Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader Read online

• The process of freeze-drying is now widely used in taxidermy (stuffing and mounting dead animals). In the late 1950s, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution discovered that by freeze-drying animals instead of skinning and stuffing them, they could produce more lifelike specimens while reducing labor costs by as much as 80%. Today more than a third of all museums in the United States have freeze-dryers, and some companies will even freeze-dry pets.

  • The process is the same as with freeze-drying food, with one exception: the animals are bent into lifelike poses, such as “dining on prey,” “fetching a stick,” or “resting by fire,” before they are frozen.

  • Since the internal organs remain in place, animals retain virtually the same shape and dimensions when they’re freeze-dried. The only difference is their weight—a freeze-dried animal has roughly the same consistency as styrofoam.

  • The process is effective, but is impractical with large animals. Animals weighing as little as 65 pounds can take as long as a year to lose all of their moisture, so most large animals are still skinned and stuffed the old-fashioned way.

  NEWS FLASH

  “Mrs. Oramae Lewis of Bedford, Ohio, had her cat Felix freeze-dried by a local veterinarian after it was run down by an 18-wheel tractor trailer. The veterinarian used a freeze-drying machine once used by a coffee company. ‘Now I can have Felix just like I did when he was alive,’ she said. ‘He’s just like he was in real life, only flatter.’”

  —The Washington Post, June 27, 1983

  The world’s most popular car color is red.

  MARK TWAIN SAYS…

  No one else in the history of American literature has combined sardonic wit, warmth, and intelligence as successfully as Mark Twain.

  “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence and then success is sure.”

  “What a talker he is—he could persuade a fish to come out and take a walk with him.”

  “The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

  “Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to stick to possibilities.”

  “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

  “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner who needed it most?”

  “There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can afford to and when he can’t.” “Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered—either by themselves, or by others.”

  “We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.”

  “Envy….the only thing which men will sell both body and soul to get.”

  “If we had less statesmanship, we would get along with fewer battleships.”

  “If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not go there.”

  “It takes me a long time to lose my temper but once lost, I could not find it with a dog.”

  “Virtue has never been as respectable as money.”

  “I wonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble if there was only one in the world.”

  Every year, more than 500,000 passengers are bumped from U.S. airlines due to overbooking.

  THE BEST THINGS EVER SAID?

  From The 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, edited by Robert Byrne.

  “If God lived on Earth, people would break his windows.”

  —Jewish proverb

  “I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody’s.”

  —Woody Allen

  “When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply jake, then you’re frightened of death.”

  —J. P. Donleavy

  “Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  —William Safire

  “When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it is best to let him run.”

  —Abraham Lincoln

  “In the end, everything is a gag.”

  —Charlie Chaplin

  “One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

  —Betrand Russell

  “When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”

  —Goethe

  “Victory goes to the player who makes the next to last mistake.”

  —Savielly Grigorievitch

  “After all is said and done, more is said than done.”

  —Unknown

  “Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”

  —Jean-Paul Sartre

  “A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.”

  —H. H. Munro

  “The best way to get praise is to die.”

  —Italian proverb

  It takes about 21 pounds of milk to make I pound of butter.

  STRANGE LAWSUITS

  These days, it seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are a few real-life examples of unusual legal battles.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Wendy Potasnik, a nine-year-old from Carmel, Indiana

  THE DEFENDANT: The Cracker Jack Division of Borden, Inc.

  THE LAWSUIT: In 1982, Wendy and her sister Robin each bought a box of Cracker Jacks. Robin got a prize in her box, but Wendy didn’t…which made her “really mad.”

  “They advertise a free toy in each box,” she told a reporter. “I feel that since I bought their product because of their claim, they broke a contract with me.” So she sued, asking the court to make Borden “pay court costs and furnish a toy.”

  THE VERDICT: Wendy dropped the suit after Borden apologized and sent her a coupon for a free box of Cracker Jacks…even though the company refused to pay the $19 that Potasnik had spent on court costs.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Alan Wald

  THE DEFENDANT: The Moonraker Restaurant in Pacifica, California

  THE LAWSUIT: In 1993, Wald went to the Moonraker for an all-you-can-eat buffet. He’d already eaten between 40 (Wald’s count) and 75 (the restaurant’s count) oysters—and was still at it—when the restaurant cut him off. Apparently, other customers were complaining that there were no oysters left. The restaurant offered to refund Wald’s $40 to get him to go, but Wald insisted he was within his rights—he hadn’t had all he could eat yet. He demanded $400 for “humiliation and embarrassment.”

  THE VERDICT: Wald was awarded $100 by the judge—but the restaurant was the real winner. “It was great publicity,” said the owner. “We’re going to get a shovelful of oysters and present them to [Wald] at his table. He can come back anytime.”

  Which language has the most words? English—nearly 1 million.

