Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (24 page)

Three men from New Orleans, all in their early 30s, wrapped up more than two pounds of marijuana in plastic bags and T-shirts
and hid the loot under the hood of their car…right on top of the engine block. When police caught up with the trio in a gas station parking lot, one was using a hose to try to put out an engine fire, one was under the car trying to retrieve a flaming bag of pot, and one was throwing another flaming bag of pot into a garbage can. Reportedly, the whole parking lot smelled like marijuana. All three were arrested on drug and reckless endangerment charges.

A 40-year-old man from Janesville, Wisconsin, named Lem Lom was walking down a neighborhood street one day in September 2003 when he saw a fancy electronic device about the size of a brick on a front doorstep. Unaware that it was a $2,500 GPS transmitter that served as a “base” to an ankle monitor (worn by a woman under house arrest), Lom snuck up, stole the box, and then took it to his apartment. A short time later, the police were knocking on his door. “Apparently he didn’t know what he had because he’d have to be awfully stupid to steal a tracking device,” said correctional officer Thomas Roth.

On a Saturday morning at around 11:40 a.m. in March 2008, Christopher Koch parked his car in a bank parking lot in Liberty, Pennsylvania. It took him 20 minutes to get up the nerve to rob it—at 12:01 p.m. he burst out of his car wielding a shotgun and wearing an orange ski mask and gloves. Unfortunately for Koch, the bank closed at noon. He banged on the door, got frustrated, and left, never having seen the employees inside. But they saw him and wrote down the license number of his car. Police quickly caught up with Koch and arrested him for attempted armed robbery.

In 2008 convicted burglar Eric Livers, 20, was a fugitive. He was living in New Hampshire after having recently escaped from a halfway house in Wyoming. All he had to do was keep a low profile, which he did…until he called his former boss in Wyoming to request that his final paycheck be mailed to him. His boss called the police instead, who arrested Livers.

You’re probably familiar with Superman, the X-Men, and Archie, but have you ever read about the exciting adventures of Paulina Porizkova
?

J
AY LENO & SPIDER-MAN: ONE NIGHT ONLY
.
Released as a tie-in with the 2002
Spider-Man
movie, although it’s unclear why Marvel Comics decided to team Spidey with the 52-year-old talk show host. The plot: Spider-Man and Leno meet to film a commercial for General Motors (the company paid for the product placement), but get attacked by ninjas. Using kung fu and a samurai sword, Leno helps defeat the ninjas.

DRACULA
.
In 1966 Dell Comics tried to capitalize on the popularity of Batman by reimagining the classic vampire as a superhero. Instead of sucking blood and terrorizing people, Dracula is independently wealthy, lives in a secret cave, has a female sidekick, and devotes his time to exposing phony psychics. Along the way he teams up with Frankenstein’s monster, who also has a new image as “the world’s strongest hero.”

SUPERGIRL, IN COOPERATION WITH THE NATIONAL SAFETY BELT CAMPAIGN
.
Plot: Supergirl (Superman’s cousin) transports her mind into another dimension to retrieve the soul of a man who’s in a coma after being in a car crash while not wearing a seat belt. The 1984 comic also includes a note from Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole urging kids to buckle up. The whole thing was paid for by Honda and was distributed to schools by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI
.
In this 1978 comic, Clark Kent interviews Ali while he’s teaching a bunch of kids how to play basketball. Suddenly an evil alien invades Earth, challenging Superman to a death match. Ali wants to be the one to battle the alien and defend Earth, so he challenges Superman to a fight. That match-up never happens—Ali’s cornerman disguises himself as Superman and fights (and loses to) Ali, so the real Superman, dressed up as Ali’s cornerman (in blackface) can go vanquish the alien.

PERSONALITY COMICS PRESENTS PAULINA PORIZKOVA
.
Personality Comics was a publisher with a novel idea: celebrity biographies, presented as comic books. It might have worked, too, except that for their first issue (in 1991) they chose model Paulina Porizkova, who was not exactly a household name. Another problem: The poorly drawn, black-and-white pictures looked nothing like Porizkova. There was no second issue.

CAPTAIN BIO ENCOUNTERS A BRAINSTORM
.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the makers of the epilepsy drug Tegretol, commissioned this comic in 1994. It’s about the brilliant Dr. Mark Phillips, who is working on a brainwave-reading invention called the Bio-Meter when he gets struck by lightning. Transformed into Captain Bio, he goes inside a human brain to show the reader how epileptic seizures happen…and how Tegretol fights them off.

CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT
.
Michigan textbook publisher Behaviordelia Inc. was looking for a way to appeal to youth culture. So in 1973 they released this psychology book on “behavioral analysis and contingency management,” rendered entirely in comic book form. Somehow they forgot that professors, not students, choose textbooks;
Contingency Management
flopped.

POPEYE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CAREERS
.
Popeye the Sailor Man debuted in the 1920s. What did he have to do with the environment or job training? Nothing. But in 1973 he was used in this comic book to convince kids to go into careers like river cleanup and trash disposal. As Popeye says on the cover, “Hey kids, you can help make this country a better place to live, and get paid well for doing it!”

