Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (53 page)

Judge Robert Altenhof, who accepted Williams’s excuse, said he’d never seen anything like it in 12 years on the bench. “They bring engine parts, rugs that are urine stained, but this is the first time they’ve brought in human remains,” he said. “You think you’ve heard it all, but somebody always comes up with something new.”

“We don’t know one millionth of one percent of anything.”

—Thomas Alva Edison

Hottest place on Earth: Dallol, Ethiopia. Average annual temperature: 94°F…in the shade.

Amazingly, someone—besides us—cares what goes on in the throne room. Yes, government agencies, public interest groups, and private industry all collect statistics on bathrooms and the people who use them. Here is some of what they’ve found:

• According to a study by the National Association for Continence (NAFC), the average American spends about an hour in the bathroom per day, including time spent bathing. That comes to about two weeks total per year.

• How do people pass the time in the bathroom? About half of survey respondents said they thought about “serious issues.” A third said they were daydreaming, making phone calls, or singing in the shower.

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed say they engage in “toilet mapping” when they’re out in public—scouting out the locations of restrooms in advance of actually needing them, just in case nature makes an unexpected call. People over 50 are more likely to engage in this practice than people under 50.

• The majority of people think of their bathrooms at home as a relaxing place to get away from the stress of life.

• Do you avoid using public restrooms? According to Quilted Northern’s 2001 “Bathroom Confidential” Survey, 30% of Americans avoid public restrooms, citing “fear of germs” as the primary reason.

• Of those who do venture in, up to 60% say they don’t sit—they hover over the public toilet without ever touching it.

• Then, when the deed is done, 40% say they flush the toilet by kicking the handle with their feet, rather than touching it with their bare hands. Another 20% reach for paper to “protect” themselves before touching the handle.

• What about when you’re at home—are you bashful? Hard to believe, but 70% of Americans say they always close the bathroom door even if they live alone or are the only ones at home.

• Once they’re behind closed doors, people are a little more at ease—50% of Americans talk on the phone in the bathroom and more than 90% read on the pot or in the tub. Meditating, balancing checkbooks, and even eating are also popular bathroom activities.

How did the golden silk spider get its name? It’s the only spider that spins a gold colored web.

• British tax dollars at work: England’s Department of Trade and Industry conducted a survey of emergency room admissions for the year 1999. Among their findings: “trouser accidents” (when anatomy and zippers collide) resulted in more visits to the country’s emergency rooms—5,945—than any other bathroom-related accident. That’s up from 5,137 in 1998.

• Other winners: Accidents involving sponges resulted in 787 trips to the hospital; accidents involving toilet roll holders, 329.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Alaska ranks first among the 50 states in the percentage of homes
without
indoor plumbing. The bureau estimates that in 2000, 3.83%, or 8,269, of Alaska’s occupied homes lacked “complete plumbing” (hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, and a tub or shower). That’s a significant improvement from just 10 years earlier, when an amazing 12.5%—more than 1 in 10 Alaskan homes—were without.

• The remoteness of many small Alaskan towns is a big part of the problem; so is the state’s arctic climate. “At the risk of stating the obvious, water is a solid in our communities for up to nine months a year, and that makes it hard to transport,” says Dan Easton, an official with the state. In many parts of the state, water pipes have to be installed above ground, with their own heating systems and plenty of insulation to keep the water from freezing and bursting the pipes.

• New Mexico has more homes without complete plumbing than Alaska—14,228—but they make up only 2.2% of the total number of households in the state.

In pro Ping-Pong, if players use white balls, they can’t wear white shirts. Why? Can’t see ’em.

Every year, BRI member Debbie Thornton sends in a list of real-life bumper stickers. Have you seen the one that says…

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools

Forget About World Peace.… Visualize Using Your Turn Signal!

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps

I Are Illeterate And I Vote

SO MANY CATS, SO FEW RECIPES

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A DUMB BLONDE
(seen placed upside down on the bumper)

Jesus is coming… everyone look busy.

A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.

Out of my mind…back in five minutes.

VEGETARIAN: Indian Word for “Lousy Hunter”

Warning: I have an attitude and I know how to use it.

PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME KILL YOU.

Meandering to a different drummer.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

D
ON’T PISS ME OFF!
I
’M RUNNING OUT OF PLACES TO HIDE THE BODIES.

You are depriving some poor village of its idiot.

Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don’t have film.

Why am I the only person on Earth who knows how to drive?

Don’t like my driving? Then quit watching me.

I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you.