  THE PLAINTIFF: The Swedish government

  THE DEFENDANT: Elisabeth Hallin, mother of a five-year-old boy named Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbbllll6 (which she pronounces “Albin”)

  THE LAWSUIT: For five years, the Hallins, who say they believe in the surrealist doctrine of “pataphysics,” refused to give their son a name. Then Swedish tax officials informed them it was a legal requirement. They chose Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbbl1116—which was immediately rejected by the authorities. The couple insisted that the “typographically expressionistic” name was merely “an artistic creation,” consistent with their pata-physical beliefs.

  THE VERDICT: The government disagreed. The Hallins were fined 5000 kronor (about $735) and ordered to come up with a different name.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Lorene Bynum

  THE DEFENDANTS: St. Mary’s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas

  THE LAWSUIT: In 1992, Bynum visited her husband, a patient at the hospital. She wanted to use the bathroom, but the toilet seat was dirty—and there wasn’t enough toilet paper to spread out on it. So she took off her shoes and tried to go to the bathroom standing on the toilet seat. Unfortunately the seat was loose. Bynum fell, spraining her lower back. Sh
e sued the hospital for negligence.

  THE VERDICT: A jury awarded Bynum $13,000. But the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned the verdict. “The injuries resulted from her act of standing on the commode seat, which was neither designed nor intended to be used in that way,” they explained.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Victoria Baldwin

  THE DEFENDANT: Synergy, a hair salon in Sydney, Australia

  THE LAWSUIT: In July 1996, Baldwin had her hair cut at the salon. The result was so bad, she complained, that it made her “look like Hillary Clinton.” She sued for damages, plus reimbursement for money spent on hats to cover her head until the hair grew back.

  THE VERDICT: Baldwin won $750, plus $234 for the hats.

  The German language has about 185,000 words. French has less than 100,000.

  THE FOOLISH HUNTER

  Here’s a chance to soak up a little wisdom while you’re just sitting around. This is an old Hebrew tale, from a longtime favorite book of Uncle John’s, called Myths and Legends of the Ages.

  A hunter once caught a bird in a trap. “Let me go,” the bird pleaded. “It won’t do you any good to kill me—I’m not very big. If you roast me, all you’ll get is a mouthful or two at the most. And if you lock me in a cage, I can promise you right now that I’ll never sing a note for you. But if you let me go, I’ll give you three pieces of wisdom which will bring you great happiness and success.”

  The hunter pondered over the bird’s speech. “All right,” he said. “Tell me your three pieces of wisdom, and I’ll let you go.”

  “First,” said the bird, “never believe a story that goes against your common sense. Secondly, don’t regret what is done and cannot be undone.” Then, cocking his head to one side, the bird concluded, “And the third piece of wisdom is, don’t try the impossible.”

  “There’s nothing so wise about that,” scoffed the hunter. “I practice those teachings all the time. But since you’re not much use to me anyway, I’ll let you go.”

  No sooner was the bird released, than he flew to a high branch of a nearby tree. “Foolish man!” he said. “Did you think I was just an ordinary bird? Oh no! Now I can tell you that I am much different from other birds. My heart is made of a precious ruby. If you had cut me open and taken out my heart, you might have been the richest man in the world.”

  When the man heard this, he cursed his folly in letting the bird go. He shook his fist at the bird in the tree. “I’ll catch you, you rogue!” he cried in a rage of disappointment.

  The hunter quickly started to climb the tree. But the bird flew to the tip of a high branch, well out of the man’s reach. The hunter leaned far out, trying to lay his hands on the bird. But he lost his balance, fell out of the tree, and was badly hurt.

  “So!” cried the bird. “You said there was nothing wise about my words—that what I told you is only what you always practice! But the first thing I told you was never to believe anything that was contrary to common sense. Did anyone ever hear of a bird whose heart was made of a ruby? No. Yet you instantly believed my story.

  Brain food: You can think 625 thoughts on the caloric energy of one Cheerio.

  “The next thing I said was don’t regret what has been done and cannot be undone. You let me go—but then you instantly regretted it!

  “The last piece of wisdom was, don’t waste your energies pursuing the impossible. How could you ever hope to catch me, a bird who can fly—just by climbing a tree? Yet, you persisted in your folly and tried to snare a winged bird with your bare hands.”

  The shaken hunter got to his feet…a bruised but wiser man.

  ****

  AND SPEAKING OF FOOLISHNESS…

  The Etruscan Warrior

  Background: In 1918 New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art paid $40,000 for the fragments of a 2,500-year-old, 7-foot-tall statue of an Etruscan warrior that predated the Roman Empire. (The Etruscans were conquered by the Romans in 396 B.C.) The museum reassembled the fragments into a nearly intact statue—only the left thumb was missing. The museum made the statue a centerpiece of its Etruscan warrior display, which opened in 1933.

  The Truth: In 1936 rumors began circulating that an Italian stonemason had made the statue at the turn of the century…but the exhibit was so popular that the museum refused to investigate. Finally, in 1960, the museum had the statue’s glaze tested chemically and proved conclusively that it was a fake.

  A few months later, Alfredo Fioravanti (an Italian stonemason, of course) confessed to making the statue…and produced the warrior’s missing left thumb as proof.

