Read Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers' Institute
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (17 page)
As collectors from around the world queued up to bid on the items from the New York sale, the auctioneers estimated they’d fetch about $500,000. Turns out they grossly underestimated just how crazy some people will go for anything (no matter how seemingly insignificant) that has “celebrity” status.
HEY BIDDER, BIDDER…SWWWING, BIDDER!
Auction item:
A blue satin New York Mets baseball team jacket with “Madoff” stitched on the back in orange. (Ironically, team owner Fred Wilpon was one of Madoff’s victims.)
Estimated value:
$720
Sold for:
$14,500
New definition of “ladylike?” King Henry VIII’s ladies at court had a ration of one gallon of beer per day
.
Auction items:
A Lady Hermes brown suede handbag that belonged to Madoff’s wife, Ruth, plus two other purses.
Estimated value:
$210
Sold for:
$1,900
Auction items:
Three boogie boards, one with “Madoff” written on it with a black marker.
Estimated value:
$80
Sold for:
$1,000
Auction item:
A set of Madoff’s personalized golf clubs (irons only).
Estimated value:
$350
Sold for:
$3,600
Auction item:
A pair of Ruth Madoff’s diamond Victorian dangle earrings.
Estimated value:
$20,000
Sold for:
$70,000
Auction item:
A 1960 Hofstra University ring engraved with “BM.”
Estimated value:
$360
Sold for:
$6,000
Auction item:
A black leather Mont Blanc wallet embossed with “BM.”
Estimated value:
$100
Sold for:
$2,200
EVERYTHING ELSE MUST GO
At later auctions, Madoff’s 61-foot yacht,
Bull
, fetched nearly $1 million; his 38-foot-long boat,
Sitting Bull
, sold for $320,000; and his 21-foot-long
Little Bull
brought in $21,000. Some other Madoff items that collectors made off with: hockey trading cards, a “Bernard Madoff Investment Securities” pen, a Tiffany silver key ring monogrammed “BLM,” and the Madoffs’ Christofle flatware engraved “RMB.” And then there was Madoff’s 18-carat-gold Rolex “Prisoner Watch,” inspired by the steel watches given to Allied prisoners of war in Germany during World War II. The Prisoner Watch sold for $65,000 (or about the cost of two years’ worth of room-and-board to imprison Madoff).
In the end, the auctions earned about $3 million for the victims—a tiny fraction of what Madoff had stolen from them.
SWINDLER’S TWIST
Following on the heels of the official Bernie Madoff auctions, several
unofficial
“Bernie Madoff Auctions” took place around the country…in much less posh hotels and community centers. Each of these auctions promised bidders a piece of the Madoff pie. The only problem: None of them offered any items that had actually belonged to Madoff. Atlanta-based Southern Star Auctioneers—which held a sale in Syracuse, New York—said they never claimed to be selling Madoff’s personal items, just stuff that belonged to his
victims
. But an investigation by the U.S. Marshals discovered that the items didn’t even belong to the victims. In some of the other bogus auctions, organizers forged the stockbroker’s name on the items: They sold $20 fountain pens for hundreds, even thousands of dollars…proving that even though he’s behind bars, Bernie Madoff is still able to part people from their money.
CRAZY WORLD RECORDS
• At an Illinois summer camp in 2001, 297 people flossed their teeth…with a piece of dental floss that measured 1,500 feet long.
• Ten Royal Marines from England hold the record for pushing around an adult dressed up like a baby: 271.7 miles in 24 hours.
• In 1999 Dustin Phillips of Los Angeles sucked an entire bottle of Heinz ketchup through a straw in 33 seconds.
• As part of a stunt on
The Ricki Lake Show
in 2001, a couple kissed for a record 31 hours.
• Timothy Badyna ran the Toledo (Ohio) Marathon in 1994 backward—that’s 26.2 miles in four hours, which would even be an excellent time if he ran it forward.
Studies show: The chances of having a left-handed baby increase with every ultrasound the mother has
.
With flesh-eating monsters devouring everything from Jane Austen to Louisville, Kentucky, it seems like dead is the new living
.
T
HE ZOMBEES ARE COMMING!
In April 2009, the BBC’s news site reported that the swine flu virus, H1N1, had mutated into “H1Z1.” It could
…restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”
The story prompted a few concerned calls to the BBC, but the bad grammar, along with the date it appeared (April 1st), was a dead giveaway that this was a fake Web site designed to look like the BBC’s real site. No panic ensued.
THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!
