Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (60 page)

EMPEROR’S WRATH

While the four dragons were bringing water to the people, the god of the sea was watching them. He promptly went to the Jade Emperor and reported what was happening. The Jade Emperor became very angry. “How dare the four dragons bring rain to those undeserving creatures without my permission!” He called for his generals to gather their armies and prepare to attack. The four dragons’ celebration ended abruptly when they saw thousands of soldiers from the heavens flying toward them. Being far outnumbered, they surrendered peacefully and were taken to the heavenly palace.

The Jade Emperor scolded them: “I told you to return to the sea, but you disobeyed me. Now you shall be banished from both the sea
and
the sky forever! You are very large and powerful dragons, so your cages must be much larger and even more powerful. Therefore I have commanded the Mountain God to get four mountains so that I might lay one upon each of you—mountains so massive that you will never be able to escape!” The Mountain God used his power to make four mountains fly there, whistling in the wind from afar, and the Jade Emperor pressed the mountains down upon the prisoners.

THE FOUR RIVERS

The four dragons did not even struggle to escape—the mountains were too big. Nor did they ever come to regret defying the Jade Emperor’s orders. Instead, the four dragons vowed to do whatever good they could for the helpless people. And they needed to do something fast, for the rain had already stopped and soon the crops would start to wither again.

In French folklore, dreaming about poop is an omen that good fortune is on the way.

So the four dragons mustered up what little power they had left and turned their scaly backs into riverbeds that wrapped around the mountains. Their insides became water, which flowed down these riverbeds, meandering through the valleys and flowing all the way to the sea. And that is how the four dragons became China’s four great rivers—the Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River) in the far north, the Huang (Yellow River) in central China, the Chang (Yangtze, or Long River) farther south, and the Zhu (Pearl River) in the very far south.

And as long as the kind spirits of the four dragons remain under the mountains, the water will flow forever.

A pair of nylons is made from a single filament four miles long, knitted into 3 million loops.

Here’s another in-stall-ment of a
Bathroom Reader
favorite
.

H
onoree:
Leila LeTourneau, a nurse in Longview, Texas

Notable Achievement:
Striking oil...in the water closet

True Story:
When LeTourneau left her house for work one Monday in February 2004, everything seemed normal...but when she returned home at the end of her shift, “there was this black ooze coming out from my house,” she told the
Longview News-Journal
.

The black ooze turned out to be crude oil bubbling up through her toilet, her bathtub, her shower, even her kitchen sink. By the time she got home her entire house was inundated with the stuff. So is she rich now? No—just a victim of bad plumbing. It turns out that instead of being connected to a sewer line, LeTourneau’s house was accidentally hooked up to the drainpipe of a nearby oil field. When that pipe backed up, oil flooded her house. At last report she was living in a rental home, waiting for the mess to be cleaned up. “I was always proud to have an oil derrick in my backyard,” she says. “Now, I don’t know.”

Honoree:
Dilubhai Rajput, a diamond merchant in Gujarat, India

Notable Achievement:
Creating the world’s most valuable cow manure

True Story:
Gujarat state is known for its diamond cutting and dairy industries. Rajput worked in both, and that’s what got him into trouble. In January 2004, he hid a bag of 1,722 small diamonds (estimated value: $900) in a haystack outside of his house. A hungry cow came along...and Rajput spent the next three days following the cow around until it “gave” the diamonds back. He got only 300 at first, but at last report was still confident the others were on the way. “I am sure within a week I will retrieve the rest,” he told the
Economic Times
.

Honoree:
An unnamed man in Jinjiang, China (Xinhua, China’s government-run news agency, did not release his name)

When choosing bathroom reading, women prefer magazines. Men favor newspapers.

Notable Achievement:
Going above and beyond the call of duty to serve the bathroom needs of his community

True Story:
Apparently, there is a restroom shortage in Jinjiang. In March 2004, an unnamed man offered to convert his own ground-floor apartment into a public bathroom. “There are not enough public toilets in this area, and I often see people relieve themselves stealthily in the far corners of the community,” the man told Xinhua. (At last report his neighbors—worried about the stink—were fighting his plan.)

Honoree:
Paul Stafford, director of Foundation Studies in Art and Design at Kingston University in southwestern London

Notable Achievement:
Teaching an old restroom new tricks

True Story:
In early 2003, Stafford asked the local Kingston upon Thames council to let him convert an abandoned 1950s-era ladies’ room into an art gallery. With their approval, he and a group of volunteers cleaned and painted the restroom. But rather than rip out all of the fixtures, Stafford integrated as many as he could into the gallery’s design: all of the toilet stalls were retained, and the sinks were mounted on the ceiling and converted into light fixtures.

Ironic note:
The only toilet they kept, they turned into a decorative fountain. So when the (toilet paper) ribbon was cut and the Toilet Gallery opened to the public in October 2003, any of the 80 people attending had to go down the street to Starbucks if they needed to use the bathroom.

