The Ghostly Videotape
In 1990, when the 1987 film Three Men and a Baby was released on videotape, people began to notice for the first time a “ghost” image, apparently of a young boy, in the background of one scene. Stories developed explaining that the son of the owners of the New York apartment used for the film had committed suicide there and had returned as a ghostly presence that could be seen only in the film. Some viewers thought they could also see the rifle he had used to kill himself alongside
the spirit; others claimed that the supposed ghost was merely a young relative of the film’s director, Leonard Nimoy, who had been promised an appearance in it. Debunking these stories, the film’s producers explained that the New York “apartment” was really a soundstage in Toronto and that the image was an out-of-focus view of a cardboard cutout of actor Ted Danson, who stars in the film, used as part of the apartment decor. Rumors thenbegan to circulate that the film’s distributors themselves had started thestories in order to promote video rentals and to draw attention to their
sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). Unmentioned in most of the discussion of this short-lived legend was the fact that supposed spectral images of dead persons in photographs have long been a part of folk tradition. Most commonly, such images were claimed to be visible in photographs of groups of miners or other workers who had lost one or more companions in occupational accidents.
The Giant Catfish
Divers who do maintenance work at the base of dams supposedly report giant catfish—as big as dogs, calves, even Volkswagens—lurking there. The huge fish may threaten the divers themselves (chewing on arms or legs), or they may be circling a sunken vehicle, lured by the decomposed bodies of accident victims trapped inside. In the murky water at those depths, the catfish loom in and out of the shadows like ghostly blimps. Occasionally such stories are told about giant carp. The sight of these monsters, and their activities, are so horrible that some divers’ hair turns white from the shock, and many vow never again to engage in that line of work. Although some varieties of catfish do grow very large, at least by sportfishing standards, the legends obviously exaggerate their size as well as
their voracity. The addition of the hair-turned-white motif to some versions of the story is another sure marker of fiction, not fact. Giant catfish stories are most common in the South, the Midwest, and in the vicinity of the large dams in the Southwest. When I wrote about giant-catfish stories in newspaper columns, articles, and in a couple of my books, I received dozens of letters containing further versions. This was a much heavier response than I usually got concerning other individual legends. Probably one reason for this is that “The Giant Catfish” is an old rural legend well established in traditional American folklore. An occasional version, however, has more of an urban setting, such as this report from a letter I received in 1990:
I grew up in Dallas, Texas. There is a small intercity lake there called White Rock Lake, and it has many tales told about it. These include the requisite ghost stories and Vanishing Hitchhiker stories, as well as one about giant catfish. At the dam end of the reservoir there are supposed to be some seriously large catfish. According to a friend of a friend, these fish are so large that the police scuba divers are afraid to dive by the dam. According to the story these routinely eat up any missing bodies that end up in the lake. The catfish are said to be at least six feet long. On the subject of divers’ fear of giant catfish, several knowledgeable readers set me straight. One wrote, “These stories must have been started by individuals not experienced with working with divers. All the divers I know would have come back and figured how much the fish were worth per pound, and then the catfish would have come out second best, ending up in a fish market ice chest. I have never heard this ‘Giant
Catfish’ story from any actual divers.”
The Girl on the Gearshift Lever
A boy slips some Spanish Fly (Lytta vesicatoria, or dried blister beetles,
also known as cantharis, believed to be an aphrodisiac) into his date’s drink
while they are at a drive-in movie. But he has unwittingly overdosed her
with twice the amount required for good results. When he returns to the
car from buying popcorn, he discovers that in her sexual eagerness the girl
has impaled herself on the gearshift lever, sometimes with fatal results.
This story, also called “Stick-Shift Frenzy,” was well known in the
1950s when four-on-the-floor shifters and drive-in movies were more
common. Other seduction stories have replaced it in recent years.
The Golf Bag
A golfer, angry at his poor play after hitting several consecutive shots into
a pond on the 18th hole, in full view of the clubhouse crowd, flings his
golf bag into the pond and stalks off the course. A few minutes later,
the same group notices him walking back to the pond. They watch as he
uses a groundskeeper’s rake to fish out the bag, extract his car keys from
a zippered pocket, throw it back into the water, then head again for the
parking lot.
This story is repeated as a true incident, both about local golfers and
about certain short-fused celebrities, but never about golf professionals
The Goliath Effect
As identified and named by Gary Alan Fine, the Goliath effect suggests
that “a larger percentage of American legends than predicted by chance
refer to the most dominant corporation or product in a particular market.”
