Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (12 page)
Read Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Michael Brunsfeld
Canada: land of beautiful mountains, clear lakes…and some really weird news reports
.
H
OME COOKING
Health inspectors in Granby, Quebec, shut down the Comme Chez Soi restaurant in 2000 when the owners were caught re-serving foods such as tartar sauce, coleslaw, bread, and fondue that had been discarded from previous customers’ plates. They’d even used bread slices with bites out of them to make bread crumbs. They were also caught reusing discarded food from rooms in a motel they owned.
(Comme chez soi
means “just like home.”)
STEP RIGHT UP
In 2005 the Canadian postal service notified Christine Charbonneau of Orleans, Ontario, that they would no longer be delivering mail to her door. Reason: her front steps were 30 cm (12 inches) high, and regulations say that mail carriers are not required to climb steps higher than 20 cm (8 inches). Charbonneau said that the mail had been delivered to her door for the last 17 years and added that her 77-year-old mother-in-law—who is on oxygen—uses the stairs regularly.
BEAUZEAU LE CLOWN
In 2001 Quebec Premier Bernard Landry proposed the province spend $11 million to increase the number of clowns and other performers graduating from Quebec’s National Circus School. The school was only graduating ten students a year, and when it comes to clown training, said Landry, Quebec must “maintain and enhance its leadership position.”
UH, DOCTOR?
Rebecca Chinalquay of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, sued the Meadow Lake Hospital after she was left alone in the delivery room while in labor. She called for help, but no one came, and she ended up having the baby by herself. The hospital’s excuse: Chinalquay was being uncooperative and wouldn’t allow nurses to monitor her condition, preventing them from knowing that the baby was coming.
Lemons and strawberries do not ripen after being picked. Avocados and bananas do.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
The Toronto-Dominion Bank loaned businessman Edward Del Grande $3.5 million in 1990. In 1995, when he didn’t pay them back, they sued him. Del Grande countersued…for $30 million. His charge: the bank ruined him by loaning him too much money. Case dismissed.
LOTT O’ LUCK
A man from Sherbrooke, Quebec, sued the provincial lottery, Loto-Quebec, for fooling him into believing he could actually win. He said that they sold only losing tickets, something he could prove by showing the $840 worth of losing tickets he’d bought in the month of March alone. The man, who is on welfare, sued the lottery for $879.58. Lawyers predicted an out of court settlement.
DWV
In 2004 a 54-year-old man was pulled over by Ontario Provincial Police on Highway 400 in Toronto because he was playing the violin while driving. He said he was on his way to a performance and needed to warm up.
CANADIAN ACHIN’
•
A Saskatchewan wildlife officer was attempting to “mercy kill” a wounded moose when the slug from his rifle missed, hit a tree, and ricocheted into a fellow officer’s leg. The wounded moose was put down; the wounded officer was not—he made a full recovery.
•
In 1952, Stan Long, 23, of the Victoria Cougars hockey team in British Columbia, had his left thigh completely pierced by a hockey stick. The defenseman had collided with another player whose stick had just broken and was saved only by the fact that there was a doctor in the stands. He recovered from the wound and eventually played hockey again.
•
A 19-year-old woman from Ontario was injured in 2005 when her car collided with a Molson Beer truck. The crash on Toronto’s Highway 401 caused the truck to flip over. Both drivers received only minor injuries, but 2,184 cases of beer spilled onto the highway in the middle of the morning rush hour. Traffic was held up for hours in what one officer described as a “sea of beer.”
To introduce them to European ways, missionaries gave Native Americans flannel underwear.
Hereth thum thtuff the hithtory bookth methed up
.
M
yth:
The United States first began to fight the threat of Soviet communism just after World War II, during the Cold War.
Truth:
In August 1918, just after the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson sent 3,000 American troops into Russia to fight the communist Bolsheviks who had overthrown the czar in 1917. Civil war had broken out in the wake of the revolution. So, a coalition of British, French, Japanese, and American troops fought in two major divisions: one in Archangel (in northern Russia) and another near Vladivostok (in Siberia). But the allied fighting force was too small to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent them from establishing a communist regime. Wilson pulled out all of his troops in 1920. Total American fatalities: 275.
Myth:
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.
Truth:
Lincoln opposed slavery but thought it would die naturally without government interference. In any event, Lincoln’s goal during the Civil War was preserving the Union, not abolishing slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 didn’t free slaves—it was an exertion of federal authority over the Southern states. (Although a futile one, since the Confederate states had declared themselves an independent nation, and weren’t about to abide by the document.) Meanwhile, the Proclamation allowed Union-loyal slave states—Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware—to keep their slaves. Slavery wasn’t eliminated until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865.
Myth:
Julius Caesar was the first baby delivered by cesarean section, giving the procedure its name.
Truth:
The idea that even as an infant, Caesar was so special he couldn’t be born in the standard way may add to his mystique, but most historians agree that caesarean section, by any name, was not practiced in ancient Rome. The act of delivering a baby via an incision to a mother’s abdomen gets its name from the Latin word
caedere
, which means “to cut.”
Charles Darwin’s
The Origin of Species
sold out its entire first edition (1,250 copies) in one day.
Myth:
World War I was the first “world” war.
Truth:
Historians cite at least six wars prior to World War I that could be called “world wars.” Based on the definition of a world war as one large conflict that’s fought simultaneously on multiple fronts by numerous world powers, here’s their list:
• The Nine Years War (1688–1697), in which the League of Augsburg—England, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire—fought against France. Battles were fought all over Europe, as well as in the American colonies (Native Americans fought on the French side).
