Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (49 page)

A:
“They can check the stars. Scientists say that birds probably use constellations like the Big Dipper to determine directions like north and south, just as we humans do. Since most birds migrate mainly at night, they have learned to be very good astronomers. Of course, some nights are cloudy. What’s a traveling bird to do? The Earth is a giant magnet, with magnetic field lines looping out from near the North and South Poles. Birds can sense or even see this force field, and make sure they are travelling in the right direction.” (From
How Come? Planet Earth
, by Kathy Wollard.)

A: “Tennis scoring has its origin in medieval numerology. The number 60 was considered to be a ‘good’ or ‘complete’ number back then, in about the same way 100 is today. The medieval version of tennis, therefore, was based on 60—the four points were 15, 30, 45 (which we abbreviate to 40) and 60, or game. The equally puzzling ‘love’ comes from the idea of playing for love rather than money—the implication being that one who scores zero consistently can only be motivated by a true love for the game.” (From
The Straight Dope,
by Cecil Adams)

A:
“Whenever floods occur, yellow mud is carried into the sea, giving it a yellow color. That is how the Yellow Sea got its name. The Black Sea has no outlet, and because it is entirely landlocked, its deficiency in oxygen at a depth of 200 meters gives it a high
concentration of hydrogen sulfide. This comes from the decomposed bacteria that drift down from above, resulting in a black color. The Red Sea got its name because there is an ever-recurring bloom of small algae that gives the sea its permanent look of red.”

(From
How Does a Bee Make Honey? And Other Curious Facts,
by Martin M. Goldwyn)

Q:
Why do fabrics, paper, and hair appear darker when they get wet?
A:
“Porous objects become darker when they are wet because the many tiny reflecting surfaces that cover their surface become filled in by the water and cease to reflect specular light back to the observer. This makes the object appear darker.” (From
The Last Word 2,
edited by Mick O’Hare)

A:
“Testosterone comes into contact with an enzyme found in the hair follicles. The testosterone is converted to
dihydrotestosterone
(DHT), a more potent androgen that has the ability to bind to receptors in follicles. This binding, in turn, can trigger a change in the genetic activity of the cells, which initiates the gradual process of hair loss. Some people inherit a tendency for certain hair follicles, in the presence of DHT, to become progressively smaller over time. This causes the growing cycle of the follicle to shorten, more hairs to be shed, and the existing hair to become thinner and thinner.” (From
How It Happens,
by Barbara Ann Kipfer)

A:
“The discrimination against out-of-state checks probably stems from Regulation CC, a federal law which determines how long banks can hold funds from checks. A bank is allowed to retain money longer for out-of-state checks than for local ones. So if you are a merchant in Sarasota, Florida, who receives a check from Urbandale, Iowa, your bank is entitled to withhold the funds for days longer, a killer to cash flow for the retailer.” (From
What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway?,
by David Feldman)

Yvan Arpa, CEO of the Swiss wristwatch company Romain Jerome, claims that two-thirds of wealthy people don’t even use their watches for the intended purpose. “Anyone can buy a watch that tells time,” Arpa explains, “but it takes a truly discerning customer to buy one that doesn’t.” That’s the strange idea behind the company’s “Day & Night” watch. It’s intended to be more a status symbol than a time piece, because it doesn’t give the wearer the hour or even the minute—only whether it is currently daytime or nighttime. Cost: $300,000.

In 2008 a health spa in Zneleznovodsk, Russia, dedicated a statue to an important member of its team: the enema. “We administer enemas nearly every day,” said spa administrator Alexander Kharchenko. “So I thought, why not give it a monument?” They commissioned local artist Svetlana Avakina to create the work. She drew inspiration from 15th-century Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli’s
Venus and Mars
, which depicts three cherubs stealing a sword from the God of War. Avakina replaced the sword with an enema syringe. The bronze statue stands 5’ tall and cost $42,000. “An enema is an unpleasant procedure, as many of us may know,” said Avakina. “But when cherubs do it, it’s all right.”

A Japanese man (name not released to the press) who lives alone noticed that little bits of food kept disappearing from his refrigerator. So he installed a security camera in his kitchen and set it up so he could watch from his mobile phone. The next day, while he was away, he saw the culprit: an old woman. He called the police and met them at his house, where they discovered that all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. She was still in
there. After an intensive search, they finally found her hiding on the upper shelf of a closet. When questioned, the 58-year-old homeless woman told them that she’d snuck into the house through an unlocked door a year ago, and had been secretly living there ever since. How’d she go undetected? By being very quiet and only leaving the closet to eat, use the bathroom, and take showers. She hadn’t left his house even once.

In a bid to help struggling New Zealand farmers—in the midst of both a recession and a drought—in 2009 Mitsubishi Motors announced a new promotion: Anyone who purchased a Triton pickup truck would receive a free goat. “Like our Tritons, goats are hardy, versatile units which will integrate directly into existing farm operations,” said company spokesman Peter Wilkins. (If the purchaser didn’t want the goat, they were offered a five-year warranty instead.)

In 2009 the residents of a neighborhood in Conisbrough, England, lobbied the town council to have the name of their street changed, even though it had gone by that name for centuries. The neighbors were tired of tourists stopping to take pictures of the street sign. “We’ve even had people flashing their bottoms for photographs,” said Paul Allot. On top of that, residents weren’t getting some of their mail because delivery drivers didn’t believe it was a real road. The council agreed and changed the street to Archer Way. However, an Internet petition has since sprung up in an effort to change it back to its original name, which comes from an old English term for a communal rain barrel—“water butt.” What was the name of the street? Butt Hole Road.

