Forward This and Win a Prize

You receive an email from a trusted friend. As a favor to you, they warn that waterproof sunscreen causes blindness or that Pepsi eliminated the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance. Or they warn that you can be strangled by shrink-to-fit jeans or poisoned by the glue on ATM envelopes or by madmen randomly handing out tainted Halloween candy. Or that swallowed chewing gum stays in your system for seven years or that a fast food restaurant is the world’s largest purchaser of bovine eyeballs. Or that signing a petition can get Yasir Arafat’s Nobel Prize revoked. Or that you can win a cash prize for forwarding an email.

So you forward this email on to all your loved ones because it is important stuff that can keep them out of trouble or help right a terrible wrong. Then one of the recipients tells you that you’ve been suckered by another urban legend and you feel like an idiot. All of the above legends are listed as false on what is probably the most authoritative debunker of myths, http://snopes.com/. Before you warn your grandchildren about LSD-laced cartoon tattoos or that canola oil is toxic, check here first. Oh, by the way, some urban legends are true and for some the jury is still out. These are covered at this site too.