Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (60 page)

U
P, UP, AND AWAY

Contrary to popular belief, flying cars do exist. In fact, for three decades an inventor named Paul Moller has been hard at work developing a commercial model of his Skycar.

The Skycar is an incredible piece of machinery. It’s a VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft that rises straight up from the ground, switches to “forward-thrust,” and then climbs 7,000 feet per minute. It can cruise up to 350 mph and reach a ceiling of 30,000 feet. It even goes 900 miles between refills (gas mileage is approximately 15 mpg).

MOLLER AND THE JETSONS

If it sounds like something out of
The Jetsons
, that’s no coincidence. In the early 1960s, a magazine article on Moller’s work caught the attention of Hanna-Barbera, the production team behind
The Jetsons.
They incorporated his design into their futuristic cartoon.

Ironically, Moller’s craft is now compared to the TV series it helped inspire. “If you’re thinking of the Jetsons, you have the right idea,” wrote the
San Diego Union-Tribune.
“The futuristic jets driven by the cartoon family are the closest thing yet to the Skycar.”

COMMUTE OF THE FUTURE?

Moller thought the Skycar would be well established by now. “It could be flying commuters to work in the millions by the year 2000,” he told the
Chicago Tribune
in the late 1980s.

But he was wrong. Despite the fact that Moller has spent over $25 million developing the Skycar—and is well on his way to working
out all the bugs—no major car or plane manufacturer is willing to back him financially. (Toyota and Boeing have been reportedly interested at different times.)

WHAT’S GOING ON?

One critic assesses the situation:

“Moller says that all the technical problems have been solved, and that product liability and production money are the only limiting factors left. He declares: ‘If sufficient funds were available, we could...be demonstrating it in a matter of months.’

“The first units produced are estimated to cost about $800,000, and he has already 80 orders, each with a $5,000 deposit. At the production rate of several thousand units per year, each would cost about $100,000. After producing around 40,000 per year, the cost would become no more than a luxury car in comparison.

“Navigating the maze of Federal Aviation Administration approvals is still ahead...but how do you think the auto industry will react to this new airborne, commuter craft? In fact, since Moller’s...designs will replace many helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, his obstacles with powerful blocks of greedy men are only beginning.”

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WORD ORIGINS

LADY—Meaning:
Polite term for a woman.

Origin:
“In Old England a woman was proud to be known as the breadmaker, or
hlæfdige.
The word was subjected to many changes, becoming
levedi
in the thirteenth century,
levdi
and
ladi
in the fourteenth, and finally
ladie
and
lady
in the sixteenth.” (From
Thereby Hangs a Tail
, by Charles Earle Funk)

JEOPARDY—Meaning:
Danger.

Origin:
“When a game was tied, the Romans called it
jocus partitus
, ‘divided game’....The term came into French as
jeu parti.
Then
it
was applied also to any evenly matched opponents, so that the result was uncertain and the betting stakes (or lives) were in danger; hence, the English
jeopardy.”
(From
Dictionary of Word Origins
, by Joseph T. Shipley)

Diner waitresses and short-order cooks have a language all their own—a sort of restaurant jazz, with clever variations on standard menu themes. In the second
Bathroom Reader,
we listed some favorites. Here are more.

Axle Grease:
Butter

Baby:
A glass of milk

Belch water:
Plain soda water

A breath:
A slice of onion

Burn the pup:
A hot dog

Dough well done with cow to cover:
Buttered toast

Mug of murk:
Cup of coffee

On wheels:
Take-out orders

A splash with dog biscuits:
Soup and crackers

Black bottom:
A chocolate sundae with chocolate ice cream

Mystery in the alley:
A side order of hash

A bowl of bird seed:
Cereal

Shake one in the hay:
Strawberry milkshake

Pig between the sheets:
Ham sandwich

All the way:
Everything on it (mayonnaise, lettuce, onions)

High and dry:
Plain

A crowd:
Three of the same order

A team:
Two of the same item

An order of down with mama:
Toast with marmalade

Cream cheese with warts:
Cream cheese and chopped olive sandwich

First lady:
Spareribs

GAC:
Grilled American cheese sandwich

Steak on the hoof:
Rare steak

One on:
Hamburger (on the grill)

21:
Two burgers (two orders of
one
)

31:
(three orders of
one)

Keep off the grass:
No lettuce

Cowboy:
Western omelette

Warm a pig:
Hot ham or pork sandwich

Put out the lights and cry:
An order of liver and onions

A bowl of red:
Chili

A cold spot:
A glass of iced tea

Boiled leaves:
A cup of hot tea

A brunette with a sand:
Coffee with sugar only

Fish eyes:
Tapioca pudding

Canned cow:
Condensed milk

One on the country:
Buttermilk

If you’ve ever had a hangover, you’ve probably wondered what was going on in your body. It’s surprisingly complex.

U
NDER THE INFLUENCE

Here are some basic facts about drinking:

1.
When you drink an alcoholic beverage, your body absorbs about 90% of the alcohol in the drink. The rest is exhaled, sweated out, or passed out in urine.

