Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  If a monkey steals your ball while you’re golfing in the kingdom of Tonga, there’s no penalty.

  Busted! One of Musarella’s friends saw the photo and called the hospital where he worked. He was immediately fired, then arrested on charges of official misconduct and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service. Musarella—a former highly decorated NYPD detective—also lost his EMT license.

  THE KING AND I

  Friend: Fouad Mourtada, 26, of Casablanca, Morocco

  Story: Mourtada joined Facebook sometime in 2007, under a fake name. Whose name? Moulay Rachid—brother of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, and second in line to the Moroccan throne.

  Busted! In February 2008, Mourtada was arrested. He confessed to having made the fake Facebook profile, explaining that he’d done it “to get girlfriends.” Mourtada was quickly tried, convicted of “modifying and falsifying information technology data and usurping an official’s identity,” and sentenced to three years in prison. A month later, after intense international pressure at what was viewed as an unfair trial, “Prince” Fouad Mourtada was released…after receiving a royal pardon.

  FACEBOOK CROOK

  Friend: Paul Franco, 38, of Queens, New York

  Story: In February 2010, Franco hacked the Facebook account of his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Zamora-Anderson…and changed her sexual preference to “gay.” Then he changed her password—and proceeded to hold the account hostage, demanding hundreds of dollars from her if she wanted it back. Zamora-Anderson had met Franco 16 months earlier…on Facebook. He posed as a 29-year-old English teacher at Queen’s College, where she was taking classes. They started dating, and she eventually found out that he wasn’t a teacher, but continued dating him because he claimed he had a tape of them having sex and said he’d put it on the Internet if she left him.

  Busted! Zamora-Anderson finally had enough and called the police. Franco was arrested, and Zamora-Anderson got her Facebook account back. (And it turns out Franco didn’t have a sex tape.)

  Cadbury sells 200 million Creme Eggs in the U.K. each year—more than 3 per citizen.

  SMOKIN’

  Friend: Rachel Stieringer, 19, of Keystone Heights, Florida

  Story: In July 2010, she posted a photo of her 11-month-old son on her Facebook profile. In the picture, the diapered boy appears to be smoking a bong. The photo became an Internet sensation.

  Busted! A concerned citizen called a Florida child abuse hotline. A police investigation was started, and in August, Stieringer turned herself in to police. She said the photo was just a joke…and that the bong was “only used for tobacco.” Stieringer was arrested, and Florida children’s services ordered that both Stieringer and her son be tested for drugs. The baby tested negative, fortunately, but Stieringer did not. She was arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia and was ordered to attend both drug and parenting classes.

  POOR JUDGEMENT

  Friend: Steven Mulhall, 21, of Coral Springs, Florida

  Story: Mulhall was in a Broward County, Florida, court on February 23, 2012, on a theft charge. That same day, someone noticed that the nameplate from the door of Judge Michael Orlando disappeared. Who could have stolen it?

  Busted! In March an anonymous tipster called Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti. The tipster advised him to go to a certain Facebook page. Lamberti did, and saw a photo of Steven Mulhall…proudly displaying the nameplate of Judge Michael Orlando. Mulhall was arrested. “The nameplate is like only $40,” Lamberti told reporters, “not that big of a crime—but what an idiot. He’s got multiple convictions for petty theft, so now this is a felony.”

  * * *

  WHO’S UNAVAILABLE

  Organizers of the 2012 Olympic Games in London sent a request to the rock band the Who to perform at the closing ceremony. They specifically asked if “drummer Keith Moon would be available.” The band’s manager replied, “Keith now resides in Golders Green crematorium, having lived up to the Who’s anthemic line, ‘I hope I die before I get old.’” Moon died in 1978.

  The refrigerators Americans buy in a week would make a tower more than 80 miles high.

  THE MOTHER SAUCES

  Before refrigeration, sauces originated as a way to hide the taste of food that was staring to spoil. Then people started tinkering with them, and things got a lot tastier. Here are the five sauces that food historians say are the source of all other sauces that followed.

  FLAVOR SAVOR

  A skilled saucier (“sauce cook”) can create thousands of sauces, many with similar ingredients. In the 19th century, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833), the French chef credited as the father of gourmet, or haute cuisine, classified all sauces under four categories that became known as the “Mother Sauces.” (His other claim to fame: inventing the chef’s hat.)

