Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Read online

  A few years after Valentine’s Day was brought to Japan, a marshmallow company created White Day to increase sales of their product. It worked: Today, chocolate given by women to male acquaintances on Valentine’s Day is called giri-choco (“obligation chocolate”), and the recipient is expected to reciprocate with marshmallows or other gifts one month later on White Day.

  CANDY DAY (second Saturday in October)

  Invented in 1916 when Halloween trick-or-treating was still a local—not a national—phenomenon, Candy Day was an attempt by the National Confectioners Association to spur sales during the slow months leading up to Christmas. We might still be celebrating Candy Day today, had the United States’ entry into World War I not forced the cancellation of the 1917 festivities. Attempts to revive it after the war were unsuccessful.

  The gym on the Titanic included a mechanical camel.

  COMRADE SUPERMAN

  Superheroes are a huge part of modern folklore. They help us see both the best and worst parts of ourselves. But sometimes their writers get bored and make them do weird things.

  RED SON (2003)

  Concept: Superman is a Communist.

  Details: In the late 1980s, DC Comics created the “Elseworlds” imprint to try a few “What if?” scenarios. Various installments explored such oddball themes as “What if the Joker had been born a woman?” and “What if Batman was a vampire?” This issue, “Red Son,” posed the question: “What if Superman’s spaceship had landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas?” Answer: The Man of Steel would have become the ultimate Soviet weapon in the Cold War. After crash-landing on a farm in the Ukraine, Superman grows up to fight for “truth, justice, and the Communist way” with a hammer and sickle logo on his costume instead of his iconic “S.” Lex Luthor vows to stop him but fails; Superman takes over the USSR. Under his leadership, socialism spreads across the globe and America collapses, along with most of the world’s civil liberties. But under the influence of Soviet propaganda, Superman becomes a paranoid, Big Brother-like figure and lobotomizes anyone who dares oppose him. Years later, Lex Luthor, now the president of what remains of the United States, convinces Superman of the error of his ways. The hero fakes his own death and goes into hiding, vowing never again to meddle in the affairs of humanity.

  UNDER MY SKIN (2004)

  Concept: Spider-Man becomes a spider.

  Details: In the world of Marvel Comics, Spider-Man (Peter Parker) has always been able to do anything a spider can, with the exception of making his own webbing. Since his comic book debut in 1962, the superhero has relied on a mechanical invention to produce his sticky webs. But for the 2002 Spider-Man movie, filmmakers gave Peter the ability to make the stuff organically, as part of the effect of the radioactive spider bite that makes him Spider-Man. This inspired the writers at Marvel to make the switch in the comics, too, but the explanation they came up with was a little weird. In this comic book’s storyline, Spider-Man encounters a villainess called The Queen. She defeats him, and then runs off—but not before stealing a kiss, which turns Parker into a gigantic spider…that’s pregnant with her spider babies. Sometime later, human-form Peter bursts out of what was really only a spider casing and returns to his normal life, with two big changes: He can shoot spider webbing from his wrists, and he can talk to bugs.

  Every 60 seconds, another 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.

  KILL YOU (2009)

  Concept: The Punisher meets Eminem.

  Details: Real-world celebrities have been making cameos in comic books for years. In 1978 Muhammad Ali took on Superman, and both Jay Leno and Barack Obama have shown up in the pages of Spider-Man. But none was stranger (or more violent) than rapper Eminem’s appearance in an issue of The Punisher. To promote his 2009 album Relapse, Eminem joined the vigilante hero to fight an assassin named Barracuda, who had been hired by the Parents Music Council to murder Eminem for his explicit lyrics. Pun guns down Em’s posse, then Em shoots Pun, then Em and Pun kill Barracuda. Finally, the Punisher goes off in search of the Council.

  BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE (2010)

  Concept: Batman travels back to the future.

