Read Uncle John’s Briefs Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Briefs (15 page)
The Navy decided to not press charges, but still felt that somebody had to be punished. As the pranksters were all upper class, they could get away with a symbolic act to settle the dispute as gentlemen. Naval officers visited Cole and gave him six symbolic taps on the buttocks with a cane. Cole insisted he be allowed to do the same to the officers. Amazingly, the officers agreed.
During the Christmas season, Americans use their Visa cards about 5,340 times per minute.
You can’t help laughing at some of life’s—and death’s— ironies…as long as they happen to someone else. These stories speak for themselves
.
B
OB TALLEY,
centenarian
Final Irony:
Talley passed away in London during his 100th birthday party, moments after receiving a telegram of congratulations from the Queen and telling friends, “Yes, I made it to 100.”
RALPH BREGOS,
heart patient
Final Irony:
Bregos, 40, spent more than two years wondering if a suitable donor heart would ever become available. Finally in 1997, doctors told him that one had been found. Bregos became so excited at the news that he suffered a massive heart attack and died.
STANLEY GOLDMAN,
candidate for mayor of Hollywood
Final Irony:
At a campaign stop, Goldman chided his opponent for being “too old for the job.” Moments later, he dropped dead from a heart attack.
ROBERT SHOVESTALL,
gun enthusiast in Glendale, California
Final Irony:
Shovestall, 37, died from an accidental gunshot wound. According to news reports, he placed a .45-caliber pistol he thought was unloaded under his chin and pulled the trigger. The incident took place “after his wife’s complaints about his 70 guns prompted him to demonstrate they were safe.”
ANONYMOUS MAN,
from West Plains, Missouri
Final Irony:
According to news reports, the suicidal man set himself on fire, only to change his mind moments later and jump into a pond to extinguish the flames. Cause of death: drowning.
ELIZABETH FLEISCHMAN ASCHEIM,
pioneering X-ray technician at the turn of the 20th century
Final Irony:
Ascheim often X-rayed herself to show patients that the treatment was safe. Cause of death: “severe skin cancer.”
What do the four H's in 4-H stand for? Head, heart, hands, and health.
We keep thinking that we’ve seen every clever bumper sticker that exists, but every year readers send us new ones. Have you seen the one that says…
I’m Still Hot. It Just Comes in Flashes.
Remember: It’s pillage
first
, then burn.
I’ll rise, but I won’t shine
It’s my cat’s world. I’m just here to open cans.
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
The closer you get, the slower I go
Coffee makes it possible to get out of bed; chocolate makes it worth it.
My dog is smarter than your honor student.
If all else fails, stop using all else.
Don’t Drink and Derive. Alcohol and Calculus Don’t Mix.
What would Scooby do?
E
VERYTHING
I
NEED TO KNOW
I
LEARNED IN PRISON
BOTTOMLESS PIT OF WANTS AND NEEDS
I’m so old that “getting lucky” means finding my car in the parking lot.
Welcome to Middle Earth. Now go home.
PHYSICALLY
PFFFFFT!
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
Dangerously under-medicated.
A barrel full of monkeys would not be fun— it would be horrifying
When life gives you lemons, shut up and eat your lemons
Worldwide, more than 250 lakes are reported to be home to a lake “monster.”
Thieves…you just never know what they’re gonna steal next
.
S
TICKY FINGERS
Someone stole the head off a life-size wax statue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from a museum in Salzburg, Austria, in 2005. “It must have happened between 8 p.m. Friday, when we closed, and today before 9 a.m.,” employee Elisabeth Stoeckl told reporters. “When we opened up again, Mozart’s head was gone,” she said, adding that the stolen head was worth about $18,000.
HE’S A LITTLE SLOW
In 1999 a man in Los Angeles was arrested after leading police on a slow-speed chase…on a stolen steamroller. An officer stopped the runaway steamroller by climbing aboard and shutting it off. The man’s excuse: “I was tired of walking.”
TIKI TACKY
Security cameras in a Wellington, New Zealand, library captured shots of three masked vandals as they walked up to a tiki—a wooden figurine made by the country’s indigenous people, the Maori—chopped off its wooden penis with chisels, and then ran away. The artist who had carved the tiki, Kerry Strongman, called the theft an insult to the
mana
, or “pride,” of the city, and immediately began work on a replacement penis for the statue.
IS THIS HOT?
In September 2006,
USA Today
reported that at least seven men had been electrocuted and killed since July trying to steal copper wire from live power lines. Three of the deaths were in Detroit, the latest being when the body of a 24-year-old man was found near a utility box. A pair of wire cutters was found next to his body. Authorities said the would-be thieves were motivated by record-high copper prices—the price of scrap copper has doubled in the last year, according to the report, to about $3 per pound.
You could make over two million different sandwich combinations from the Subway menu.
Stock car racing has a rich history…and a complicated set of rules and guidelines. Here’s a quick guide for the uninitiated
.
H
ow did stock car racing begin?
During Prohibition (1920–33), bootleggers in the southern United States relied on fast cars to stay ahead of the law. To maintain a low profile, they souped up their engines and shock absorbers but kept the
stock
, or factory-made, bodies. After a night on the run, the bootleggers would sometimes meet to boast about their cars and race them against each other on oval dirt tracks. This soon became a Sunday tradition, complete with picnic baskets.
How did NASCAR begin?
