Free Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

together.
    Sorry, mom. What were you thinking with this one? A popular variation on this one is that gum takes seven years to digest. Please. Stomach acid is as strong as toilet bowl cleaner and can liquefy chewing gum in no time.
    If you crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis.
    Yes. No. Maybe So. Clinicians have found that cracking your knuckles pushes joints past their normal range of motion and puts stress on the ligamentsand tendons that hold the joint together. Cracking your knuckles for a period of years could result in inflamed, arthritic knuckle joints.
    Eat slowly and chew your food.
    True. Eating too fast can lead to painful acid reflux disease. People can die choking on a piece of food. Plus chewing more slowly really allows you to taste your food.
    If you cross your eyes, they might stay that way.
    Nah, give up, mom. Keeping your eyes crossed for a while may cause a temporary spasm of the eye muscles, but this condition usually passes shortly. The condition called “cross-eye” often begins at birth. It isn’t related to voluntarily crossing your eyes.
    Nobody likes a smart mouth.
    Oh please, mom! Why do millions love to watch Leno and Letterman? Sorry, mom, you’re wrong. But then, as you’d be the first to advise us—nobody’s perfect!
    “I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing. . . . Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, ‘I told you so.’” —Erma Bombeck, Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession

Lucky or Lethal Livia?
    Did Livia really poison her son’s rivals to the throne?
    O h, the glory that was Rome! Those ancient marble palaces, statues, arches, and baths; the feasts and festivities—they were to die for! Unfortunately, plenty of people did—die, that is. Especially if they crossed the ambitions of regal first lady Livia. Did Livia kill off her husband and her step-grandchildren so that her son Tiberius would rule the Roman Empire? Was she one of history’s most murderous and manipulative moms? Or was powerful Livia the victim of bad press?
POWER GRABBY
    Born in 58 BC into a noble Roman family, beautiful Livia Drusilla was married with one son, Tiberius, and another on the way. She was fortunate enough to strike the fancy of a very powerful but unhappily married man, Octavian, the adopted son and heir of Julius Caesar, who wanted her for his bride. Livia’s husband was “persuaded” to divorce her. Once Octavian divorced his first wife, the scandalous pair was married in 38 BC. Livia later gave birth to her second son, Drusus, after her marriage to Octavian.
PROMOTING FAMILY VALUES
    Octavian took power and became emperor in 27 BC when the Roman senate proclaimed him Augustus Caesar, ruler of the empire and a divine descendant of the gods ofRome. Augustus’s reign lasted 45 years and Livia was his first lady throughout. Unfortunately, their marriage never produced any children, but the union survived.
    Livia was an ideal politician’s wife. She sponsored charities, dedicated buildings, and presented a public image of the humble wife and mother. Actually, Augustus relied on Livia to help him in affairs of state. She even wielded his personal seal, signing orders for him when he was away. Livia had so much power at home, some said that although Augustus ruled Rome, Livia ruled Augustus.
MURD’HEIRS?
    Though Livia publicly helped Augustus promote family values, privately she may have been poisoning the family—her husband’s family, that is. Livia wanted to put her son Tiberius on the throne, but Augustus kept picking males from his own line to rule when he was gone. Augustus may have listened to Livia’s advice, but when it came to succession, he certainly had his own ideas.
    First, Augustus picked his nephew and stepson, Marcellus, to