The subclass of urban legends to which Fine applies his analysis
includes those that “frequently feature businesses and corporations as
central images and actors”; these he describes as “mercantile legends,”
and such legends are almost exclusively negative.
Legends exhibiting the Goliath effect reflect “Americans’ fear of bigness,”
Fine asserts, pointing out that even legends that may begin with a
smaller company often tend to switch to a larger one as they are repeated.
Another factor tending to attract such traditions is prestige, with the most
prestigious companies tending to be mentioned most often. Actual companies
that have suffered from negative rumors and legends include
Coca-Cola, Corona beer, Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken,
McDonald’s, and Procter & Gamble. Even regional companies, when
they become dominant in an area, may become the target for Goliatheffect
stories.
There seems to be no evidence that such negative modern folklore is
started by rival companies; as Fine mentions, such stories do not appear
to have any “lasting effect on corporate profits.”
The Good Old Days
Often circulated as Xeroxlore or in printed form, and frequently appearing
in publications, are sets of strict rules for employees, supposedly
deriving from a specific factory, business, or school during the 1850s,
1860s, or 1870s. Usually the “message” of these lists—either stated or
implied—is “so you think you have it hard nowadays. . . .” Thus nostalgia
for the good old days is tinged with horror at the actual harsh conditions
that supposedly sometimes prevailed. Long hours, hard labor, and company
interference with employees’ private lives are the stated norm.
The lists are numbered (usually 8 to 12 items), and there is a great deal
of repetition and variation among versions. For example, one list may
require employees to provide their own pens, while others specify that
employees must “whittle nibs” carefully for the office pens. Most versions
of the list contain the requirement to attend church and contribute generously,
and versions from Mormon Utah specify that employees should
pay their tithing and attend fast meetings. Here is the language of
Latter-Day Saints’ practices from one section of a Utah example found
in multiple copies supposedly dated 1870 but found only in modern typescript
or printed copies. (In Utah, “the Church” always refers to the LDS
church):
Each employee is expected to pay his tithing to the Church that is ten per
cent of his annual income; no matter what your income might be, you
should not contribute less than twenty-five dollars per year to the church.
Each employee will attend Sunday Sacrament Meeting and adequate time
will be given to attend Fast Meeting on Thursday. Also you are expected to
attend your Sunday School.
The rules, whatever their localization, cover everything from working
hours and office duties (including bringing coal for the company’s stove)
to personal dress and hygiene, and they often conclude with the statement
that “every employee should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum
of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, so that he will
not become a burden on society or his betters.”
Similar lists of rules circulating by the same means purport to be strict
regulations from the past for teachers or nurses, and yet another variation
purports to be instructions to girls by a turn-of-the-century homeeconomics
teacher on how to be good wives and mothers. A similar set
of “school rules” for pupil behavior specifies the number of lashes (from
1 to 10) for a list of 30–40+ infractions ranging from quarreling and fighting
to “playing Bandy” or “blotting your copy book.”
Although work, school, home, and hospital conditions were certainly
more harsh and demanding in the past than they are today, nobody has
produced an authentic, dated copy of these rules from an actual
employer or supervisor from the nineteenth century. All citations
checked so far have gone no farther back than to published versions of
the 1930s or later, and it seems likely that people composed and first circulated
the lists long after the purported time frame.
The Good Times Virus
One of the most widespread bogus computer-virus warnings, and certainly
the most thoroughly debunked and parodied, was the “Good
Times” virus alert of the mid-1990s. Countless warnings were circulated
via e-mail and in publications warning that a message with the subject line
“Good Times” or its attached file contained a virus that could do irreparable
harm to one’s personal computer and its files. Computer experts
unanimously branded the warnings a hoax, implying deliberate misinformation
spread by a malicious individual or group. Another viewpoint
might be that it was simply a joke, mistaken for a real warning by a public
accustomed to receiving similar bogus warnings and never knowing
whether to believe them or not. (The fact that real computer viruses
can spread via e-mail attachments was proven in March 1999 with the
appearance of the notorious and damaging “Melissa” virus.)
The most pointed parody of the “Good Times” warning—among many
—described the “Bad Times” virus that would (among numerous other
attacks) “scratch any CDs you try to play” and “give your ex-wife your
new phone number.”
