Free Uncle John’s Briefs by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page A

that locks up both the rudder and the elevator and is supposed to be used only on the ground.
    Beck was obviously confused when the DC-4 started climbing…and climbing…and kept climbing, no matter what he did. Beck tried everything he could think of, but he couldn’t level the plane out. Finally, suppressing his laughter, Captain Sisto decided that the joke had gone on long enough and unlocked the gust lock. Bad idea: while trying to correct the plane’s altitude, Beck had left the controls set to an extreme position. Once the gust lock was off, the airplane went straight into a nose dive.
    The sudden lurch threw Sisto and Beck, who were not strapped in, out of their seats. They hit the ceiling—which happened to be where the propeller controls were located—and shut off three of the four engines. This actually turned out to be a good thing, because shutting off the propellers slowed the plane’s descent and allowed copilot Logan, who was strapped in, to level the plane just 350 feet from the ground. They made an emergency landing in El Paso, Texas.
    Many of the passengers were injured, but none seriously. At first, the three pilots claimed that the autopilot had failed, but after a lengthy investigation, Sisto finally confessed to his ill-conceived practical joke.
    He was fired.
Since Neptune was discovered in 1846, it has made about 3/4 of one orbit of the sun.

UNCLE JOHN’S
STALL OF FAME
    You’d be amazed at the number of newspaper articles BRI members send in about the creative ways people get involved with bathrooms, toilets, toilet paper, etc. So we created Uncle John’s “Stall of Fame.”
    H onoree: Will Simmons, a freshman at Duke University
Notable Achievement: Turning toilet paper into a political issue
True Story: In his first year at Duke, Simmons discovered that the toilets in his dorm were outfitted with single-ply toilet paper. Outraged, he decided to run for a seat in the student government. His single campaign platform: a promise that students would get two-ply paper in dorm bathrooms.
    Simmons won, of course—students know what’s important. After the election, university housing officials pledged to cooperate.
    Honoree: Donna Summer, pop singer
    Notable Achievement: Writing a Top 10 song in the bathroom
    True Story: At a posh hotel, Summer was washing her hands in the ladies’ room. She mused to herself that the washroom attendant there had to work awfully hard for her money. It suddenly hit Summer that she had a song title. So she rushed into a stall and wrote lyrics for it. “She Works Hard for the Money” was an international hit that went to #3 on the Billboard chart in 1983.
    Honoree: Jacob Feinzilberg, a San Jose, California, inventor
    Notable Achievement: Inventing the ultimate port-a-potty
    True Story: In 1993 Feinzilberg came up with the Inflate-a-Potty, a toilet so portable it can actually fit in a purse. It can be inflated in seconds and is used with an ordinary eight-gallon kitchen bag as a disposable liner. He came up with the idea for it at a picnic when his young daughter suddenly “heard nature’s call and found no place to answer it.”
The Bible was written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.
    Honorees: Philip Middleton and Richard Wooton of Chantilly, Virginia
    Notable Achievement: Creating a “commode for dogs”
    True Story: According to a 1993 news report, it’s called the Walk-Me-Not. The dog walks up stairs at the side of the bathroom toilet, steps onto a platform over the toilet bowl, and squats down to use.
    Honorees: Chiu Chiu-kuei and Lee Wong-tsong, a Taiwanese couple
    Notable Achievement: Creating a public bathroom nice enough for a wedding…and then getting married in it
    True Story: In the mid-1990s, Chiu Chiu-kuei designed, and her fiancé Lee Wong-tsong built, a bathroom for a public park in the city of Taichung. According to news reports: “The couple said the lavatory, complete with elaborate decoration, had cost about $1 million