Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ (59 page)

Dubious Achievement:
Charging to go where no airline has charged to go before

True Story:
Even though the British discount carrier is known for charging extra for checked baggage, carry-on items, food, and drink (even water), most people thought O’Leary was joking when he announced in 2010 that he would install pay toilets on 168 planes. He wasn’t joking: On each plane, O’Leary planned to remove all the restrooms except for one…to be shared by 189 people, including the flight crew. That way, Ryanair can add six more seats. And charging for that lone toilet, he explained, “will change passengers’ behaviors so they will do their business before and after they get on the plane.” O’Leary’s announcement brought jeers from thousands of prospective customers. Still, he held firm with the plan…until Boeing, the company that manufactures Ryanair’s fleet, refused to refit or build planes with only one bathroom.

Dishonerees:
David and Deanne Elsholz, a married couple from Wesley Chapel, Florida

Dubious Achievement:
He missed; she didn’t

True Story:
The details are a bit hazy (news reports say the couple’s trailer was littered with Natural Lite beer cans). Apparently, late one night in February 2010, David, 50, got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Deanne, 44, awoke to the noise of David urinating all over the bathroom floor. “What are you doing?” she yelled. David didn’t answer; he just wanted to go back to sleep, he said later. But Deanne says that when she pressed the matter, he “smacked me in the head with a towel.” So she threw a glass at him. It hit him in the nose; he started bleeding. Then, according to the police report, “Deanne ran into the bathroom and slipped on David’s urine.” She called 911, but after officers questioned them, she—not he—was arrested for domestic battery.

Highest award for animal actors: the PATSY, short for Picture Animal Top Star of the Year. (It was cancelled in 1986 due to lack of funding.)

Dishoneree:
Joshua Nelson, of Lincoln, Nebraska

Dubious Achievement:
Using TP on the wrong end…of the law

True Story:
Before cops caught up with him, Nelson, 29, was simply known as the “Toilet Paper Bandit” (TPB). In April 2010, he wrapped some Charmin around his head (like a mummy), went into Kabredlo’s convenience store, pulled out a knife, and demanded all the money from the safe. The clerk complied and the TPB ran away. Officers called to the scene found a trail of toilet paper leading away from the store, but they were unable to track down the TPB. A week later, a prescription bottle with Nelson’s name on it was found near the store, along with discarded coin roll wrappers. The Toilet Paper Bandit was arrested and confessed to his crime, which has been added to his…rap sheet.

Dishoneree:
Curtis Jones, 31, incarcerated at the Howard County Jail in Missouri on burglary charges

Dubious Achievement:
Using a roll to go on the lam

True Story:
Jones took the empty cardboard TP roll from his cell toilet and jammed it into the door just before lockdown. Then, while the night guard was on the other side of block, Jones opened his cell door and escaped. He was free for a week before an anonymous tip led police to his whereabouts. He was recaptured and placed in a higher-security area of the jail.

Dishoneree:
Calvin Robinson, a 19-year-old homeless man from Spokane, Washington

Dubious Achievement:
Using a public restroom to make…money

True Story:
In 2008 Robinson paid $100 for a color copier so he could make $90 in counterfeit money and buy a bag of marijuana. But being homeless, Robinson had no place to plug in his copier, so he used a public restroom in the River Park Square shopping mall. His plot unraveled when mall workers alerted the police that someone had been in the locked restroom for more than an hour. The cops broke in and found Robinson sitting on the floor with his copier and his poorly copied $10 bills. “I don’t believe he’s going to be recruited by NASA,” said the arresting officer.

DO YOU SPEAK DOG?

Many dog owners believe their special relationship with their pet includes an ability to understand what the dog “says” and does. We’ve been reading up on the subject and talking to canine behavior experts. Not all of these tricks work with all breeds, but you won’t know unless you try
.

P
ROBLEM:
You have to repeat commands over and over before your dog obeys. Almost anyone who has owned a dog has gone through it: You want your dog to sit, so you say, “Sit.” The dog doesn’t sit, so you say “Sit” again…and again. Now you’re SHOUTING!…and the dog finally sits.

EXPERTS SAY:
You’re falling into a bad habit. Your dog may actually be learning that the command for “Sit” is the multisyllabic word “Sit…sit…sit…SIT!” (maybe with a few dirty words thrown in). When you get frustrated and start yelling commands at your dog, you also may be teaching it to ignore any command that
isn’t
shouted.

SOLUTION:
Call the dog by name to get its attention, then give your command just once, in a firm but not loud voice. Wait. If the dog doesn’t respond, call it by name again and repeat the command. Repeat again if you need to, but if you get frustrated, take a break—it’s better than teaching the dog bad habits.

PROBLEM:
Your dog barks whenever someone comes to the door or walks past your house.

EXPERTS SAY:
The dog sees these people as threats to the security of its “den.” That much you know already. But yelling at a dog for barking at strangers not only doesn’t work, it may even reinforce the undesirable behavior. That’s because you’re responding to the threat the dog has called to your attention by making loud noises of your own, which the dog hears as “barks.” It interprets your barking to mean that it has done the right thing in alerting you to the danger, and will probably continue barking as long as you do, to help you drive the threat away.

SOLUTION:
Respond calmly and quietly to whatever your dog is calling to your attention, then calmly say “okay,” or “thank you,” give it a pat, and call it back to your side. The dog interprets this to mean that you evaluated what it has called to your attention, and decided it’s not a threat. No further barking is required.

A Maryland community college offers a 12:00 a.m. psych class called “Midnight Madness.”

PROBLEM:
Your puppy pees whenever it greets someone.