Government Legends
Proving once again that folklore can coexist with mass communications,
technology, and even bureaucracy, the oral and customary traditions of
government service are abundant, although little collected and studied
by folklorists. Typical genres include slang and jargon, jokes, personal
anecdotes, and office rituals marking milestones and anniversaries.
These items circulate both in face-to-face communication and on the
electronic links between government agencies. The range of subjects
goes all the way from institutionalized, though unofficial, traditions of the
U.S. Supreme Court down to nicknames and pranks found at a local U.S.
Post Office branch or recruiting center.
Urban rumors and legends among the American public concerning the
government portray Washington agencies and the national military establishment
as being bloated, inefficient, aloof, racist, indifferent to citizens’
needs, inclined to conspiracies, and often out of step with most people’s
values. According to the legends, in any conflict between science and religion,
the government will downplay the latter; and following any potentially
embarrassing government action, the authorities will organize a
cover-up. Although far from painting a flattering picture, the whole genre
of government legends is often tinged with humor, suggesting that a
major function is to release part of the pressure caused by frustration at
some government actions (or inactions). There is no reason to think that
the government legends and their functions in other countries are not
similar.
Grandma’s Washday
Here is a version of this piece of nostalgic lore from a printed placemat
used at the Crane Orchards Cider Mill and Pie Pantry Restaurant in
Fennville, Michigan:
Grandma’s Washday Receet
1. Bilt fire in back yard to heet kettle of rain water.
2. Set tub so smoke want blow in eyes if wind is pert.
3. Shave one hole cake of lye soap in bilin’ water
4. Sart things, make three piles—one pile white, one pile cullured,
one pile wark-britches and rags.
5. Stir flour in cold water to smooth then thin down with bilin’ water
rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard and bile, rub cullured, don’t
bile, just rench in starch.
6. Spred tee towles on grass.
7. Hang old rags on fence.
8. Pour rench water in flower bed.
9. Scrub parch with hot soapy water.
10. Turn tubs upside down.
11. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with side combs, brew cup of
tee, set and rest and rock a spell and count blessings.
Numerous copies of this list—typewritten, printed, photocopied, and
occasionally handwritten—with various different titles, numberings, and
misspellings have been spotted all across the United States and even in
a New Zealand mining museum. All of them claim to be authentic documents
of a bygone era received from a local source, but so far none can
be traced to a verifiable early date. Some variations among the lists suggest
that the list has been passed, perhaps orally, from person to person;
for example, “rub dirty sheets” also appears as “rub dirty spots,” and some
of the lists are better punctuated and spelled than others.
Although the description of washing clothes in pioneer times seems
generally accurate, and some of the dialect is believable (e.g., “pert,”
“rench,” and “bile”), such spellings as “tee,” “heet,” “hole,” “cullured,”
and “spred” appear to be inserted for a “folksy” effect rather than reflecting
any genuine spelling or pronunciation problem of a person capable of
writing down such a list with numbered points and a neatly ironic punch
line. Some versions of the list go so far as to spell “stir” as “stur” and render
“soap” as “sope.” In others, the word “tea” is spelled both correctly
and in dialect as “tee.”
Unless proven otherwise, “Grandma’s Washday” appears likely to be a
relatively modern composition revealing more about how we imagine
our ancestors living than how they may actually have lived.
Copies of “Grandma’s Washday” continue to be printed and either sold
or given away at quaint museums, restaurants, shoppes, and the like. Not
surprisingly, it is also widely posted on the Internet, sometimes with
appropriate illustrations. A Kansas woman reported to me in 2002 on
the origin of the version she has displayed on a board in her laundry
room. It was printed in an artistic font on reddish-brown parchmentlike
paper and decorated with ten little drawings of a sun-bonneted lady
doing the wash. The owner of this artifact wrote: “I purchased it someplace,
but have forgotten where; I burned the edges and then applied it
to the board and hung it up. It has lasted more years than I care to
remember.”
The Grateful Terrorist
Internationally circulated via the Internet, word of mouth, and in print,
following the attacks of 9/11/2001, were stories of an “Arab-appearing”
person (usually a man) warning a Good Samaritan (usually a woman)
who had aided him about an impending terrorist attack. The warning
was said to be in thanks for some small kindness (such as lending money
or returning a lost item). Often the supposed attack was said to be
directed at a shopping mall or a fast-food restaurant, typical settings for
other urban legends about crime. Parodies of such stories also soon began
to circulate.
