Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (94 page)

I’ve flown over it dozens of times and it’s the only one of the hundreds of islands around Florida that’s by itself out of sight of other land. And it’s northwest of the Abacos, which, in fact, look very much like the Keys when you fly over them. Clearly if he thought he was in the Keys, he thought he could reach mainland by flying northeast. But if he was in the Abacos, a northeast course would just take him farther over the ocean.

MOVIE NOTE

The original Lost Squadron story became so embellished with new “facts” (Taylor’s last words were reported to have been “I know where I am now...Don’t come after me!...They look like they’re from outer space!”), that filmmaker Steven Spielberg included the Lost Squadron in a scene in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. The crew reappears on board the mother spaceship after being missing in action for decades.

A: Nobody knows where they’re buried.

Words to forget from comedian Rodney Dangerfield
.

“We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations—we’re doing everything we can to keep our marriage together.”

“I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous—everyone hasn’t met me yet.”

“If it weren’t for pickpockets, I’d have no sex life at all.”

“She was so old, when she went to school they didn’t have history.”

“I once asked my father if things were bad for him during the Depression. He said the first six months were bad, then he got used to me.”

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”

“It’s a good thing you’re wearing a mustache. It breaks up the monotony of your face.”

“I don’t get no respect. No respect at all. Every time I get into an elevator the operator says the same thing: ‘Basement?’ No respect. When I was a kid we played hide-and-seek. They wouldn’t even look for me. The other day I was standing in front of a big apartment house. The doorman asked me to get him a cab....I bought a used car—I found my wife’s dress in the back seat.”

“Last week I told my wife a man is like wine, he gets better with age. She locked me in the cellar.”

“My wife’s an Earth sign. I’m a water sign. Together we make mud.”

“Always look out for Number One and be careful not to step in Number Two.”

“I drink too much. Last time I gave a urine sample there was an olive in it.”

“I broke up with my psychiatrist. I told him I had suicidal tendencies. He told me from now on I had to pay in advance.”

There are more than 35 million ex-smokers in the U.S.

A lot of Americans are worried about the growing threat of crime. Well, the good news is that there are plenty of crooks who are their own worst enemies. Here are a few true-life examples
.

A
RE WE HIGH YET?

When Nathan Radlich’s house was burgled on June 4, 1993, thieves left his TV, his VCR, and even his watch. All they took was a “generic white cardboard box” of grayish white powder. A police spokesman said it looked similar to cocaine. “They probably thought they scored big,” he mused.

The powder was actually the cremated remains of Radlich’s sister, Gertrude, who had died three years earlier.

—From the
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

POOR PENMANSHIP

In 1992, 79-year-old Albert Goldsband walked into a San Bernardino, California, bank and handed the teller a note demanding money. When she couldn’t read the note, he pulled out a toy gun. But the teller had already taken the note to her supervisor for help deciphering it.

Goldsband panicked and fled...to a nearby restaurant that was frequented by police officers. He was arrested immediately.

—From the
San Francisco Chronicle

STUCK ON GLUE

RIO DE JANEIRO—Nov. 5, 1993. “A thief was found stuck to the floor of a factory Thursday after trying to steal glue in Belo Horizonte, 280 miles north of Rio, newspapers reported.

“Edilber Guimaeares, 19, stopped to sniff some of the glue he was stealing when two large cans fell to the floor, spilling over.

“When police were called Thursday morning, Guimaeares was glued to the floor, asleep.”

—From the
San Francisco Examiner

Sevent-three percent of women say they’d rather be “brilliant but plain” than “sexy but dumb.”

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

“Warren Gillen, 26, was arrested for trying to rob a bank in Glasgow. Police put him in a lineup, but no one identified him. He was booked anyway after calling out from the lineup, ‘Hey, don’t you recognize me?’”

—From
More News of the Weird

A CASE OF NERVES?

Lee W. Womble, 28, was spotted and picked up a few minutes after robbing the Lafayette Bank in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Police said that even if they hadn’t seen him, he would have been easy to identify; he had written his name on the note he handed the teller demanding money.

“He wrote his name on it twice—once on top of the other,” said police. “He could have been trying to kill time. He could have been nervous or something. Who knows?”

—From the
Oakland Tribune

WRONG TURN

“An alleged drunk driver who led police on a wild midnight chase landed in jail even before his arrest. His car crashed into the jail building.

“He didn’t have too far to go from there,’ said Police Capt. Mike Lanam. ‘It was like a drive-up window.’”

—From the
Chicago Tribune

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

“A man accused of stealing a car was easy to track, police said, especially after they found his resume under one of the seats.

“Police discovered the handwritten resume when they looked through the stolen 1985 Chevrolet Celebrity they had recovered.

“Police then telephoned an employer listed on the resume for a different sort of reference.”

—From the Associated Press

People with heart disease are 2.3 times more likely to have a heart attack when they’re angry.

Here’s where the names of the months come from
.

JANUARY.
Named for the Roman god
Janus
, a two-faced god who “opened the gates of heaven to let out the morning, and closed them at dusk.” Janus was worshiped as the god of all doors, gates, and other entrances. Consequently, the opening month of the year was named after him.

FEBRUARY.
The Roman “Month of Purification” got its name from
februarius
, the Latin word for purification. February 15 was set aside for the Festival of Februa, in which people repented and made sacrifices to the gods to atone for their wrongdoings.

