Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (29 page)

USEFUL FOR:
cheap gift nostalgia, convincing your kids they’re spoiled for having a dog

KEYWORDS:
boulder, stone, or Lassie

THE FACT:
Pet rocks were perhaps the greatest idea P. T. Barnum never had, and there were more than a few suckers born for it every minute.

The brilliant mind behind this moronic craze is Gary Dahl, a California advertising exec. Gary conceived the idea one evening in 1975 while sitting around at a bar with his buddies pontificating about the hassles of owning a pet and jokingly proposing rocks as the perfect low-maintenance pal. Still amused by the idea the next morning, or still drunk, Dahl decided to create a prototype, complete with carrying case and the
Pet Rock Training Manual
. In August of that year, he took the kit with him to the annual gift show, then in New York, where Neiman Marcus (of all stores) immediately snatched up 500 of them. By the end of October, Dahl was shipping 10,000 pet rocks out every day. By the end of the 1975 Christmas season, he had used up three tons of stone from Rosarita Beach in Baja, Mexico, and made several million dollars. So when the pet fad quickly waned in early 1976, he had man’s second best friend—a fat stack of bills—to keep him smiling.

(you probably shouldn’t let around your kids)

USEFUL FOR:
barroom banter, making small talk at the Reptile House, and deciding what pet Santa shouldn’t get little Timmy

KEYWORDS:
cold-blooded, lizard, or the worst pet ever

THE FACT:
Among morbid options, if your choice is between dying alone in a house full of cats, or dying alone in a house full of monitor lizards, we suggest you choose the former.

Although highly intelligent creatures, monitor lizards are notoriously unaffectionate (at least toward our species), and more than a little temperamental when it comes to handling. In fact, careless owners are frequently subject to tail lashings and toothy “love” bites. And as appealing as that sounds, before you rush off to get yourself a pet monitor you might want to consider the tale of Newark, Delaware’s Ronald Huff. After Huff passed away in his efficiency apartment, his seven hungry pals (clearly not in mourning) made a buffet of his body.

(now in delicious flower flavors?)

USEFUL FOR:
stirring up some conversation anytime you see a PEZ dispenser

KEYWORDS:
azalea, daffodil, or pansy

THE FACT:
No, those aren’t typos. Although it would be equally disgusting, we’re talking about
flower
, not flour.

Introduced in the late 1960s, flower-flavored PEZ was designed to appeal to the hippie generation, complete with groovy, mod packaging. But even in the decade full of free love, no love could be found for the flavor power of the flower. Floral scents make for great perfume, but nobody eats perfume, and apparently, there’s a reason why. The flower version flopped, and became the next addition to PEZ’s long and disturbing list of flavor failures. Since its introduction in 1927, the company has also sold (however briefly) coffee, licorice, eucalyptus, menthol, and cinnamon flavors.

(as in the one you definitely want at your party)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, impressing nerdy dates, and anytime you’re arguing who’s the greatest physicist of all time

KEYWORDS:
atom bomb, safecracking, or physics

THE FACT:
Anyone whose hobbies include bongo playing, chasing skirts, and picking government locks can’t be your typical physicist—and Richard Feynman certainly wasn’t!

One of the most famous physicists of the post–World War II era, Feynman contributed heavily to the Manhattan Project, garnered a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics, and contributed key insights on the presidential team investigating the NASA
Challenger
disaster. He was also well known for banging away on his bongos whenever he got the chance and for trying to perfect the art of picking up women (from college parties to red light districts). If you’d like some insight into his mischievous personality, though, consider how he let the great minds working on the Manhattan Project know that their “classified documents” weren’t exactly safe. Feynman studied up a bit on safecracking, then picked the government locks with ease, taking nothing from the vaults. Instead, he left amusing notes for the officials letting them know just how good their security was.

(with a dead goat!)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing your gym teacher, disturbing folks at the polo grounds, and chatting up anyone with a hatred for goats

KEYWORDS:
goats, polo, or Afghani X games

THE FACT:
While snobby English aristocrats and that guy on those Ralph Lauren shirts usually play the sport with a small ball, we think they should be using a human head or a dead goat. After all, that is how the “sport of kings” began.

Over a thousands of years ago polo was played under a different name: “bughazi.” In fact, the game wasn’t so much a leisure activity as military training for Persian cavalry, and it was possibly adopted from tribesmen in modern-day Pakistan or Afghanistan. Besides the dead goat, there were other differences in play. Instead of four players on a side, the ancient version involved armies of men—literally—with hundreds or even thousands of players on each side. It’s believed that the first tournament was won by Turkish tribesmen playing against the Persians in 600
BCE
. And although the game was often played with animal heads, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan made a popular change, instituting the practice of decapitating military opponents and making a game ball of their noggins, still in their helmets.