed it was because he thought men looked better carved in granite.

  FORMING A CROWD

  Who says four pairs of statues are enough? Davis commissioned a fifth and then a sixth. When the
money from the sale of his farms ran out, he signed over his mansion to Horace England for $1, on the condition that he be allowed to live in it for the rest of his life. That solved Davis’s money problems, which may be why the fifth and sixth pairs of statues were once again done in Italian marble. The sixth—and final—statues depict John and Sarah as angels kneeling over each others’ graves.

  When the odd jumble of statues started to attract visitors, some of whom were disrespectful and climbed the statues or sat in The Vacant Chair, Davis had a three-foot-high marble wall built around the entire memorial, with marble urns at the corners inscribed “KINDLY KEEP OFF THE MEMORIAL.” The wall is just low enough for the seated figures to be seen peeking over the top.

  ANYONE’S GUESS

  Why did Davis keep adding statues? Some people speculate that with no family of his own, he was determined to blow his entire fortune to keep his wife’s relatives from getting a penny of his money. Others speculate that Davis was motivated by guilt—he was apparently a very jealous man and during the more than 30 years that he and Sarah had lived on the farm, he had rarely let Sarah go into town alone or even visit the neighboring farm wives. Now, realizing too late how hard that must have been for Sarah, he was making it up to her in marble.

  A third theory, simple but compelling, is that Davis was just plain nuts. He became a compulsive memorial builder in much the same way that some people are compulsive collectors. Even if he did realize that each new addition of statues further cluttered an already crowded memorial, he couldn’t stop himself.

  In the 1950s, it was against French law for a flying saucer to land in any vineyard.

  THE END…OR IS IT?

  In 1937, the same year that he signed over his mansion to Horace England, John Davis learned from his doctors that he had less than six months to live. Davis quickly gave away the rest of his fortune—possibly as much as $55,000—and prepared to join his wife in their final resting place. Six months passed…and then a year…and then two years, until eventually Davis realized that the same doctors he blamed for losing his hand after his axe incident had also botched the diagnosis of his “terminal” illness. He didn’t have six months to live, he had ten years to live, and now that he had given away his entire fortune he couldn’t even afford to live in his mansion, even though it was rent-free. He moved into the local poorhouse and lived there for the rest of his days, though he did spend a lot of time out at the cemetery, proudly showing off the 11 life-size statues and The Vacant Chair to the throngs of people who came to see it. He died in his sleep in 1947.

  In all, Davis is believed to have spent $200,000 on his memorial, the equivalent of well over $1 million today. (Many locals also credit him with giving tens of thousands of dollars to the needy during his lifetime, usually in small sums. But since this giving was done in private, it has been overshadowed by the memorial.)

  A SIGHT TO BE SEEN

  The Davis Memorial isn’t the prettiest grave in America. It looks like a cross between a gas station and a statue-company showroom. Nevertheless, it attracts as many as 30,000 visitors a year, many of whom go straight to the cemetery without bothering to visit the town. Perhaps it’s only fair, then, that Hiawatha’s townspeople are as ambivalent about Davis today as they were during the Depression, when he memorialized his wife in stone instead of building a library or a hospital that would have honored her memory while contributing to the common good. But Davis wouldn’t have had it any other way. “They hate me,” Davis admitted late in life, “but it’s my money and I spent it the way I pleased.”

  Forgotten First: Emilio Onra was the first human cannonball (1871).

  40 ODD USES FOR WD-40

  Fifty years after its invention in 1953, WD-40 can be found in four out of five American homes. (We even have a couple of cans here at the BRI.)

  LIS FOR LUBRICANT

  Sure, it loosens and lubricates, but what else can it do? Well, if you believe what you read on the Internet and in tabloid newspapers, a lot. It removes makeup from carpet, liberates stuck Lego blocks, kills weeds, exterminates cockroaches, even foils squirrels from climbing into bird feeders. New uses are discovered every day; here are 40 of the best known. (WARNING: We haven’t tested these and do not recommend trying them…so don’t call us if you wreck your carpet trying to get ink stains out with WD-40.)

  1. Removes grime from book covers and marker from dry erase boards.

  2. Prevents mud and clay from sticking to shovels and boots.

  3. Removes grease and oil stains on clothes.

  4. Softens new baseball gloves.

  5. Cleans chrome fixtures in bathrooms.

  6. Makes the puck slide faster on an air hockey table.

  7. Cleans and softens paint brushes.

  8. Cleans and protects cowboy boots.

  9. Removes crayon from walls, carpet, wallpaper, plastics, shoes, toys, chalkboard, television screens, screen doors, and rock walls.