DO EARS OF CORN LISTEN?

In 1960 botanist George Smith planted two sets of corn seeds in flats in his greenhouses. Both sets were treated identically, with the exception that one set “listened” to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” 24 hours a day. Result: The Gershwin plants sprouted earlier and were healthier. The next year, Smith continuously broadcast music to a small plot of corn. The plot yielded 137 bushels an acre, versus 117 for an identical plot kept in silence.

The term “B.O.” was first used in 1919 deodorant ads.

Famous people are just like everyone else—they act erratically, they make fools of themselves in public, they even start fights. The main difference: there’s always a reporter around to record their actions
.

C
ELEBRITY:
Richard Simmons

INCIDENT:
In March 2004, Simmons, the famous fitness guru, was waiting in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport for a flight to Los Angeles when another waiting passenger recognized him. Christopher Farney, a 6'2", 250-pound ultimate cage fighter and martial arts expert, pointed out Simmons to the rest of the passengers and yelled, “Hey everybody, it’s Richard Simmons. Let’s drop our bags and rock to the ’50s.” In response, the 55-year-old fitness pro approached Farney and said, “It’s not nice to make fun of people with issues,” and then smacked him across the face. Although unharmed, Farney called the cops. The charges were later dropped, but Simmons insisted that Farney deserved the slap.

CELEBRITY:
Courtney Love

INCIDENT:
After giving an unannounced performance at a Manhattan nightclub, Love was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment. In the early hours of Thursday morning on March 18, 2004, she was performing in front of about 400 people when she decided to toss a microphone stand into the audience. Despite the fact that it struck a 24-year-old man in the head and he had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Love did a few more songs and finished her set before being placed under arrest. A spokesperson later explained, “She didn’t know she hurt someone, and felt terrible about it, but she didn’t feel she was guilty of a crime, either.”

CELEBRITY:
Naomi Campbell

INCIDENT:
On her way to the Toronto movie set of
Prisoner of Love
in 1998, the supermodel was delayed by Canadian customs officials. Finally arriving at her hotel, the diva blamed her assistant Georgina Galanis for the wait, grabbed her by the throat, and slammed her against a wall. Still furious, Campbell reached for a telephone and hit Galanis twice in the head with the handset, then threatened to throw her from a moving car on a busy highway. A Toronto criminal court ordered Campbell to take anger-management classes. Did she learn anything in class? Apparently not—according to news reports, the supermodel attacked another assistant in 2001.

Pigs have 5,500 taste buds. Cows have 35,000. Antelope have 55,000.

CELEBRITY:
Marilyn Manson

INCIDENT:
The gender-bending rock star made headlines in September 2003 when a Minnesota jury found him not guilty of battery or any of the other charges against him (causing emotional distress, mental anguish, and humiliation). The charges were the result of a stunt during a 2000 concert. Security guard David Diaz was working the front of the stage when Manson suddenly grabbed him and began rubbing his pelvis against Diaz’s head. In July 2001, while performing in Michigan, Manson pulled the same stunt on security guard Joshua Keasler. That time he had to pay a $4,000 fine.

CELEBRITY:
Russell Crowe

INCIDENT:
In 1999, while spending some time on his 560-acre ranch in Australia, Crowe and his brother Terry went out for a drink and wound up in a brawl. Crowe spied radio DJ Andrew White at a local bar, approached him, and said, “I’ve listened to your program, and it’s crap.” White quickly replied, “So are most of your movies,” prompting Crowe to turn to the DJ’s wife and exclaim, “I’m going to belt the crap out of your husband!” The gladiator then went after White and several other bar-goers. Security cameras captured him in three separate fights kicking, punching, and biting like a wild man; during the melee Crowe even took a swing at his brother before biting a bouncer in the neck and fleeing the bar.

NOTE:
Crowe once attacked the director of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards show for editing a four-line poem out of Crowe’s Best Actor acceptance speech. Witnesses said Crowe’s own security had to remove him, kicking and cursing.

Robert Mitchum once served time on a chain gang.

Science seems to have all the answers. We know certain things absolutely, definitely, and positively...until something happens that science can’t explain
.

W
HAT’S NEW AT THE ZOO?

In January 2002, a bonnethead shark at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, had a baby. What’s so unusual about that? The shark lived only with other females and hadn’t had contact with males since she was a baby herself. The story of the “virgin birth” quickly appeared in newspapers around the world. Zoo officials and shark experts were perplexed—no one could explain it.

One person who read the stories was Doug Sweet, a curator at the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit. Sweet had a tank with two female bamboo sharks living in it, and one of them had recently laid some eggs (bamboo sharks don’t give birth to live young like bonnetheads do—they lay eggs). That shark hadn’t had any contact with males, either, and in such cases the eggs are thought to be sterile and are thrown away. But Sweet had read about the shark in Omaha, so he saved the eggs and put them in an incubator. Fifteen weeks later, the eggs began to hatch.