Column:
Hail Mill-Fill and facial hair
Published Nov. 10, 2006
Throughout my young life, I have had a fascination with useless trivia. Instead of mastering useful tools such as fractions or the metric system, I memorized fascinating factoids.
Example: Were you aware that the typical pain medication given to those with broken faces makes it an excruciating ordeal just to urinate? Well, punch me in the face and call me gruesome; you just learned something today!
But little can compare with my insatiable hunger for inane presidential facts. There's something about learning about William Howard Taft's bathtub or Franklin Delano Roosevelt's lesbian wife that makes finding this kind of minutiae my second favorite use of the Internet.
And what better time than now to count down my favorite U.S. presidents?
10) Ulysses S. Grant — Besides looking like a stone-cold gangster while mugging on the $50 bill, this president hated The Man as much as anyone. While in office, "Capital U" was arrested for driving his horse too fast and got a $20 speeding ticket. Even the King of Democracy couldn't get out of a ticket in D.C. So if this happens to Barack Obama somewhere down the line, he can't claim he was the first.
9) James Garfield — The greatest of the southpaw presidents, this brainiac could also write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other — at the same time! What's that sound, you ask? That's just me blowing your mind.
8) Franklin Pierce — He was arrested while in office for running over an old woman with his horse but had the charges dropped. Campaign slogan: "We Polked You in 1844, We Shall Pierce you in 1852." Inspired Jimmy Carter's "You Got Dicked in '68, So Grab Some Jimmy in '76." During his sophomore year of college, he was last in his class. Dead last. Even George W. beat out a couple of half-wit semi-literate hominids in his four years at Yale. They had a wrestling team, right?
7) Rutherford B. Hayes — Had a phone installed in the White House, making him the first prez to blow up a skypager from his crib. More importantly, his wife banned booze, cards, smoking and even dancing from the White House. For marrying a woman from the town in "Footloose," Hayes makes the list.
6) Gerald Ford — For being the only president not elected president or vice president and for appearing on "The Simpsons" as an idiot who just loved watching football, eating nachos and drinking beer.
5) William McKinley — The first president to get in a motorized car. He "rode dirty" in an ambulance after getting his silly ass shot in Buffalo, N.Y. He was also the first person ever to campaign for himself by telephone, beating out my sister's campaign for seventh-grade class treasurer by a mere 98 years. And do you have the tallest mountain in North America named after you?
4) Martin Van Buren — Owned tiger cubs as pets, created the word "OK," and his autobiography did not mention his wife once. Plus, have you seen a picture of this dude?
3) Abe Lincoln — Face appears on the most slavery-hating of all the dollar bills and has the Nebraska capital city, my favorite brand of childhood logs, and the Philadelphia Eagles' stadium (kind of) named after him.
2) Grover Cleveland — His campaign slogan called his opponent a "Continental Liar." He also pulled the trapdoor on two murderers during his stint as sheriff and executioner in Erie County, N.Y. For killing two guys legally in front of a crowd of people, Cleveland rocks!
1) Millard Fillmore — According to the Loyola Greyhound, my second favorite student newspaper, Mill-Fill was the creator of the biggest dance craze of 1852, "The Fillmore Shoulder Lean." If it's in a student newspaper, it has to be true, right?