Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (17 page)

—Reuters

The world’s largest commercial airplane, the Airbus A380, can carry 800 passengers.

MOTHERS OF INVENTION

History has a tendency to marginalize women inventors, but there have been many. Here are a few that may impress you
.

I
NVENTION:
The Circular Saw
INVENTOR:
Tabitha Babbitt
STORY:
Babbitt got the inspiration for her invention in 1810, at the age of 26, while sitting at her spinning wheel. Watching a work crew saw wood with a two-man saw, she noticed that half the back-and-forth motion was wasted (the back portion), and envisioned a circular blade. By notching the edge of a thin metal disk and then attaching it to her spinning wheel, she effortlessly cut through a piece of shingle, and the circular saw was born. But because of her religious beliefs (she was a Shaker), Babbitt never pursued a patent.

INVENTION:
Modern Computer Programming

INVENTOR:
Grace Hopper

STORY:
When Hopper, a mathematician and Navy lieutenant, started working at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. in 1949, she was assigned to the team developing UNIVAC I, the first computer for business and consumer use. Back then, all computers were programmed in “binary” code—all 0’s and 1’s. Despite ridicule from her peers, Hopper set about creating a “compiler,” a device to convert human language into binary. Her advancements not only made computers easier to program, but easier to
use
, as well.

INVENTION:
The Surgical Eye Laser

INVENTOR:
Patricia Bath

STORY:
Before Bath’s breakthrough, cataracts were removed through a very painful procedure that involved drilling and grinding them from the patient’s eyes. In 1988 Bath patented a method of painlessly removing cataracts using a surgical laser. Bath also used lasers to cure certain types of blindness in people who hadn’t seen for more than 30 years. She received patents in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan, and is the first African-American woman ever to receive a patent for a medical invention.

Wangari Maathai of Kenya was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004.

Uncle John:
“We need another quote page.”
Jay:
“Can’t it wait ’til later?”

“You can’t teach people to be lazy—either they have it, or they don’t.”

—
Dagwood Bumstead

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.”

—Edgar Bergen

“I prefer the word ‘indolence.’ It makes my laziness seem classier.”

—
Bern Williams

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

—
Mark Twain

“There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house.”

—
Joe Ryan

“What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.”

—Ambrose Bierce

“Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.”

—
Jules Renard

“It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.”

—
James Thurber

“It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”

—
Ronald Reagan

“Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”

—
Robert A. Heinlein

“Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.”

—
Larry Kersten

“There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.”

—
Mary Wilson Little

“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man. He is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”

—
Walter Chrysler

“Let us be lazy in everything… except in being lazy.”

—
Gotthold Lessing

In Hungary, Hungary is known as
Magyar
.

A PUNCH IN THE ARM

Unacceptable: punching your little brother in the arm. Acceptable: doing it under the guise of a “game.” Did you play any of these kids’ games?

D
OORKNOB!
When someone farts, he or she must immediately say “Safety!” If a non-farter detects the fart and says “Doorknob!” before the farter says “Safety,” the person who says “Doorknob” gets to punch the farter in the arm. The farter can avoid getting punched if he or she touches a doorknob. But what if there are no doorknobs handy? In such situations (camping or swimming, for example), a substitute must be agreed upon before the first fart.

JINX!
When two people say the same thing at the same time, the first person who shouts “Jinx!” wins. The loser is not allowed to speak until someone says his or her name. The penalty for violating the jinx rule is a punch in the arm.

Coke Variation
:
The first one to yell “Jinx! You owe me a Coke!” wins. The loser must then buy the winner a soft drink.

Caveat
:
It is often quite difficult to actually collect the drink.

SHOTGUN!
Who gets to ride in the most coveted position in the car—the front passenger seat, commonly known as “riding shotgun”? The person who yells “Shotgun!” first. But there are rules. To be awarded the front seat, everyone who will be riding in the car must be able to see it before someone yells “Shotgun!” If it’s yelled at any time before that, the “Shotgun!” is null and void.

SLUG BUG!
(a.k.a.
Punch Buggy
) Played while riding in a car, the first person who sees a Volkswagen Beetle and yells “Slug Bug!” gets to hit someone in the arm. If it’s a convertible, two hits are awarded.

Variation
:
A “Pediddle” is a car with only one working headlight. Whoever spots one and yells “Pediddle!” gets to hit someone. If the Pediddle is a Slug Bug, they get two hits. If the Pediddle is a convertible Slug Bug (rare but not unheard of), then they get to beat the stuffing out of whoever else is riding in the back seat.

Long day: In China, schools run from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

A FEW DOGS SHORT OF A KENNEL

Did you do something dumb today? Read this—you’ll feel better.

B
LOOMIN’ IDIOT

A tourist was visiting Melbourne, Australia, when she climbed over a small barrier to pick some flowers. Bad move: She was at the Melbourne Zoo, and the barrier was there to keep people away from the lion. When she reached into the cage to get the flowers, she got the tip of her finger bitten off instead. According to reports, the woman (who was too embarrassed to reveal her identity) was treated at a local hospital and released. Officials didn’t bother looking for the fingertip, as it had almost certainly been eaten.

