The Value of a Dollar

Dear Reader: I encourage you to read the following story. It has an important lesson. It also describes an event when I threw up several times.

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I come from a long line of teachers. My father was a teacher, and my father’s father was an astronaut. (Okay, I lied about it being a long line.) Anyway, in the summertime, my father would usually get a job to keep himself busy until school started again.

The problem was that Dad assumed that since he was working, his kids should work, too. The nerve of that guy! The fact of the matter was that the last thing I wanted to do in the summer was work.

            When I was twelve, my father got a summer job for which he needed a “helper.” The job was to deliver newspapers in the early morning. What made this sound good was that Dad said that he would share a portion of his earnings with his helper.

 Ha ha! Money! I thought gleefully.

Dad even made the job sound fun: “It’ll be the middle of the night! Nobody will be on the road, and we can finish the job and be back in bed with money in our pockets before anyone gets up!”

Even though this was complete baloney, I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. With greedy visions  of MONEY ($ Cha-ching! $), I eagerly volunteered for the job.

I’ll be rich! I thought.

One part of the job I had not considered was my tendency for car-sickness. Back then, I tended to feel queasy if a street had a lot of twists and turns. (We called a street like this a “twisty-turny.”) As luck would have it, our delivery route was in a hilly district, with lots of  “twisty-turnies.”

Dad woke me at 3:30 A.M. It was the middle of the night. I already felt sick to my stomach. He guided me downstairs to our VW Bug. By the time we made it to the newspaper pick-up site and loaded up the newspapers, I was feeling green.

            Then the nightmare began.

            Dad’s philosophy was that it was best to finish the newspaper delivery route as fast as possible. The orange VW Bug rocketed up and down the hilly country roads, with Dad swerving everywhere, safe in the knowledge that nobody else would be up at such an ungodly hour. Dad would take the curves tight, accelerating through them, deftly swerving to miss potholes, and then he would slam on the brakes . . . so that I could stick a newspaper in a tube.

If Dad overshot a mailbox, he would shove the gears into reverse, wait for my delivery, then quickly shift back up to light-speed. He was driving like he was in a race, and the faster he drove, the more nauseous I became.

            I asked him to pull over.

            “But we don’t have a delivery here,” Dad answered.

            “I’ve got a delivery! Pull over!” I cried, holding my hand to my mouth.

            He pulled over. I made my delivery. Blech! After barfing my brains out, I got back in the car, feeling dreadful. (To read more, click on “Read More”)

Your Best Medical Advice: Suck Off the Dirt

I was at my dentist’s the other day, when a question came to me.

“Hey, if one of my teeth got knocked out, should I save it in a cold glass of milk and bring it in?” I asked. (I’d read this is a good method for saving a tooth so that it can be put back in.)

“Why would one of your teeth get knocked out?” the dentist asked back. Clearly, she’s never read this blog! (I get attacked regularly when people recognize me as its author.)

Anyway, I was thinking of this when I saw an article with the coolest headline ever:

What to Do When Body Parts Fall Off

It turns out that there are rules for when various chunks of your body start popping off of you. So if your fingers or toes get chopped off, do the following:

1.) Scream something like, "My FINGERRRRRRRRrrrrrr!"

2.) Stop the bleeding and retrieve the finger or toe. Rinse it off but DON’T scrub it.

3.) Wrap your poor little digit in clean gauze.

4.) You want to keep the finger of toe COLD but don’t pack it in ice. (If it’s touching ice, you can give your tootsie freezer burn!) Instead, put the wrapped finger or toe in a plastic bag and put that bag in cold water.

5.) Take it with you to the hospital!

Okay, but what if your EYEBALL gets poked out! Apparently, it can’t because the optic nerve will hold it in your head, but your eye can get dislodged. In that case, don’t try to poke it back in…just let it hang on your cheek and go to the doctor.

Ooh, and if your tooth gets knocked out? It turns out that milk isn’t needed. Instead, just rinse the tooth off and keep it moist, especially the ligament hanging of the end of it. (Ulp!) 

