Folklore: Urban Myths Revealed!

Subject: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Ian Stephenson
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:32 AM

Just saw the Cow-Tip thread. got me thinking.....

I heard a story about a KFC in Leeds who fried a rat and put it in someones burger. The disgusting result was rats blood over the poor soul.
I have to say that I don't believe that one!

Does anyone else have any urban myths? Unbelievable or not.....

ian

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: SeanM
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:38 AM

My single absolute favorite source of Urban Legend Lore is www.snopes.com, put up by the "San Fernando Valley Folklore Society".

My favorite 'legend'? May not really count as a legend, but it's a circulating email forward, designed to confound the FBI 'Carnivore' email privacy invading snoop program. If'n you haven't seen it, it's a diatribe against the program, interspersed every other word with "Sedition", "Terrorism", "Murder", "Narcotics", and other key words designed to send up a false flag for the snoops.

M

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:48 AM

If you want disgusting stories and myths concering food, here is one from a rural part of North Wales. A rumour got round that the owner of a small dairy had been caught masturbating into the yoghurt mix. I gather that it didn't do much for his sales!

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:53 AM

Thanks for the source, Sean.

The toppling over penguins are also covered in that site. A legend, what else.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:56 AM

the 'flying cow' (remember) is a legend as well.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 07:08 AM

Wagon driver hits a cat while driving. Stops the wagon, sees the cat lying at the side of the road. To make sure it is dead he whacks it with a shovel before scooping it into the back of his wagon for disposal later.

10 miles down the road he is stopped by the law who say they had received a complaint about animal cruelty. Wagon driver explains the situation as above but when shown another dead cat stuck to the front of his cab he is at a loss to explain.

Policeman eventualy figures out that the wagon driver had mistaken the cat at the side of the road for the one he had run over. The owners of this unfortunate animal had called the police when they had seen the the wagon driver screech to a halt, leap out of the cab and kill their cat who had a habit of falling asleep at the side of the road.....

Dunno if it is true but it certainly deserves to be!

Dave the Gnome (Not advocating cruelty to any animals at all but possesing a perverse sense of humour...)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 07:40 AM

A legend it is according to the website posted above.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 11:45 AM

I like the snopes website too. I am so tired of getting the e-mail about the missing child! (that is not to say, however, that I am insensitive to the plight of REAL missing children, because I am not)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 11:52 AM

One huge problem with urban myths about missing children, etc., is that it tends to make people suspicious of genuine charities doing very good work with missing and abused women, children, etc.

It's just as stupid to disbelieve all future claims because you've been tricked by a false claim, as it is to believe urban myths in the first place. But all too human.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 12:48 PM

Ian,
We did have a "mouse in the meat" episode at a McDonald's. Man bit into his McRib and bit off its head. All the papers had xrays of the sandwich sans head. Disgusting ...and quite profitable for the unfortunate diner. The best of the story is that he had to wrestle with the mickyD staff to keep possession of the offending sandwich, First he vomited. then he got the crap beaten out of him. "You deserve a break today..."

I believe the one about the alligators in the sewers. Always look before I sit - if you know what I mean.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 12:54 PM

I have never understood how a skimpy fast-food meat pattie could camouflage a mouse. I know mice can be small, but really now... wouldn't the person cooking the thing notice something odd?

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:11 PM

Wish it were an urban myth, but AP today reports "OSHA fines Cape food firm for thumb found in Sandwich."
Seems a mall piece of a human thumb ended up in a sandwich served at the Barnstable (Mass./USA) High School cafeteria.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:16 PM

So what do mice taste like? I get the feeling that a mouse burger may be preferable to some of the McDonalds type fare I have sampled.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Hollowfox
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:19 PM

Probably not bad, being grain-fed. Perhaps not tender, being free-range animals. It'd be a lot of work to bone 'em, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:21 PM

I'm with Jon.....How the hell could they be any worse? McDonald's is simply hideous and now they're microwaving a lot of their stuff too. Seriously, the only time I have a "Big Mac Attack" is about 15 minutes after I eat one.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: MMario
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:23 PM

Pinetop - I'm curious. Where did you find that piece of news? I'm curious, because:

A) Barnstable High School is not in Sandwich and

B) I cannot believe none of my relatives would have mentioned this, considering the number of nieces, nephews and cousins I have in that school system.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:30 PM

My favorite current urban myth is the one where "gang members are painting the pushbuttons of payphones with a combination of LSD and poison". You use the payphone and you die. It's got it all - drugs, madness, gangmembers and death. A true classic. I get this story e-mailed to me three or four times a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:34 PM

that's why I go to Sonic when I want a cheeseburger.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:47 PM

Pinetop Slim: Your story is very definitely a digital tradition. I give it the thumbs-up.

One legend I heard from the sister of John Fiddler (of "Medicine Head" and "Not the Hoople" fame) who swore it happened to a person round the corner

The beehive hair do and the lass too mean to have it done more than once so she laqured it for 6 months. Friendly blue bottle (or bee) settles in beehive and lays eggs. Larvae eat into skull and she dies.

Not only was this in a book of Urban Legends but I told it to my neices from NZ and they reported the same really really true story but it was a guy with a rasta hairdo, but really really true you know?

(Fly larvae will only eat rotting flesh by the way)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:02 PM

The wedding couple who asked for THAT love song from Robin Hood. They get to the end of the ceremony, turn to leave, and the organist pipes up with 'Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen......'