2.
On average, a normal liver can process 10 grams of alcohol per hour. That’s the equivalent of one glass of wine, half a pint of beer, or one shot of 80 proof spirits. (Exactly how much depends on a number of things, including your bodyweight and gender.)

3.
Alcohol is a depressant, which means that it slows down the activity of your central nervous system by replacing the water around the nerve cells in your body.

4.
Alcohol also changes the density of the fluid and tissue in the part of your ears that controls your sense of balance. That’s why it can be difficult to walk, or even stand up, when you’ve had too much to drink.

WHAT CAUSES A HANGOVER?

Now we have to get a little technical:

• Your liver processes alcohol into a toxic chemical called
acetaldehyde.
Just as the alcohol made you feel good (or at least drunk), the acetaldehyde makes you feel bad. It’s the accumulation of this chemical in your body, more than the alcohol itself, that causes hangover symptoms. (That’s why the hangover comes
after
you’ve been drinking—the alcohol has been changed into acetaldehyde.) Specifically, acetaldehyde causes your blood vessels to dilate—which makes you feel warm, and can give you a headache.

• Meanwhile, the alcohol that’s still in your system is raising both your pulse and blood pressure—which makes the headache even worse.

• And then there’s the effect on your kidneys. When you’re sober, your kidneys use a chemical called vasopressin to recycle the water in your body. But alcohol reduces the level of vasopressin in your body—which, in turn reduces your kidneys’ ability to function. So instead of recycling water, you urinate it out. That makes you dehydrated...which can make your hangover worse.

• It’s also possible that what you’re experiencing in a hangover is a minor case of alcohol withdrawal syndrome—the same thing that chronic alcoholics experience when they stop drinking. “Your brain becomes somewhat tolerant over the course of an evening of heavy drinking,” says Dr. Anne Geller, who runs the Smithers Alcoholism Treatment Center in New York City. “The next morning, as the alcohol is coming out of your system, you experience a ‘rebound.’ You might feel nauseous, maybe you’ll have some diarrhea, maybe you’ll feel a little flushed. Your tongue is dry, your head is aching and you’re feeling a little bit anxious or jittery. Those are all signs of rebound, and that can be experienced as a hangover.”

PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

There are a few things you can do
before
you start drinking that may prevent the worst excesses of a hangover:

• Eat a substantial meal or at least have a glass of milk before you start drinking. It will help protect your stomach lining.

• Avoid champagne and dark-colored drinks, especially red wines. They contain byproducts of fermentation that may make the hangover worse.

• Drink a pint of water before you go to bed. The water will help minimize dehydration.

• The next morning, eat something sweet for breakfast, such as honey or jam. They contain fructose, which generates a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) that is involved in the processing of alcohol.

HANGOVER CURES

You can’t cure a hangover once you’ve got one—it’s that simple. Many “cures” only make things worse:

• Aspirin and ibuprofin (Advil, Nuprin) can irritate your stomach lining, which is probably already upset from the alcohol. There’s even some evidence that aspirin can make you feel even more drunk.

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol) can strain your liver, which already has enough on its hands processing the alcohol.

• Coffee just keeps you awake. Wouldn’t you rather be asleep?

• Drinking more alcohol—the “hair of the dog that bit you”—doesn’t work either; it only postpones the inevitable. The only people it helps are alcoholics, whose hangovers are compounded by symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

Traditional Remedies

Here are some traditional hangover remedies. They don’t work, either, but some are so disgusting that at least they’ll take your mind off of being hungover:

• Swallow six raw owl eggs in quick succession.

• “Hangover Breakfast”—black coffee, two raw eggs, tomato juice, and an aspirin.

• Jackrabbit tea: Take some jackrabbit droppings, add hot water to make strong tea. Strain the tea; then drink. Repeat every 30 minutes until the headache goes away or you run out of droppings.

• Whip yourself until you bleed profusely. The loss of blood won’t cure the hangover, but it will (1) make you groggy, and (2) serve as a distraction.

• Drink the sugary juice from a can of peaches.

• Add a teaspoon of soot to a glass of warm milk (hardwood soot is best). Drink.

• Spike some Pepto-Bismol with Coca-Cola syrup from the drugstore, or with a can of day-old Coke.

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“A woman drove me to drink...and I

never had the courtesy to thank her.”

—W. C. Fields
             

Here’s another adventure in using foreign toilets from the book
Going Abroad,
by Eva Newman
.

H
ave you ever been attacked by your bowel movement? Yes, actually chased? A friend experienced this event in his apartment in Moscow.

He had noticed his toilet, although outwardly appearing to be an old but normal closettype Western-style toilet, had two internal differences. The drain hole was in the front part of the toilet bowl instead of the rear, and at the rear of the bowl was a slight spoon-shaped depression.

The surprising event occurred the first time my friend had a major movement in the toilet. He pulled the chain to flush the toilet and turned to leave. Splat! Right on the back of his legs.