Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (47 page)

It wouldn’t be until 100 years later that the blue-green substance that Brand had discovered would be named: phosphorus. Thanks to Brand’s experiments, it was the first element to be synthesized in pure form and one of the first to be identified as a chemical element. Today, phosphorus is abundant in manufacturing, commonly used in products such as soda, fertilizer, matches, flares, and fireworks. (And they don’t have to get it from urine.)

In 2009 Arizona State Senator Linda Gray (R-Phoenix) received an error-ridden e-mail from a ninth-grader complaining about the lack of state funds for education. The Senator’s response was harsh: “Why didn’t you take to (sic) time to write an e-mail with the proper punctuation? Your example tells me that all the money we have spent on your education shows a lack of learning on your part.” Only after the letter found its way into the press did Gray find out that the student had special needs. “I wrote harsh words to her,” admitted the Senator, who apologized profusely. “I don’t know what got into me.”

For years, residents of the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn have been complaining that motorists don’t come to a complete stop at stop signs. So in 2007 mayor Dave Heilmann came up with a creative solution: He added a second, smaller octagonal sign below 50 of the town’s stop signs so, for example, drivers would see:

Other signs read “STOP right there, pilgrim,” “STOP billion dollar fine,” and “STOP in the naaaame of love.” The Illinois Department of Transportation deemed the signs violations of the Federal Uniform Traffic Control Act, and threatened to withhold funds for road projects if the signs weren’t removed. Heilmann complied, but complained, “I think government needs to take itself less seriously.”

Jifií Paroubek, a Czech politician running for a seat in the European Union Parliament, was the victim of several egg attacks in 2009. At first, only a few were thrown at him. But at each subsequent event, more egg throwers showed up. Every time, Paroubek continued speaking even though his head was covered with shells
and yolks. Paroubek accused leaders of the rival Civic Democratic party of secretly having their supporters throw the eggs (the Civic Democrats denied it). But Paroubek saved his harshest words for journalists who made light of his humiliation. “After the elections, I will take a basket of eggs and come to your newsroom and throw them at you,” he said at a press conference. “I don’t like the way you write. I will pelt you and you will see how funny it is.”

In 2009 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) posted a short video on the new Congressional YouTube Channel. It began with her two cats running around her office at the U.S. Capitol. At the 37-second mark, Pelosi pulled a popular prank called “Rickrolling”: The footage suddenly cut to singer Rick Astley’s 1987 music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Many pundits derided the fact that the person second in line for the presidency was engaging in such “juvenile” behavior, but
Time
magazine wrote, “It reflects a relatively sophisticated understanding of how the modern Internet works for an elected public official.”

A coveted parking space right next to the side entrance of City Hall in Oakland, California, opened up in 2008 when a councilman retired. Who would get the space? It was narrowed down to two councilwomen: Desley Brooks and Jean Quan. Their colleagues suggested they flip a coin. Quan agreed, but Brooks claimed seniority and demanded that Council President Jane Brunner make the decision. After deliberating, Brunner ruled that since both women started in 2002, both had equal seniority; they should just flip a coin. Brooks disagreed and ordered City Attorney John Russo to decide. Finally, after the dispute had gone on for three months (during which time the parking space went to whoever got there first), Russo issued a five-page written opinion, concluding that the women were equally entitled to the space. His solution: Flip a coin. (Brooks won.)

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”

—
Nikita Khrushchev

The town of Dunedin, New Zealand, holds a “Nude Rugby Invitational” every two years. During a match in 2009, play was briefly interrupted when a fully clothed streaker ran out onto the field.

 

I
wish to wash my Irish wristwatch.

I
f Stu chews shoes, should Stu choose his shoes?

T
he soldiers shouldered shooters on their shoulders.

A
skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk.

P
lague-bearing prairie dogs.

L
et’s listen to the local yokel yodel.

S
ix sick hicks pick six slick bricks.

B
etty bought some bitter butter and it made her batter bitter, so Betty bought some better butter to make her bitter batter better.

S
heena leads, Sheila needs.

K
napsack strap.

I
’m not the fig plucker, nor the fig plucker’s son, but I’ll pluck figs till the fig plucker comes.

C
ows graze in groves on grass that grows in grooves.

S
he sits in her slip and sips Schlitz.

A
black bug bled blue blood.

A
n anesthetist’s nurse unearthed a nest.

N
o need to light a night-light on a light night like tonight.

T
he quick-witted cricket critic cried quietly.

From 1907 to 1964, Rube Goldberg regularly drew cartoons and comic strips for newspapers. He’d started out with an engineering degree from the University of California, but his first job—designing sewer systems for the city of San Francisco—depressed him so much that he quit after a few months. Drawing was what he really loved, but in 1904, where could he make a living by drawing? At a newspaper, doing cartoons. It took Goldberg a couple of years to establish himself as a cartoonist in San Francisco, and then he moved to New York and hit his stride, drawing daily and Sunday strips for several newspapers. By 1915 his work went into syndication and became nationally known.

His most famous comic strips were
Mike and Ike (They Look Alike)
,
Boob McNutt
, and
Lala Palooza
, but his most enduring creations are the outlandish machines invented by a character called Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. These cartoon machines did everything from lighting a cigar (Goldberg was a cigar smoker) to putting toothpaste on a toothbrush, and each machine accomplished its task by means of an absurd chain reaction. Goldberg used wheels, pulleys, springs, pipes, weights, bells, household items, and usually an animal or two to “build” the machines, although he never actually built a single one of them. The machines were so complicated and distinctive that the phrase “Rube Goldberg device” entered the American vocabulary: If you call something a “Rube Goldberg,” you’re talking about a contraption that is weird-looking, made up of unlikely components, precariously constructed, and
guaranteed to turn a simple task into a needlessly and hopelessly complicated one. Here are a few examples: