Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (11 page)

From
The 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said,
edited by Robert Byrne.

“If God lived on Earth, people would break his windows.”

—Jewish proverb

“I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody’s.”

—Woody Allen

“When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply jake, then you’re frightened of death.”

—
J. P. Donleavy

“Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.”

—William Safire

“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it is best to let him run.”

—Abraham Lincoln

“In the end, everything is a gag.”

—Charlie Chaplin

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

—Betrand Russell

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”

—Goethe

“Victory goes to the player who makes the next to last mistake.”

—Savielly Grigorievitch

“After all is said and done, more is said than done.”

—Unknown

“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”

—Jean-Paul Sartre

“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.”

—
H. H. Munro

“The best way to get praise is to die.”

—Italian proverb

These days, it seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are a few real-life examples of unusual legal battles.

T
HE PLAINTIFF:
Wendy Potasnik, a nine-year-old from Carmel, Indiana

THE DEFENDANT:
The Cracker Jack Division of Borden, Inc.

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1982, Wendy and her sister Robin each bought a box of Cracker Jacks. Robin got a prize in her box, but Wendy didn’t…which made her “really mad.”

“They advertise a free toy in each box,” she told a reporter. “I feel that since I bought their product because of their claim, they broke a contract with me.” So she sued, asking the court to make Borden “pay court costs and furnish a toy.”

THE VERDICT:
Wendy dropped the suit after Borden apologized and sent her a coupon for a free box of Cracker Jacks…even though the company refused to pay the $19 that Potasnik had spent on court costs.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Alan Wald

THE DEFENDANT:
The Moonraker Restaurant in Pacifica, California

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1993, Wald went to the Moonraker for an all-you-can-eat buffet. He’d already eaten between 40 (Wald’s count) and 75 (the restaurant’s count) oysters—and was still at it—when the restaurant cut him off. Apparently, other customers were complaining that there were no oysters left. The restaurant offered to refund Wald’s $40 to get him to go, but Wald insisted he was within his rights—he hadn’t had all he could eat yet. He demanded $400 for “humiliation and embarrassment.”

THE VERDICT:
Wald was awarded $100 by the judge—but the restaurant was the real winner. “It was great publicity,” said the owner. “We’re going to get a shovelful of oysters and present them to [Wald] at his table. He can come back anytime.”

THE PLAINTIFF:
The Swedish government

THE DEFENDANT:
Elisabeth Hallin, mother of a five-year-old boy named Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbbllll6 (which she pronounces “Albin”)

THE LAWSUIT:
For five years, the Hallins, who say they believe in the surrealist doctrine of “pataphysics,” refused to give their son a name. Then Swedish tax officials informed them it was a legal requirement. They chose Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbbl1116—which was immediately rejected by the authorities. The couple insisted that the “typographically expressionistic” name was merely “an artistic creation,” consistent with their pata-physical beliefs.

THE VERDICT:
The government disagreed. The Hallins were fined 5000 kronor (about $735) and ordered to come up with a different name.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Lorene Bynum

THE DEFENDANTS:
St. Mary’s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1992, Bynum visited her husband, a patient at the hospital. She wanted to use the bathroom, but the toilet seat was dirty—and there wasn’t enough toilet paper to spread out on it. So she took off her shoes and tried to go to the bathroom
standing
on the toilet seat. Unfortunately the seat was loose. Bynum fell, spraining her lower back. She sued the hospital for negligence.

THE VERDICT:
A jury awarded Bynum $13,000. But the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned the verdict. “The injuries resulted from her act of standing on the commode seat, which was neither designed nor intended to be used in that way,” they explained.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Victoria Baldwin

THE DEFENDANT:
Synergy, a hair salon in Sydney, Australia

THE LAWSUIT:
In July 1996, Baldwin had her hair cut at the salon. The result was so bad, she complained, that it made her “look like Hillary Clinton.” She sued for damages, plus reimbursement for money spent on hats to cover her head until the hair grew back.

THE VERDICT:
Baldwin won $750, plus $234 for the hats.

Here’s a chance to soak up a little wisdom while you’re just sitting around. This is an old Hebrew tale, from a longtime favorite book of Uncle John’s, called
Myths and Legends of the Ages.

A
hunter once caught a bird in a trap. “Let me go,” the bird pleaded. “It won’t do you any good to kill me—I’m not very big. If you roast me, all you’ll get is a mouthful or two at the most. And if you lock me in a cage, I can promise you right now that I’ll never sing a note for you. But if you let me go, I’ll give you three pieces of wisdom which will bring you great happiness and success.”

The hunter pondered over the bird’s speech. “All right,” he said. “Tell me your three pieces of wisdom, and I’ll let you go.”

“First,” said the bird, “never believe a story that goes against your common sense. Secondly, don’t regret what is done and cannot be undone.” Then, cocking his head to one side, the bird concluded, “And the third piece of wisdom is, don’t try the impossible.”

