Diego Jourdan Pereira - Astonishing Bathroom Reader: Your No.2 Source to All the Flushing Facts, Jamming Trivia, Gassy Mysteries of the Universe!

Copyright 2020 by Diego Jourdan Pereira

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover and interior art and design by Diego Jourdan Pereira

Mechanical design by Kai Texel

Muara Rough font designed by Surotype at Fontbundles.net. Used under license.

Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-589-0

eISBN: 978-1-63158-590-6

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to my grandmother, Hedy Glocker, the fiercest, most independent woman Ive ever known.

If you dont make mistakes, you dont make anything.

Joseph Conrad

A lways thought writing was reserved for novelists, poets, or pundits, but not me. I was well set to work as a comics artist or an illustrator for life.

Twenty years of hard labor later (there are shorter prison sentences), I found myself sent out to pasture by that fine meat grinder some clueless folks call the comics industry. Quoting Lennon (who in turn quoted comics writer Saunders), life is what happens to you while youre busy making other plans, so no hard feelings.

In truth, I saw it coming, and had a contingency plan in placeI would return to the university (dropped out in 2000) to complete my studies and find a teaching position somewhere. All I can say is the Almighty is still laughing aloud at that one!

Fortunately, other than burning through my savings to get a completely useless degree, the university gave me another gift. Turns out my thesis paper was written in solid enough Spanish prose to be published locally in Chile, where I live, and then in neighboring Argentina. I was on my way to becoming an author!

Unfortunately, professional writing in Latin America is indeed reserved for novelists, poets, or pundits. Gatekeepers who attend all the cocktail parties, hound every grant, give every lecture. Not being the brown-nosing type I figured if I found a way to become a comic artist for companies in the US, the UK, and India, maybe I could give the English language book publishing world a spin as well. Sure, Im no Joseph Conrad (king among exophonic writers!), but have a skill he never had at his disposal: marketing!

Well, marketing teaches us that while its more important to be the first at something than being the best at it, theres nothing wrong with being second banana (Pepsi to Coca-Cola, Burger King to McDonalds, and the list goes on and on). Thats what this book is all about, being the best number two it can be; solid, but squishy enough to find its way out painlessly, with no hard chunks or corn kernels doing any damage while seeking the light at the end of the tunnel.

Profound (ahem!) metaphors aside, the objective is to write and package (graphic design being part of my skill set too) a heavy-duty volume anyone may bring into the ol W.C., to liven up the experience without any clogging headachesreleasing the kraken is hard enough!

Think of me as your friendly restroom attendant. Soon I may be replaced by robots (domo arigato, Japan!), but in the meantime will strive to provide the best constipation-free facts, printed in enough cellulose to make a difference should you find yourself in a toilet paper roll emergency, or in need of a doorstop.

Dont forget to leave a tip on the way out!

Diego Jourdan Pereira

As much as mankind has discovered over the centuries, the Universe at large is still clogged with unsolved questions.

Time: As far as physics is concerned, time is pretty much an illusion: everyone experiences it differently. The fact humans remember the past but not the future also seems to be entirely arbitrary!

Space: Forget what you think you know. Up, down, left, right, are all meaningless. According to theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku (b.1947) the universe is comprised of eleven dimensions, of which humans can grasp three at best. This is given away by particles, such as electrons, tending to disappear and reappear in different places, leading scientists to suspect they get through higher dimensional planes in order to move from one point to another.

Gravity: Really? Didnt Newton figure it out ages ago? Of the four basic forces holding the Universe together, gravity has no associated particle, and the way it functions still makes no sense. Both amazingly weak (less than simple magnetism) and incredibly strong (holding entire planetary systems together), once we get down to the molecular level it, well, disappears!

Planets: The vast majority of our very own Solar System remains uncharted. Even our best telescope cant see squat between the Sun and Mercury on account of that area being too bright, nor much else kneeling behind Pluto on account of its darkness.

There may be eleven dimensions, but just how big is the universe in the three we can see? So vast in fact, new units had to be devised to accommodate its distances to our teeny-tiny brains, but I wont bother you with AUs, light-years, or parsecs. Lets try to keep it down to simple Earth miles instead.