Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (33 page)

The other actors were stunned. If Helen was dead, the play couldn’t go on. Thinking quickly, the actress playing Mrs. Keller ad-libbed, “I think we need a second opinion.”

The curtain came down, and the drunken actor was yanked off the stage. The stage manager put on the Doctor’s white coat and took his place on stage. When the curtain went up again, the new Doctor declared, “Your baby is alive, but she’ll be deaf, dumb, and blind for the rest of her life.”

The actor playing Mr. Keller was so relieved to hear the correct lines that he clasped his hands together and cried, “Thank God!”

A CROSS TO BEAR

Every summer, Passion plays are performed throughout the South. These spectacles tell the story of Jesus using huge casts, massive sets, and lots of special effects. In one production in Texas, an actor playing a Roman guard was supposed to stab the actor playing Jesus with a spear that had a special retractable blade. Oops—the guard grabbed the wrong prop backstage and poked a
real
spear into Jesus’ ribcage. Jesus cried out in agony, “Jesus Christ! I’ve been stabbed!”

The stage manager quickly brought down the curtain and called an ambulance. As sirens wailed in the distance, the curtain rose to reveal a new Jesus—a 260-pound stagehand in a loincloth.

When the time came for him to be lifted to heaven on special ropes, the new actor said, “And now I shall ascend!” The ropes were attached to a special counterweight system—that had been rigged for a man who weighed 100 pounds less. The stagehand pulling the rope couldn’t lift him. He added more weights to the system as the actor repeated, “And now I shall ascend.” This time Jesus was lifted a few feet above the cross, but quickly dropped back down again. The desperate stagehand quickly put all the weights he could find onto the system and pulled the rope as the actor playing Jesus said, “And now I shall…AAAAIIIIEEEEE!”

Jesus’ scream could be heard across town as he was catapulted straight up into the metal grid at the top of the theater and knocked senseless.

Another ambulance was called, and the show was canceled.

WHOOSH!
Olympic downhill skiers reach 80 mph.

POP CULTURE QUIZ

So you’re an avid bathroom reader and you think you know a thing or two. Well, see if you can match wits with Uncle John—he knew almost all of these.

1.
What beer did E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial drink in the 1982 film?

a)
Budweiser
b)
Miller Genuine Draft
c)
Coors Light
d)
Milwaukee’s Best

2.
What country’s flag consists of one solid color?

a)
Zimbabwe
b)
Costa Rica
c)
Greece
d)
Libya

3.
Whose autobiography is entitled
Wheel of Fortune
?

a)
Pat Sajak
b)
Vanna White
c)
Edith Piaf
d)
B. F. Goodrich

4.
What’s an
ananym
?

a)
A name someone uses to remain anonymous

b)
A name spelled backward

c)
A word that means the opposite of another word

d)
A quotation that precedes a book, chapter, or article

5.
How long did the 1991 Persian Gulf War last?

a)
32 days—January 16 to February 17

b)
39 days—January 16 to February 24

c)
43 days—January 16 to February 28

d)
54 days—January 16 to March 11

6.
Who was the first ghost to visit Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol
?

a)
Bob Cratchit
b)
Jacob Marley
c)
The Ghost of Christmas Past
d)
Tiny Tim

7.
The first African American to win a Nobel prize for peace:

a)
Ralph Bunche
b)
Martin Luther King Jr.
c)
Frederick Douglass
d)
Louis Armstrong

Big Bird’s address: 123 1/2 Sesame Street (Zip Code unknown).

8.
In Denmark, the “Peanuts” comic strip is known as:

a)
“Karl Brun und Venindes”
b)
“Horned Toads”
c)
“Gud Gryf”
d)
“Radishes”

9.
Who once boxed under the name “Packy East?”

a)
Frank Sinatra
b)
Bob Hope
c)
Mickey Rourke
d)
Ronald Reagan

10.
What is the name of the dog on the box of Cracker Jacks?

a)
Crackers
b)
Bozo
c)
Bingo
d)
Porter

11.
When M&Ms introduced their blue candies in 1995, what color did they discontinue?

a)
tan
b)
orange
c)
purple
d)
white

12.
Who was the shortest Beatle?

a)
John
b)
Paul
c)
George
d)
Ringo

13.
The only member of the
Lord of the Rings
movie cast to have actually met the author of the books, J. R. R. Tolkien, was:

a)
Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins)
b)
Ian McKellan (Gandalf)
c)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
d)
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)

14.
What does the “L” stand for in Samuel L. Jackson’s name?

a)
Lawrence
b)
Leroy
c)
Luscious
d)
Nothing—he has no middle name, but added an initial for “mystique.”

Answers

1.
c;
2.
d;
3.
c (Piaf was a French singer, known as “The Little Sparrow.”);
4.
b (Ananyms are often used as pseudonyms, as in Oprah Winfrey’s production company: Harpo);
5.
c;
6.
b;
7.
a;
8.
d;
9.
b;
10.
c;
11.
a;
12.
d (He’s 5'8". He’s also the oldest, born on July 7, 1940.);
13.
c (Lee also knew the books better than anyone else on the set, and was a creative consultant to director Peter Jackson.);
14.
b.

The Cartheginians fought off Roman ships in 300 B.C. by catapulting live snakes at them.

“PAGING MR. POST”

The funeral business (known as “the dismal trade” in the 18th century) necessarily deals with concepts that many people find distasteful. That led to the evolution of a unique set of euphemisms in the death biz.