  The water we drink is 3 billion years old.

  WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST?

  We take it for granted that bacon, eggs, orange juice, and coffee are breakfast foods. But it’s really just a matter of tradition.

  COFFEE AND TEA. People started drinking coffee and tea in the morning not because they were pleasant, but because they were hot, dark, and mysterious. Until the 17th century, it was common for Europeans to start their day with alcohol. Queen Elizabeth, for example, had a pot of beer and a pound of beefsteak for breakfast every day. Scottish breakfasts routinely included a dram of whiskey. Coffee, tea, and sugar had the same illicit appeal as alcohol when they reached Europe in the 1600s—so they became suitable substitutes for booze.

  EGGS & BACON, SAUSAGE, OR HAM. Colonists brought chickens and pigs with them to America because they were easy to transport by ship, and could provide food on the long voyage. Besides that, it was traditional to eat meat in the morning—and pork was the colonists’ first choice. (It was so popular that one writer suggested they rename the U.S. “the Republic of Porkdom.”) Eggs probably became a staple at breakfast because “they’re freshest when just gathered from the previous night’s roosting.”

  CITRUS FRUIT / ORANGE JUICE. Believe it or not, people started eating oranges in the morning because they thought it would warm them. The ancient Greeks taught that some foods heat your body, and other foods cool it—regardless of the temperature at which they’re served. Peas were cold, for example, onions were hot…and oranges were very hot. People still believed this in the Middle Ages, which is why the Spanish began eating candied orange peels the first thing in the morning. The habit was picked up by the British, who brought it to the Colonies. (In Scotland, the orange peel became orange marmalade, which they put on toast with butter—starting another breakfast tradition.)

  Orange juice became a staple of the American breakfast table in the 1920s. In 1946, concentrated orange juice was introduced.

  On average it costs about 46.65¢ per mile to own and operate a car. That’s $12.78 a day.

  THE BIG DIPPER

  What’s the one constellation everyone knows? The Big Dipper. After you read this article you’ll be able to sound like a know-it-all the next time you’re star-gazing with someone.

  THE NIGHT SKY

  The Big and Little Dippers are probably the best-known star groups in the northern hemisphere. They’re both parts of larger star groups, or constellations, named after bears. The Big Dipper belongs to the constellation Ursa Major, “The Greater Bear,” and the Little Dipper is part of Ursa Minor, “The Lesser Bear.”

  • Ursa Major is the most ancient of all the constellations. For some reason, early civilizations all over the world seem to have thought of it as a bear. This is remarkable, since Ursa Major doesn’t look anything like a bear. It’s even more remarkable when you consider that most of the ancient world had never seen a bear.

  THE NATIVE AMERICAN SKY

  In the New World, the Iroquois, who had seen plenty of bears, called it Okouari, which means…bear. The Algonquin and Black-foot tribes called it “The Bear and the Hunters.” For them, the three stars in the handle of the Big Dipper were three hunters going after the bear.

  • In a typical Native American story, a party of hunters set out on a bear hunt. The first hunter carried a bow and arrow. The second hunter brought along a pot or kettle to cook the bear in. The faint star Alcor, which you can just s
ee above the middle star of the Dipper’s handle, was the pot. The third hunter carried a bundle of sticks with which to build a fire to cook the bear.

  • The bear hunt lasted from spring until autumn. In the autumn, the first hunter shot the bear. Blood from the wounded animal stained the autumn leaves in the forest. The bear died, was cooked, and was eaten. The skeleton lay on its back in the den through the winter months. The bear’s life, meanwhile, had entered into another bear, which also lay on its back, deep asleep for the winter.

  Tallest mountain above sea level: Mt. Everest (29,028 feet); tallest mountain from the ocean floor: Mauna Kea in Hawaii (33,476 feet).

  • When spring returned, the bear came out of the den and the hunters started to chase her again, and so it went from year to year.

  THE GREEK SKY

  Greek mythology offers another version of how the Bears got into the sky. Calisto, the beautiful daughter of the King of Arcadia, caught the eye of Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus took her by surprise, leaving her to become the mother of his child. In time, Calisto gave birth to a son, whom she named Arcas. Hera, queen of the gods, changed Calisto into a bear in a jealous rage.

  After a number of years had passed, Arcas was out hunting when he saw a bear. Not knowing the bear was his mother, Arcas raised his spear, ready to kill the animal. Before Arcas could throw his spear, Zeus quickly rescued Calisto by placing her in the skies—where she remains today. Arcas also became a constellation, Ursa Minor, next to his mother.

  • Some say Zeus swung both bears around by their tails and flung them into the sky, which explains why their tails are so long.

  • The Greeks called Ursa Major Arktos, which means “Bear.” This is where we get our word Arctic. The Greek poet, Homer, described the Bear as keeping watch from its Arctic den looking out for the hunter Orion. Homer also remarked that in his day, the Bear never sank into the ocean, which meant that it never set. Hera was responsible for this, having persuaded the ocean gods not to allow the two Bears to bathe in their waters.