Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (27 page)

20% more antacids are sold the day after the Super Bowl than on an average day.

HOME MOVIES.
Do you have 8mm movies on plastic reels? The tiny hub on small reels can cause the film to curl, which can eventually damage it. One way to protect your movies is to splice them together (splicing tape is sold at camera stores) and then store them all on a single large film reel instead of many small ones. Home movies can also be preserved by transferring them to DVDs.

SPORTS CARDS.
There are plenty of specialized products to make caring for sports cards easy. Invest in some clear polyester sleeves, store them one to a sleeve, then place them vertically (that lets you find the card you are looking for with a minimum of handling) into an archival-quality box. Don’t overstuff the box—you may damage them when you try to take them out again.

COMIC BOOKS.
Most comic book stores sell “L-fold polyester sleeves.” Slip each comic book into its own sleeve, then place them in an archival-quality box or plastic tub that is large enough to hold them flat. Be sure to use sleeves made of polyester or mylar, not polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—which can damage your comics.

QUILTS AND OLD CLOTHING.
Always clean fabric items thoroughly before putting them into storage. Dirt, stains, mold, or mildew can be damaging in their own right, but they may also attract bugs, mice, and other pests. Gently vacuum cloth items with a brush attachment to avoid damaging the fabric. Wrap each item in acid-free tissue paper and insert extra sheets inside folds to prevent creasing. To keep bugs out of a storage box, wrap a few mothballs in a clean handkerchief. Close it with string, not a rubber band (mothballs do almost as much damage to rubber as they do to moths). Then put the pouch in the box with your cloth items. If you store your items in plastic tubs or plastic bags, make sure they are made of
virgin polyethylene
. Other plastics can give off chemicals that stain or discolor cloth. Also, don’t use cedar chests—they don’t repel insects. Not only that, the wood can stain fabric, and cedar’s distinctive smell (from natural oils evaporating out of the wood) can be absorbed by cloth items.

If you don’t believe us, ask a Sherpa: Mt. Everest is 5.5 miles high.

BASEBALL MITTS.
If you’re not using your old mitt anymore, stop oiling it: that stuff will just make a mess without protecting the leather. To spot-clean it, try a Q-tip or clean sponge dipped in distilled water (which contains no minerals) and dry it immediately using a soft cloth. If you display your mitt, protect it from light, dirt, and dust, by putting it behind glass or acrylic in a display case.

POSTERS.
Because clay was often used in the printing process, posters can get stuck together over time, especially if they’re stored in damp or humid areas. And once they’re stuck together, the damage is permanent. Keep your posters separated from one another by placing each one in an oversized acid-free folder, and store them flat in a large plastic box.

VINYL RECORDS.
To minimize wear and tear on old LPs, invest in a record-cleaning kit and clean your them before
and
after you play them. Better yet, to keep your original LP of the Beatles’
Yellow Submarine
undamaged, buy a CD and listen to that instead. To further protect an LP, remove it from its original sleeve and replace it with an acid-free sleeve. Then slide the record back inside the album cover. The original inner sleeve can go back in, too, if there’s enough room for it (if not, store it in a mylar bag). Store your records upright, and not so snugly together that you can’t take an album off the shelf without damaging it. Store a record player along with your records so you’ll always be able to listen to your original LPs if the technology ever disappears.

YOUR OLD GUITAR.
Moisture is a guitar’s biggest enemy—too much or not enough can damage it. The simplest way to protect your guitar from the elements is to keep it in its case when you’re not playing it. If you live in an especially humid or dry environment, keeping the guitar case in a giant sealed polyethylene bag will protect it even more. Your guitar strap may be made of materials that can damage the instrument’s finish over time, so before you put your guitar away, remove it. Get in the habit of un-tuning the guitar after you finish playing it, too. Loosen each string at least a half-turn to reduce the stress on the instrument. And if the thought of all this guitar maintenance is giving you a headache, here’s some good news: Wooden musical instruments actually age better if you take them out and play them several times a year.

Blue? Black? According to Johns Hopkins University astronomers…

AMAZING LUCK

There’s no way to explain luck—some folks just have it. Here are a few examples of people who
really
had it
.

W
ELCOME TO OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma started running a state lottery in 2006. The first prize: $25,000, won by Caronell Allen of Bethany. Allen had moved there just a few months earlier from New Orleans because he had lost everything he owned in Hurricane Katrina.

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH

In 2005 a German woman on welfare bought an old laundry basket at a flea market for about $5. When she took it home, she found two savings account books worth $60,000 and another $10,000 in cash. She could have kept the money, but she turned it in to police because she “wanted to sleep with a clear conscience.” A police investigation found that the money belonged to a woman who had died two years earlier and left nothing to her family. They assumed she’d died destitute. The mystery woman’s relatives got an unexpected inheritance, and the woman who bought the basket got what she wanted, too: the knowledge that she’d done the right thing. (She also got a $3,000 reward.)

DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING

One evening in 2001, 97-year-old Gladys Adamson of Cambridge, England, was struck with a coughing fit so severe that it lasted for several hours. The next morning, she went to her bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. What’s so amazing about that? Adamson had been blind for five years. Doctors link the coughing fit to her miraculous recovery, but don’t really understand it.

A QING-LY SUM

In 2006 a London man read about a Chinese vase that fetched a fortune at a recent auction. The description sounded very similar to a red, white, and blue vase he’d inherited from his grandmother, who had received it as a retirement gift. Good luck: He had the piece appraised and discovered it was a lost treasure of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from the 1600s until the early 1900s. It sold at auction for $175,000. Bad luck: the man’s grandmother had polished the vase so hard that she’d rubbed off the gold enamel. If she hadn’t, the vase would have been worth $2 million.

