Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (14 page)

UH-OH, IT’S SNEAKY GRANNY

Florida resident Margaret Anderson was arrested at Fort Lauderdale Airport in November 2004 because of a “book” she had in her tote bag. It was actually a gun case with a pistol and seven bullets nestled inside. Anderson claimed that she had forgotten the cleverly hidden single-shot Colt derringer was there. Freed on $1,000 bond, the 79-year-old faced felony charges that could put her in jail for five years. “I’m awful sorry,” she said when released, “I wouldn’t harm a soul.”

The 1900 Paris Olympics included events in billiards, checkers, and fishing.

WARNING LABELS

Some things in life should go without saying, but it seems there’s always somebody who needs to be told not to eat a mattress
.

On a can of insect spray:
“Harmful to bees.”

On a life-saving device:
“This is not a life-saving device.”

On children’s cough syrup:
“Do not drive car or operate machinery.”

On a motorcycle mirror:
“Objects in the mirror are actually behind you.”

On garden furniture:
“Keep away from damp and sunlight.”

On a box of sleeping pills:
“May cause drowsiness.”

On a milk bottle:
“After opening, keep upright.”

On a bag of peanuts:
“This product contains nuts.”

On a water heater:
“If building in which heater resides is on fire, do not go into building.”

On a mattress:
“Do not attempt to swallow.”

On a TV remote control:
“Not dishwasher safe.”

On a garden hose:
“May cause cancer in California.”

On an iron:
“Never iron clothes on the body.”

On a graduation gown:
“Do not wash or dry clean.”

On a video game console:
“Do not attempt to stick head inside deck, which may result in injury.”

On a bottle of aspirin:
“Do not take if allergic to aspirin.”

On a chainsaw:
“Do not attempt to stop chain with hands or genitals.”

On a birthday card:
“Not suitable for children aged 36 months or less.”

On a wristwatch:
“This is not underwear. Do not put in pants.”

On a hammer:
“Do not use to strike any solid object.”

On a curling iron:
“For external use only.”

Winston Churchill once designed greeting cards for Hallmark.

BRAND NAMES

We all know these businesses—many are a part of our everyday lives. Here’s where their names came from?

I
KEA
Even when he was a kid growing up in Agunnaryd, Sweden, in the 1930s, Ingvar Kamprad had a head for business. He started out buying matches in bulk in Stockholm and selling them at a profit back in Agunnaryd. With the money he made, he expanded into pencils, pens, flower seeds, and anything else he thought his neighbors might want to buy. By the time he was 17, he was ready to give his business a name. He added his own initials (I.K.) to the first letter of the farm he grew up on (Elmtaryd), and the first letter of the village of Agunnaryd. In 1947 Kamprad added furniture to his product line; it sold so well that he stopped selling anything else. Today he has 200 stores in 32 countries around the world and sells more than $15 billion worth of furniture a year.

BLUE CROSS & BLUE SHIELD

As late as the 1920s, the American health-care system was organized on a pay-as-you-go basis: If you got sick, you had hospital bills. If you didn’t get sick, you didn’t. Then in 1929 former Dallas school superintendent Justin Kimball was hired to run Baylor University’s school of medicine in Dallas. One of his first challenges: a stack of unpaid hospital bills from former schoolteachers, who were poorly paid and couldn’t afford medical care.

Kimball knew that hazardous industries like mining, logging, and railroads paid for medical care in advance by paying doctors a regular monthly fee for their services. He decided to develop the same kind of plan for workers in a
non
-hazardous profession. In exchange for a monthly payment of 50 cents, the 1,300 teachers in the Dallas school system could receive up to 21 days of hospitalization per year at Baylor’s hospital. Bonus: the system improved the overall quality of medical care by guaranteeing hospitals a regular stream of income, instead of one that dried up whenever the economy tanked and people couldn’t afford to go to the doctor.

The idea was copied all over the country, and in 1934 a Minnesota organization wanted to come up with a logo that symbolized their emphasis on helping people, kind of like the American Red Cross. How about a
blue
cross? Five years later a Buffalo, New York, health-care provider adopted a blue
shield
as their symbol. (Blue Cross and Blue Shield merged in 1982.)

When frozen, red blood cells can last up to 10 years.

STAPLES

In the summer of 1985 a supermarket executive named Tom Stemberg lost his job and had to look for a new one. He spent the July 4th weekend writing up a business plan…and then his typewriter ribbon broke. He was stuck—it was a holiday weekend, and the local stationery store was closed. The experience caused him to scrap his original business plan and write one for an entirely new kind of business: a supermarket that sold office supplies and nothing else. Instead of going to small stationers with limited inventory and high prices, his customers could grab a shopping cart and wander aisles crammed with affordably priced office supplies. Stemberg wanted a simple name for his stores, and he decided to name it after one of the simplest office supplies of all—the staple.