In a version of the story heard in Sweden, a woman returns a lost billfold
containing a large amount of money to its owner, a man with an
Arab appearance (en man med arabiskt utseende). She refuses a reward
of cash, so he gives her a warning instead: to avoid travel to London on
a particular date, which turns out to be the day of a terrorist attack.
The Graveyard Wager
This traditional European folktale (Tale Type 1676B, “Clothing Caught
in Graveyard”) has survived as a New World story and occasionally surfaces
in the form of a modern urban legend. The heart of the story is that a
person accidentally pins himself/herself to the ground while proving his
or her courage in entering a graveyard late at night. The challenge was
to plunge a sword, knife, pitchfork, wooden stake, or the like into a certain
grave to prove one’s presence there. But the implement accidentally
pierces the person’s cape, coat, or other garment, and he or she believes
that some ghoulish force is pulling downward. The victim is found dead
the next day, apparently from a heart attack.
In the older forms of this story, some dating from the Middle Ages, the
victim is often a soldier wearing a long cloak and wielding a sword. In the
version summarized in the catalog of Swedish folk legends, a man bets
that he dares to hammer a nail or stick a knife into a coffin late at night.
Variations of “The Graveyard Wager” continued to be told in many parts
of the rural United States. The most recent versions, however, have cast
the victim as a teenage girl at a slumber party where ghost stories are
being told, or a South African medical student; the former unwittingly
pushes a stake through the hem of her skirt, and the latter sticks a knife
through the sleeve of his academic gown.
“The Graveyard Wager” has also entered popular culture as the basis of
a Twilight Zone episode first aired in 1961.
Green M&Ms
A playful rumor of the 1980s—possibly believed by nobody—was that eating green M&M candies would enhance one’s sex appeal. A popular expression of the idea was that “green M&Ms make you horny.” Journalist Stephen G. Bloom reviewed the idea in a semiserious way in his article “Passion Power!” in the Dallas Morning News (May 22, 1984), and the tabloid Weekly World News treated it in a more sensational style (“Green M&M’s—It’s the Candy for Lovers,” July 17, 1984). A Shoebox Greetings card of 1986 alluded to the notion by showing a dish full of the green candies with the caption, “I’m saving the green ones for you.” As reported in the Wall Street Journal on January 21, 1997, Mars Inc., makers of M&M candies, made a direct reference to the rumor in their advertising aired during the Super Bowl that year. Although it may appear that “Green M&Ms” has more life in the media than in oral tradition, the basis of these articles was modern folklore, and there developed some fairly consistent “folk” customs of offering the green candies to someone as a flirtatious gambit or even as a humorous sexual invitation.
Greenroom Stories
Every television studio has a greenroom, a backstage waiting room for onair
personnel and guests. Typically the greenroom contains some reasonably
comfortable furniture, a selection of drinks and snacks, perhaps a
potted plant or two, and usually a television monitor tuned to the program
in progress. Seldom is the greenroom actually painted green,
although the most common explanation offered by broadcasting professionals
for the use of the term is that “green is a very restful color.”
Some television workers realize that “greenroom” is a very old theatrical
moniker for such a room, well attested in The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) back to the early eighteenth century. But the only
explanation for the term the OED offers is that it was “probably so called
because it was originally painted green.”
Not letting this simple explanation go unchallenged, folk etymology
has produced several more colorful, so to speak, origins, including
references: to supposed storage of green cloth used for stage sets or costumes
in the room, or supposed masses of plants or shrubs provided
either to further relax the inhabitants or to release calming oxygen into
the room.
Green Stamps
This is one of the rare urban legends that is sometimes told as a true firstperson
experience. It is difficult to accept it as an account of an actual
experience, however, because several different people at varying times
and places have claimed the same experience. The oddness and unlikelihood
of the incident casts some doubt on all the claimants, yet most
remain firm in their stories. In any case, the plot is well known in tradition
and continues to grow and spread.
The basis of the story is that a woman during a vaginal examination is
found by her gynecologist to have some S&H Green Stamps stuck to
her person. She had been forced to use a public restroom before the
exam and, finding the toilet paper dispenser empty, had used a tissue
from her purse, evidently transferring some green stamps from the purse
to her person. Both patients and doctors have repeated this as a true
experience since about the early 1980s, setting the incident in the 1950s
to 1970s when S&H trading stamps were offered by many merchants
and were avidly saved by shoppers to paste into booklets and redeem
for merchandise. A few variations mentioned other kinds of trading
stamps, or even postage stamps, and an update to the story appearing in
the 1990s describes a woman using what she thought was a spray can of
“feminine hygiene deodorant” before her examination—but accidentally
getting hold of a can of glitter-spray decoration instead. This version of
the story provides the title for a recent collection of urban legends from
Sweden, Glitterspray och 99 andra klintbergare (2005).