The article quotes Dr. Kimberly Harms, who said that if you can’t rinse the tooth off, then you should “suck off the dirt”! But that seems crazy...after all, you don't know where that tooth has been!

Oh wait— yes you do.

Then stick the tooth back in its socket…and if it won’t fit, keep the tooth in your cheek while you go to the dentist. (Good idea!)

The tiger above is the Funny Rolling Eyeballs 

Pop-out Tiger Silicone Stress Reliever 

Relieving Toy Gift Halloween Prop,

 as seen here.

"Hey lady, you just stepped in something."

Actually, she didn't.

In real life, this is an interesting high-heel shoe designed by Kobi Levi. Well done!

The 2nd-worst thing I did today was pick my nose on television.

While Chicago newscaster Dorothy Tucker finishes up a report on bedbugs, a newsroom worker looks over at the camera and picks her nose.

Which is bad, but not as bad as when the woman then eats her booger!

Why, why, WHY?

Yom Kippur is so fun, I can't sit down!

The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur rolled past recently. It’s known as the Day of Atonement. To observe it properly, Jews don’t eat or drink during its whole 24-hour duration.

This is tough for anyone who is addicted to caffeine. If these people can’t drink coffee, they get jittery migraine headaches during Yom Kippur. It's horrible! Is there any way these poor people can get their caffeine without drinking it? Yes!

With a suppository! You know, those big gel tabs that people stick up their…er…butts? Yep, just stick a caffeine suppository up there, and your body gets all the caffeine it would normally have...without the bad breath!

Some people might think that putting a “bump in your trunk” is cheating. An observant Jew named Baruch Herzfeld said, “[Some people] love a good loophole.” (Get it? "Loophole"?)

And not all Jewish leaders love this idea. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein said, “We wanna keep Jews in the synagogue and not in the bathroom.”

Uh...amen?

Top picture from HALOLZ,
hat from zazzle,

quotes from this story.

People! Eat Some Fiber!

Look, if you don't eat enough fiber, you'll get constipated. That means that your poop turns into dried out concrete in your intestines...and getting it out can take MAJOR effort—

Wait, these are pictures of contestants in the World Weightlifting Championships? Never mind!

Eradicate Khaki-Diaper-Butt Today!

Facebook runs little ads in the margins that are personally tailored for each user. So WHY did I get this ad (right) encouraging me to get rid of my khaki-diaper butt? I mean:

1.) I don't wear diapers.

2.) My khakis are loose enough that even if I WAS wearing diapers, nobody would see.

3.) But I don't wear diapers. Seriously! And anyone who says different is a LIAR!

Maggots Are Really Cool!

Dr. Yan appears on the BBC with his feature "Bang Goes the Theory!". Here, he sets up a time-lapse video of rotting food. At the 0:28 mark, the meat starts moving because of the all the fly eggs....and within 15 seconds, the little beasties have taken over! The fly larvae go after everything soft and wet...and then we roll the credits!

You Have to Pee So Many Times a Day...

...why not put some adventure into it?

But How Do You Pick Your Nose?

Ever since I was little, I found fingernail clippings disgusting. I can't explain why, they just seemed horrible to me.

So you can imagine my reaction to this picture of Lee Redmond, who has THE LONGEST FINGERNAILS IN THE WORLD.

*Gag* Okay, even I think this is pretty gross!

But I suppose long fingernails can be used to express something artistic...or at least, that's what the people who run the Nailympics think!

Top photo from Ripley's Believe It or Not!, 
other from the Nailympics site.

German Urinal Humor!

We’re all familiar with the idea of sorting recyclables into the proper container. This idea has been taken to an extreme by a jokester in Germany.

Writer Cory Doctorow was in a German restaurant when he saw these signs above the urinals in a restroom. The top sign reads, “Please help us separate.” The specific urinal signs are “Beer”, “Wine”, “Non-Alcoholic”, and “Other”!

Cory Doctorow’s photos can be seen here. 

