12 Flustering Bits of Trivia You Can Recite If You Ever Need to Stall a Supervillain
Maybe you’ve been captured by a gaggle of henchmen and strapped to a table, with a huge laser set to carve a meandering canyon through your spasming torso, as your nemesis monologues about some nonsense he should have worked out in therapy. Maybe a half-mutant crime boss has figured out how to nullify your superpowers, and is forcing you to watch as he poetically decimates the city that paradoxically despises you despite needing your protection. Or maybe you’re just having one of those days where you wake up with your head ensnared in some elaborate contraption, the only escape from which is to perform an unthinkably brutal medical procedure on yourself or a stranger.
Whatever the case may be, your one shot at salvaging this day is to distract your captor with a bit of a brainteaser. It helps if it’s a riddle, or a clever metaphor about cats and mice or whatever, but honestly? That’s just pageantry. All you really need to do is get this guy’s mind crankin’ away on Jim and Dwight’s prank war, the only known vegan spider or New York City’s new rat tours. Use these facts to buy a little time, and your sidekick will be delivering a flying scissor kick to this loathsome loner’s groin before you know it.
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How Much Money Did Jim Spend Pranking Dwight?
Redditor jmorley14 has itemized all of Jim’s pranks on Dwight, and estimates that he probably spent $5,590.95 (an average cost of $62.82 per prank) over the course of his tenure at Dunder Mifflin. (Source)
Being a Slob Is Good for Your Relationship
A series of studies have shown that couples feel more couple-y after engaging in unhealthy indulgences together. Stuff like sharing a cigarette, eating like crap and gluing your asses to the couch are correlated with higher reported relationship satisfaction the next day. (Source)
An Amateur Snake Hunter Died So You Can Survive a Taipan Attack
Australian Kevin Budden once caught a highly venomous taipan, then hiked — and hitchhiked — to a professional snake catcher, with the thing clamped in his own bare hands the whole time. He was bit by the snake in the process, and later died. This all being a remarkably rad stunt to pull (and the snake still being alive), scientists were able to develop an antivenom and other similar specimens because of it. (Source)
You Have A Brain in Your Guts
Known as the “second brain,” the enteric nervous system is a grid of neurons that dictates gastrointestinal function. It’s sometimes considered part of the autonomic nervous system, but in some circumstances, it seems to be its own system entirely. (Source)
The Church That’s Co-Owned by Six Religions
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is like the Aggro Crag of Christianity; everybody wants a piece. Six competing Christian denominations have a shaky truce that allows each of them to use the location, but nothing can be moved or changed without all six of them agreeing to it. That has resulted in all-out brawls over infractions as small as shifting a bench. Also, someone left a construction ladder on a high ledge in 1757, before this treaty was agreed on, so by the letter of the law, no one's allowed to touch the thing. (Source)
At Least Five People Died Searching for One Weird Guy’s Treasure
In 2010, Air Force pilot and author Forrest Fenn announced that he’d hidden a treasure chest full of quintessential treasure chest stuff — a million bucks worth of gold and jewels — somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. It was found in Wyoming 10 years later, at which point, Fenn promptly died. In the interim, at least five people are known to have died searching for it. (Source)
LEGO Figurines Are the Largest Population on Earth
LEGO has been manufacturing minifigures since 1978, and have blasted out over 4 billion of these little folks. If they ever unionize, we’re toast. (Source)
The World’s Only Vegan Spider
Bagheera kiplingi subsist almost entirely on weird little protein-rich outgrowths on certain trees. They do go to town on some nectar or ant larvae on the occasional cheat day, but who among us, right? (Source)
The First Book About Baby Anatomy Wasn’t Published Until 1968
Doctor Edmund Crelin noticed there wasn’t much documentation of what goes on inside of babies, so he set aside six years to write — and personally illustrate — Anatomy of the Newborn. It’s still a go-to tome on baby guts, which is a big problem, because it’s not super accurate. He insists, for example, that babies are able to breathe and swallow at the same time for the first nine months of their lives, before the voice box falls into place. Doctors who work with babies insist this is very much not the case. (Source)
POP QUIZ: Is Hippo Milk Pink?
In 2013, National Geographic got got by a social media hoax, and echoed the common myth that hippo milk is pink. Hippos do have a unique secretion, known as “blood sweat” (even though it’s neither blood nor sweat), that momentarily turns red in the sun. People have likely witnessed a baby hippo consuming an accidental, unholy cocktail of the two oozes, but hippo milk straight from the tap is just standard milk-colored. (Source)
https://www.facebook.com/natgeo/posts/friday-fact-a-hippos-milk-is-bright-pink/10151554526093951/
A Guy Is Offering New York City Rat Tours
Kenny Bollwork has amassed hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers by live streaming local rat infestations. He’s recently started giving in-person walking tours of the most popular rat hangouts, becoming the latest chapter in a proud tradition of rat tourism in New York. (Source)
The TSA Has Declared Peanut Butter a Liquid
You can take peanut butter in your carry-on, but you may have to chug it in the security line if it exceeds 3.4 ounces. Mechanical engineers agree — peanut butter fits the bill of a non-Newtonian fluid. (Source)