Casting further doubt on nearly all such stories is the typical presence
of a punch line (a feature of jokes, not legends) from the examining physician:
“Gee, I didn’t know you gave Green Stamps” or “Aren’t we fancy today!”
Whatever the truth of the stories, it is clear that their underlying
theme is women’s embarrassment and anxiety about such examinations,
especially when performed by male doctors.
The Gremlin Effect
The French phrase l’effet gremlins (the gremlin effect), coined in 1992 by
Jean-Bruno Renard, refers to modern rumors and legends describing
supposed dangers of new technologies, including such themes as
“welded” contact lenses, people being “cooked” by tanning-salon lamps,
power lawn mower accidents, and deaths or harm caused by microwave
ovens. Renard borrowed the term from the 1984 American film
Gremlins, which in turn had taken it from U.S. Air Force slang referring
to imagined mischievous sprites that are said to be the causes of unexplained
mechanical failures.
As Renard explained in his 1999 book Rumeurs et légendes urbaines
(p. 101), the gremlin effect, typically, may take three different forms.
Narratives may describe either misuse of an appliance (as when a microwaved
poodle explodes), a defective appliance (as when stray microwaves
from a home oven are said to cause sterility), or hidden injurious effects
(as when microwave ovens are said to alter the structure of foods, rendering
them poisonous).
Renard suggested that the gremlin effect appears not during the initial
period of a technological innovation (when the product is little known
and users are few), but rather during a period of “exponential growth”
as the product becomes cheaper and users reach 50 percent of all potential
consumers. Once the new product is well integrated into everyday life
and most people feel comfortable using it, the stories that display this
effect fade away.
Grenadians Speak English
During the 1983 invasion of Grenada by U.S. troops, the story was told
that the government had selected Spanish-speaking soldiers for the
assignment, not realizing that Grenadians speak English. Another story
from this short military engagement was that a quick-witted soldier,
trapped in a house and lacking radio contact with his unit, had used the
home’s telephone to call back to Fort Bragg and request fire support,
charging the long-distance call to his own phone credit card.
Both stories are consistent with the typical image in urban legends of
government being inefficient and often dead wrong.
The Grocery Scam
An elderly woman pushing a shopping cart full of groceries keeps staring
at a young man shopping at the same supermarket. In the checkout line,
she tearfully explains that he looks just like her son who had been killed
fighting in Vietnam, and she asks the young man if he will just call out
“Goodbye, Mom!” to her when she waves at him as she leaves the store.
He agrees to this. When he reaches the cashier with his few purchases,
the total of his bill is enormous, and he is told that his “Mom” said that
he would be paying for her groceries as well. His protests fall on deaf
ears, since the checkout clerk had heard him say “Goodbye, Mom!”
Sometimes the scam takes place in a restaurant, and the victim may be
a young woman (who supposedly resembles the older woman’s late
daughter). This story, known in Canada and Australia (“Goodbye,
Mum!”) as well as the United States, may describe an actual scam with
the two parties in cahoots in a plot to cheat the store or restaurant.
There are also reports of impecunious actors or comedians using a similar
trick to get free meals in restaurants. One person at a table leaves early,
waves back at his friends, and tells the cashier, “The guy who’s waving
back at me is paying for my meal.”
The Grumbling Groom
This is the male version of “The Bothered Bride” legend. Instead of the
bride calling off the wedding mid-ceremony and announcing the groom’s
infidelity, this time the groom enacts a similar revenge for the same
cause. Sometimes he distributes compromising photographs of the bride
at their wedding ceremony or reception. “The Grumbling Groom” began
to circulate widely in the United States about 1995 but had an earlier
prototype in Europe. Here is a nicely detailed version featuring a generous
as well as grumbling groom, sent to me in 1991 by a California man
originally from Scotland:
I heard this from a friend of mine in Edinburgh. He is a taxi driver, and
another taxi driver told him and insisted that it must be true, because this
guy picked up some of the guests and was told the story firsthand!