Passed into the arms of God.
Dead. Other euphemisms:
passed away, gone to meet his/her Maker, expired, deceased
.

Temporary preservation.
Embalming—the common treatment of dead bodies in which bodily fluids are replaced with preservative fluid. Other euphemisms:
sanitary treatment, hygienic treatment.

Grief therapy.
The “therapeutic” effect of having an expensive funeral “viewing.”

Burn and scatter.
Slang for services that scatter cremated remains at sea. Also known as
bake and shake.

Casket coach.
Hearse.

Consigned to earth.
Buried.

Pre-need sales.
Funeral services sold to someone who hasn’t died yet.

Corpse cooler.
A specialized coffin with a window, once used to preserve the body for viewing. An ice compartment kept the corpse cool.

Interment space.
A grave. Used in phrases such as
opening the interment space
(digging the grave) and
closing the interment space
(filling the grave).

Cremains.
Cremated remains; ashes.

Babyland.
The part of a cemetery reserved for small children and infants.

Slumber room.
The room in which the loved one’s body is displayed.

Memorial park.
Cemetery.

Lawn-type cemetery.
A cemetery that bans headstones in favor of ground markers, allowing caretakers to simply mow the lawn rather than trim each grave by hand.

Funeral director.
Undertaker.

O-sign.
A dead body sometimes displays what hospital workers call the “O-sign,” meaning the mouth is hanging open, forming an “O.” The “Q-sign” is the same—but with the tongue hanging out.

Gotta hand it to her: Queen Elizabeth I owned 2,000 pairs of gloves.

Protective caskets.
Coffin sealed with rubber gaskets to keep out bugs and other invaders. Unfortunately, methane gas has been known to build up inside such caskets, causing them to explode and spew out their contents. This prompted the introduction of
burping caskets
that allow gas to escape.

Grief counselor.
Mortuary salesperson.

Mr. Post.
Morgue attendant. Used by many hospitals to page the morgue when a body has to be removed from a room.

Nose squeezer.
Flat-topped coffin.

Beautiful memory picture.
An embalmed body displayed in an expensive casket.

Body.
This term for a dead person is generally discouraged, along with
corpse
. Preferred: the dead person’s name, or
remains
.

Plantings.
Graves.

Selection room.
Room in which buyers look at displayed caskets. This term replaces
back room, showroom, casket room
.

Companion space.
An over/under grave set for husband-and-wife couples; one body is placed deep in the ground and the second buried above it.

*        *        *

LET’S DO ANOTHER STUDY

• Colorado State University scientists concluded that Western Civilization causes acne.

• A 2003 study carried out by scientists at Edinburgh University found that fish feel pain.

• In 1994 the Japanese meteorological agency concluded a seven-year study into whether or not earthquakes are caused by catfish wiggling their tails. (They’re not.)

• Physicists at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands released a report in 2000 on their study of diamagnetics, during which they claimed to have “levitated” a frog, a grasshopper, a pizza…and a sumo wrestler.

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” —Mae West

THE SANTA CHRONICLES

You probably don’t give Santa a second look when you see him in a department store or on a street corner every December…but maybe you should.

S
ANTA COPS

By December 2001, Mafia fugitive Francesco Farina had been on the run from Sicilian police for more than five years. Holed up in what he thought was a great hideout—a flat in downtown Catania—Farina was able to look out his window and see whether the cops were closing in on him. But all he saw were the regular assortment of Christmas shoppers, schoolchildren, and a Santa Claus ho-ho-hoing on the street corner. A few days before Christmas, thinking the coast was clear, Farina decided to go out on the town. Bad idea: the guy in the red suit wasn’t Santa after all. A succession of surveillance cops dressed as Santa had kept their eyes on Farina, who ended up spending Christmas in jail.

SANTA’S FISTS OF FURY

An unidentified Santa was cruising down a LeHigh Acres, Florida, street in his convertible when he was approached by 20-year-old Jonathan Danzey, who asked Santa for a present. Informed that there was nothing for him in Santa’s sack, Danzey got angry. Words were exchanged, Santa got out of the car, and Danzey tried to punch him. According to Katherine Phillips, who witnessed the altercation, “Santa Claus whipped his butt.” He ripped Danzey’s shirt, knocked him to the ground, and then drove away. The cops soon arrived and arrested Danzey on drunk and disorderly charges. “He won,” Danzey conceded, “but he was stronger and more soberer.”

SANTAS ON THE RUN

One of the oddest sights in the history of sports took place in Newtown, Wales, in December 2002. More than 1,000 runners—both male and female—participated in a four-mile race for charity…all dressed in full Santa Claus garb: black boots, red pants, red coat, and a big white beard. Said one of the runners: “It’s a lot easier to run in a Santa suit than to try to hold a normal conversation in one.”

Two states, Oregon and Michigan, provide the majority of the nation’s Christmas trees.

SANTA PROTESTORS

What if Santa were banned from Christmas? That’s what they tried to do in the small town of Kensington, Maryland, in 2001. Some of the townspeople complained that it made them feel uncomfortable having a “religious figure” participate in the annual tree-lighting ceremony, so the town fathers decided to ask Santa to stay home. Unfortunately, not everyone in town agreed with the decision. Result: 50 Santas showed up and marched on City Hall. Proand anti-Santa factions clashed; one Santa was arrested.