  Carême’s four sauces were updated a century later by another legendary French chef, Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935), who modernized French cuisine in the late 1800s. Escoffier reclassified one of Carême’s sauces, and then added another to get the five Mother Sauces that chefs recognize today.

  1) BÉCHAMEL (White Sauce)

  Béchamel (BEH-shah-mehl) is the most common and easiest to prepare of the Mother Sauces. Named for the man who perfected it, King Louis XIV’s steward Louis de Béchamel (1603–1703), this sauce is a butter-roux (flour and butter, combined to a paste over low heat) mixed with milk. It can be thickened by adding more butter and flour. Béchamel is the base of most cheese sauces, including the cheesy part of macaroni and cheese, as well as Alfredo, and the cheese sauce used in Welsh Rarebit.

  2) VELOUTÉ (“Velvety”)

  To make a velouté (veh-loo-TAY), start with a white soup stock (vegetables and meat cooked in water, then strained out), thicken it by adding roux, then let it simmer. Chicken velouté is the most common, but veloutés are commonly made with veal or fish stock. If a chef adds egg yolks, the result is an allemande, one of Carême’s four original sauces, which Escoffier reclassified. Chefs recommend pairing a velouté with a dish made from the same thing; chicken velouté should be used on chicken, veal velouté on veal, and so on. The most common veloute: white wine sauce.

  The St. Louis Gateway Arch has 900 tons of stainless steel, the most of any structure ever.

  3) ESPAGNOLE (Brown Sauce)

  Espagnole (es-pah-NYOHL) is prepared like velouté, but with carmelized meat and vegetables to give the sauce a brown color. Sometimes tomato paste or puree is used, but an espagnole is typically made without tomatoes. The sauce gets its thickness by reduction: boiling it quickly so the water evaporates but the flavor stays concentrated. Common espagnoles: Madeira sauce, Sauce Diane, and demi-glace, made by adding red wine to the recipe, then reducing the sauce until it is thick enough to coat a spoon.

  4) HOLLANDAISE

  A rich, creamy yellow sauce made of clarified butter, egg yolk, and lemon juice, hollandaise is the most difficult of the Mother Sauces to make because it’s an emulsion, meaning the ingredients are naturally inclined to separate. The secret to making a good hollandaise is to pour the butter slowly into the egg yolks while quickly stirring the mixture with a whisk. Chefs use clarified butter because whole butter contains milk solids which tend to break the emulsion. Hollandaise is the key ingredient in Eggs Benedict, and it’s also the sauce in Filet Oscar, which is a filet mignon topped with crab meat and asparagus. Other emulsions similar to Hollandaise include mayonnaise, tartar sauce, and Béarnaise.

  5) TOMATE (Tomato)

  Auguste Escoffier added sauce tomate as the fifth Mother Sauce. In addition to tomatoes, his recipe calls for salt pork, carrots, onions, butter, veal stock, garlic, roux, and a few seasonings, but a simple tomato sauce doesn’t need much more than tomatoes and seasonings. As with other sauces, the roux in a tomato sauce is a thickener, but the flesh of a tomato is hearty enough that a thickener isn’t always necessary. One of the easiest sauces to create, tomato sauce is extremely versatile and can be paired with almost any meat, fish, or past
a. It’s also easy to freeze and store, making it one of the most-used sauces in the culinary world. Common tomato sauces: Creole and Provençale, as well as Italian Carbonara, Pomodoro, and Marinara sauces.

  Bird brains? Californians eat 3 lb. more turkey per year than the average American does.

  AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

  Ever wonder what happened to the major players in America’s worst internal conflict? We did, and thought you might like to know, too.

  JEFFERSON DAVIS

  Claim to Fame: President of the Confederate States of America

  After the War: The former president refused to sign the oath of allegiance that would have returned his U.S. citizenship. He ended up selling life insurance for a living, but the company he founded failed. More than 100 years after the Civil War ended, another southern president, Jimmy Carter, posthumously gave Davis back his citizenship.