According to an American Standard poll, the most popular extracurricular activities performed in the john in three major U.S. cities are: reading magazines or the mail (Boston), listening to the radio (Atlanta), and talking on the phone (Miami).

GOnce they docked in Japan, the remaining competitors had to get their cars to the port of Vladivostok, Russia, where the race would officially resume. The Germans and Italians took another ship; the Americans and the French drove across Japan and took a ferry. It was too much for the De Dion-Bouton. After 7,332 miles, the French team threw in the towel, and only three cars were left: the German Protos, the Italian Zust, and the American Thomas Flyer. After another rousing send-off from a roaring crowd of spectators, the cars zoomed out of Vladivostok…and into the mud. The spring thaw had turned the Siberian tundra into a quagmire.

Only a few miles out of Vladivostok, the American team came upon the German Protos stuck in deep mud. George Schuster carefully nudged his car past the Germans onto firmer ground a few hundred yards ahead. With him were mechanic George Miller, assistant Hans Hansen, and
New York Times
reporter George Macadam. When Hansen suggested they help the Germans out, the others agreed. The stunned Germans were so grateful that their driver, Lt. Hans Koeppen, uncorked a bottle of champagne he’d been saving for the victory celebration in Paris, declaring the American gesture “a gallant and comradely act.” The two teams raised a glass together, reporter Macadam recorded the moment for his paper, and the subsequent photograph appeared in papers around the globe and became the most enduring image of the race.

Road conditions in Siberia were even worse than they’d been in the western United States. Once again the cars took to the rails—this time on the tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railway. An attempt by Schuster to use a railroad tunnel could have been a scene from a silent-movie comedy, as the American car frantically backed out of the tunnel ahead of an oncoming train. There were other obstacles, too. At one point the American team was charged by a band
of horsemen brandishing rifles. The Americans burst into laughter and drove right through the herd of riders, leaving the bandits in the dust.

Driving around the clock created other problems: The relief driver often fell out of the open car while sleeping, so the team fashioned a buckle and strap to hold him in—the world’s first seat belt. The length and rigor of the race took its toll as well, and tempers flared. At one point an exasperated Schuster threatened to throw Hansen out of the car and off the team. Hansen responded by pulling his pistol and snarling, “Do that and I will put a bullet in you.” Mechanic George Miller drew
his
gun and snapped, “If any shooting is done, you will not be the only one.” Finally both sides agreed to holster their weapons and press on.

By May the cars had been racing around the world for four months. The quicker German Protos had pulled ahead of the American Thomas Flyer, while the underpowered Italian Zust fell farther and farther behind but pressed on, convinced that they’d catch up. Then disaster struck. Outside Tauroggen, a Russian frontier town, a horse drawing a cart was startled by the sound of the passing Zust and bolted out of control. A child playing near the road was trampled and killed. The Italians drove into Tauroggen to report the accident and were promptly thrown in jail, where they remained for three days, unable to communicate with anyone outside. Finally, the local police determined the driver of the cart was at fault for losing control of his horse, and released them. They continued on toward Paris in a somber mood.

On July 30, 1908—169 days after the race’s start—the Thomas Flyer arrived on the outskirts of Paris, smelling victory. The Protos had actually gotten to Paris four days earlier, but because of the Americans’ 15-day bonus and the Germans’ 15-day penalty, everyone knew the American team had an insurmountable margin of victory. Or did they? Before the Americans could enter the city, a
gendarme
stopped them. French law required automobiles to have two working headlights. The Flyer had only one; the other had been broken back in Russia (by a bird). A crowd gathered.

Parisians, like thousands of others around the world, had been following the progress of the Great Race for months in the papers. They were anxious to welcome the victors at the finish line on the Champs-Elysées.

Schuster’s crew pleaded with the gendarme, but he wouldn’t budge. No headlight, no entry. A frustrated Schuster was about to set off an international incident by attacking the gendarme when a bicyclist offered the Americans the headlamp from his bike. Mechanic Miller tried to unbolt the light but couldn’t pry it off. The solution: They lifted the bike onto the hood of the car and held it in place by hand. The gendarme shrugged his shoulders and waved them on. A few hours later they crossed the finish line. Victory at last!

The celebrations lasted for weeks, long enough for the Italian team, weary but unbowed, to roll into Paris on September 17 and take third place. The Great Race was officially over. The drivers and their crews became national heroes in their home countries. When the Americans got back to New York, they were given a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue and invited by President Theodore Roosevelt (the first U.S. president to drive a car) to a special reception at his summer house on Long Island. Today the Thomas Flyer is on display in Harrah’s Automobile Collection in Reno, Nevada. Munich’s Deutsches Museum has the German Protos. The Italian Zust was destroyed in a fire only months after the race, but the ultimate fates of the cars involved didn’t matter. All three finishers had proved that a car could reliably and safely go anywhere in the world at any time, and under any conditions. No other form of transport could make the same claim. With the conclusion of the Great Race, the Automobile Age had officially arrived. That same year, Henry Ford put the Model T into full production on the assembly line, and the world has been car-crazy ever since.