Recycling bin photo from here.

Dog Poop Can Save the World!

Did you know that dog poop can provide power? No, not by tossing dry dog poop in the fireplace and lighting it. Gross! No, all you need is something called a Methane Digester. The way these work is surprisingly simple. You just throw dog poop (or ANY poop) into a container. You stir it into the mix and methane gas rises from it. And you can use that gas to create heat and light!

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, a guy named Matthew Mazzotta wondered, "Why not use the methane gas from dog poop to power a lamp in a city park?" Since dogs are ALREADY pooping in the park, it seemed like the perfect idea!

Mazzotta called this idea the Park Spark project. For it, he installed a Methane Digester above-ground (it’s underground in the diagram below). The Methane Digester has a tube and a hand-crank, so that people can feed poop into it and stir the mixture inside.

The methane captured by the Park Spark is then piped to a gas lamp…and ta-dah! Let there be light! Yes, it’s a poopy light, but so what? And what I like about this is that the dog poop doesn’t just end up in a landfill…or on my shoe! And now, here is a BBC news story about Park Spark. (It’s a radio broadcast with photos.)

The Park Spark website is here. 

Top photo from the good people at Sprinkle Brigade.

Prevent Violence: Wash Your Feet!

I just read a news story about a woman who stabbed a man. Why did she stab him? Because he said her feet stank!

This tragedy could have been prevented with good foot care. Look, EVERYBODY’S feet stink! That’s because each foot has hundreds of thousands of sweat glands. Each of your feet sweats out more than a quarter-cup of sweat each day! That means those feet are MOIST. And if you’re wearing socks, fungus is going to grow there…and if fungus is growing on your feet, they will reek!

So why aren’t all of us stabbing each other because of the horrible smell? First, we prevent toxic sock syndrome by changing our socks…daily! Also, washing our feet helps, as does NOT wearing socks at night. This gives our tootsies a chance to air out— so that our fingers don’t start itching for a knife handle!

How do you go to the bathroom in outer space?

Behold...the Space Potty!

The first challenge facing an astronaut is that the hole of the Space Potty toilet seat is four inches. This is MUCH smaller than the 16-inch opening you're used to. That means you can't just bust your grumpies...you have to AIM your grumpies!

Ah, but what if you're not sure if your poop chute is sitting OVER that four-inch hole? That's why they put a camera in the toilet! You turn on the TV monitor in front of the toilet to see what's on...and what's on is your butt!

As a toilet training expert says, "Alignment is important." But here's the thing...if you're going to poop in outer space, getting aligned is only the FIRST step. There are 28 other things you have to do before you take a dump!

Since you're in zero-gravity, you have to strap yourself down before taking any backdoor action. Also, you're almost certainly going to pee when you poop, so you need a separate hose for that!

Want to learn more? Of course you do! So go to this link for the full training video on going to the bathroom in outer space. (Or check out an article on the topic here.)

Painting by Scott Listfield.

Now THAT rule makes sense!

“The rule is if it looks like
 someone COULD pee on it,
 they did.” 

Amy Ryan is an actress. And in this article, she gives the rule about any surface you might find in the city.

What Does the World's Leading Fart Scientist Have to Say?

I was just reading an article titled “Pong-ology: Sniffing out a cure for iffy whiffs.” 

If you’re not familiar with the terms “pong” or “iffy whiff”, this is British slang for general body odor, including the things that Americans call “bowel howls” or “farts.”

The piece has a great subheading, too: “Most of us steer well clear of halitosis, body odor, farts and smelly feet.” What a great start! The article had an interview with Mel Roseburg, who is one of the world’s leading experts on bad breath (aka, halitosis). He founded the International Society for Breath Odor Research. 

Not only that, the writer also spoke with scientist Glenn Gibson, “one of the world's leading fart scientists, [who] can talk at length on the subject.”