Yak, yak, yak! The average person speaks 450 words in a typical 3-minute phone call.

Believe it or not, these laws are real.

In Tuscumbia, Alabama, it is against the law for more than eight rabbits to reside on the same block.

In Birmingham, Alabama, it is illegal to drive a car while blindfolded.

In Arizona it is illegal to hunt or shoot a camel.

In Atlanta it is illegal to make faces at school children while they are studying.

In Hawaii no one may whistle in a drinking establishment.

A law in Zion, Illinois, prohibits teaching household pets to smoke cigars.

According to Kentucky law, women may not appear on the highway in bathing suits unless they carry clubs.

In Marblehead, Massachusetts, each fire company responding to an alarm must be provided a three-gallon jug of rum.

It is illegal to fish for whales in any stream, river, or lake in Ohio.

Undertakers are prohibited from giving away books of matches in Shreveport, LA.

It is unlawful to tie a crocodile to a fire hydrant in Detroit.

In Minnesota it is illegal to dry both men’s and women’s underwear on the same clothesline.

In Natchez, Mississippi, it is unlawful for elephants to drink beer.

It is illegal for barbers in Waterloo, Nebraska, to eat onions between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

In Yukon, Oklahoma, it is illegal for a patient to pull a dentist’s tooth.

In Portland, Oregon, it is illegal to shake a feather duster in someone’s face.

A South Carolina statute states that butchers may not serve on a jury when a man is being tried for murder.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, it is illegal to lasso a fish.

Tendons—which anchor muscle tissue to bones—have half the tensile strength of steel.

Believe it or not, some lawyers are actually quite clever. Here are some quotes from the world’s most famous lawyers.

“I bring out the worst in my enemies and that’s how I get them to defeat themselves.”

—
Roy Cohn

“The court of last resort is no longer the Supreme Court. It’s
Nightline.”

—
Alan Dershowitz

“We lawyers shake papers at each other the way primitive tribes shake spears.”

—
John Jay Osborn, Jr.

“[The] ideal client is the very wealthy man in very great trouble.”

—
John Sterling

“An incompetent lawyer can delay a trial for months or years. A competent lawyer can delay one even longer.”

—
Evelle Younger

“I’ve never met a litigator who didn’t think he was winning… right up until the moment the guillotine dropped.”

—
William F. Baxter

“I’m not an ambulance chaser. I’m usually there before the ambulance.”

—
Melvin Belli

“This is New York, and there’s no law against being annoying.”

—
William Kunstler

“I get paid for seeing that my clients have every break the law allows. I have knowingly defended a number of guilty men. But the guilty never escape unscathed. My fees are sufficient punishment for anyone.”

—
F. Lee Bailey

“I don’t want to know what the law is, I want to know who the judge is.”

—
Roy Cohn

“The ‘adversary system’ is based on the notion that if one side overstates his idea of the truth and the other side overstates his idea of the truth, then the truth will come out.… Why can’t we all just tell the truth?”

—
David Zapp

Blue eyes simply have less pigment in them than brown eyes.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” became the official United States National Anthem in 1931. Did you know there was—and is—an actual banner? Here’s the story of the flag and battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song.

When England and France went to war in 1803, each country tried to prevent the other from trading with neutral countries, such as the United States. As the conflict dragged on year after year, England’s powerful navy interfered with American shipping to such a degree that the new nation’s entire economy was threatened. On June 18, 1812, seeing no other recourse, the United States Congress declared war on England.

As the war began, the port city of Baltimore, Maryland, third largest city in the United States, was a likely target for attack. And if such an attack ever did come, Fort McHenry, which guarded the entrance to Baltimore harbor, would be one of the first targets, a fact that prompted the fort’s defiant commander, Major Armistead, to ask for an American flag so big that “the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance.”

Two military officers paid a visit to the Baltimore home of Mary Young Pickersgill, a widow and “a maker of colors,” and hired her to sew the flag. Mrs. Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, spent the next several weeks measuring, cutting, and sewing the fifteen stars and fifteen stripes that comprised the American flag at that time. They used more than 400 yards of English wool bunting, cutting stars that were two feet across from point to point, and eight red and seven white stripes, each of which were also two feet across.

The flag would measure 30 feet by 42 feet, much larger than the bedroom the Pickersgills were sewing it in. So they brought the pieces to the nearby Claggett’s Brewery, where they laid them out on the malthouse floor and sewed them into the flag. The completed flag was delivered to Fort McHenry on August 19, 1813. Pickersgill charged the military exactly $405.90 for her services. But it would be a year before the flag would see any action.