• Queen Anne’s War (1701–1714) saw France, Rome, England, the Netherlands, and Austria battle for control of Spain.
• The War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), in which England, France, Bavaria, Spain, Saxony, the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, and the houses of Hanover and Saxony fought over Austria.
• The French Revolution (1792–1802), in which French commoners overthrew the king, leading England, Prussia, Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands to step in to restore the monarchy.
• The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), in which every European power resisted Napoleon’s attempt to conquer all of Europe.
World War I wasn’t even called World War I until much later. During the actual conflict it was called “the Great War.”
* * *
THANK YOU, NEW ORLEANS, FOR
…
Oysters Rockefeller, Fats Domino, shrimp scampi, jazz, the cocktail, jambalaya, Jelly Roll Morton, Cajun crawfish, Southern Comfort, the po’ boy sandwich, dental floss, Anne Rice, poker, brunch (started in the French Quarter), bananas Foster, the drum set, the Neville Brothers, gumbo, the Higgins boat (landing craft used by allied troops on D-Day), Mardi Gras, and Louis Armstrong.
Ex-Lax was originally called Bo-Bo’s.
Uncle John is amazed—and pleased—by the unusual ways people get involved with bathrooms, toilets, toilet paper, and so on. That’s why he created the “Stall of Fame.”
H
onoree:
State Senator Al Lawson of Florida
Notable Achievement:
Coming up with a “pay-as-you-go” plan to help growing towns upgrade their sewer systems.
True Story:
Lawson introduced a bill to place a tax of two cents per roll on toilet paper. The money was to be used to fund the sewer system improvements and to help fast-growing Florida communities cope with increasing demands on infrastructure. Lawson estimated the tax could raise as much as $50 million a year. “Two cents is not going to hurt families at all,” he said. “People don’t mind paying for it.” Governor Jeb Bush would not commit one way or the other, but said that if toilet paper is taxed, people might use less of it. “That’s not necessarily a good thing,” said the governor.
Honoree:
Marcel Duchamp, one of the most important modern artists of the 20th century
Notable Achievement:
Elevating a restroom urinal to high art
True Story:
In 1917 Duchamp paid $6 to enter one of his pieces in the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in New York. But rather than enter a painting or some other standard work of art, Duchamp entered what he called a “ready-made”: he took an everyday object, in this case a restroom urinal, gave it the title
Fountain
, and entered it unchanged. He signed the work “R. Mutt.”
Exhibit organizers tried to block Duchamp’s entry, but the rules did not allow them to prevent an artist from showing his work. Still, they wanted to know why they should consider a urinal a piece of art. “Because I said so,” Duchamp told them. That remark is considered emblematic of the attitude of an entire generation of artists. Because of this, in a 2004 survey of top artists,
Fountain
beat out works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Andy Warhol to be voted the most influential work of art of the 20th century.
In Switzerland, a Big Mac will cost you $5.11.
Honoree:
A pet dog living in the village of Mundhaghar, India
Notable Achievement:
Surviving a night locked in a bathroom with a leopard…without suffering a scratch
True Story:
Think finding a spider in your bathroom is bad? One morning in 2005 some villagers in Mundhaghar heard a leopard growling in theirs. Somehow it had gotten in during the night. They called the police, who opened the door and were stunned to see the family’s dog in there, too. “By some miracle, the leopard hadn’t harmed the dog, even as they spent the night together in the small room,” a police inspector told reporters. The leopard now lives in a zoo; at last report the dog was healthy but “still terrified.”
Honoree:
An Australian bus driver who wishes to remain anonymous
Notable Achievement:
Turning a pit stop into a jackpot
True Story:
The bus driver was in the middle of his route when he needed to take a bathroom break. There were no customers on the bus, so he pulled into a local casino to make use of their rest-room (no word on why a casino and not a gas station). While there he played a couple of games of Keno—a numbers game similar to lotto—and won! Now, thanks to his bathroom break, he’s $2.2 million richer.
Honoree:
Anthony Stone, a worker at the Corus steel plant in Port Talbot, Wales
Notable Achievement:
Taking a bathroom break that saved his life
True Story:
On November 8, 2001, Stone was working at the plant when he had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t the kind of urge that could be put off, so Stone excused himself. As he was rounding the corner next to the restroom, the blast furnace he’d just been standing next to exploded, killing three people and injuring 12 more. “It was like an atomic bomb going off,” Stone said. “I would not be here if I had been five seconds later.”
* * *
“Always go to the bathroom when you have the chance.”
—King George V (England)
One million dollars’ worth of pennies would weigh 597,916 pounds.
Every so often a hunk of rock hurtles out of the sky and slams into our planet, creating a gigantic hole and wreaking havoc. Here are some of the more impressive cosmic splats
.
C
HICXULUB, YUCATÁN
About 65 million years ago, a giant meteor six miles wide splashed down in the Caribbean region of Mexico. It probably split in two shortly before impact. The result:
two
craters that are a combined 102 miles in diameter. The meteors fell in a sulfur-rich area of the Yucatán Peninsula, kicking up billions of tons of poisonous dust. The sky all over the world was dark for six months, making global temperatures drop below freezing. That climate change, according to most scientists, caused the extinction of half the Earth’s existing species…including the dinosaurs.
GRAND TETONS, WYOMING