  10. Eases arthritis pain…just spray it on the joint that hurts.

  11. Cleans piano keys.

  12. Removes super strong glue from fingers.

  13. Keeps wicker chairs from squeaking.

  14. Removes scuff marks from ceramic floors.

  15. Cleans and protects copper pots and pans.

  16. Polishes and shines sea shells.

  17. Removes water spots from mirrors.

  18. Removes tea stains from counter tops.

  19. Keeps pigeons off window ledges (they hate the smell).

  20. Removes ink from carpet.

  21. Keeps metal wind chimes rust free.

  22. Prevents mildew growth on outdoor fountains.

  23. Removes gunk from plastic dish drainers.

  24. Cleans dog doo from tennis shoes.

  25. Removes tomato stains from clothing.

  26. Gets ink stains out of leather.

  27. Removes roller-skate marks from kitchen floor.

  28. Unkinks gold chains.

  29. Penetrates frozen mailbox doors.

  30. Removes tar from shoes.

  31. Cleans silver plates and trays.

  32. Removes soap scum from bathtubs and showers.

  33. Polishes wood.

  34. Takes the squeak out of shoes.

  35. Removes a stuck ring from a finger.

  36. Wipes off graffiti.

  37. Removes Silly Putty from carpet.

  38. Loosens burrs, thistles, and stickers from dogs and horses.

  39. Removes bumper stickers from cars.

  40. Removes duct tape.

  Cold comfort: The odds that you’ll die inside a refrigerator are only 1 in 270,000.

  ODDEST USES

  • When John Glenn circled the earth in 1962, his spacecraft, Friendship VII, was slathered in WD-40 from top to bottom. NASA engineers hoped it would reduce friction upon reentry.

  • In 2001 a burglar in Medford, Oregon, broke into an apartment wielding a can of WD-40. He sprayed the occupant with the lubricant and demanded money, then escaped with the man’s wallet and car keys (but was later apprehended).

  • Responding to inquiries from the Pike Anglers Committee of Great Britain, the British Environment Agency states that they do not recommend the use of WD-40 as fish bait.

  Streptomycin, an antibiotic, was discovered in fungus found in a chicken’s throat.

  ANIMAL

  BATHROOM NEWS

  Birds do it, fleas do it. And according to these reports, even moose and bees do it.

  STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

  After posting security guards in their parking lot, the Peab Construction Company finally figured out who—or what—was responsible for spraying a mysterious yellow substance on light-colored vehicles. The culprit: a swarm of more than 30,000 bees from a nearby beekeeper’s hive. As the beekeeper explained after moving his hive a little farther away, “It is well known in the trade that bees like to defecate on light-colored objects.”

  QUEBEC, CANADA

  An 80-year-old pet owner name
d Gerard Daigle lost more than a pint of blood after he was attacked by his cat Touti while giving his parrot a shower. The cat attacked after it was accidentally sprayed with water. According to news reports, “It is not known why Daigle was giving his parrot a shower.”

  OSLO, NORWAY

  An amorous moose attempted to mate with a yellow Ford, only to defecate all over it when the car did not respond to its advances. “The front yard was simply transformed into an outdoor toilet,” said owner Leif Borgersen. Still, it could have been worse: Other than being covered in “lick marks, saliva, and moose excrement,” the only damage to the car was a bent side mirror. “I’m not sure whether I should risk letting the car stand alone and defenseless in the front yard anymore,” Borgersen said.

  SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

  The state health department has pulled an anti-smoking TV ad that compared smoking to inhaling methane gas, and illustrated the point with the sound of cows passing gas. “We had about 10 complaints,” said department spokeswoman Jackie Campo.

  What’s a carriwitchet? A puzzling question.

  THE WEIRD WORLD

  OF SPORTS

  Some of the strangest sporting moments from the last 100 years.

  LOST BY A NOSE

  Minutes before a bout in the 1992 Golden Gloves Championships, boxer Daniel Caruso decided to psych himself up the way his hero, Marvin Hagler, often did—by punching himself in the face with his gloves on. Bad move: The self-battering broke Caruso’s nose, and before the match could begin, the ring doctor declared him unfit to box. He had to forfeit the match.

  JUST A SNACK

  Cuban postman Feliz Carvajal realized his dream of running in the marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. Late in the race, he was in third place with a comfortable lead over the next runner, and seemed to have the bronze medal sewn up. But, concerned that hunger might slow him down, he stopped briefly to eat some peach slices offered by onlookers. Then he stepped into an orchard to munch on a few green apples. After he got back on the course, the fruit caused severe stomach cramps, forcing him to limp along at a painfully slow pace. A few minutes later, the runner behind him easily passed him. Carvajal finished fourth, and lost the bronze medal.