Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (10 page)

GESUNDHEIT!

Q:
Why do you close your eyes when you sneeze?

A:
“It’s a reflex thing. Your eyes snap shut as soon as you sneeze, and it’s pretty much impossible to keep them open. The nerves serving the eyes and the nose are very closely connected. The stimuli to one often trigger some response in the other. There’s an urban myth that if you keep your eyes open when you sneeze, your eyes will pop out. Well, you can’t do it, and even if you could, it wouldn’t happen.” (From
Return of the Answer Lady
, by Marg Meikle.)

LEAKY PIPES

Q:
Why does running water make you have to go to the bathroom?

A:
“Scientists say it’s the power of suggestion. It’s totally psychological. The sound of going to the bathroom is very similar to the sound of water filling a sink. The brain hears water running and connects it with the need to urinate, so it sends a message to the bladder telling it that it’s full, even if it isn’t. The phenomenon even occurs in dogs.” (From
Why Knuckles Crack and Other Body Facts
, by Jeremy M. Barker)

The cold truth: Scientists say you have more nightmares when your bedroom is cold.

What do Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have in common? They’re both fans of Texas novelist/songwriter/satirist Kinky Friedman
.

“A happy childhood is the worst possible preparation for life.”

“In six days the Lord created the heavens and the Earth and all the wonders therein. There are some of us who feel that He might have taken just a little more time.”

“If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There’s always time to be humble later, once you’ve been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong.”

“I came from an upper-middle-class home, which is always a hard cross for a country singer to bear.”

“If you’re paranoid long enough, sooner or later you’re gonna be right.”

“The distance between the limousine and the gutter is a short one.”

“We’re all worm bait waiting to happen. It’s what you do while you wait that matters.”

“Seventeen publishers rejected the manuscript, at which time I knew I had something pretty hot.”

“No matter where you go, you always see yourself in the rearview mirror.”

“I don’t believe in carrying a weapon. If somebody wants to shoot me, he’ll have to bring his own gun.”

“If you’re patient and you wait long enough, something will usually happen. And it’ll usually be something you don’t like.”

“On the whole, I prefer cats to women because cats seldom if ever use the word ‘relationship.’”

“I’m not afraid to die. I’m not afraid to live. I’m not afraid to fail. I’m not afraid to succeed. I’m not afraid to fall in love. I’m not afraid to be alone. I’m just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for 5 minutes.”

“I knew I wasn’t as stupid as I looked. No one was.”

Actor Mark Wahlberg has three nipples.

You might have heard about it on the news: In 1991 McDonald’s sued two unemployed vegetarians for distributing leaflets disparaging the mega-chain’s practices. McDonald’s won the case—or did they? Here’s the story
.

T
HE MCMURDER PAMPHLETS

In 1990 environmental activists David Morris and Helen Steel distributed copies of a controversial pamphlet outside a McDonald’s restaurant in London, England. It had been written by a small environmental group called London Greenpeace (not linked to Greenpeace International) and was entitled “What’s Wrong With McDonald’s? Everything They Don’t Want You To Know.” The cover showed the famous “golden arches,” along with the words “McDollars,” “McGreedy,” “McCancer,” and “McMurder.” The six-page pamphlet made some strong accusations: that McDonald’s knowingly promoted unhealthy diets; that cattle raised for their burgers caused destruction of rainforests; that they caused starvation in developing countries, were hostile to trade unions, exploited children, and abused animals. McDonald’s was not amused.

The Illinois-based corporation sued Morris and Steel for libel (they sued in England, because English law makes it easier to win a libel case than U.S. law) and Morris and Steel, surprisingly, decided to fight. They counter-sued, accusing McDonald’s of libeling them by calling their accusations “lies.” Because Morris was unemployed and Steel was a part-time bartender, the two had to act as their own lawyers against the McDonald’s legal army.

OUTCOME:
McDonald’s won. The award: the penniless defendants had to pay McDonald’s $94,000 in damages. Justice Rodger Bell also ruled against the activists in their countersuit, saying that the restaurant chain had a right to defend itself against the accusations.

THE OTHER OUTCOME:
McDonald’s lost—big time. The trial dragged on for years. Amazingly, when it ended, “McLibel” was the longest trial in English history. It didn’t get officially started until 1994 and wasn’t decided until 1997. Justice Bell’s opinion was more than 800 pages long and took two hours just to summarize orally.

MTV aired video #1,000,000 in March 2000.

For the duration of the trial McDonald’s was regularly grilled in the international press as the big bully beating up on the little guy at best, and as the above-the-law mega-corporation suppressing the right of free speech at worst. The $94,000 turned out to be hardly an award since they never received it anyway, and since McDonald’s spent an estimated $16 million on the case!

Another blow to the company: It was revealed during the trial that they had hired people to infiltrate London Greenpeace. These spies actually became members of the group—they even handed out some of the leaflets.

