Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (28 page)

PRUDE...
A 51-year-old woman returning home from a date in 1991 kissed her friend goodnight and went inside her condo. The next day she received a notice from the homeowners association threatening her with a fine. The complaint read: “Resident seen kissing and doing bad things for over one hour.” Kim Garrett insisted she only kissed her date once, then got out of his car and was back in the condo in less than a minute. “If they can judge my morals, which are not wrong, they can just keep passing rules,” she said. “It will be just like living in Russia.”

NUDE...
In January 2004, Stephen Gough, 44, known as the “Naked Rambler,” accomplished his goal of walking the length of the United Kingdom wearing only socks, walking boots, and a hat. His purpose: To encourage greater acceptance of the naked body. The 900-mile trip took a long time—seven months. Gough was arrested 16 times along the way and served two stints in jail for indecent exposure.

PRUDE...
Mel Culver, a teacher in Waukesha, Wisconsin, asked the school district to remove the 2001
Guinness Book of World Records
from all 17 elementary schools in the district. The book contains photos of models wearing “the world’s most valuable bikini” and “the world’s most expensive bra and panties.” “Boys are asking to go to the library for the sole purpose of looking at these pictures,” Culver wrote in her complaint. “The news of the pictures is spreading like wildfire.” (The review committee voted 9–0 to reject her request.)

Very inter-ES-ting. Most common first letter for words in the English language: S.

The United States has McGruff the Crime Dog. But what about the rest of the world? Well, South Africa has Max the crime-fighting gorilla—and he’s real, not a cartoon
.

P
IT STOP

In 1997 an armed criminal named Isaac Mofokeng tried to break into a house near the Johannesburg Zoo. The homeowner caught him in the act and called police. Mofokeng fled into the zoo, jumped down into the gorilla pit and he found himself face to face with two gorillas: a 400-pound male named Max, and a smaller female named Lisa.

Max had lived almost all of his 26 years in the zoo, so he was used to humans, but he’d never been confronted like this before. Sensing that he and his mate were threatened, he grabbed Mofokeng in a giant hug, then bit him on the butt and slammed him against the wall of the enclosure. Terrified for his life, Mofokeng fired three shots from his .38, hitting Max in the neck and chest.

By then Max was pretty agitated. He attacked police officers as they entered the enclosure to arrest Mofokeng, and zoo officials had to subdue him with a tranquilizer dart. Max was rushed to a nearby hospital and registered under the name “Mr. M. Gorilla.” Surgeons successfully removed the bullet from his neck but decided it was safer to leave the one in his shoulder. Luckily Max made a full recovery. A month later he received an apology from Mofokeng. “I wanna say I’m sorry to the gorilla,” the burglar told reporters as he was being led from court. “I was just protecting myself.”

PRIME PRIMATE

Max became the star attraction of the Johannesburg Zoo, as well as a national hero and a symbol of defiance to South Africans frustrated by the country’s high crime rate. For his courage under fire he was awarded a bulletproof vest and named an honorary officer by the Johannesburg police force. Max lived out the rest of his life in peace and quiet, enjoying his favorite snacks of garlic, onions, and the occasional beer before dying in his sleep of old age in May 2004. He was 33.

Barnum’s Animal Crackers celebrated their hundredth anniversary by adding koalas.

Sometimes when a plan is put into action, the result can be something that no one could have predicted. But, hey—that’s what makes life interesting
.

W
HAT HAPPENED:
The approval of the drug Viagra by the FDA in 1998

INTENDED:
Improved sexual performance in men and, thus, better physical relationships between couples

UNINTENDED:
A sharp rise in the divorce rate among the elderly. Reports released between 2001 and 2003 dubbed the problem the “Viagra divorce.”
USA Today
reported that “husbands previously unable to perform now confront ‘Viagra wives’ not excited to be asked once again for sex.” This, according to the reports, often led the men to have affairs, which often resulted in divorce.

WHAT HAPPENED:
The Roman army’s victories in Asia Minor between 161 and 166 A.D.

INTENDED:
Armenia, Syria, and Mesopotamia were annexed to the Roman Empire

UNINTENDED:
The plague. Returning soldiers brought it back with them, and as much as half the entire population of Rome was decimated by the disease.

WHAT HAPPENED:
The invention of “text messaging” on cell phones

INTENDED:
Cell phone users can easily and silently send written messages

UNINTENDED:
Cheating husbands and wives can more easily get caught by their spouses. A 2003 survey by a private investigation firm in Italy, the most cell phone–saturated country in Europe, found that nearly 90% of all cheaters who were caught, were caught because of their cell phones. Private eye Miriam Tomponzi told reporters that being able to send silent messages from anywhere had increased contact between illicit lovers. But it also meant that saved “love letters” could be found by a suspicious spouse. She also said that since the advent of text messaging, her business was booming.

Chock full o’ nuts! The Old Testament mentions almonds 73 times.