MARCH.
Named for Mars, the Roman god of war. The Roman empire placed great emphasis on wars and conquest, so until 46 B.C. this was the first month of the year.

APRIL.
No one knows the origin of the name. One theory: it comes from
Aprilis
or
aphrilis
, which are corruptions of
Aphrodite
, the Greek name for Venus, the goddess of love. However, many experts think the month is named after the Latin verb
aperire
, which means “to open.” (Most plants open their leaves and buds in April.)

MAY.
Some people think the month is named after
Maia
, the mother of the god Mercury; other people think it was named in honor of the
Majores
, the older branch of the Roman Senate.

JUNE.
It may have been named in honor of
Juno
, the wife of Jupiter; or it may have been named after the
Juniores
, the lower branch of the Roman Senate.

JULY.
Named after Julius Caesar.

AUGUST.
Named after Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, heir and nephew of Julius Caesar. The Roman Senate gave this Caesar the title of “Augustus,” which means “revered,” and honored him further by naming a month after him.

It took Einstein five weeks to write his Theory of Relativity.

SEPTEMBER.
Comes from the Latin word
septem
, which means “seven.” September was the seventh month until about the year 700 B.C., when Numa Pompilius, the second Roman king, switched from a 304-day calendar to a 355-day lunar calendar.

OCTOBER.
From
octo
, the Latin word for “eight.” When Romans changed the calendar, they knew October was no longer the eighth month, and tried to rename it. Some candidates:
Germanicus
(after a general),
Antonius
(an emperor),
Faustina
(the emperor’s wife), and
Herculeus
(after Emperor Commodus, who had nicknamed himself the “Roman Hercules.”) None of the new names stuck.

NOVEMBER.
From
novem
, the Latin word for “nine.” November was also referred to as “blood-month.” Reason: It was the peak season for pagan animal sacrifices.

DECEMBER.
From
decem
, the Latin word for “ten.” Attempts to rename it
Amazonius
in honor of the mistress of Emperor Commodius failed.

DAYS OF THE WEEK

When Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles, they brought their language and pagan gods with them. The names of the days of the week are a legacy
.

SUNDAY.
Originally called
Sunnan daeg
, which, like today, meant “sun day.”

MONDAY.
Originally called
Monan daeg
, “moon day.”

TUESDAY.
Tiwes daeg
was named in honor of Tiw, the Anglo-Saxon and Norse god of war.

WEDNESDAY.
Named
Wodnes daeg
and dedicated to Woden, the king of the gods in Valhalla.

THURSDAY.
Thu(n)res daeg
commemorated Thor, the god of thunder, and the strongest and bravest god of them all.

FRIDAY.
Originally named
Frige daeg
after Thor’s mother Frigga, the most important goddess in Valhala. (That’s one theory; the day may be also named after Freyja, the Norse goddess of love.)

SATURDAY.
Named
Saeter daeg
in honor of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. It’s the one day of the week whose name
isn’t
derived from Anglo-Saxon/Norse myths.

Among other things, the ancient Greeks invented counterfeiting.

Are you a 4-wheel-drive fanatici Here’s a story you’ll like. It’s about the vehicle that General George Marshall called “this country’s most important contribution to World War II.”

B
ACKGROUND

The U.S. Army of 1939 wasn’t much like the one that won World War II six years later. Convinced that World War I had been “the war to end all wars,” the U.S. government had cut military spending to the bone during the ’30s. The army wasn’t even
close
to bringing American troops into the automobile age yet. In fact, there weren’t even enough vehicles to transport troops to the front lines. If the United States had gotten involved in a military action, most soldiers would have gone into battle either on foot or on
horseback
.

The problem drove officers nuts, particularly as another war in Europe began to look inevitable. “The humblest citizen rides proudly and swiftly to his work in his Model T or his shivering Chevrolet,” one colonel complained to his superiors in 1940. “The infantryman alone, sole contemporary of the sodden coolie or the plodding Hindu, carries the supplies and implements of his trade upon his stooping back or loads them upon two-wheeled carts drawn by himself or by a harassed and hesitating mule.”

THE CAR WARS

The army finally began to address the problem in 1940, when it drew up specifications for a zippy, 4-wheel-drive “low-silhouette scout car” large enough to carry four men and low enough to dodge enemy fire. It sent the specs to 135 different manufacturers, insisting that the vehicle weigh no more than 1,300 lbs. and stand no taller than 3 feet high with its windshield folded down over the hood. Only two companies expressed interest: American Bantam of Butler, Pennsylvania, and Willys-Overland of Toledo, Ohio. Only American Bantam submitted a prototype to the military for testing.

The army liked the American Bantam model, but worried that the company, which had only 15 employees and no assembly plant, was too small to manufacture the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that would be needed. So it scheduled a special “field test” of the American Bantam prototype, invited engineers from Willys-Overland and the Ford Motor Company to stop by as “observers”... and passed out the vehicle’s blueprints to everyone who attended. The competition took the hint, and a few months later Ford and Willys delivered “remarkably similar” vehicles of their own. Willys-Overland won the contract. Later, when production demands outstripped even Willys’s production capacity, Ford agreed to build the Willys model in its own factories. American Bantam spent the rest of the war building truck trailers and torpedo motors.

The average American opens their fridge 22 times a day.