The Sheraton Hotel had just opened in Edinburgh, and the groom at a
wedding held there goes through with the ceremony until the speeches,
and then he announces that he has two air tickets for Spain which he is giving
to the bride and best man because they’ve been bonking each other for
the last six months. At this he stormed out and a fight ensued. The police
were called in, and a lot of damage was done to this shiny new hotel.
When I came to the States I met a man from Glasgow, and he’d been told
exactly the same story except it happened at the Albany Hotel in Glasgow.
Guardian Angels
Biblical and medieval stories, including saints legends, were told of heavenly
protectors coming to the aid of believers who found themselves under
a threat of danger. These stories evolved into classic guardian angel legends
recorded in various European sources of the 18th and 19th centuries, both
on the Continent and in England. The would-be victims were usually said
to be pious clergymen of the past, identified by name, who were traveling,
protected by angels, sometimes while carrying a large amount ofmoney. In
the twentieth century, memorates about guardian angels circulate widely
both in print and as part of sermons or lectures, and a “Guardian Angel”
urban legend has developed in which a pious young woman or man is protected
from the threat of violence by angelic companions, invisible to herself,
who repel the intended attackers. Here is one version of this legend
from a 1982 book published in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Diane, a young Christian university student, was home for the summer.
She had gone to visit friends one evening and the time passed quickly as
each shared their various experiences of the past year. She ended up staying
longer than she had planned and had to walk home alone. But she
wasn’t afraid because it was a small town and she lived only a few blocks
away. As she walked along under the tall elm trees, Diane asked God to
keep her from harm and danger. When she reached the alley, which was
a short cut to her house, she decided to take it.
However, halfway down the alley she noticed a man standing at the end
as though he were waiting for her. She became uneasy and shot up a prayer
asking for God’s protection. Instantly a comfortable feeling of quietness
and security surrounded her. She had the unmistakable sense that someone
was walking with her. When she reached the end of the alley, she walked
right past the man and arrived home safely.
The following day she read in the paper that a young girl had been raped
in the same alley, just twenty minutes after she had been there. Diane
thought she could possibly recognize the man and went down to the police
station where she told her story. They asked her if she would be willing to
look at a lineup to see if she could identify him. She agreed and immediately
pointed out the man she had seen in the alley the night before. She
asked the policeman if he would ask the man one question for her. She
was curious to know why he had not attacked her.
When the policeman asked him, the man answered, “Because she wasn’t
alone. She had two tall men walking on either side of her.”
Similar stories circulate (some on the Internet) in various orthodox
Protestant circles both in the United States, and in Germany, Holland,
Sweden, and Australia. A consistent motif in both the memorates and
legends is the sudden unexplained disappearance of the angelic character.
In versions told by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), the intended victims are often Mormon
missionaries.
The American evangelist Billy Graham in his book about angels gave a
Christian twist to the legend “The Ghost in Search of Help,” thus converting
it into a sort of “Guardian Angel” story.
The Guilty Dieter
A woman who is on a strict diet has bought only a cup of black coffee at a
cafeteria. A nearby diner who has eaten one of the two sugared
doughnuts on his plate leaves the other behind as he stands and then
walks away from the table. The dieter—ravenous—gobbles down the
abandoned doughnut but looks up just in time to see the other diner
returning with a second cup of coffee. The embarrassed guilty dieter
has powdered sugar spilled on her chin and chest. A first-person version
appeared in Redbook by a woman from Lauderhill,
Florida, who was one winner of the “$100-crown of Fool for a Day” for
submitting it to the magazine. She claimed that “she tried to explain
and even offered to replace the stolen property. But ‘the man didn’t hear
a word I said, he was laughing so heartily.’ ”
This story, sometimes told at Weight Watchers and other diet-group
meetings, is similar to “The Package of Cookies,” another legend about
unintended food theft in an eatery of some kind.
Gummed Paper Dangers
The glue on envelope flaps and backs of postage stamps should never be
licked, according to widely circulated warnings, because grossly unsanitary
conditions in the factories where the adhesive is produced may have
introduced contaminants into the glue. In one story illustrating the problem,
a woman licking stamps and sealing envelopes cut her tongue on the
paper and later noticed a swelling. When it became worse, she went to a
doctor who had to cut her tongue open to release a roach that had
hatched from an egg lodged in the glue. In other versions of the story,
the glue is toxic, sometimes even having been deliberately contaminated
with some form of poison by a criminal.