Uncle John's Bathroom Reader

You've probably all been wondering where the heck I've been lately. I can hear the chorus of questions now:

"How come he hasn't posted anything lately?"

"Did he forget about us?"

"Just HOW many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

Well, unbunch your undies, I'm here. Usually a topic just pops up and grabs me then pulls me to my computer and demands I start writing - at gunpoint. Since I last wrote, Thanksgiving, Christmas and various other holidays have come and gone and New Year's Eve is tomorrow. In other words, there's been nothing to write about. However, I DID find something that caught my eye and it's currently holding me here at my computer - at gunpoint, no less.

Have you ever heard of the Uncle John's Bathroom books? If you haven't, get your narrow behind to the book store and quickly buy up every copy on the shelf. Uncle John has been putting out a new volume every year for the past 18 years or so, full of wild stories, anecdotes and my favorite of all - fun facts. He's also put out many other titles covering a similar style on history, weather, science, Hollywood...well, you get the picture. I currently have a metric ton of his books in my bathroom, so there is no room to shower. The sacrifices we make.

One book that I can, and have, read several times over is Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts and Bizarre Information. It's virtually perfect save for the fact the title could have been a little longer. For the Tidbit Maven, the Baron of Useless Information and the Cliff Clavin in all of us, let's have a look-see at some of what Uncle John and the gang at The Bathroom Reader's Institute have prepared for us:

Women have a keener sense of smell than men - Well, they didn't have the benefit of pulling each others' fingers or being in a car in the dead of winter with their drinking buddies as everyone unloads a blast of beer farts at each other. Such things can render your sense of smell legally dead.

The average American develops his or her first phobia at age 13 - How unlucky can you get?

Ernest Hemingway's rules for manhood: plant a tree, fight a bull, write a book, have a son - Well, three out of four ain't bad as far as my life is concerned. I've fought a tree, planted a book and written a lot of bull.

The ancient Sumerians had a goddess of beer - Little known fact is that the entire Sumerian civilization was made up of frat boys.

The world's longest earthworms...can grow to as long as 12 feet and as thick as a soda can - In other words, he's your typical AOL chatroom male.

The average office chair with wheels will travel eight miles this year - Constantly having to move the office eight miles down the road is the biggest expense in the modern-day business world.

Sixty-one percent of American students find school boring - Ninety-one percent of American teachers agree.

In July 2004 Colin Powell sang and danced to "YMCA" for foreign ministers at an Asian security summit in Indonesia - There is nothing I can add that would make this more humorous.

The Pentagon uses up 666 rolls of toilet paper on an average day - Finally, something I have in common with our government.

Charles Darwin's cousin invented the IQ test - The idea came to him from a burning bush.

There are six pounds of pennies in the average American home - And they're all wedged under your couch cushions.

Spiders can eat their own weight in one meal - Just like Britney Spears.

When asked to name the odor that best defines America, 39 percent of Americans said "barbecue" - 38 percent said "new-car smell". 10 percent said "beer farts".

Three percent of all photographs taken in the U.S. are taken at Disneyland or Disney World - In 1978, my dad accounted for 50% of those photos.

An alligator has a brain the size of your thumb - Just like Britney Spears.

Three percent of all English surnames are derived from animal names - So, if your name is Calvin Rhinoceros, Edwina Cuttlefish or Reg Llama, you're probably the only one in the history of this great planet. Unless you're a "Junior".

If you feed beer to a laboratory rat, it will live six times longer than a rat that drinks only water - And it will never move out of his mother's basement.

Difficult, Tennessee, gets its name because its residents couldn't agree on a name for the town - "Screw You, Buddy, Tennessee" and "Up Yours, Tennessee" came in second and third place, respectively.

Leonardo de Vinci figured out that the rings of a tree reveal its age - Only years later, did scientists think of just asking the tree for some I.D.

Cats sweat through their paws - So does the average interview candidate.

Christopher Columbus' fee for "discovering" America: about $300 - And worth almost every penny.

Americans eat 4 million pounds of bacon and 175 million eggs every day - Just like Britney Spears.

Peru's Inca Indians were the first to cultivate potatoes, around 200 B.C. - Finally someone to blame for curly fries.

J, the youngest letter in the English alphabet, was not added until the 1600s - The hazing it received from the letters "I" and "K" was legendary.

Ice covers about 15 percent of the earth's landmass - Just like...well, you know who.

And that's just a small sample of the most amazing, mind-blowing useless information you'll find in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts and Bizarre Information. Amaze your friends! Bore co-workers! Initiate your divorce! It's all there for you, and if that doesn't work, don't worry - there'll be another one next year! Not one of my better efforts, but I was under the gun to get an essay out this month. Speaking of which, just remember that the United States is first in the world in gun ownership per capita. Finland is second.

Well, nature calls and I have an Uncle John's book in hand. It's gonna get ugly - quick.

Just like Britney Spears.