  SGT. BOSTON CORBETT

  Claim to Fame: Shot and killed John Wilkes Booth

  After the War: Corbett was arrested for disobeying orders not to shoot Booth, but then was released by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Corbett went on to become something of a hero to northerners until 1887, when, as an assistant doorkeeper for the Kansas Legislature, he decided the other officers were snubbing him. Corbett drew his revolver and chased them from the building. He ended up in the Topeka Asylum for the Insane.

  MAJ. GEN. PHILIP H. SHERIDAN

  Claim to Fame: Crushed Confederate forces in Virginia and used “scorched earth” tactics to destroy the South’s food supply

  After the War: Sheridan boasted that he’d left the Shenandoah Valley so devastated that “even a crow would be compelled to carry his own food.” He took that philosophy to the Great Plains, where he defeated the Sioux by driving the American bison—the natives’ primary food supply—nearly to extinction. Ironically, years later, he argued for the expansion of Yellowstone Park to provide protection for the buffalo. When Congress stripped Yellowstone’s funding in 1886, Sheridan led the 1st U.S. Cavalry into the park and turned it into a military protectorate. The cavalry stayed until 1916, when the National Park Service took over.

  The ancient Etruscans (northern Italy) were the first to use gold in dentistry (circa 600 B.C.).

  GEN. ROBERT E. LEE

  Claim to Fame: Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia; considered to be the Confederacy’s greatest military leader

  After the War: Even though the war left him broke and homeless, Lee turned down a chance to head the notorious Ku Klux Klan. Instead, he accepted an offer to serve as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. The school was as strapped for funds as the former general, and the trustees hoped his fame would help them raise money. It did. Within five years, enrollment had grown from 50 to nearly 400. Today, with more than 1,700 undergrads, WLU is ranked in the top 20 of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges.

  GEN. JAMES LONGSTREET

  Claim to Fame: General Lee’s right-hand man and second in command of the Confederate forces at the Battle of Gettysburg

  After the War: Before the war, Longstreet was close friends with Ulysses S. Grant. He introduced Grant to his cousin, Julia Dent. When they married in 1848, Longstreet was part of the wedding party. After the war, Longstreet renewed his friendship with Grant. In 1880 Grant talked President Hayes into appointing Longstreet Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). Longstreet’s next post: Postmaster of Gainesville, Georgia.

  GEN. ALEXANDER SCHIMMELFENNIG

  Claim to Fame: Accepted the surrender of Charleston, South Carolina, on behalf of Union forces. But that’s only part of the story. Not only did Schimmelfennig have the longest last name of any brigadier general, he may have held the record for injuries and illnesses. Early in the war, the general injured his ankle in a fall from his horse and contracted smallpox while recovering from the injury. He went on to Gettysburg, where he was accidentally hit over the head with the butt of a musket, knocked unconscious, and woke up to find himself behind Confederate lines. He hid behind a woodpile for three days until the Rebels retreated, and then returned to his troops only to fall victim to dysentery and malaria.

  After the War: The Confederates officially surrendered on April 18, 1865. That same month, Schimmelfennig contracted tuberculosis. He died five months later.

  Pour me a tall one! Only U.S. president who was a licensed bartender: Abraham Lincoln.

  MORE REAL-LIFE SUPERHEROES

  These costumed crusaders (and villains) aren’t afraid to risk danger and public ridicule in the pursuit of justice. (The first installment is on page 157.)

  THE MASKED VIPER (Columbia, Tennessee)

  Secret Identity: Christian Tyler Hardee, 20, a chemistry and art major at Union University in nearby Jackson

  Costume: A green-and-black bodysuit and matching mask that covers his entire head, like Spider-Man’s. The Masked Viper carries plastic fighting sticks, ninja throwing stars, and a cell phone (to call the actual police if he sees any crimes being committed).

  Details: Hardee patrolled the streets of Columbia in full costume until July 2010, when police told him that a city ordinance forbids the wearing of face-obscuring masks in public. Since then, the Masked Viper has patrolled without his mask. “I’m just a guy trying to do what’s right, in tights,” he says.

