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

Road with Charles Kuralt .
    Secret Life: Kuralt passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from an autoimmune disease called lupus in 1997. Had he lived long enough to put his financial affairs in order, the biggest secret of his life might never have become known: for nearly 30 years, he’d carried on a relationship with a woman named Patricia Shannon and had supported her financially to the tune of $80,000 a year.
    Shannon lived in a cabin that she and Kuralt had built at his 110-acre fishing retreat in Montana. Kuralt had promised to leave it to her upon his death and had even given her a notarized letter to that effect. In fact, he was in the process of transferring ownership to her when he died, but he passed away before the transaction was complete...so his wife and daughters inherited it.
    Kuralt’s wife of 35 years apparently had no inkling of his secret life until Shannon showed up at his funeral with the notarized letter and tried to stake her claim on the fishing retreat. When that failed, Shannon filed suit against the estate, and her relationship with Kuralt became public.
    Update: Shannon won. Not only did she inherit the cabin and the 110 acres, but Kuralt’s daughters (his widow had since passed away) were ordered to pay $350,000 in property taxes out of their share of the estate.
    Yuck! Cockroaches have white blood.

UNCLE JOHN’S STALL OF FAME
    Uncle John is amazed—and pleased—by the unusual way people get involved with bathrooms, toilets, toilet paper, and so on. That’s why he created the “Stall of Fame.”
    H onoree: Heraclio “Rocky” Nazarano, deputy press secretary for Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
    Notable Achievement: Getting lost on the way to the airplane lavatory
    True Story: In September 2003, Nazarano was on a chartered flight from Paris to Manila with President Arroyo when he had to pee. So he got up from his seat and made his way to the restroom. At least that’s what Nazarano thought he was doing. It turns out he’d had a little too much to drink, mistook the emergency exit door for the toilet, and peed on it.
    Nazarano was mortified when he sobered up. “How I wish I could deny it,” he said in a cell phone text message to reporters. “But it was a moment of weakness. I deeply apologize about all the shattered expectations.”
    Honoree: Cody Yaeger, 10, a fourth grader at Jamestown Elementary School in Hudsonville, Michigan
    Notable Achievement: Striking it rich in the bathroom...and being honest enough to report it
    True Story: In May 2004, Cody was making a pit stop at school when he found something unusual inside a roll of toilet paper—a neatly folded $100 bill. The bill was so perfectly tucked into the roll that it seemed like it must have been put there by someone at the toilet paper factory. Cody knew the money didn’t belong to him, so he took it to a teacher.
    The school’s lost-and-found policy states that if, after two weeks, nobody claims the item, the person who found it gets to keep it. Two weeks later, no one had claimed the money so Cody became $100 richer. His mom, Terri, says she isn’t surprised that he acted so honestly. “When it comes to school or church, when he finds something, he turns it in,” she says. “But if it has anything to do with his sister, he’ll keep it.”
    American kids make about $8.6 million per year in allowance.
    Honoree: Monica Bonvicini, an Italian artist
    Notable Achievement: Turning a toilet into “performance art”
    True Story: In December 2003, Bonvicini had a stainless-steel toilet installed on the sidewalk across the street from the Tate Britain, a national museum in London. Then she had it enclosed in a cubicle made entirely of one-way glass, and opened it to the public. Result: People using the toilet can see out, but people outside can’t see in—it looks like a big mirrored cube stuck in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course anyone inside has the feeling of doing their business right out in the