WHAT HAPPENED:
A ban on smoking in bars in Winnipeg, Manitoba

INTENDED:
A decrease in the health risks of cigarette smoke to bar-goers and workers in the city

UNINTENDED:
The discovery of a mummified body in the wall of a bar. In December 2003, police found the body of Eduardo Sanchez, 21, behind a wall in the Village Cabaret. The club’s owners said they had been aware of an offensive smell for a year but thought it was just normal bar odors: stale beer and cigarettes. When the smoking ban went into effect, the odor stood out and neighbors called police. Sanchez was a DJ at the club; police had been unable to solve the mystery of his disappearance in October 2002. They said it now appeared that Sanchez had crawled into a gap between two walls in the basement—for an unknown reason—and gotten stuck.

WHAT HAPPENED:
The U.S. government’s $1.3 billion “War on Cocaine” in Colombia

INTENDED:
A decrease in cocaine use in the United States

UNINTENDED:
An increase in heroin use in the United States. In 2001 the
Chicago Sun-Times
reported that under the U.S. plan, Colombian planes and helicopters were being used to go after coca plantations. Those aircraft had previously been used to search for poppy plantations. Poppy growers took advantage of the sudden freedom and started making record amounts of heroin...and shipping it to North America.

WHAT HAPPENED:
America Online banned the word “breast” from its service in 1995

INTENDED:
A decline in “cybersmut”

UNINTENDED:
Breast cancer patients lost the ability to communicate vital information online. One subscriber even had her personal profile completely deleted. She tried to create a new one, but got a message from AOL saying she couldn’t use “vulgar” words on their service. “I don’t have any problem with AOL trying to keep dirty words off their service,” the American Cancer Society’s Barbara LeStage told the
Boston Globe
, “but I don’t consider ‘breast’ a dirty word.” After a deluge of angry e-mails, AOL quickly allowed the word back on.

“Forty-two percent of all statistics are made up.”—Steven Wright

WHAT HAPPENED:
The use of salicylic acid as early as the fifth century B.C. and its modern form, acetylsalicylic acid—better known as aspirin

INTENDED:
Pain relief

UNINTENDED:
The prevention of countless heart attacks and strokes. British scientist John Vane showed in 1971 that aspirin suppresses the production of hormones known as
prostaglandins
. They not only suppress the transmission of pain signals to the brain and reduce inflammation and fever, they also affect the blood’s ability to clot. Blood clots are the leading cause of heart attacks and strokes—the leading cause of death in the Western world. Vane’s research showed that small regular doses of aspirin could prevent their occurrence, for which he won a Nobel Prize.

WHAT HAPPENED:
The creation of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South Korea at the end of the Korean War in 1953

INTENDED:
The barbed wire–enclosed 2.5-by-150-mile strip of land would help preserve peace between two nations that, since 1953, have been officially “at war.”

UNINTENDED:
The DMZ is an environmental paradise. It’s been virtually human-free for more than 50 years. Result: According to scientists, nearly 3,000 species of plants and animals thrive in the zone today—many that no longer exist in either country. That includes several severely endangered animals, such as Asiatic black bears, Siberian tigers, and two of the most endangered birds in the world: the white-naped crane and the red-crowned crane. In 1999 environmental leaders created a group called the DMZ Forum, which is trying to convince the two countries to turn the strip into a permanent nature reserve.

A Groaner:
Birds are sad in the morning. Why? Their bills are over dew.

One reason cats scratch furniture: they have scent glands in their paws.

BRI members enjoy trying to stump us with brainteasers and riddles. Now we try to stump you back. Answers are on
page 515
.

1.
One morning while she was eating breakfast, Laura’s diamond ring slipped off her finger and fell into a full cup of coffee, but the ring didn’t get wet. Why not?

2.
Sam’s father is five years older than Sam’s grandfather. How can this be?

3.
What grows down while it grows up?

4.
Five hundred begins it, five hundred ends it,

Five in the middle is seen.

The first of all letters, the first of all people,

Take their places in between.

Combine them all to make the name of a famous king.

5.
What is the only professional sport in which neither the players nor the spectators know the score until the match is over?

6.
What ship has two mates but no captain?

7.
What is it that turns everything around but does not move itself?

8.
What is the greatest worldwide use of cowhide?

9.
I know a man who can shave 10 times a day and still have a full beard. Who is he?

10.
My friend Julia was walking down Fifth Street when she found something that had no bones and no legs. She brought it home and put it on her windowsill. A week later, it walked away. What did Julia find?

11.
I can sizzle like bacon,
I am made with an egg,
I have plenty of backbone, but lack a good leg.

I peel layers like onions, but still remain whole;

I can be long, like a flagpole, yet fit in a hole.

What am I?

12.
Hi there! Ma and Pa told me I’d better tell you that all the two-letter words in this paragraph have something in common—or else! What’s the deal?

The word
anthology
is Greek for “a collection of flowers.”

13.
The first man is the master of priceless gems;

The second man is the master of love;

The third man is the master of shovels;

The fourth man is the master of big sticks;

Who are they?

14.
What well-known object is described in this poetic riddle by the 19th-century English poet Sir Edmund Goss?

My love, when I gaze on thy beautiful face,

Careering along, yet always in place,