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:02 PM

Kim, I agree a person would notice the difference between a mouse and a Mac pattie. MacD's patties don't normally have fur.

I used to inspect food, and had to investigate complaints. One woman brought in a loaf of bread with a "cockroach" baked into it. Me, being the sick sort of person I am (and knowing exactly what the "cockroach" was) carefully took it out of the bag, looked it over, then bit into it. The woman didn't think it was funny, but I played innocent of any intentional grossing-out behavior, and explained about how some of the last loaf can get stuck and baked into the new one.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:15 PM

Anyone see the episode of Northern Exposure about mythology? The native medicine man was trying to catagorize western myths in order to use them in healing. All he got was bugs in the beehive and alligators in the sewers.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 07:51 PM

Before I get to specific urban legends, Kim, you don't go to Sonic for the Cherry Limeade? My wife assures me it is out of this world. My favorite is the "cute little Mexican Hairless" that turns out to be a rat. By the by, there was a McDonald's that served a rooster's head to someone as a chicken mcnugget. At least I believe it was mickey dicks. I studiously avoid that place. If I want a good hamburger, I'll try the Midway diner outside of Cortland, New York when I'm in that neighborhood. Kindest reguards and may all of your food be free from rodentia. Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: ddw
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 10:54 PM

A few years ago The Associated Press moved a story with a Tel Aviv placeline, the jist of which went like this:

Man and wife in their second-floor apartment, getting dressed to go out. Wife is putting on hairspray, but it's an almost empty cannister. She sprays a little, turns it upside down and sprays it into the toilet, then back for another spritz on her hair, repeating the process several times.

She exits bathroom, hubby goes in, sits down on the throne and throws the butt of his cigarette between his legs into the bowl. Big explosion.

Wife phones emergency services and paramedics arrive in short order. They load hubby onto a stretcher and start to head out while the wife is explaining to them what happened. They get to the top of the steps just as she gets enough out for the paramedics to realize what happened; they crack up and drop the stretcher, sending hubby to the bottom with two broken legs.

One of the senior editors at my paper wanted to run the story, and just wouldn't believe a friend from Florida had told me almost exactly the same story in about 1959. She put it in the paper, I went to her boss and it got yanked. The next day AP was "sticking by its story," but you can bet some green reporter was getting reamed a new one. Talk about embarrassing....

david

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: ddw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 12:07 AM

There's also the one that floats around in Canada, and probably in the U.S. as well, about the man who gives kids either lick-and-stick stickers or lick-and-dab kiddy tatoos that are laced with blotter acid.

Local police say that one surfaces every few years and when they can trace it they find it almost always came from one of the fundamentalist churches in the area. We've had to run the disclaimer story several times in the 21 years I've been in Windsor.

david

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 10:06 AM

Neil you BET I love cherry limeade! But I save that for a hot summer day treat and get the giant 66-oz size!

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 12:28 PM

The LSD blotter myth comes around as often as there's a new children's trend. The last time I heard it was blotters printed with Pokemon characters, and yet again the Met Police issued a disclaimer shooting it down as an urban myth.
On the critter in the food myths, an EHO I know says it's quite common for people deliberately to introduce "foreign bodies" into food in the hope of compensation. Trouble is they don't use much logic - hence the preponderance of raw roaches in cooked food.
Personally I'd be appalled to find a McD's burger in any food that I was eating. Strong feelings on fast food can go too far, though - I did once see (wiv me own eyes) a scabby stray dog cock its leg and piss over a stack of plastic trays of chicken pieces outside a KFC in London.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: Rollo
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 10:07 PM

How about this one:

In the Oberlausitz Area of Eastern Germany in those days of my motherland divided, (the priest of the parish told me later)there had been a funeral, but the deceased was dug out some days after the ceremony again. The reason was (if I remember this story right) his relatives who had emigrated to Northern America in the days of Nazi Regime were on a trip to visit the dying man once more, but they came just one day too late to attend the funeral.

Now, this village being really a small one, they got allowed to see their relative's face for a last (wich proves the Commies were not completely heartless.)The grave was still not proper closed, so it was no problem to raise the coffin once more, the lid was removed and... "Now this is mysterious... he never wrote us he lost his legs!" The weeping relatives were really shocked. So were his neighbors they talked to. Police started investigating and found out at last after reopening a number of other graves - The Undertaker had chopped of the legs of the corpses, which no-one did recognize normally, because the upper half of the coffin's lid was open during ceremony. And all the chopped legs went into - animal fodder. He had an agreement with the manager of a nearby rabbit farm. Which proves that mincing mad cows into cow fodder is evil, but no problem doing worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Myths Revealed!
From: ddw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:06 PM

Have to admit the leg-food is one I'd never heard, though there have been quite a few in the last few years about grave robbing for other purposes. The one I always like is for selling the organs — the teller usually being unaware that organs have to be alive to do any good.

Another on the same level of absurdity that surfaced here a few years ago had it that a young woman, after working very hard on a mid-winter tan at the local tanning salon, found that her body was emitting a foul odor. She got sick, the odor got worse, she got sicker and died. The autopsy revealed all the tanning had cooked her internal organs and they had rotted. The first couple of times I heard it it explained the difference between the actions of UV rays and microwaves. After that I didn't bother.

david