When it comes to farts, Gibson says, there are two kinds of people: “smelly or inflammable.” (The difference has to do with the types of bacteria in the gut.) And to study bodily gas, Gibson’s even built the kind of poop machines that I talk about in The Big Book of Gross Stuff! 

He keeps the poop machines in a university lab devoted to food and nutrition. Before Gibson got there, this department USED to smell like freshly baked bread. But what about now? 

“Now it smells of excrement,” Gibson says. “The whole department complains about it.” I bet! This video about one of his poop machines starts with the coolest line of all time: “This contraption produces bad smells.”

—The article I’m referring to is in the New Scientist. (You have to register to read the whole thing.) 

—The book I Stink! by Kate and Jim McMullan can be purchased here.

—Poop machine illustration by the amazing Russell Miller.

Don't Pick That Nose!

Too late! Mehmut Ozyurek's nose was picked by Guinness World Record judges as the biggest schnozz in the world.

That means that Ozyurek actually is a record-holder in TWO categories. Because it's only logical to assume that he has the biggest boogers in the world too!

Photo from the Sun.

Why are there people inside that colon?

As you know, your colon is the main part of your large intestine. At the end of the colon is the rectum. Once poop makes it that far, you know you're carrying a load. After your rectum comes your poop chute (aka, anus) which is where you make your special deliveries.

If you've ever wondered what your colon looks like on the inside, you could visit a place called BarRectum in Vienna, Austria. It's a bar designed after the entire digestive system, starting with the tongue (right). From there it goes through the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine.

The biggest part of the bar is the large intestine. It's been enlarged so that people can actually hang out inside of it.

And when you're ready to leave BarRectum, you go out through the anus! (This is also where the emergency exit is…just like in real life!)

BONUS: A disgusting story about Elvis Presley and his colon can be found after the break! (To read more, click "Read more.")

"The lemon squirted— and my eyes are burning!"

But you know what? I can learn to live with it.

Photo from wizardgunner.

Ye Olde Bum Wiper

You have to admit, that's a pretty impressive toilet paper holder! Of course, it's holding the perfect toilet paper roll...I'm guessing that my Care Bears t.p. might not look as good.

This product has the unwieldy name of A Knight to Remember Gothic Bath Tissue Holder. Which is bogus, because anyone who's truly Gothic doesn't wipe...and knights just held it! (Taking off all that armor to bust a grumpy was just too much trouble.) All of which reminds me of a poem that got a lot of mileage in ye olde family home:

In days of old, when knights were bold

And toilets had not been invented

They laid their load by the side of the road

And went away, contented.

This is Puggy. This is his tongue.

Puggy's tongue is 4.5 inches long. That means he can lick your face and catch flies at the same time! It also means that the Pekingese is in the 2011 Guinness World Records for (you guessed it!) having the Longest Tongue of Any Dog.

Photo from the Telegraph.

Saints Carrying Their Heads!

Have you ever wanted to become a saint? One popular route to saintdom is to be a REALLY GOOD person and then have your head chopped off for it. Sadly, this opportunity doesn’t come up much, but back in the old days, it happened all the time!

Decapitated saints are shown in LOTS of statues and paintings. Artists must love this, since they get to show the saint’s body holding its head! There are so MANY examples of this, there is even a word for them: cephalophore (meaning “head carrier”)!

Usually, cephalophores just carry their own heads, like Saint Denis (top & below right). According to Denis's story, after having his head chopped off, he picked it up and then walked for miles, preaching the whole way. Talk about distracting!

St. Denis: If I could have your attention—

Me: Blimey! He’s carrying his own head!

St. Denis: Right, but if you could just focus—

Me: This guy’s got his whole NOGGIN in his hands!

St. Denis: Perhaps I’ll go talk to THESE people…

There are also female head carriers. But since they’re so dainty, they need assistance carrying their noggins, as is the case with Saint Valerie.

Oh, and you don’t actually HAVE to be a saint to be a cephalophore, as the poet and thief Bertran de Born shows us here.

I think the weirdest cephalophore I’ve seen so far is Saint Alban. In this painting, he is holding his head…and looking down at it with ANOTHER head!