SAY CHEEEEESE-BRAIN

Police contacted a 40-year-old man in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, in 2005, after he was photographed by an automatic camera while driving over the speed limit—four times in less than two minutes. He had passed the camera doing 36 mph, then 39 mph, 47 mph, and 42 mph in a 30 mph zone. The man apparently wasn’t familiar with the speed camera system. He told officers he thought somebody was flashing a light at him to annoy him, and he kept driving by to find out “what was going on.” He soon found out: He received four speeding tickets, totaling about $750.

DUDE! I’VE GOT AN AWESOME IDEA!

Michael Morris, 17, a junior at Chesterton High School in Indiana, was hospitalized in 2006 after being hit by a car. The car was driven by his friend, 18-year-old Stephen Domonkos—whom Morris had asked to run him over. Domonkos said his friend was an “adrenaline junkie” and “gets off on this kind of thing.” Morris suffered only a broken leg and a broken arm, while Domonkos was arrested on a charge of criminal recklessness causing serious bodily injury. “I won’t do this no more,” Morris told the
Times of Munster
…from his hospital bed.

In Canada, it is illegal to board a plane while it’s in flight.

$PIRIT OF ’76

In 1976 the United States celebrated its bicentennial. What better way to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the 200-year anniversary of America’s birth than with a look at how much things cost back then?

• Want to see the year’s hottest flicks, like
Rocky
or
Network
? A movie ticket costs $2.25.

• Rather watch a movie at home? There’s a new invention called a VCR that sells for a mere $1,600.

• Average household income: $12,700.

• New house: $48,000 (avocado Formica countertop extra).

• Minimum wage: $2.30/hour.

• A new Chrysler Cordoba (with “rich Corinthian leather”) will set you back $5,000.

• Whether for use on the street or in the disco, a pair of new roller skates costs $5.

• Average tuition at a private college: $2,500 per year.

• Ticket to Super Bowl X: $20 (Steelers 21, Cowboys 17).

• Alex Haley’s
Roots
is one of the bestselling novels of the year. A hardbound copy runs $12.50.

• The year’s biggest albums are available on 8-track. Cost of the Eagles’
Hotel California
or Peter Frampton’s
Frampton Comes Alive!:
$7.

• Red meat is good for you. Get a cheeseburger at McDonald’s for 48¢.

• Watch Farrah Fawcett on
Charlie’s Angels
with a $600, 24-inch color TV. (Or you could be like the five million others in 1976 who dropped $2.00 on her swimsuit poster.)

• Average prices:

• Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford spent a combined $160 million on their presidential campaigns. (Bush and Kerry spent $547 million in 2004.)

• How much for a minivan, CD, Apple computer, SUV, or a cup of coffee at Starbucks? $0. They didn’t exist in 1976.

George Washington was present at America’s first hot-air-balloon flight, in 1793.

GHOSTWRITERS

These famous works weren’t written by actual ghosts—they were secretly written by somebody else. Of course, Uncle John writes all his own stuff. (Except for this piece, which was “researched” by Brian Boone.)

P
ROFILES IN COURAGE

“Written” by:
John F. Kennedy
Details:
In 1954, laid up in bed after back surgery, then-Senator Kennedy decided to write a book about heroic United States senators.
Profiles in Courage
was released two years later, became a bestseller, won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, and made Kennedy a national figure. But people started to talk: Did Kennedy really write the book? Yes, said Kennedy’s lawyers, who strong-armed ABC News into an on-air apology when newspaper columnist Drew Pearson questioned authorship on
The Mike Wallace Show
. No, say historians, who now claim it was actually written by Kennedy’s speechwriter, Ted Sorensen. Kennedy sent Sorensen notes and instructions and supervised his progress, but Sorensen spent six months working 12-hour days on the book, doing all the research and all the writing. (He got credit as a “research associate.”) The Kennedy family still insists JFK wrote
Profiles in Courage
, but in 1990, historian Herbert Parmet was researching a book on Kennedy and sifted through crates of papers at the Kennedy Library. If the future president had really written the book, Parmet says he would have found copious notes, possibly rough drafts of chapters or unfinished manuscripts. What did he find? Nothing.

THE HARDY BOYS

“Written” by:
Franklin W. Dixon

Details:
Edward Stratemeyer started the Stratemeyer Syndicate—a “book factory”—in 1899, churning out children’s books written by multiple writers-for-hire but always attributed to a pen name. Stratemeyer’s attitude was that although writers die, a popular and profitable book series shouldn’t have to. His most successful series was
The Hardy Boys
, about two teenage mystery solvers. In the series’ 1927 to 1979 run, 59 books were produced, all by different writers, but all attributed to “Franklin W. Dixon.” Other book series produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate: Nancy Drew (by “Carolyn Keene”), the Bobbsey Twins (by “Laura Lee Hope”), and Tom Swift (by “Victor Appleton”).

Hey, tall, dark, and handsome: Female lions prefer males with dark manes.

MAZURKA FOR TWO DEAD MEN

“Written” by:
Camilo José Cela

Details:
You may not have heard of this book, but it was a bestseller in Spain, won that country’s national book award, and helped Cela win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1989. When Cela died in 2002, two men, Marcel Suarez and Mariano Tudela, revealed that they had actually written the majority of
Mazurka
. They developed the plot and characters and Cela rewrote the book in his own style. Also revealed: Throughout his life, Cela judged writing contests where he routinely stole stories, rewrote them slightly, and published them as his own work.