EXPERTS SAY:
One of Uncle John’s friends has a border collie named Bijou that used to pee every time she greeted a person, regardless of whether it was a threatening stranger, a familiar visitor, or even her owners returning home. This is a behavior trait that begins in the litter, when a mother dog stimulates her pups into “eliminating” on command by nudging their genital area. When the pups become old enough to see, all the mother has to do is give her pups a certain look and they pee or poop. Young dogs, therefore, come to associate authority figures with elimination, which is why they pee during greetings. (Uncle John has a similar relationship with the IRS.)

SOLUTION:
Puppies grow out of this behavior naturally, but until then, you can lessen its occurrence by making your greetings as calm and non-authoritative as possible. Don’t approach the puppy; let it come up to you. Avoid eye contact, speak softly or remain silent, and rub the puppy under the chin instead of stroking it on the head and back.

PROBLEM:
Your dog engages in behavior it clearly understands is bad, just to get your attention.

EXPERTS SAY:
A dog doesn’t distinguish between good attention and bad attention the way humans do, so any action that gets attention, even if it makes the owner mad, is a good thing to the dog and will likely be repeated.

SOLUTION:
To a dog, eye contact is a form of attention, so when your dog does something that annoys you, look away, leave the room, or cover your eyes with your hands until the dog stops the bad behavior; then resume eye contact and praise the dog’s good behavior. Keep it up even if the dog increases the bad behavior for a time. All this means is your efforts are paying off.

NOTE:
Unfamiliar dogs will also study your eyes. Don’t stare—a dog will interpret this as a challenge and may become aggressive. It may even bite.

For more tips, turn to
page 472
.

50% of Americans polled admit that they regularly sneak food into movie theaters.

LAST CONCERTS, PART II

On
page 155
, we told you the stories of the final concerts of some of the greatest musical acts in history. Here are a few more
.

T
ALKING HEADS
Last Concert:
The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, March 18, 2002

What Happened:
The Talking Heads stopped playing together in 1988 on less-than-friendly terms, and officially disbanded in 1991. Rumors of a reunion swirled in 1996, but eventually fizzled when frontman David Byrne said “no.” The rumors returned in 2002…and this time they came true, when Byrne, bassist Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz, and guitarist Jerry Harrison took the stage at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York for the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They played just three songs: “Life During Wartime,” “Psycho Killer,” and “Burning Down the House,” but it remains the last Talking Heads performance in history.

Coda:
Rumors of another reunion surface every few years, but Byrne has always refused. “The only reason to get back together,” he told Australia’s
The Age
in 2005, “would be to do one of those ‘sound like you used to sound’ tours. And who wants to do that? I’ve already sounded like that once. And I don’t need the money.”

ROSEMARY CLOONEY

Last Concert:
Honolulu, Hawaii, November 16, 2001

What Happened:
In 2001 Clooney, a music and screen star since the 1950s, was diagnosed with lung cancer. That November she took a vacation in one of her favorite places, Hawaii, and while there agreed to perform with the Honolulu Symphony Pops. She did the show—sang, cracked jokes with the audience, told stories, and by all reports had a great time. And that was that. She returned to her home in Beverly Hills, where she died seven months later.

Coda:
Nobody connected with Clooney knew it at the time, but
the concerts had been recorded. The Honolulu Symphony Pops had been trying to get a record deal with orchestral specialists Concord Records for some time. Concord said they’d need to hear samples—so the Pops had been recording all their 2001 shows. That news eventually got to Clooney’s longtime manager, Allen Sviridoff, he took the recording to Concord—and Rosemary Clooney’s very last performance became her first live record in 45 years—
Rosemary Clooney: The Last Concert
(2002). “As it turns out, this show was one of the best performances Rosemary had done,” Concord vice president John Burk said. “It was just one of those magical moments that came together. No one knew it would be her last show.”

Parking lot: Automobiles take up about 24% of the total land area of Los Angeles.

THE RAMONES

Last Concert:
The Palace, Hollywood, California, August 6, 1996

What Happened:
The groundbreaking punk rockers announced beforehand that the August 6 show at the Palace would be their last. They played 31 songs—nonstop—for 70 minutes. The show featured several special guests, including bassist Dee Dee Ramone, who’d left the band years earlier, and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, who came onstage during the last song, wearing a rubber mask. He ripped it off in time to join in the final chorus on the final song, the Dave Clark 5’s “Anyway You Want It.”

Coda:
Once inside the arena, every member of the audience was given a special numbered ticket reading, “Adios Amigos. Ramones. The 2263rd Show. Billboard Live. August 6, 1996.” Only problem: The show was held at the Palace, not the Billboard Live club. It was
supposed
to be at the brand-new Billboard Live, but had to rescheduled at the last minute when the club was prevented from opening due to building code problems.

JOHNNY CASH

Last Concert:
The Carter Ranch, Hiltons, Virginia, July 5, 2003

What Happened:
A black Mercedes ambled up to a rustic old amphitheater on a hillside in rural Virginia. About 700 people were there, and they got the shock of their lives when Johnny Cash was helped out of the car and into a wheelchair. He’d been in increasingly deteriorating health since being diagnosed with a
degenerative nerve disorder in 1997. Cash was rolled into the theater, and physically carried onto a chair on the stage. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Johnny Cash.” Backed by a small band, he played seven songs: “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Ring of Fire,” “Angel Band,” “Big River,” and finished with one he said he hadn’t sung in 25 years, “Understand Your Man.” He was then carried back to his chair, rolled out to the car, and was gone.

Coda:
Cash made the difficult trip to the old Carter family home in tribute to June Carter Cash, his wife of 40 years, who had died less than two months earlier. Cash himself wasn’t far behind: He died three months later, on September 12.

Whale oil was used as a lubricant in car transmissions as recently as 1973.

THE POLICE