McCULPABILITY

While the judge found in favor of the chain, he also made it clear that some of the accusations were accurate. The
McSpotlight
Web site, created by the defendants so supporters could follow the trial (it’s still active today) happily reported the rulings:

•
Justice Bell found that Morris and Steel had not sufficiently proven the allegations against McDonald’s on rainforest destruction, heart disease and cancer, food poisoning, starvation in the Third World, and bad working conditions.

•
But they had proven, he said, that McDonald’s “exploits children” with their advertising, falsely advertises their food as nutritious, risks the health of their most regular, long-term customers, are “culpably responsible” for cruelty to animals, are “strongly antipathetic” to unions, and pay their workers low wages.

•
In March 1999, the English Court of Appeal made two further rulings, saying that a regular McDonald’s diet is indeed linked to heart disease and that the defendants had the right to say that McDonald’s employees suffered “bad working conditions” because it was an opinion.

And the offending pamphlets? Thanks to all the press the case received, at least three million more “McMurder” pamphlets were distributed around the world.

“Do not spit into the well—you may have to drink out of it.”

—Russian proverb

In her witchcraft trial, Joan of Arc was also charged with disobeying her parents.

In 2004 a British company called Today Translations commissioned a worldwide poll of 1,000 professional interpreters and translators to find the world’s most difficult-to-translate words. Here’s their top 10
.

A
ND THE WINNERS ARE:

10.
Klloshar
.
The closest meaning for this Albanian term: “loser.”

9.
Pochemuchka
.
Russian for “a person who asks a lot of questions.”
Pochemu
means “why” in Russian, so a
pochemuchka
is kind of like a “why-man” or “why-woman.”

8.
Selathirupavar
.
A word in the Tamil language (spoken in India and Sri Lanka) that refers to a particular form of truancy.

7.
Saudade
.
It refers to “a certain type of longing” in Portuguese.

6.
Gezellig
.
Dutch for “cozy.”

5.
Altahmam
.
An Arabic word that refers to a particular kind of “deep sadness.”

4.
Naa
.
Spoken only in the Kansai region of Japan, it’s a modifier that’s used to “emphasize statements or agree with someone.”

3.
Radioukacz
.
The Polish word for “a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain.”

2.
Shlimazl
.
A “chronically unlucky person” in Yiddish, a language spoken by central and eastern European Jews and their descendants around the world.

...and the most difficult-to-translate word in the world is:

1.
Ilunga
.
A word in Tshiluba, a Bantu dialect spoken in the Congo region of Africa. Meaning: “A person who will forgive any abuse for the first time, tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.”

There are 41 references to dogs in the Bible...and most of them are negative.

The next time you’re traveling across America, take some time to visit these unusual attractions
.

M
USEUM OF BAD ART

Location:
Dedham, Massachusetts

Background:
MOBA is the only museum in the United States that
admits
it shows bad art. When it opened in 1993, the museum was housed in someone’s basement, but it’s now located in the Dedham Community Theater, just outside the men’s room. Most pieces in the collection were found in thrift stores or in the garbage.

Be Sure to See:
“Sunday on the Pot with George,” a painting in pointillist (made up of dots) style depicting a heavy man wearing only his underpants, sitting on a toilet. One reviewer called the work “the single most memorable artistic experience in my life—a bit like my recent bout with the shingles.”

BARBED WIRE MUSEUM

Location:
La Crosse, Kansas

Background:
Sure, barbed wire is an important part of American history. (It provided an inexpensive way for “sodbusters” to keep cattle off their land, effectively ending the open range.) But wire’s wire, right? Apparently not. This museum holds 18-inch segments of more than 1,000 different types of barbed wire, lining its walls from floor to ceiling.

Be Sure to See:
A real bird’s nest made almost completely from bits of barbed wire (it weighs 72 pounds) and a piece of barbed wire taken from the top of the Berlin Wall when it fell.

SPAM MUSEUM

Location:
Austin, Minnesota

Background:
Next door to the top-secret facility where the Hormel Corporation makes Spam, fans of the canned meat can see a giant Spamburger sandwich (with its own 17-foot spatula), visit the 3,390-can “Wall of Spam,” don hardhats and work on a simulated Spam production line, and marvel at the 4,700 cans that document 70 years of Spam’s worldwide popularity.

Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.

Be Sure to See:
The talking wax figure of company founder George Hormel.

TRAGEDY IN U.S. HISTORY MUSEUM

Location:
St. Augustine, Florida

Background:
In the same town as the supposed location of the Fountain of Youth and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum is this attraction that celebrates the grislier parts of history. Curator Buddy Hough said, “Tragedy is what makes America great.” He began collecting in 1963, making several trips to Dallas to get whatever artifacts he could from the Kennedy assassination.

Be Sure to See:
The ambulance that took Lee Harvey Oswald to the hospital after he was shot, the furniture from the Dallas room Oswald stayed in before the assassination, the car Jayne Mansfield died in, and the bullet-riddled 1933 Ford in which Bonnie and Clyde were supposedly killed. There’s also a copy of Elvis Presley’s will, antique torture equipment, and a Spanish jail cell from 1718 with real skeletons inside.