“There’s nothing so wise about that,” scoffed the hunter. “I practice those teachings all the time. But since you’re not much use to me anyway, I’ll let you go.”

No sooner was the bird released, than he flew to a high branch of a nearby tree. “Foolish man!” he said. “Did you think I was just an ordinary bird? Oh no! Now I can tell you that I am much different from other birds. My heart is made of a precious ruby. If you had cut me open and taken out my heart, you might have been the richest man in the world.”

When the man heard this, he cursed his folly in letting the bird go. He shook his fist at the bird in the tree. “I’ll catch you, you rogue!” he cried in a rage of disappointment.

The hunter quickly started to climb the tree. But the bird flew to the tip of a high branch, well out of the man’s reach. The hunter leaned far out, trying to lay his hands on the bird. But he lost his balance, fell out of the tree, and was badly hurt.

“So!” cried the bird. “You said there was nothing wise about my words—that what I told you is only what you always practice! But the first thing I told you was never to believe anything that was contrary to common sense. Did anyone ever hear of a bird whose heart was made of a ruby? No. Yet you instantly believed my story.

“The next thing I said was don’t regret what has been done and cannot be undone. You let me go—but then you instantly regretted it!

“The last piece of wisdom was, don’t waste your energies pursuing the impossible. How could you ever hope to catch me, a bird who can fly—just by climbing a tree? Yet, you persisted in your folly and tried to snare a winged bird with your bare hands.”

The shaken hunter got to his feet…a bruised but wiser man.

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AND SPEAKING OF FOOLISHNESS…

The Etruscan Warrior

Background:
In 1918 New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art paid $40,000 for the fragments of a 2,500-year-old, 7-foot-tall statue of an Etruscan warrior that predated the Roman Empire. (The Etruscans were conquered by the Romans in 396 B.C.) The museum reassembled the fragments into a nearly intact statue—only the left thumb was missing. The museum made the statue a centerpiece of its Etruscan warrior display, which opened in 1933.

The Truth:
In 1936 rumors began circulating that an Italian stonemason had made the statue at the turn of the century…but the exhibit was so popular that the museum refused to investigate. Finally, in 1960, the museum had the statue’s glaze tested chemically and proved conclusively that it was a fake.

A few months later, Alfredo Fioravanti (an Italian stonemason, of course) confessed to making the statue…and produced the warrior’s missing left thumb as proof.

We take it for granted that bacon, eggs, orange juice, and coffee are breakfast foods. But it’s really just a matter of tradition.

C
OFFEE AND TEA.
People started drinking coffee and tea in the morning not because they were pleasant, but because they were hot, dark, and mysterious. Until the 17th century, it was common for Europeans to start their day with alcohol. Queen Elizabeth, for example, had a pot of beer and a pound of beefsteak for breakfast every day. Scottish breakfasts routinely included a dram of whiskey. Coffee, tea, and sugar had the same illicit appeal as alcohol when they reached Europe in the 1600s—so they became suitable substitutes for booze.

EGGS & BACON, SAUSAGE, OR HAM.
Colonists brought chickens and pigs with them to America because they were easy to transport by ship, and could provide food on the long voyage. Besides that, it was traditional to eat meat in the morning—and pork was the colonists’ first choice. (It was so popular that one writer suggested they rename the U.S. “the Republic of Porkdom.”) Eggs probably became a staple at breakfast because “they’re freshest when just gathered from the previous night’s roosting.”

CITRUS FRUIT / ORANGE JUICE.
Believe it or not, people started eating oranges in the morning because they thought it would warm them. The ancient Greeks taught that some foods heat your body, and other foods cool it—regardless of the temperature at which they’re served. Peas were cold, for example, onions were hot…and oranges were very hot. People still believed this in the Middle Ages, which is why the Spanish began eating candied orange peels the first thing in the morning. The habit was picked up by the British, who brought it to the Colonies. (In Scotland, the orange peel became orange marmalade, which they put on toast with butter—starting another breakfast tradition.)

Orange juice became a staple of the American breakfast table in the 1920s. In 1946, concentrated orange juice was introduced.

What’s the one constellation everyone knows? The Big Dipper. After you read this article you’ll be able to sound like a know-it-all the next time you’re star-gazing with someone.

T
HE NIGHT SKY

The Big and Little Dippers are probably the best-known star groups in the northern hemisphere. They’re both parts of larger star groups, or constellations, named after bears. The Big Dipper belongs to the constellation Ursa Major, “The Greater Bear,” and the Little Dipper is part of Ursa Minor, “The Lesser Bear.”

• Ursa Major is the most ancient of all the constellations. For some reason, early civilizations all over the world seem to have thought of it as a bear. This is remarkable, since Ursa Major doesn’t look anything like a bear. It’s even more remarkable when you consider that most of the ancient world had never seen a bear.

THE NATIVE AMERICAN SKY