Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (62 page)

Wilson knew she had to do something about her weight, once and for all. On August 10, 1999, she had her stomach stapled. And in an incredible display of show-biz exhibitionism, she had the surgery in front of 250,000 people who logged on to the Internet to watch. (If you missed it live, videotapes are available for sale.)

Japan has more than 13 million golfers, but only 1,200 golf courses.

Follow-up:
For Wilson, surgery meant losing 150 pounds and going from a size 28 to a size 8. Of course, when you lose a lot of weight, you end up with a lot of loose skin. So three years later, Wilson turned to cosmetic surgery, including a tummy tuck that left her seven pounds lighter with a repositioned belly button, a breast lift, liposuction on her torso and hips, and the removal of half a pound of skin from under each armpit. To show how successful the surgeries were, Wilson posed for
Playboy
magazine in 2002.

OTHER FAMOUS “LOSERS”

• Anne Rice, bestselling author (
Interview with the Vampire
). She weighed 254 pounds before gastric bypass surgery. She’s lost 44.

• Roseanne, actress and comedian. She weighed 240 pounds before having a gastric bypass. She’s lost 80 pounds so far.

• Ann Wilson, lead singer of the rock group Heart, had gastric band surgery and has gone from 245 pounds to 185.

• John Popper from the band Blues Traveler lost 200 pounds.

• Jennifer Holliday, heavyweight singer from the Broadway musical
Dreamgirls
, went from 400 to 135 pounds.

THE SKINNY ON WEIGHT-LOSS SURGERY

Interested in weight-loss surgery? Here are a few facts that celebrity tell-alls don’t tell you:

• It’s not for anyone who’s just a few pounds too heavy—you must be morbidly obese (at least 100 pounds overweight)

• Cost of surgery: upwards of $30,000 (including hospital costs)

• Cost of follow-up cosmetic surgery: about $20,000

• Possible risks of surgery include respiratory problems, infections, bleeding, bowel obstruction, leakage of the bowel connections, and obstruction of the stomach outlet.

• More risks: Decreasing the amount of food you eat also means decreasing the amount of protein, vitamins, and minerals you get. Combine that with rapid weight loss, and some people end up with a double whammy of hair and muscle loss.

It is estimated that in 1000 A.D., the world population was about 300 million. By the year 2000 A.D., the world population was more than 6 billion.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa have put together a collection of great lines from Westerns called
Tall in the Saddle.
Some samples:

“Boys who play with guns have to be ready to die like men.”

—Joan Crawford,
Johnny Guitar
(1954)

“A horse is a man’s slave, but treat ‘em like a slave and you’re not a man. Remember that.”

—
James Cagney,
Tribute to a Bad Man
(1956)

“Honey, you were smelling bad enough to gag a dog on a gut wagon.”

—The Ballad of Cable Hogue
(1970)

“I’d like to make a dress for her. Half tar, half feathers.”

—Destry Rides Again
(1939)

“There are two kinds of people in this world: those with pistols, and those who dig. You dig.”

—Clint Eastwood,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(1966)

Eleanor Parker:
“The women always look beautiful when they get married, and the men always look scared.”

William Holden:
“They both get over it.”

—Escape from Fort Bravo
(1953)

“I like grumpy old cusses. Hope I live long enough to be one.”

—John Wayne,
Tall in the Saddle
(1944)

Parson:
“I sure hope this town has some pretty girls in it.”

Yellowleg:
“You get this far out in the brush, they’re all pretty.”

—The Deadly Companions
(1961)

“Faith can move mountains. But it can’t beat a faster draw.”

—El Dorado
(1967)

“I almost got married once myself. It was all set until her family came West in a covered wagon. If you’d’ve seen her family, you’d know why the wagon was covered.”

—Gun Fury
(1953)

“Don’t spill that liquor, son. It eats right through the bar.”

—Walter Brennan,
The Westerner
(1940)

Spencer Tracy:
“I’ll only be here twenty-four hours.”

Conductor:
“In a place like this, that could be a lifetime.”

—
Bad Day at Black Rock
(1955)

NEWS CORRECTIONS

Uncle John was thumbing through his local newspaper when he noticed the “Corrections” box. It turned out to be one of the most entertaining sections of the paper
.

“The ‘Greek Special’ is a huge 18-inch pizza, and not a huge 18-inch penis, as described in an ad. Blondie’s Pizza would like to apologize for any confusion Friday’s ad may have caused.”

—
The Daily Californian

“In last week’s
Democrat
, some words were transposed through a typesetting error. The paragraph that began ‘Occasionally circus elephants spent ninety-five percent of their lives chained by two legs…’ should have read ‘A majority of circus elephants…’ while the paragraph that began ‘A majority of circus elephants go mad…’ should have read ‘Occasionally circus elephants…’”

—Coös County
Democrat

“In our story on London Hosts, it was stated that the ‘Pub 80’ concept probably appealed more to the younger drinker or those looking for bad food. This should, of course, be ‘bar food’. We apologize for any embarrassment caused.”

—
Morning Advertiser

“A book review…quoted a passage from the book incorrectly. It says, ‘Your goal should be to help your daughter become a sexually healthy adult’—not ‘a sexually active, healthy adult.’”

—
The New York Times

“The following corrects errors in the July 17 geographical agent and broker listing:
International
: Aberdeen is in Scotland, not Saudi Arabia; Antwerp is in Belgium, not Barbados; Belfast is in Northern Ireland, not Nigeria; Cardiff is in Wales, not Vietnam; Helsinki is in Finland, not Fiji; Moscow is in Russia, not Qatar.”

