Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Read Free

cause injury or death.”
    On a paint remover that heats up to 1,000°: “Do not use heat gun as a hair dryer.”
    On a shower cap: “Fits one head.”
    On a can of pepper spray: “May irritate eyes.”
    On a toilet: “Recycled flush water unsafe for drinking.”
The shortest complete sentence in the English language: “Go.”

College: home of higher education, world-class research…and fraternities .
    S tudents at Northwestern University in Illinois started a new fraternity named Zeta Zeta Zeta, better known by its Greek letters, ZZZ. Members say they are dedicated to “encouraging excellence through sleep,” and are open to both men and women “regardless of race, gender, or sleeping orientation.”
    • Chi Omega, a sorority at Kent State University in Ohio, was placed on probation after the group held a formal dinner-dance where they gave a student an award for being the “blackest member” of the sorority. She was white. The sorority issued an apology, saying it was just a joke.
    • California State University, Chico, began an investigation when someone reported (anonymously) that while watching a pornographic movie they recognized the room in which the “actors” were being filmed: it was the living room of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house on campus. Not only that, some of the “actors” were members of the fraternity. Officials at the school announced that all activities at the fraternity—whose motto is “Where Character Counts”—would be suspended.
    • Student body president Mark Morice at Southeastern Louisiana University was arrested after he convinced his fraternity brothers to steal all the copies of the university newspaper before anyone could read it. The paper had an article critical of Morice’s handling of school funds and questioning his ethics.
    • Three Kappa Alpha members at the University of Missouri–Columbia were arrested in 2006 after a fireworks prank resulted in a near-fatal explosion. The trio had loaded up a Civil War-era cannon with fireworks, expecting the blast to shoot out the end of the barrel, but instead, the entire cannon blew up. An eight-inch chunk flew across the street and crashed through the roof of an apartment building, finally coming to rest on a Ping-Pong table that was being used by visiting students from China.
Mercury boils at 674.11°F.

FOOD ORIGINS
When Uncle John was a kid, the basic food groups were meat, bread, vegetables, and dairy products. Uncle John always wondered why they left out the other basic food groups: coffee, candy, cold soup, fish sticks, corn dogs, and salad dressing .
    C APPUCCINO
    In Vienna, a Kapuziner is a cup of espresso with a few drops of cream stirred in. The drink gets its name from the Catholic order of Kapuzin friars, who wore a brown habit or robe that was about the same color as the drink. (In English, the friars are known as Capuchins.) In the late 1800s, Austrian soldiers stationed in northern Italy introduced Kapuziners there; the Italians renamed them cappuccinos . When high-pressure espresso machines were introduced in 1906, the Italians put their own stamp on the drink by making it with steamed, foamy milk, and plenty of it, instead of just a little bit of cream.
    VICHYSSOISE
    Don’t let the French name fool you—this leek-and-potato soup (pronounced vi-she-swaz ) is as American as apple pie. Louis Diat, the head chef of New York’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, came up with this cold soup in 1917 while looking for something to serve to customers in the sweltering heat of New York summers.
    FISH STICKS
    Clarence Birdseye single-handedly invented the frozen-food industry in the late 1920s when he figured out how to freeze food without ruining its flavor, texture, or nutritional value (you have to freeze it quickly ). His early machines worked best with food that was cut into slender pieces, and one of the first foods he came up with was a knockoff of a French delicacy called goujonettes de sole: sole fillets baked or