A column full of bathroom humor

I figure by this time at least some of my readers are probably getting a bit tired of hearing about how folks keep slaughtering the King’s English. So I decided to take a different tack with this column and get back to another subject dear to my heart, that being unusual, interesting, and even bizarre, pieces of information about our world and those who inhabit it.

Well, maybe I should say universe, since some of these tidbits are definitely out of this world.

My sources for this column include two of my favorite tomes, ‘The Book of Answers: The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service’s Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions,’ by Barbara Berliner, with Melinda Corey and George Ochoa, and ‘This Book of More Perfectly Useless Information,’ by Mitchell Symons.

Now, as I was transcribing the titles of these books, something popped into my mind quite involuntarily, and at the risk of being somewhat indelicate, I feel compelled to pass it along. What I was thinking was that I would include these books in a certain sub-genre of literature that has become popular over the last few decades. A sub-genre that has even, rather unceremoniously I might add, been given a name: Bathroom Readers.

I began to notice these books showing up in book stores, under various titling schemes, several years ago. One of the most common, and obviously popular, series was called, not too originally in my view, ‘Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.’ ‘Uncle John’s’…get it? Well, of course you get it. Who wouldn’t get it?

Anyhow, these books include trivia and short essays on miscellaneous topics which are designed to be read in, shall we say, one sitting.

Now, one might think these books would be filled mainly with relatively mindless bits of information that required little thought, but were nice to know if you wanted to impress someone at a party with your knowledge of which planet is third from the sun, which, admittedly, most people should already know because we’re sitting on it.

But lately I’ve begun to notice some versions of these books that are a bit surprising to me. For instance, for all you computer nerds who love Apple computers, there is now a book available on Amazon.com called, I’m not kidding, ‘The Mac Bathroom Reader’ by Mac expert Owen W. Linzmayer. And for all you audio aficionados out there, who are readers of ‘Mix’ magazine, there is a book titled ‘The Insider Audio Bathroom Reader,’ by Paul D. Lehrman.

And I’m sure there is probably a ‘bathroom reader’ for every hobby or special interest group.

But I digress. On to the useless, but interesting, information. Well, actually here’s one that’s kind of useful. It’s from the New York library answer line.

Q: How are U.S. highways numbered?

A: Odd-numbered highways move north and south, while even numbered run east and west. Highways with one- or two-digit numbers are through routes, often long ones used for distance driving, Route 66 for instance. Three-digit routes that begin with an even number are usually beltways around a city. Three-digit routes that begin with an odd number are spur routes in a city or town.

And here’s a couple of cool movie star quotes from the ‘Perfectly Useless Information’ book.

‘An actor’s a guy who, if you’re not talking about him, he ain’t listening.’ (Marlon Brando)

‘Acting is not an important job. Plumbing is.’ (Spencer Tracy)

Hmm, maybe these guys are wiser than I thought.

Charlie Johnson is news editor of the Standard and can be reached at 473-2191.