  Details: DC Comics sent the Dark Knight all the way back to the dawn of humanity for this series. After an evil alien called Darkseid blasts him into the past, Batman takes on a group of vicious Neanderthals, then catapults forward in time (through a waterfall) to the 17th-century colony of Gotham. There he meets his ancestor Nathaniel Wayne and helps solve a series of crimes blamed on witchcraft. Another time-jump pits him against the pirate Black-beard. Then he lands in 1930s Gotham, where he investigates a murder. (The murder victim: his mother.) A final bounce sends him to the end of time and the impending doom of the universe, and that’s when things get really weird. It’s revealed that all this time-traveling was part of Darkseid’s elaborate plot to turn Bruce Wayne into an invincible killer android! Fortunately, Superman intervenes and prevents Robo-Batman from jumping back to the 21st century to take over the world. (Whew!)

  The designation Air Force One applies to any aircraft carrying the U.S. president.

  BEHIND BARS:

  THE MOST TIME SERVED

  The stories behind some of the longest-recorded prison sentences ever served in modern history. (Note: All of these people…except one…spent more years in prison than Uncle John has spent alive. Yowza.)

  PAUL GEIDEL

  The Crime: On July 26, 1911, Geidel, 17, broke into the New York City hotel room of 73-year-old William H. Jackson. Geidel, who had been living on his own since the age of 14, had worked in the hotel as a bellhop, but had recently been fired. Rumor had it that Jackson, a retired Wall Street broker, kept a lot of cash in his room. Geidel jumped the older man while he slept, and suffocated him—possibly unintentionally—with a chloroform-soaked rag. It turned out the rumor was wrong: Geidel fled with just $7. He was arrested 15 hours later.

  The Time: Geidel received a prison sentence of 20 years to life, but for reasons that remain a mystery, when he became eligible for parole in 1931, and then every ten years after that, his parole was denied, even though he was a model prisoner. Finally, in 1974, the press got word of the man who’d been in prison for more than 60 years—and Geidel was finally granted parole. Only problem: He didn’t want to go. He was finally convinced to leave in 1980, at age 86. He’d spent 68 years, 8 months, and 2 days behind bars. It remains the longest time served in U.S. prison history. (Geidel died in a nursing home in 1987.)

  JOHNSON VAN DYKE GRIGSBY

  The Crime: In 1907, Grigsby, born in 1885 to former slaves, stabbed a man to death during a fight over a poker game in an Indiana saloon. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, supposedly in exchange for not going to the electric chair.

  The Time: Grigsby went to prison in 1908 at the age of 23. He was released in 1974—66 years later—at age 89. Johnny Cash heard about Grigsby’s release that year, and wrote the song “Michigan City Howdy Do” in his honor.

  It costs about $10,000 to train a search-and-rescue dog.

  Well, Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby was paroled at 89.

  He never walked on a carpet; never tasted dinner wine.

  His old eyes were slowly fadin’ as he walked out of the gate,

  And he breathed the first free air he’d breathed since 19-0-8.

  Howdy do, Michigan City, you’re sure a pretty sight….

  But that “pretty sight” was pretty disturbing to Grigsby: The world had changed so drastically during his six decades in prison that just two weeks after his release he went back…and stayed in prison until 1976, when he was 91. He served a total of 68 years (although for two of them he was technically a free man). Grigsby died in a Michigan City, Indiana, nursing home at the age of 102.

  WILLIAM HEIRENS

  The Crime: In 1945 two women were murdered in Chicago. At the scene of the second crime, the killer wrote a message on a wall in lipstick: “For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself,” leadin
g the press to dub him the “Lipstick Killer.” Then, in 1946, a six-year-old Chicago girl was killed and dismembered. Heirens, just 17 and a student at the University of Chicago, was arrested, and eventually confessed to the crimes.

  The Time: Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. He died on March 5, 2012, at the age of 83, in the 65th year of his sentence. (During his time in prison, Heirens became the first Illinois prison inmate to earn a four-year college degree.)

