Free Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

designed to hold bears would be sufficient to house gorillas. Wrong. In October 2000, a gorilla named Evelyn took a running jump, grabbed a hanging vine, and vaulted over a 15-foot-wide moat. For the next hour, Evelyn leisurely wandered around the zoo, visiting the orangutan, giraffe, and elephant houses. She also played in flower gardens, rummaged through garbage cans, and played hide-and-seek with the frantic zookeepers trying to catch her. Evelyn broke out several more times, even after the walls of her enclosure were raised. The Los Angeles Zoo finally gave up and sent her to a new home in the Denver Zoo, from which she continues to escape.
    The word “galaxy” comes from the Greek gala , for “milk.”
    PLANT A TREE, SAVE A PRIMATE
    After Jonathan the orangutan escaped from his enclosure numerous times, the Los Angeles Zoo designed a state-of-the-art, escape-proof outdoor habitat. They were so sure it would hold Jonathan, they arranged for local officials and reporters to witness him enter his new home for the first time. Bad idea: as zookeepers, dignitaries, visitors, and the media watched in disbelief, the ape went straight to a tree, uprooted it, leaned it against a wall, and climbed out.
    BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WIRES
    After the headaches Jonathan caused in Los Angeles, the Kansas City Zoo didn’t take any chances with Jonathan’s son, Joseph. Keepers lined the ground around Joseph’s enclosure with electrified wires, which would give Joseph a potent jolt should he ever try to break out. It didn’t work. He took an old rubber tire he’d been given as a toy, laid it across the wires, and simply walked to freedom. Nobody even noticed that he was gone until visitors found him in the petting zoo playing with the sheep.
    GREEN THUMBS
    An orangutan in a Texas zoo figured out how to overcome the electric fence around his cage. He ripped out big chunks of grass from the ground and held them in his hands and feet. Using them as insulating mittens, he climbed over the electrified wires without getting zapped.
    GIMME A “C,” GIMME AN “H,” GIMME AN “I”...
    Resembling a cheerleading squad, chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands formed a pyramid to collectively escape from their pen. They stacked on top of each other until they were high enough to scale the walls. The first one to the top then reached down and helped the others get out.

    Zoologist Ben Beck once said that if you give a screwdriver to a chimpanzee, it will use the tool for everything except its intended purpose. A gorilla will first be scared of it, then try to eat it, and finally forget about it. An orangutan, however, will hide it and then, when the coast is clear, use it to dismantle the cage.
    There are no rhymes in the English language for orange, silver, or purple.

CELEBRITY TWO-TIMERS
    One of the nice things about living in anonymity is that if you make a mess of your private life, the whole world doesn’t have to find out about it. Here’s what can happen when your private life is made public .
    J ACQUES COUSTEAU
    Claim to Fame: Oceanographer, inventor of the aqualung, and host of TV’s The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau from 1968 to 1976.
    Secret Life: Not long after Cousteau’s wife of 50 years, Simone, passed away in 1990, the famous oceanographer revealed to his son, Jean-Michel, that he’d been carrying on a 13-year affair with a former flight attendant named Francine Triplet, and had fathered two children by her. Cousteau married Triplet in 1991, and his relationship with Jean-Michel, already tense, soon got worse.
    A year later, Cousteau transferred control of his nonprofit Cousteau Society to his new wife, prompting Jean-Michel to resign in protest. When Cousteau passed away in 1997, Francine Cousteau seized full control of the Cousteau Society, appointing herself president and chairwoman and reserving for herself “the exclusive use of the Cousteau name.” Cousteau’s children and grandchildren from his