DI ANOTHER DAY.
X-Statix
is Marvel Comics’ British equivalent of
X-Men
, both dealing with teams of crime-fighting superheroes. In 2003 head writer Peter Milligan announced that a new superhero would join the X-Statix team: a zombie Princess Diana. In a story called “Di Another Day,” Diana fends off assassination attempts from both the royal family and X-Statix, who gets jealous when the new member gets all the media attention. After complaints from the real royal family, Diana was replaced by “Henrietta Hunter,” a fictional pop star (who looked just like Princess Diana).

The BRI library boasts a huge collection of odd cleaning tips. Here are a few tricks that even the cleanest of our clean-freak readers may not have heard about
.

I
N THE KITCHEN
• Cleaning the Microwave:
Fill a spray bottle with water and spritz the inside of the microwave. Then run the microwave for five to seven seconds. (No more than that!) This will heat the water enough to loosen the stains on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the microwave, making cleanup easier.

• Dirty Blenders and Garbage Disposals:
You can clean any residual goo off the blades of these appliances with ice—just toss some cubes into the blender or disposal and run it until the ice is crushed. To further clean the garbage disposal, pour a large pot of boiling water down it while it’s running, follow up with some liquid soap mixed with lemon juice, and rinse with a second round of boiling water. This should improve the disposal’s performance… and its smell.

• Coffee or Tea Stains in Your Favorite Cup or Mug:
Mix baking soda with a little salt and water to create a paste; then use a sponge to scour the inside of the mug with the mixture. You’ll be surprised (we hope!) how quickly those stubborn stains disappear.

• Burnt Food in a Pot or Frying Pan:
A baking soda paste—this time without salt—can work wonders here, too. Rub the paste onto the stain and let sit for at least three hours (overnight is even better). Then try scrubbing the stain out. If you still can’t get it all up, mix two tablespoons of baking soda and a 1/2 cup of vinegar with a cup of water, doubling or tripling the formula, if necessary, to immerse the burnt section of the pan. Bring to a boil and keep it there for 10–15 minutes. If that doesn’t get out the scorched food, nothing will.

• Removing Fish and Other Smells From Cutting Boards:
Cut a fresh lemon in half and rub vigorously with the grain. The acid in
the lemon will help to break down the offensive odors, leaving nothing behind but the smell of the lemon.

• Smelly Refrigerators:
Just about everybody knows that an open box of baking soda helps to remove odors from a smelly fridge, but did you know that it’s not just the baking soda? The cardboard box has odor-absorbing properties, too. If you’re in the habit of pouring the powdery stuff into a prettier container before you put it in the refrigerator, don’t! It probably isn’t worth the trouble.

• Smelly Kitchens in General:
If you’ve got 1) company coming and 2) an orange and some cloves handy, poke as many cloves as you can into the unpeeled orange and set it on a plate. The clovey orange will give your kitchen a tantalizing scent that will probably last longer than your guests’ visit.

•
Wax-Encrusted Candleholders:
You’ve got two choices with this one: Start by placing the candleholders under hot running water to melt off the wax. If that doesn’t work, put the candleholder in the freezer and leave it there for at least two hours. The frozen, hardened wax will be much easier to remove.

• Ink Stains in the Carpet:
Spray the stain with alcohol-based hair spray. (Sounds risky, but experts swear by it.) While it’s drying, soak a clean cloth in a solution of three parts water to one part white vinegar. (Don’t even
think
of using red-wine vinegar!) When the hair spray is dry, wring out the cloth and use it to wipe up the ink. (This method also works on fabrics and clothing, too).

• Rocking Chair Marks on Wooden Floors:
The next time you’re cleaning or polishing your floors, turn your rocker on its side and apply furniture polish to the parts of the rocker that contact the floor when the chair is in motion.

• Dog-doo on the Carpet:
Clean up as much as the mess as you can with paper towels, then spray the area with shaving cream and let sit for 5–10 minutes before wiping up with an old sponge. Next, pour some club soda on the soiled area, let it fizz, then mop it up. Dab the area with a sponge rinsed in cold water; repeat if necessary.

• Cleaning Ashes From the Fireplace:
Ashes can be a surprisingly effective fireplace-glass cleaner. If you have glass screens or
doors on the fireplace, before you remove the ashes, dip a damp cloth in them and use the cloth to wipe down the glass. Then wipe off the glass with a
clean
damp cloth. Then use a spritzer bottle filled with clean water to spray down the rest of the ashes before you shovel them out of the fireplace—this will help keep the dust down during this dirty task.

• Algae in Gravity-Fed Water Dishes:
Do you have one of those pet water dishes that holds several days’ worth of water in an upright container that flows into a dish? If you use it outside, algae can grow inside it. The next time you change the water, dump a handful of uncooked rice into the vessel and fill it about 1/3 full with water. Using the palm of your hand to seal the vessel, shake it vigorously up and down. The grains of rice will scour the algae off the inside of the container. When you’re finished, empty out the water and rice and refill with clean, fresh water. Your pet will thank you.

• Ornate, Carved Wooden Furniture That Collects a Lot of Dust:
Forget ordinary dust cloths—they don’t work fast enough. Take a brand new paintbrush with soft bristles, spray it with dust-collecting spray and brush the dust away. Brushing won’t take nearly as long as dusting.

• Make Wooden Tabletops Shine:
Why settle for anything less than a mirror finish? Pick up one of those electric shoe-polish buffers and use it instead of an ordinary rag the next time you’re applying furniture polish to the table.