Pop rocks and Pepsi ≠ death (cite)
Yeah, that one was big in the early 90s (especially in the suburbs, warning not to flash at headlightless cars in the city.) And the other silly one was the UL that girl gangs would initiate new members by having them hide out under cars in malls and slash your ankles when you went to open your door.
I heard that one from my then girlfriend, and I swallowed it whole. The next day I e-mailed it to everyone at work. Reactions were… Mixed. Officially the reaction was “It’s not true and never do this again.” Unofficially, I got a lot of individual replies that contained the phrase “My wife’s cousin’s coworker’s uncle.”
A few weeks later my GF was in my car, we were in about as isolated a back road as is possible, and I fumbled with the high beams for a second or two. She went into a blind panic. Yes, she was actually convinced that we were going to be killed that very night.
Once at a church small group (just in a house) this guy told me and the ~4 other people standing around that something like 50% of his high school had been witches.
I’d read plenty about the ritual-abuse scandals and the debunking thereof, and most of my sources were Christian writers who actually did use their brains to realize there was no real evidence of this and that almost all the allegations came from very disturbed people or from hypnosis sessions.
I blurted out, “No they weren’t.” He just looked shocked. "There’s no way that many people would be something like that, especially not around here (Orange County, CA, kind of Protestant Central). He didn’t have a come back.
I kind of regret slamming him down, as I didn’t realize how much he was the resident weird dude who wasn’t taken very seriously, but I do think some of the more gullible people would have believed him, and that really bugs me.
Another one that bugs me is the “Wiccans are Satan Worshippers” UL that circulates around here every time there’s any kind of Pagan ritual. Wiccans don’t even believe that Satan exists, much less worship him (her? it?).
Oh, great. Now you’ve started it again. 
(A) Then there still aren’t any WMDs in Iraq (they’re in Syria).
(B) This isn’t recent at all. I heard it right after the first round of inspections failed to find the WMDs. Some were claiming Syria had them and some were claiming it was Libya.
Absolutely yes. I’ve been using it for cleaning battery terminals for decades.
That one has some basis in truth: it is a matter of indisputable fact that you can see space from the Great Wall of China, so it stands to reason that…
Sampiro, you really have an interesting way of looking at things, don’t you?
“If you ask a cop, ‘Are you a cop?’ he has to tell you the truth.”
This is so dumb on its face that I can’t believe anyone thinks this is true. But I know people who have been smoking pot for decades who believe it. I don’t know how they’ve stayed out of jail.
Thanks, tdn. Turns out I had heard that one, and forgot.
The way I heard it was this:
Mom with young daughter gets a call from the gyno that they have an opening in 30 minutes, can she make it? She needed to get into the gyno for some problem and said she could. Went into the bathroom before she left, grabbed the washcloth and clean up ‘down there’ in a mad rush.
Got the the gyno, up in the straps, and the gyno laughs and said something to the effect of ‘Wow, you sure put in some effort!’ After the appointment the mom goes pee and sees that she has glitter everywhere. The daughter had been using glitter for some art project and had cleaned herself off with the same washcloth the mom used.
If by “dealt with” them, you mean “repeated them as true”, I guess you’re right. And if by “fascinating” you mean “full of half-truths”, I’m with you there too.
lieu, can you tell me how you think he got that gerbil in there? And what would happen to the gerbil if he did? Can I trouble you for one second to think about your asshole, and imagine trying to force a live gerbil through it? Or do you believe there was some sort of Habitrail-like device involved, and perhaps a small piece of cheese?
Oh really?
There are a few variations. Here are some more.
This occurred to me the first time I heard the Gere/gerbil (Gerebil?) story. They made it sound like the thing was running around in there having fun, where I think it would be more like scratching and biting as it was crushed and suffocated. It doesn’t sound like much fun for the gerbil or the gerbilee. The first time I heard it, the gerbil was inserted “through a toilet paper tube.” Oh, really?
snerk
Personally, the thought of those tiny claws and sharp teeth hold little appeal for me. I’m sure that most women would have a similar reaction to Lobster Love. (Warning: TMI.)
It’s probably no day at the beach for the gerbil, either.
The flipside of that myth that I’ve heard was about Lauryn Hill of the Fugees saying she didn’t want white people to buy her music. The varients seem to include her saying she would rather have her child starve, die herself, not record music at all etc. The Miselucidation of Lauryn Hill | Snopes.com
That Cher (or Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Manson, Janet Jackson etc) had a pair of ribs removed to reduce their waistline. Did Cher Have Ribs Removed To Make Her Waist Smaller? | Snopes.com
Well, we do have that little slogan at the top of the page…
Yeah, but there is a time and place. Seriously, taking too much offence at the meaningless small change of conversation risks making one a boring pedant, slogan or no.
MrSquishy, don’t put me in the unenviable position of having to defend people’s inclination to do unfathomable things to their bodies because I’m not inclined in any way, shape or form to do so. Yeah, a habitrail in your butt is weird beyond belief for you, me and 99% of the world. It makes me first think “Aw bullshit.” That said, some people get off sexually on some really weird fetishes. Someone I trusted said “Yes, this happened.” Put yourself for a minute in my shoes. Beyond lingering skepticism and a I’ll believe it when something more concrete develops summation, what else is one to do?
I think anyone who accepted this on face value without the confirmation I had would be turnip truck gullible. Personally though, I’m burdened with that “yes” and, to be honest, that to me is the real pain in the ass of the story. It’s left me wishing I’d never asked.
The straightdope/classics link that followed your post I’ve tried to access from three work computers today and was denied every time by Smartfilter, so for others it too may likely be NSFW.
This was standard when I went to college. We did have a couple of professors who didn’t show up to class, and we waited the appropriate amount of time before leaving.