With a war looming on the near horizon, troops being shipped out around the state and the fate of Measure 28 being thrust upon us, I have decided instead to devote this space to a topic that isn’t at all serious.
Urban legends have been around longer than the written word. As stupid and illogical as most may seem, they spread like wildfire are believed as truth
by many.
The legends usually start simply enough. And in this day and age, they’re spread not only by word of mouth, but by e-mail as well.
For instance, I was sent an e-mail that was an online petition “for women against war.” I was given the fascinating story of 25 congresswomen who walked out of the House chamber in disgust during a session, refusing to participate in the vote to give President Bush powers of war. The e-mail claimed that the walk-out was led by Barbara Bell of California. I’m not too sure what online petitions actually have the legal power to do, but I dutifully “signed” my name anyway and forwarded it to my female friends.
Afterwards, finding the story intriguing enough to check out for myself, I looked online and discovered that California is represented in Congress by Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Barbara Lee. Apparently, Barbara Lee got the same e-mail that I did and didn’t like it. On her Web site (http://www.house.gov/lee/Internet.scam.htm), Lee makes it clear that she never participated in any walk-out, nor was there one — the petition was fiction.
Another favorite that I found clogging my e-mail box was the warning about smelling “discounted perfumes” in mall, grocery store, gas station and bank parking lots (as a side note, I don’t see myself actually being interested in buying discounted perfume in a parking lot anyway, but whatever). The tale is that robbers across the country are looking for single women to rob. Their method is to have you smell the perfume, which is actually ether, and once you’re knocked out, steal all of your belongings, including the car you’re driving.
This story was also cooked up. There are no cases in America that resemble these crimes, except for one in 1999, and that story is said to be false because no evidence was ever found to verify the story. Also, it would take more than a few whiffs of ether to knock someone out.
People love free stuff. Who wouldn’t want free clothes from The Gap, free shoes from Nike, free computers from IBM, free cars from Honda and — my favorite — free money from Bill Gates? Nobody. That’s why everyone seems to forward me these dumb messages telling me to forward to however many people so that they, and I, can collect the prize.
As lovely as these offers sound, they’re all crap. Bill Gates would never fathom sending you money and Honda will never deliver you a car. The stated reasoning that these e-mails offer behind the companies and individuals sending you free stuff is that they’re keeping track of everyone’s e-mails to use for advertising and marketing. One problem — no one has the technology to do that. When in doubt, refer back to the old adage, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
The list goes on and on. Just to clear a few more things up, the Pop-Rocks/soda combination won’t kill you, no school in the country will give you straight A’s if your college roommate dies, you cannot “cook to death” from going tanning (but, you can receive fatal burns) and chewing gum does not take seven years to digest when swallowed. For those of you who don’t believe me, check it out yourselves — and for that small percentage of the population (mostly just my Mom) that loves to send me “perfume is really ether” type warnings, don’t, unless they’re to make me laugh. I won’t read them for any other reason.