HOLIDAY INN

In the summer of 1951, a Memphis real estate developer named Kemmons Wilson and his wife packed their five kids into their car and hit the road for a two-week trip to Washington, D.C. The trip was fun—except for the hotels they stayed in. They were usually dirty, didn’t have restaurants, and there was nothing for the kids to do.

Where others saw grimy walls and cigarette butts extinguished on bathroom floors, Wilson saw a business opportunity. By the time the trip was over he was already planning a chain of clean, affordable, family-friendly hotels, crammed with freebies like air-conditioning, parking, ice machines, and swimming pools, all at no extra charge. Wilson was a big Bing Crosby fan, so when it came time to pick a name for his hotels, he decided to name them after the crooner’s 1942 film,
Holiday Inn
. Today there are more than 1,000 Holiday Inns around the world; the company estimates that 96 percent of all Americans have stayed in one at least once in their lives.

Some butterflies’ tongues are twice as long as their bodies.

A BARREL OF LAUGHS

This letter is a classic piece of American humor. It’s been around in various forms for nearly a century, appearing in dozens of books and movies, and even in a
Saturday Night Live
sketch in 2004. This version is a memo to an insurance company, but there are many others. The tale has now been passed around so often that it’s achieved urban legend status—in other words, some people believe it’s true. It’s not. In fact, it was written in 1902 by Will Rogers. (Not really, we just thought we’d add to the legend.)

D
ear Sir:
I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block 3 of the accident report form. I put “poor planning” as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation, and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I was alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found that I had some bricks left over which, when weighed later, were found to be slightly more than 500 pounds. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley that was attached to the side of the building on the sixth floor.

I secured the rope at ground level, climbed to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks into it. Then I climbed back down and untied the rope, holding tightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks.

You will notice in Block 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 135 pounds. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

Somewhere in the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull and the broken collar bone, as listed in section 3 of the accident form.

Well, at least the wings
taste
good: The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.

Slowed down slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers on my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.

Fortunately, by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope—in spite of beginning to experience a great deal of pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds.

(I refer you again to my weight.)

As you can imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. Somewhere in the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, the broken tooth, and the lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell on the pile of bricks; fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the pile of bricks—in pain and unable to move—I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope; I could only lay there watching as the empty barrel begin its journey back down towards me. This explains the two broken legs.

I hope this answers your questions.

Sincerely,
Thomas L.

More car model names start with the letter “C” than any other letter.

WHAT SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Which side is the right side of the road?

B
ACKGROUND
For most of known human history, people have traveled on the left side of the road. Historians think there’s a simple explanation: since most travelers were right-handed, bearing left kept their sword arm between them and any oncoming threat. Here are some important landmarks on the road to the decision: Left side or right side?

• The first known drive-side regulation dates from the Zhou Dynasty’s
Book of Rites
, 1100 B.C., although it appears to be more about social protocol than traffic flow: “The right side of the road is for men, the left side for women, and the center for carriages.”

• The Romans were probably left-side drivers. Researchers determined this after examining a well-preserved Roman road going in and out of a stone quarry in England and noting that the deeper ruts were on the left side. Why does that make the Romans left-side drivers? It’s assumed that the carts went in empty and came out full.

• In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII ordered all pilgrims traveling to Rome to keep to the left.

• In 1756 the British passed the first modern keep-left rule.

• Pennsylvania countered with a keep-right rule in 1792. France followed suit in 1794, New York in 1804. Why the divergence? Drivers wanted to sit close to the center of the road so that they could see the wheels of oncoming wagons and steer clear. Teamsters in the United States and France drove large wagons drawn by more than one team of horses. The driver sat on the left rear horse so he could reach the entire team with his whip. The English used smaller wagons. Drivers sat on the right side of the wagon, so their whips wouldn’t get caught on the load behind them.

• Napoleon enforced the keep-right rule in every country he conquered, which by 1814 was most of Europe. It’s thought he insisted on the change because he was left-handed, which made the right side of the road the advantageous side. Even after his defeat and exile, Napoleon’s former dominions kept to the right.

For centuries, many Europeans refused to eat potatoes. (They’re not mentioned in the Bible.)

• The states that resisted Napoleon—England, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden—clung to the left side of the road rule. Denmark went right in 1793 but otherwise the left/right division of Europe stayed intact until after World WarI.

• European countries brought their left- or right-side driving practices to the lands they colonized. That’s why drivers in Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and all of Latin America drive on the right. Those in India, Kenya, Uganda, Australia, and New Zealand hug the left.

• By the American Civil War, every state in the Union and the Confederacy drove on the right.

• Japan officially went left in 1859, due, some scholars say, to pressure from the British. But historical evidence shows that the Japanese were always left-siders and unlike Westerners, they still bear to the left when they walk on the streets today.