…the color of the universe is beige.

WHAT A CATCH

At a San Francisco Giants game in May 2006, Andrew Morbitzer left his bleacher seat to get peanuts from a concession stand behind the centerfield wall. While he was waiting in line, he heard the crowd inside the stadium let out a tremendous roar. What was going on? Barry Bonds had just slammed his 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth on the all-time list, with the second-most home runs ever hit. The record-breaking ball sailed over the wall and landed…right in Morbitzer’s hands. He sold the ball for $220,000.

*        *        *

RANDOM FACTS

• Thirty-five percent of personal ads are placed by people who are already married.

• How many seeds are there on the average strawberry? 200.

• Studies show that if a cat falls off the 7th floor of a building, its chances of surviving are about 30% less than a cat that falls off the 20th floor. Researchers figure that it takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, then relax and prepare itself.

• French scientists use trout to test water. The fish can detect one billionth of one gram of pesticide in a liter of water.

• Poll results: 40% of nurses said they would not want to be treated at the hospitals in which they work.

• By 2007, there will be more than 7,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel—more than are in all of Venice, Italy.

• Top three producers of bananas: India, Brazil, and China.

“The best mind-altering drug is the truth.” —Lily Tomlin

SING ALONG WITH JFK

Uncle John is an avid music fan and record collector. But over the years he’s discovered that for every great album out there, there are lots that make you wonder, “What were they thinking?” Here’s a random sampling of some of the worst albums ever made
.

B
EATLE BARKERS
.
A collection of 12 early Beatles hits (“Love Me Do,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” etc.) with dogs barking the vocal parts. Cat, chicken, and sheep noises are added in…presumably to break up the monotony.

MUSIC TO HELP CLEAN UP STREAM POLLUTION
.
An album of nature sounds and classical music distributed by chemical manufacturer Union Carbide.

SING ALONG WITH JFK
.
No, it’s not President Kennedy singing—it’s snippets of Kennedy speeches spliced into songs. For example, the president’s spoken words, “Ask not what your country can do for you,” is echoed by chorus boys cheerfully singing, “Ask not! Ask not!” This record actually reached the Top 20 in 1963.

POITIER MEETS PLATO
.
Actor Sidney Poitier delivers the
Dialogues
of Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher. The speeches are backed by loud, manic bebop jazz.

PERFUME SET TO MUSIC
.
From the liner notes: “Inspired by the heady scents of the famous French perfumes, it is probably the only successful attempt to capture and reproduce with musical instruments and human voice the ‘sounds’ of fragrance and scent.”

MECO—THE WIZARD OF OZ
.
In 1977 journeyman jazz musician and music producer Domenico Monardo jumped on the disco bandwagon and recorded the music from
Star Wars
set to a disco beat (under the name Meco). Amazingly, the single “
Star Wars
Title Theme/Cantina Band” became a #1 hit. Monardo then released several follow-ups—disco versions of music from other popular movies, including
Star Trek
and
Superman
. But our favorite is his disco treatment of classic songs from
The Wizard of Oz
. Why? According to the album cover, it was recorded by a band of space aliens.

Before World War II, most Americans did not brush their teeth regularly.

THE ALL SPORTS BAND
.
Trying to cash in on the popularity of the Village People, guitarist Cy Sulack started this group, whose five members dressed as a football player, a race car driver, a baseball player (Sulack himself), a boxer, and a karate guy. Interesting gimmick. They flopped.

JACK FASCINATO—MUSIC FROM A SURPLUS STORE
.
Fascinato bought a bunch of junk from a hardware store—trowels, putty knives, saws, hammers, crowbars, etc.—and used them as musical instruments in songs like “Sweepy Time,” which heavily uses brooms and brushes, and “Oily Boid,” which features oil cans.

SPIRO T. AGNEW SPEAKS OUT
.
Because of speeches in which he described his enemies (mostly the press) as “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “pusillanimous pussyfooters,” Nixon’s vice president developed a reputation as an effective public speaker. That’s probably why he recorded this album in 1970 (three years before he had to resign from office, charged with tax evasion and money laundering). Agnew tackles a series of world issues, such as “Spiro Addresses the Hippie Problem.”

THE ADDICTS—NINE FORMER ADDICTS SING
.
They met in a New York prison in 1958, where they started singing gospel songs about redemption and recovery. Just in case the listener didn’t quite get it from the album’s title, on the back cover there’s a drawing of a syringe injecting drugs into an arm.

THE ELVIS PRESLEY SEANCE
.
On the first anniversary of Presley’s death in 1978, a medium used a Ouija board to try to contact the singer. She failed, but recorded the session and released it anyway.

GENERAL WIRANTO—FOR YOU, MY INDONESIA
.
After being fired for human rights atrocities waged in East Timor, Indonesia’s former military chief (and confessed karaoke buff) released this album of love songs.

In 1987 the Hollywood sign was changed to “Holywood” in honor of the pope’s visit.

CAN YOU PASS THE U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST?

Applicants for citizenship, or “naturalization,” must have basic knowledge of American history and the principles of American government. If you had to take the test, would you pass? Quiz yourself: Here are 23 “easy” questions
.

1.
What is the name of the official home of the president?

2.
How many stripes are there on the American flag?

3.
What do they represent?

4.
How many stars are there on the American flag?

5.
What do they represent?

6.
Who writes the federal laws of the United States?

7.
Who signs them into law?

8.
Name the three major countries that the U.S. fought during World War II.