  SHADOW HARE (Cincinnati, Ohio)

  Secret Identity: A male in his early 20s, real name unknown

  Costume: A black bodysuit with a Shadow Hare logo on the chest, a black cape, and a black-and-silver mask that covers his head. Shadow Hare carries handcuffs, pepper spray, and a Taser, and has been seen patrolling the city on a Segway.

  Details: “I’ve stopped many evildoers…such as drug dealers, muggers, rapists, and crazy hobos with pipes,” he writes on his Myspace page. Shadow Hare has two archenemies: 1) The High Noon Tortoise, who has vowed (on YouTube) to loiter at high noon “at every convenience store in the greater Cincinnati area” until Shadow Hare reveals his secret identity, and 2) The Consortium of Evil, a shadowy group that posted an ad on Craigslist offering a $10 reward to anyone who reveals Shadow Hare’s real name. (No takers so far.) “I’ve heard about the lame bounty on my identity,” said Shadow Hare. “My opinion is this: Who cares?”

  Most takes for a single scene in a movie: 2,900, in the Jackie Chan film Dragon Lord (1982).

  THE STATESMAN (Birmingham, England)

  Secret Identity: Scott Cooke, a banker in his mid-20s and former soldier in the U.K.’s Territorial Army

  Costume: A long-sleeved Union Jack shirt, black army pants, black combat boots, a black eye mask, and a black utility belt containing a flashlight, first aid kit, notepad, and a cell phone. The Statesman hides his costume beneath a trench coat, which he throws off when he springs into action.

  Details: Cooke lives in West Heath, but patrols nearby Birmingham. When he started, he didn’t tell his mom or his girlfriend what he was up to in the middle of the night; they thought he was sneaking out to drink or play poker with friends. They didn’t find out he was a superhero until London’s Daily Mail newspaper profiled him in February 2011. The press Cooke has received since then has been unflattering: The Sunday Mercury reviewed local statistics and found that during the month of January 2011, when Cooke was on patrol over in Birmingham, 99 crimes were committed in his own community of West Heath, including 10 burglaries and four violent crimes. The Sun reported that his mother still did his laundry, and nicknamed him “The Phan-tum” because of his chubby build. “If he does want to clean up the streets of Birmingham I am behind him all the way,” a neighbor told the Mercury. “Maybe he can start by cleaning his garden as he has let it get a bit shabby recently. There are potato chip packets everywhere.”

  DARK GUARDIAN (New York City)

  Secret Identity: Chris Pollack, 27, a martial arts instructor

  Costume: A red-and-black leather motorcycle suit worn over a bulletproof vest. He carries mace, a flashlight, and a first aid ki
t.

  Details: Pollack has been a superhero since 2003 and specializes in keeping drug dealers out of Washington Square Park in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. His technique: He sneaks up on the drug dealers at night, either alone or with other superheroes, shines flashlights in their eyes, and shouts, “THIS IS A DRUG-FREE PARK!” In one raid in 2009, he and a dozen other costumed superheroes used bullhorns and floodlights to drive druggies out of the park. “Some may call me a hero, a vigilante, or a nut job,” he said, “but I fight for all that’s right. I will drive myself into the ground to make this world a better place.”

  Coca-Cola and Pepsi are sold in every country in the world except North Korea.

  THE HUMAN SHRUB (Colchester, England)

  Secret Identity: A local resident, 39, real name unknown

  Costume: A military camouflage suit that looks like a giant bush, worn with gardening gloves. The Human Shrub’s only weapons: garden tools. His enemies: tight-fisted local officials.

  Details: When the Colchester town council proposed tearing out 20 percent of the town’s rosebushes and shrubbery as a cost-saving measure, the Human Shrub protested the decision by parading in front of the town hall in full shrubbery regalia. The bad publicity he generated pressured the council into reversing its decision, but when it continued to neglect the town’s planters, the Human Shrub replanted them with his own flowers and bushes in protest.

  The Human Shrub also uses Facebook to rally “flash mobs” of his supporters to pull weeds and tend neglected patches of land that are supposed to be maintained by the council. At these events the similarly dressed “Mrs. Shrub” feeds the volunteers tarts. “I have no idea who he is,” one council member told The Daily Mail. “I could go up and tear all his shrubbery off to find out, but I might be arrested for assaulting a bush.”