Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (53 page)

When Guido died in 894, Formosus backed out of the deal. Rather than crown Lambert emperor, he called on King Arnulf of the East Franks to liberate Rome from Guido’s family.

...AND ARNULF

A year later Arnulf conquered Rome...and Formosus made him emperor. This relationship didn’t last long either: within a few months, Arnulf had suffered paralysis and had to be carried back to Germany; a few months after
that
, Pope Formosus died.

...AND LAMBERT AGAIN

Lambert, who had retreated back to Spoleto, used the crisis to rally his troops and march on Rome. He reconquered the city in 897.

The new pope, Stephen VI, quickly switched sides and crowned Lambert emperor.

Who’s the St. Pauli Girl? Hint: The German beer is named for Hamburg’s red-light district.

THE TRIAL

What followed was one of the most peculiar episodes in the history of the Catholic Church. Eager to prove his loyalty to the Spoletos, Pope Stephen convened the “cadaver synod,” in which he literally had Pope Formosus’s nine-month-old, rotting corpse put on trial for perjury, “coveting the papacy,” and a variety of other crimes. On Stephen’s orders the cadaver was disinterred, dressed in papal robes, and propped up on a throne for the trial. Since the body was in no condition to answer the charges made against it, a deacon was appointed to stand next to it during the proceedings and answer questions on its behalf.

Not surprisingly, the cadaver was found guilty on all counts. As punishment, all of Formosus’s papal acts were declared null and void. The corpse itself was also desecrated: The three fingers on the right hand used to confer blessings were hacked off, and the body was stripped naked and dumped in a cemetery for foreigners. Shortly afterwards it was tossed in Tiber River, where a hermit fished it out and gave it a proper burial.

WHAT GOES AROUND...

Stephen VI himself survived the cadaver synod by only a few months. While the gruesome synod was still in session, a strong earthquake struck Rome and destroyed the papal basilica. Taking this as a sign of God’s anger with the upstart pope, and encouraged by rumors that Formosus’s corpse had begun performing miracles, Formosus’s supporters arrested Stephen and threw him into the papal prison, where he was later strangled.

TIME FLIES

According to recent studies, in a lifetime the average American spends...

8 months opening mail

5 years waiting on line

2 years returning phone calls

1 year looking for misplaced items

Government stats: The poorest county in the U.S. is Shannon County, South Dakota.

The inspiration for this section was a column written by humorist Dave Barry. Why put his name in the title? Strategic planning. If we mention his name, maybe he’ll put us in his column. Clever, huh? On the other hand, what if it backfires on us? Boy, that would be an embarrassing mess...

T
HE UNFORGETTABLE EMBARRASSMENT

Ever embarrassed yourself so badly that you’re still suffering from it? Of course you have. And of course, Dave Barry writes, “you’ve probably noticed that your brain never lets you forget it.” Doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve become in life—certain moments will haunt you forever.

Barry’s “special moment”: “My own personal brain is forever dredging up the time in 11th grade when I took a girl, a very attractive girl on whom I had a life-threatening crush, to a dance. I was standing in the gym next to her, holding her hand, thinking what a sharp couple we made—Steve Suave and His Gorgeous Date—when one of my friends sidled up to me and observed that, over on the other side, my date was using her spare hand to hold hands with another guy....I thought: What am I supposed to do here?” Finally I turned to my date, dropped her hand, looked her square in the eye, and said: “Um.” Just like that: “Um.”

“My brain absolutely loves to remember this. “Way to go, Dave!” it shrieks to me, when I’m stopped at red lights, 23-½ years later. Talk about eloquent! My brain can’t get over what a jerk I was.”

Sound familiar? Well, things could be worse. Imagine screwing up like that in front of
millions
of people were watching. A few examples:

MOST EMBARRASSING
MOMENT AT THE OSCARS

“Frank Capra is one of Hollywood’s most famous directors. Among his achievements:
It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, It Happened One Night
. In 1933, Capra was so sure he was going to win the Best Director Oscar for his film
Lady for a Day
that even before the presenter, Will Rogers, finished announcing the winner, he stood up headed for the podium.

Number, in degrees, a bowling pin needs to tilt in order to fall down: 7.5.

“He kept saying, ‘Over here, over here,’ says Hollywood historian Stephen Schochet, “because the spotlight was thrown on the other side of the room and he wanted to bask in his triumph.

“Capra was even more confused on his way up to the dais when Rogers opened the envelope and said, ‘Come on up and get it, Frank.’