For one crazy night each August, up to 3,000 zombies gather in Louisville, Kentucky, and stagger through downtown, swarming pedestrians, cars, even city buses. It’s the “Louisville Zombie Attack,” billed as the U.S.’s “first and oldest” undead gathering (started in 2005 by three friends who love zombie movies). Although the event—which also features zombies dancing to DJ music—is all in fun, the organizers ask that you plan ahead with your friends so that “only consenting participants are attacked.”
NOT EXACTLY THRILLER
In 2006 a group of staggering partygoers dressed as zombies raised the suspicion of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Why? These “undead” were carrying backpacks that had wires sticking out of them…so police arrested them on suspicion of possessing “simulated weapons of mass destruction.” It turned out that the wires were part of a stereo system for their “Zombie Dance Party.” Once they convinced officers that they weren’t carrying explosives, the weapons charges were dropped. But a few were cited for disorderly conduct for stumbling down the street like they were in “some kind of Michael Jackson video.”
In scientific circles, the collision that formed the moon is known as the Big Whack
.
SIGN OF THE DEAD
In early 2009, after an unknown trickster hacked into computerized road signs in Austin, Texas, motorists saw signs that warned them: “CAUTION! ZOMBIES AHEAD!!!,” “RUN FOR COLD CLIMATES!!!,” and “THE END IS NEAR!!!” Although most commuters said they were amused by the sign, the City of Austin was not. If caught, the culprit faces jail time and a $500 fine. “When you change a sign, you’re endangering people,” said one city official. (And in the future, citizens might be less inclined to believe the signs in the case of an actual zombie attack.)
UNDEAD AUTHOR’S SOCIETY
In 2009 author Seth Grahame-Smith took Jane Austen’s 1813 masterpiece
Pride and Prejudice
and added his own “zombie mayhem.” Result:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
, a surprise best seller. The hybrid novel is 85% Austen’s work and 15% Grahame-Smith’s gory sensibilities, staying true to the original plot of star-crossed lovers, except for a few forays into zombie-killing, corpse disposal…and ninjas.
Z-SCHOOL
Harvard University psychiatrist Dr. Steven Schlozman’s fascination with movie zombies led him to write an academic paper on the subject. The study analyzes years of (movie) data and details why zombies behave the way they do. His findings:
• Zombies are slow-witted because they have only enough frontallobe activity left in their brains to “sense” other zombies or humans.
• The
amygdala
(the part of the brain that controls emotional reactions) also influences zombies, so they “can only be fueled by rage.” And reasoning with them is useless, Schlozman notes, because it’s like “being mad at a crocodile” for wanting to eat you.
• Other cerebral deficiencies account for their slow walk, lumbering movements, lack of fear, and insatiable appetites.
• Why do zombies moan? Because they’re constipated, writes Schlozman: “They never seem to poop.”
According to Univ. of Ottawa mathematicians, humanity is unlikely to survive a zombie epidemic
.
Just last week, Uncle John got fined $50 for letting his duck off its leash. He thought that was weird—until he saw what these people got fined for
.
I
n September 2009, Mishka Gamble of Cairns, Queensland, Australia, was fined $200 for owning two unregistered dogs. The problem: They were fiberglass dogs that were standing in her yard. “I’ve got a fiberglass pig and sheep,” Gamble said. “Do I need to register them, too?” She refused to pay the fine.
• A waitress in the city of Klagenfurt, Austria, was fined the equivalent of nearly $800 after serving a table of guests industrial-strength cleaning detergent. She claimed that she thought it was schnapps. One of the guests (the one who wasn’t already drunk, we’re guessing) refused to drink the shot of liquid because it “smelled funny.” But the rest of the party drank the toxic drinks and had to be taken to the hospital. The waitress said she was simply overworked and had grabbed the wrong bottle.
• A Charlotte, North Carolina, guitar teacher named Bob Teixeira spent $1,200 converting his 1981 diesel Mercedes to make it run on vegetable oil. His reward for making his car more environmentally friendly: The state of North Carolina fined him $1,000—because he wasn’t buying gasoline, and therefore wasn’t paying gasoline taxes. The federal government fined him an additional $1,000. To top it off, North Carolina officials told Teixeira he owed the state a $2,500 fee imposed on “small fuel users.” The fines were later reduced, but Teixeira still had to pay $2,500.
• In March 2008, Boulder, Colorado, hairstylist Joy Douglas was fined $1,000 for dyeing her poodle pink. A Boulder law says that “No person shall dye or color live fowl, rabbits, or any other animals.” Douglas fought the fine, saying she used natural products like beet juice to dye the dog in support of a campaign for breast-cancer awareness. The city later ruled that Douglas wouldn’t have to pay the fine…as long as she refrained from dyeing animals for the next six months.
Only two animals get prostate cancer: male humans and male dogs. Woof!