  RICHARD HONECK

  The Crime: Honeck and another man, Herman Hundhausen, broke into the Chicago hotel room of Walter Koeller, a former friend who had testified against them in an arson case. They had come armed, according to an 1899 New York Times article, with “an eight-inch bowie knife, a sixteen-inch bowie knife, a silver-plated case knife, a .44 caliber revolver, a .38 caliber revolver, a .22 caliber revolver, a club, and two belts of cartridges.” Koeller was found dead the next day from a knife wound in his back.

  The Time: Hundhausen confessed and testified against Honeck in exchange for a lighter sentence. He told prosecutors that Honeck had killed Koeller with the eight-inch bowie knife. Honeck was sentenced to life in prison in 1899 and released in 1963. Newspaper reports said that during his 64 years in prison, he had received only one letter—a four-line note from his brother in 1904—and had received just two visitors: a friend in 1904, and a newspaper reporter in 1963. Honeck lived with a niece in Oregon after his release, dying in 1976 at the age of 97.

  Flu viruses can live up to 48 hours on stainless steel.

  JOHN STRAFFEN

  The Crime: Over the course of three weeks in July and August, 1951, 21-year-old Straffen strangled two girls, aged six and nine, in Bath, England. He had been in and out of trouble (and in and out of institutions for the “mentally defective”) since he was ten, but was nonetheless allowed to move about on his own at the time he killed the girls. Straffen was deemed unfit for trial and sent to a high-security asylum for a term to be determined by psychiatrists. In 1952 Straffen escaped the asylum by climbing a fence. His escape was noted almost immediately, and he was recaptured within four hours—but in those four hours he managed to strangle a third girl to death, this one just five years old.

  The Time: Straffen was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. A British official recommended to Queen Elizabeth II—just six months on the throne at the time—that she give Straffen, who was clearly mentally ill, a reprieve from the death penalty. The queen agreed, and Straffen’s sentence became life with no chance of parole. He died on November 19, 2007, at the age of 77. He had served 55 years in prison, the longest known sentence in British history.

  * * *

  THINGS THAT (DON’T) GO BUMP

  “British resort chain Butlins has banned bumper car drivers from bumping into each other over fears of health and safety. Now holiday merrymakers are supposed to drive calmly round the track in one direction, following each other and overtaking only when there is enough room to do so. Visitors who flout the rules will receive a driving ban.”

  —The Sun (UK), 2011

  It cost $7 million to build the room in the Louvre where the Mona Lisa is displayed.

  MR. BLACK & MS. WHITE

  Thoughts from the gray matter of people named Black and White.

  “I never had much of a vocabulary. My friend would still be alive today if I’d known the difference between antidote and anecdote.”

  —Ron White, comedian

  “MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken.”

  —Lewis Black, comedian

  “I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn’t want to embarrass them. But for someone I don’t like, I’d definitely do that.”

  —Jack White, the White Stripes

  “The moment you start analyzing your own rock is the moment your rock is dead. That’s why rock is now pretty much dead. Too much analyzation. Not enough rockalyzation!”

  —Jack Black, Tenacious D

  “The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.”

  —T. H. White, author

  “The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”

  —Holly Black, author

  “All creatures must learn to coexist. That’s why the brown bear and the field mouse can share their lives in harmony. Of course, they can’t mate or the mice would explode.”

  —Betty White, actor

  “The layman’s constitutional view: What he likes is constitutional, and that which he doesn’t is unconstitutional.”

  —Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

  “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

  —E. B. White, author

  “The only easy day was yesterday.”

  —Clint Black, country star

  “Cement doesn’t give as much as snow.”

  —Shaun White, champion snowboarder, on why he doesn’t skateboard

  What is the white powder on chewing gum? Powdered sugar or talc, usually.

  WORD ORIGINS

  Ever wonder where words come from? So do we.