“But he wasn’t referring to the humiliated Capra. ‘It turns out the winner was another Frank—Frank Lloyd, for the film
Cavalcade
. Capra called his return to his seat ‘the longest, saddest, most shattering walk in my life.’”

—
The Wolf Files, ABC News

MOST EMBARRASSING FAST FOOD PROMOTION

“Back in 1964, Colonel Sanders sold Kentucky Fried Chicken to some Louisville entrepreneurs; they, in turn, sold it to Heublein, Inc., in 1971. Through it all, the Colonel was expected to remain a well-paid living legend, with no direct control over the product. One July day in 1975, however, the living legend told a Bowling Green, Kentucky newspaper that the new, ‘extra-crispy’ KFC was a ‘damn fried doughball stuck on some chicken,” and referred to the gravy as ‘pure wallpaper paste.’

“A year later, the Colonel visited a New York City outlet and declared its food ‘the worst fried chicken I’ve ever seen.’ Embarrassed parent company execs called Sanders ‘a purist.’”

—Ira Simmons, in
Junk Food

MOST EMBARRASSING NEWSPAPER HEADLINE

Or maybe the 2nd-most embarrassing. You may have seen the 1948 photo of President-elect Harry Truman holding up a
Chicago Tribune
emblazoned with the headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman!” But have you heard about the
Baltimore Sun
on April 15, 1912? It said: “All
Titanic
Passengers Are Safe; Transferred In Lifeboats At Sea.”

“It’s heartwarming to know that the famous headline is still giving assurance to
Sun
readers,” writes John Leo. “Certain editors have been known to send the headline to people who complain that the paper doesn’t carry enough positive news.”

Our experts say: In your lifetime, you’ll sleep about 220,000 hours.

He continues: “The
Sun’s
famous mistake, repeated by the
Los Angeles Express
, had many authors—a White Star spokesman who kept explaining that the
Titanic
was unsinkable, radiomen who garbled emergency messages and the usual mix of reporters eager to beat the competition with news almost certain to be correct, since everybody already knew the ship couldn’t possibly sink.

“One confident [section] of the
Sun’s
erroneous headline said ‘Towing Great Disabled Liner Into Halifax.’ This phrase had some basis in real-world confusion: a message sent from ship to ship in Morse code confused
Titanic
with a no-name oil tanker, which in fact was being towed to Halifax because of engine trouble. A few frantic radio operators who came upon the message in the middle of transmission assumed the report referred to
Titanic
and passed the word on. The moral for modern days: assume nothing.”

MOST EMBARRASSING TV GASOLINE AD

Hard to imagine a “most embarrassing” oil company ad—but this one fits because the company got caught.

From 1962 through 1968, Shell Oil claimed that its gas provided superior gas mileage. Why? Because it contained the special ingredient,
Platformate
. To prove it, in TV ads they showed two cars driving down a road. One was filled with “Shell with Platformate”; the other contained an unidentified gas with no Platformate. Of course he Platformate-less car ran out of gas while the other kept on running, breaking through a paper barrier to show it had “won.”

Then the government stepped in and stopped the farce. Turns out that
all
gasolines available at the time contained Platformate...or equivalent chemicals known as “reformates,” which were used to produce higher octane gas, reduce knocking, and improve mileage. (Shell used platinum as a reformate, which is how it came up with the name “platformate.”) For that matter, Shell admitted that both of the cars in the commercial contained Shell gasoline. The only difference was that Shell chemists removed the Platformate from the “unidentified” gasoline so it would run out of gas first.

Howard Judson, Shell’s embarrassed advertising manager, defended the ads as technically accurate. “Our advertising has never claimed that Platformate, or any equivalent, is Shell’s exclusively,” he insisted. The government insisted, too—that Shell withdraw the commercials and stop advertising the “secret” ingredient.

—
John Dollison

Read my lips: 13% of women reapply their lipstick more than eight times a day.

Colors have a lot more impact on our daily lives than you might think. Here are some things researchers have found out about people and color
.

PINK

• Studies show that people almost always believe “pastries from a pink box taste better than from any other color box.”

• People are willing to pay more for personal services (e.g., haircuts) performed by people wearing pink.

• Men believe pink products do the best job, but don’t want to be seen buying them. If they think someone’s watching, they’ll choose something brown or blue.

ORANGE

• A quick attention-getter, it communicates informality.

• When it’s used on a product, it “loudly proclaims that the product is for everyone.”