Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Read Free Book Online Page A

were no train tracks, the cars used ruts left by covered wagons years before. They navigated by the stars, sextants, compasses, and local guides, when they could hire them. And if they had to stop for more than a few hours, the radiators had to be completely drained—antifreeze hadn’t been invented yet.

TAKING THE LEAD
    After 41 days, 8 hours, and 15 minutes, the Thomas Flyer was the first entrant to reach San Francisco, becoming the first car ever to cross the United States in winter. The American team promptly boarded a steamer to Valdez, Alaska, the starting spot for the overland trip to the Bering Sea, and brought a crate of homing pigeons with them to send reports back to the States. Race organizers had hoped the ice across the Bering Strait would provide a bridge for the cars. But the Alaska leg had to be scrapped because the weather and driving conditions were even worse than they’d been in the United States. (The pigeon plan didn’t work so well, either. The first bird sent aloft from Valdez was attacked and eaten by seagulls.)
    The U.S. team was given a 15-day bonus for their Alaskan misadventure and told to return to San Francisco to join the other racers on the S.S. Shawmutt , bound for Yokohama, Japan. At the same time, the German team was penalized 15 days for putting their car on a train from Ogden, Utah, to San Francisco. Both decisions would bear heavily on the race’s end.
    Would rain or snow or roving bandits stop these
racers from their course? To find out how
the story ended, turn to page 269.

THE BEIJING TEA SCAM (AND OTHER CONS)
    We like to think that most people are decent. But not everybody is—some
people make a living by scamming any victim they can find, and someday,
it could be you. So here are a few of the oldest tricks in the con
artist’s book…just in case someone tries one on you.
     
    THE CON: The Antique Toy
    HOW IT WORKS: The first con man, or “grifter,” buys a worthless old toy from a secondhand store. He goes into a bar, sets it down, and buys a drink. He then pretends to take an important call on his cell phone and steps outside, leaving the toy on the bar. After a few moments, the grifter’s accomplice enters. He excitedly notices the antique toy, and asks where it came from, because “it’s a rare antique worth a fortune.” The accomplice tells the bartender that he’s going to get some money—because he’ll pay the owner of the toy $500 for it. The first con man then returns to the bar. If all goes according to plan, the bartender gets greedy and offers to buy the toy off the first con man for a modest fee, thinking he can turn around and sell it to the accomplice for $500. The grifter accepts; the accomplice never returns.
     
    THE CON: The Human ATM
    HOW IT WORKS: The grifter places an “out of order” sign on the screen of an ATM. Then, wearing a security-guard uniform, he stands next to it, straight as a rod and looking ahead. Whenever anyone comes by to make a cash deposit, he tells them that he works for the bank and is taking deposits by hand. He writes out a receipt and takes their cash, but also asks for their account number and PIN to secure the transaction. It’s amazing that anyone would fall for this, but there are frequent reports of it happening.
     
    THE CON: The Melon Drop
    HOW IT WORKS: While carrying a sealed package full of
broken glass, the con artist bumps into an innocent person and drops the package. When it hits the ground, it sounds like a precious glass object inside just broke into a thousand pieces (even though it was already broken). The con man angrily blames the clumsy bystander and demands money to replace the expensive item he’s just broken. This ploy gets its name from a scam perpetrated on Japanese tourists. In Japan, watermelons are expensive, but in the United States they’re cheap. So the scammer buys a watermelon at a grocery store, then deliberately bumps into a Japanese tourist, drops the watermelon, and