  LOITER

  Meaning: To stand around idly with no obvious purpose

  Origin: “The Dutch brought their word loteren to English in the 1500s when many Hollanders moved to Britain. The earliest meaning was ‘to totter or shake,’ like an old-timer. In England, it was more often used to mean ‘to be in the way,’ and finally, ‘to dawdle.’” (From Where in the Word?, by David Muschell)

  SOFA

  Meaning: A long, upholstered seat with a back and arms

  Origin: “The word dates from about 1625 and comes from the Arabic suffa—a raised part of the floor covered with carpets and cushions. By the early 1700s, the long, stuffed seats designed for reclining were commonplace.” (From Mothballs and Elbow Grease, published by the National Trust)

  TAWDRY

  Meaning: Gaudy; showy and cheap

  Origin: “The convent, later cathedral, of Ely was founded in the seventh century in England by St. Audrey, who died of a growth in her throat, which she believed was punishment for wearing sumptuous necklaces. In time, a fair came to be held at Ely on St. Audrey’s Day, October 17, at which one of the most popular wares was a necklace called ‘St. Audrey’s lace.’ As the centuries passed, the necklaces got cheaper and cheaper, while the name St. Audrey morphed into tawdry.” (From Bedlam, Boudoir & Brouhaha—or Remarkable Words with Astonishing Origins, by John Train)

  ODD

  Meaning: Any number not divisible by two; strange

  Origin: “From Old Norse oddi, it originally meant ‘point’—the apex of an arrowhead, or any triangle with one odd angle. Although it applied to a group of three in which one was an unpaired unit, eventually odd was extended to any number between even ones, or anything out of the ordinary.” (From The Story Behind the Word, by Morton S. Freeman)

  When Castro took control of Cuba, he ordered all Monopoly game boards destroyed.

  CRY

  Meaning: To sob or shed tears because of grief, pain, or joy

  Origin: “In Ancient Rome, the word for the citizens was Quirites. From this arose a verb, quiritare, which meant literally ‘to call on the Quirites for help,’ or just raise a public outcry. The Gauls got hold of quiritare and dropped a few consonants until it ended up as crier in French.” (From Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do with Pigs, by Katherine Barber)

  SAFARI

  Meaning: An expedition for hunting or exploring

  Origin: “In Swahili, a safari is any journey, even just going to the store, but in English it is reserved for adventures in Africa. It was most likely brought into English by British explorer Sir Richard Burton in the nineteenth century.” (From A Certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi”—The Origin of Foreign Words Used in English, by Chloe Rhodes)

  ALOOF

  Meanings: Distant physically or emotionally

  Origin: “The
Hollanders gave us many words that have to do with the sea. Aloof is made up of a-, ‘toward,’ and the Dutch word loef, the equivalent of our nautical term luff, which is used in ordering the steersman to turn the ship into the wind and thus ‘steer clear of’ the shore toward which the boat is moving. So, when you are acting aloof, you are ‘steering clear of’ your fellow men.” (From Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories, by Wilfred Funk)

  TRUE

  Meaning: Consistent with fact or reality; not false

  Origin: “The words true and tree are joined at the root, etymologically speaking. In Old English, tree was treow and true was treowe. Both words ultimately go back to an Indo-European root deru- or dreu-, referring to wood and, by extension, firmness. Like a tree, truth is thought of as something firm; so too can certain bonds between people, like trust, another derivative of the same root.” (From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

  Game Over! Atari turned down the chance to buy the rights to Pac-Man.

  TREASURE IN THE ATTIC

  Maybe somewhere in your junk-filled attic or basement, a long-forgotten treasure is hiding, just waiting for you to find it. It may sound farfetched, but that’s exactly what happened to these folks.

  HAPPY HOUR

  Find: 13 bottles of 95-year-old whiskey

  Story: In 2012 do-it-yourselfer Bryan Fite, 40, began installing his own central air-conditioning in his home in St. Joseph, Missouri. When he pried up the attic floor boards to replace some old wiring, he noticed a group of odd cylindrical objects wrapped in paper. At first he thought they were old steam pipes…until he noticed words like “Old Crow” and “distillery” printed on the paper. He realized he was looking at old whiskey bottles, still in their original paper wrappers.