Credits:

Thanks to Dr. Michael Milone for the brainstorm! Top image of Saint Denis from here. Below him is the Bishop of Paris, from here. The images of Saint Denis next to the dialogue, Saint Valerie, and Saint Alban from here. The shot of Betran de Born is on the Wikipedia page on this subject here.

Hey! That CAN'T be right!

The U.S. Geological Survey issued a press release yesterday titled "If the Water Looks and Smells Bad, It May Be Toxic."

What a rip-off! What am I supposed to drink now?

Oregon: Home to the Oldest Human Poop IN THE WORLD!

Yes, we Oregonians are pret-ty proud to take this title. It turns out that about 14,000 years ago, someone in our neighborhood went into a cave and busted a grumpy. Yes! 

Today, the pieces of that fossilized grumpy (called a coprolite) make up the oldest human poop ever found!

So what did humans back then eat? Based on this picture, Triscuits and wood glue! But never mind that...because based on my last couple of posts, those distant ancestors of our helped put Oregon on the map (at least on THIS website!).

BBC story here.

Race to the Glop!

There was a race in my neck of the woods this weekend called the Warrior Dash.

But they SHOULD call it the Goop Fest! Because the thousands of dashing warriors have to race through one section that has barbed wire just above a bunch of mud. So no matter how careful you are, you’re going to be covered in muck and mire. 

And once the runners ARE muddy, they realize they can’t get any MORE muddy…and then they just get crazy!

Which is good, because the runners also have to leap over flames. Really.

These and many more awesome 

photos from the Oregonian.

My Trombone Tried to Kill Me!

Did I ever tell you that I used to play trombone? Of course not! That’s about the most boring thing a person could say:

Me: I used to play trombone.

Other Person: Zzzzzzzz.

There was something disgusting I used to do with my trombone, though. After blowing into it for a while, the spit would start to build up in its pipes. So when I could hear the spit clogging the instrument (“Brrr-ppppp-brrr-pppp”) I would open the spit valve (right) on the trombone and watch the brassy saliva pour out…usually onto the band room floor!

I never thought about all the germs in that spit, but I SHOULD have. Because I just heard a disturbing NPR report about how those germs can give a player something called “trombone player’s lung.” This is basically a mold that gets in your lungs and tries to kill you.

A doctor named Mark Metersky got some trumpets and trombones from musicians to study and see if they had similar germs. What happened?

“Things plopped out," Metersky says. “It was disgusting. Imagine the worst thing you've found in your refrigerator in food that you've left for a few months, and that was coming out of these instruments.”

Oh. Yuck.

Photo of trombonist Scott Bean from NPR.

Another Ultra-Gross Reader Saves the Day!

You’re enjoying the last days of summer at a country fair, when suddenly your eyes start burning. As you rub your flaming orbs, you see everyone else around you doing the same. Luckily, you read Ultra-Gross, and you know what’s going on. Is it poison gas? No!

Wait, yes it is. Sort of.

“It’s cow pee!” you scream. “Run for your lives!”

You base this sensible suggestion on the news story from the other day from Australia. Visitors at the Royal Adelaide agricultural show suddenly started clutching their eyes.

The culprit: Stale cow urine.

It was raining, and somehow this activated the ammonia in some pools of cow pee. Wind caught the gas and blew it on people's eyeballs. And despite all the screaming, everyone was okay. And it’s all thanks to you and your calmness in the face of danger!

Behold the magic of ShakeNBelch!

Well, maybe "magic" is the wrong word. But what do you call an iPhone app that makes a variety of belching sounds?

Oh, that's right: "COOL"! (Learn more about ShakeNBelch on the iPhone here.)

Man, this coffee tastes like...

...yeah, that.

What, do they actually make this Poo Coffee with luwak droppings?

"Who are you calling a root vegetable?"

This carrot has HAD it with his people being pulled up by their roots and eaten by hairless apes. Now it's PAYBACK TIME.

Photo from here.