In 1938 Bill France Sr., a mechanic and amateur race-car driver, began running operations at a track in Daytona Beach, Florida, near a stretch of beach where several early land-speed records had been set. The young sport of racing was in trouble, though: Shady promoters often wouldn’t pay the drivers, and the lack of consistent car guidelines led to frequent disagreements. France worked to legitimize the sport. After a series of meetings that culminated in Daytona Beach on February 21, 1948, he convinced the drivers and promoters to form a single entity—the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. France ran NASCAR until 1972, when his son, Bill France Jr., took over. The younger France ran the organization until 2000.
What’s the difference between stock cars and other race cars?
Race cars such as Formula One are built specifically for auto racing, while stock cars are made by auto manufacturers for use on regular roads. In NASCAR’s early days, the cars were
strictly
stock. But starting in the 1950s, certain modifications were allowed to the engines and chassis to make the cars faster and safer.
How fast do stock cars go?
It depends on the track. On
short tracks
, which are less than a mile long, the average speed is about 82 mph. On
intermediate tracks
, between one and two miles long, the fastest speeds top out at about 150 mph. Tracks over two miles in length are called
super-speedways
, and there are only two: Talladega, in Alabama, and Daytona, Florida, where the season begins each year. These two tracks boast an average speed of 188 mph. It used to be higher…until a horrific wreck at Talladega in 1987 when Bobby Allison’s car nearly flew into the stands. NASCAR now uses
restrictor plates
at these two tracks—a device placed over the intake valve to reduce the car’s power.
A 1792 law made coin defacement, counterfeiting, and embezzlement by U.S. Mint employees punishable by death.
Why are the cars covered with ads?
In 1972, two years after losing the right to advertise tobacco products on television, the R. J. Reynolds Company tried a new marketing tactic by sponsoring the first Winston Cup series (now called the Sprint Cup). In the mid-’70s, partial races were telecast on ABC’s
Wide World of Sports
, giving NASCAR a wider audience. But it its biggest boost came with the 1979 Daytona 500, the first NASCAR race broadcast live on national television. On a day when the northeastern U.S. was paralyzed by a snowstorm, millions of TV viewers watched the race—which ended in a dramatic wreck on the final lap, followed by a fistfight between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. After that, more companies jumped on the sponsorship bandwagon, creating a marriage of convenience: Stock cars make perfect blank slates for ads, and stock car racing is so expensive that teams can’t do it week after week without the millions they receive from sponsors.
How does the point system work?
In each race, a driver receives points for every lap in which he or she leads (there have been 17 female NASCAR drivers). The winner of the race gets an additional 185 points, second place gets 170, third 165, and so on. Because this system rewards consistency over winning, fans complained that the racing was getting too conservative. After Matt Kenseth won the 2003 NASCAR Championship with only one victory (but 25 top-10 finishes), NASCAR implemented a playoff system. Now after the first 26 races are completed, the top 12 drivers’ point totals are reset to 5,000, plus an additional 10 points for each race they’ve won. This means that for the final 10 races, now called “The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup,” the top 12 are far ahead of the pack and battle each other for the championship. Adding to the drama:
All
of the drivers still participate in the final 10 races, so drivers farther down in the rankings can often act as “spoilers.”
Here are some unofficial exchanges involving heads of state at official state functions
.
Queen Elizabeth II:
How do you do, Mr. King?
Alan King:
How do you do, Mrs. Queen?
President Nixon:
You dress pretty wild, don’t you?
Elvis Presley:
Mr. President, you got your show to run and I got mine.
At an old folks home, President Bush approaches an old lady.
George H. W. Bush:
Do you know who I am?
Old Lady:
No, but if you ask in reception I’m sure they will be able to tell you.
William Gladstone:
I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease.
Benjamin Disraeli:
That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.
At French President Charles de Gaulle’s retirement luncheon:
English guest:
Madame de Gaulle, what are you looking forward to in the years ahead?
Madame de Gaulle:
A penis…. …embarrassed silence…
Charles de Gaulle:
My dear, I don’t think the English pronounce the word like that. It is ‘appiness.’
George H.W. Bush:
Tell me, General, how dead is the Dead Sea?
General Zayid bin Shakr:
Very dead, sir.
Woman at dinner party:
You must talk to me, Mr. Coolidge. I made a bet with someone that I could get more than two words out of you.
Calvin Coolidge:
You lose.
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
—Thomas Paine
Motto of Springfield, the town in The Simpsons: “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.”
Here are the stories of ordinary people who were faced with an extraordinary situation… and did something about it
.
S
PILT MILK Local Hero:
Steve Leech, a milkman in Cornwall, England
Heroic Deed:
Putting out a dangerous fire
The Story:
Leech was making his regular deliveries one morning when he noticed smoke pouring out of a gift shop along his route. He called 999 (the English equivalent of 911) but then decided not to wait for the fire fighters to arrive. “I saw the row of apartments up above the shop,” he explains, “and I thought, bloody hell, I’d better do something!”
What did Leech do? He kicked open the door of the shop and started pouring milk on the fire. By the time the firefighters arrived 15 minutes later, the fire was under control—and Leech is credited with saving the row of eight shops, as well as the lives of the people living in the apartments above them. “It was hard work opening all those bottles, since they have tamper-proof lids,” he says, “but it was even harder trying to explain to my boss where all the milk (320 pints) had gone.”