—
Business Insurance

“Due to a typographical error in last week’s issue, the words ‘Con-Men’ appeared on the border of an Ashley & Nephews advertisement. ‘Con-Men’ was the headline of a story that was not used because of lack of space and is absolutely nothing to do and is in no way connected with Ashley & Nephews.”

—
The Enfield Independent

The average child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by high school graduation.

“Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler’s Mother, not Hitler’s, that was exhibited at the recent meeting of the Pleasantville Methodists. There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how the error occurred.”

—
Titusville
(Pa.)
Herald

“Tuesday’s edition called a charge residents pay for 911 service a ‘surge’ charge. It is, of course, a sir charge.”

—Carlsbad
Current-Argus

“An article about Ivana Trump and her spending habits misstated the number of bras she buys. It is two dozen black, two dozen beige, and two dozen white, not two thousand of each.”

—
The New York Times

“In our issue of November 30 we reported that the Lubavitch Foundation in Glasgow held a ‘dinner and ball’ to celebrate its tenth anniversary. This was incorrect. A spokesman explained: ‘The Lubavitch movement does not have balls.’”

—Jewish Chronicle

“Sunday’s Lifestyle story about Buddhism should have stated that Siddartha Gautama grew up in Northern India, not Indiana.”

—Bloomington Herald-Times

“The following typo appeared in our last bulletin: ‘Lunch will be gin at 12:15 p.m.’ Please correct to read ‘12 noon.’”

—
California Bar Association newsletter

“I would like to point out that what I did in fact write was that the council forced piped TV ‘on us’ not ‘up us’ as printed in the
County Times
on October 25. T. A. Wilkinson”

—
County Times & Express

“November is a heavy publishing month for all newspapers and with large issues misprints inevitably increase. Note, however, that there are 5 000 characters in every full column of type. Even if there are five misprints a column that is only an error of 0,1 percent. We are working constantly on the problem, aiming to keep problem, aiming to keep—Editor”

—
The Johannesburg Star

*        *        *

“Newspapers are unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”
—George Bernard Shaw

Light conversation: In Saudi Arabia, there are solar-powered pay phones in the desert.

THE BUGS AND THE BEES

We sometimes wonder about insects creeping and crawling in the garage or out in the garden. What do they do all day? It turns out that even with six or eight legs, they still have a one-track mind
.

C
HEAPSKATE FLIES

The mating ritual of a type of fly called
Hilara
, commonly known as the “dance fly,” involves gift-giving. The male catches a small insect, wraps it in silk, and then presents it—along with a wing-waving mating dance—to his potential mate. When she accepts it, he mounts her while she’s busy eating the gift. But some dance flies are too lazy to even catch the bug. In one species, the male offers the female what
looks
like a gift-wrapped insect. While she unwraps it, he mates with her, trying to complete the act before she discovers there’s no bug in the bag.

TRICKY ORCHIDS

The female tiphiid wasp can’t fly. So she climbs to the top of a tall plant and releases her pheromones into the air. The male flies by, grabs her, and flies away. Mating takes place in midair.

One type of orchid has made an interesting adaptation: its flower looks just like a female tiphiid. Not only that, its scent is almost identical to her pheromones. The unsuspecting male wasp grabs the flower and tries to take off with it; in the struggle, he brushes against the pollen before becoming frustrated and flying away. He goes on to the next orchid and goes through the same routine, thus pollinating the orchids.

HUNGRY SPIDERS

The female black widow spider is genetically programmed to control the black widow population in her neighborhood, based on available food supply. Here’s how she does it: A male approaches her web, sits on the edge, and bobs his abdomen, causing the web to vibrate. If she’s not in the mood, she won’t respond. If she is willing to mate, she’ll send out an answering pattern of vibrations calling him toward her. But if she’s hungry, she’ll send the male the
exact same
mating response. And when he gets close enough…she eats him.

At the outbreak of World War I, the American Air Force consisted of only 50 men.

CARD-PLAYING SUPERSTITIONS

Over the centuries, card players have come up with all sorts of strange superstitions to help them win—and elaborate explanations for why they’re losing. (Ignoring, of course, the possibility that they’re just bad card players.
)

G
OOD LUCK

• Blow on the cards or spit on them, preferably when no one is looking. (Remember to wipe up any excess spit, so no one knows you’ve fouled them.)

• Wear an article of dirty clothing when you play cards, especially when you play poker. The dirt helps keep evil at bay.

• Stick a pin in your lapel, or in a friend’s lapel.

• There’s one lucky card in each deck. If you can figure out which card it is, touch it with your index finger before the game begins.

• If you’re sitting at a table made of wood, choose a seat that lets you lay your cards with the grain instead of against it.

• Whenever you’re on a losing streak, tilt your chair up on its forelegs and twist it three times. This works best if you twist following the path of the sun—i.e., from east to west.

• If twisting doesn’t help, rotate the chair so the back faces the table, then sit astride it so that you’re facing the seat back.

• If you’re sitting astride your chair and still losing, try sitting on a handkerchief, or walk clockwise three times around the table. (If you still lose, switch to a new deck of cards or consider taking up dominos.)

• If you see a hunchback on the way to your game, that’s good luck. Don’t touch the hump—just seeing the hunchback is all it takes.

BAD LUCK

• Don’t sing or whistle during a card game. It’s unlucky (not to mention annoying).

• Don’t pick up any of your cards until all the cards have been dealt, and when you do pick them up, use your right hand.