# You're stupid, now you're dead. (RO, I guess) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 18, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081 "2008-09-18T01:18:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/1 "2008-09-18T01:18:47Z")
News link: > **[BBC NEWS | UK | England | Hampshire | Woman dies after eating mushrooms](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7621133.stm)** > > A woman dies and another is in hospital on the Isle of Wight after apparently eating mushrooms, police say. Condensed story: two women pick a carrier bag full of indiscriminately assorted wild fungi, take them home and eat them. One is dead, the other is ‘conscious and stable’ (but will probably die, IMHO, due to the nature of the poisoning) Stupid and tragic, but mostly stupid. How dumb do you have to be to reach adulthood without ever knowing that there are such things as poisonous fungi? And what irks me personally about this is that now, I’ll have to endure a bloody lecture from loads of people on how _ **I** _ shouldn’t be picking wild mushrooms because it’s dangerous. I won’t be permitted to say that I know what I’m doing, because it’s _dangerous_. Period. I mean, I’m sorry that people died, but people dying of sheer stupidity makes me more mad than sad. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/2 "2008-09-18T04:26:40Z")
**Never eat a Hooker’s Pussy.** Again, do we really need to post this? I think not. But I did. If only to bump your nobel thread. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/3 "2008-09-18T05:05:43Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > **Never eat a Hooker’s Pussy.** > > Again, do we really need to post this? I think not. But I did. If only to bump your nobel thread. Huh? I’ve never heard of a mushroom called a Hooker’s Pussy. What does it look like. I’m guessing it looks like the edible oyster mushroom. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/4 "2008-09-18T05:09:47Z")
Ha HA! Nothing can stop the Awesome Power of Stupid! ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/5 "2008-09-18T05:11:04Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Ha HA! Nothing can stop the Awesome Power of Stupid! Except death. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/6 "2008-09-18T05:35:53Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > And what irks me personally about this is that now, I’ll have to endure a bloody lecture from loads of people on how _ **I** _ shouldn’t be picking wild mushrooms… Picking them isn’t the problem: eating them’s the problem. Wait, don’t tell me you eat them too? Don’t you know that’s _dangerous_? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/7 "2008-09-18T08:50:37Z")
I liked the line in the linked news article: > [@](#): > > The deaths are not being treated as suspicious. I can see it now. The reporter asks the coroner, “What do you suspect?” And the coroner responds, “I suspect the woman was stupid.” Last year, two college freshmen in an apartment of the first floor of my building decided to burn incense sticks but lacked something appropriate to hold the sticks. Their solution? Why, a roll of toilet paper, of course! Yeah, they didn’t answer the door when the neighbors beat on all the doors yelling, “We smell smoke! Is anyone in there?” The two frosh finally opened the door when the Fire Sergeant announced he’d chop the door down. The FS asked them, “Why didn’t you answer the door when your neighbors were yelling?” No kidding, the two morons answered, “We weren’t expecting company.” The FS processed that and then, with a smile, said, “Look, you need to be careful. Your neighbors don’t want to lose their homes _or their lives_ **because you two are STUPID!** ” ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/8 "2008-09-18T09:52:08Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > … > I’ll have to endure a bloody lecture from loads of people on how _ **I** _ shouldn’t be picking wild mushrooms because it’s dangerous. > > … If those people knew your Dopername you could not blame them for drawing conclusions, could you? ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/9 "2008-09-18T11:08:13Z")
> [@](#): > > The mushrooms are being examined to confirm their identities and where they are from. That’s a good point. When dining on mushrooms, always leave one uneaten to give the paramedics when they come to take you to hospital. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/10 "2008-09-18T11:18:54Z")
The sister of a friend died that way a few years back. I felt pretty much the same way you did (but kept it to myself - it was her sister after all.) ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/11 "2008-09-18T11:37:12Z")
As one of Larry Niven’s characters wrote “Think of it as evolution in action.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/12 "2008-09-18T11:52:56Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > That’s a good point. > > When dining on mushrooms, always leave one uneaten to give the paramedics when they come to take you to hospital. If you’re anything less than 100% certain about the identity of the mushrooms, you leave them _all_ uneaten. Knowing that you ate deathcaps only really helps the paramedics with their paperwork, not your treatment, because there isn’t really any very effective treatment. The mistake that a lot of people make about this is to imagine you need to be an expert. You don’t - it’s not necessary to be able to identify every single species - you only need two things: -The ability to know when you’ve performed the identification absolutely right. -The common sense to err on the side of caution in all other cases. ---
**Author:** ![Claptree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Claptree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claptree)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/13 "2008-09-18T11:53:40Z")
We had a couple of similar cases in Sweden this summer, too. I believe it was [death cap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides) in one case, and in the other some poisonous fungi was mistaken for [tube chanterelle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantharellus_tubaeformis). I pick mushrooms every year, but I have the common sense to only pick stuff I know, or at least look it up if I’m uncertain. Quite frequently before eating them, too. On edit: What **Mangetout** said. Scaring people works, but is kind of silly, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/14 "2008-09-18T12:21:59Z")
The problem with scaring people is that this will result in a lot of fungi just getting indiscriminately destroyed by scared people, in case someone eats it. Happening upon a patch of what would have been delicious edible mushrooms, crushed or kicked to pieces by idiots, is quite heartbreaking. ---
**Author:** ![nootlin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/49beb7/32.png) [@nootlin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nootlin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/15 "2008-09-18T12:34:41Z")
Eating a shoom makes ash out of u and mush out of me. Not quite there with that pun, am I.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/16 "2008-09-18T13:38:30Z")
Mirrors this story from a couple of weeks ago… > **[BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Horse Whisperer author taken ill](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/7593032.stm)** > > The author of the Horse Whisperer book is in hospital in Aberdeen after he was taken ill on holiday. … the bloke who wrote the “Horse Whisperer” book ended up in hospital after eating Deadly Webcap (the clue’s in the name…). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/17 "2008-09-18T13:57:51Z")
As others have said the “trick” for the non-expert is to simply memorize the appearance of a few common and distinctive edible species, and avoid everything else. Same as picking berries really - you pick the obvious blueberries and rasberries, not evey colourful berry in the forest. Fact is many mushrooms are not exactly deadly poisionous, but as one mushroom book puts it, eating them is “… an experience neither soon forgotten nor repeated”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/18 "2008-09-18T13:59:41Z")
The lethal ones here are Amanita species. There’re others that don’t rise to that level of toxicity but that will make you dreadfully sick. Luckily, we have still yet others that are delicious and don’t look like anything else. If you learn what a couple of these look like, you can enjoy wild mushrooms in safety. The sheep’s head is my personal favorite, though most around get more excited over the edible morels in the spring. Is there any chance the women described in the OP were attempting to deliberately kill themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/19 "2008-09-18T14:02:04Z")
> [@](#): > > The mushrooms are being examined to confirm their identities and where they are from. Neighbors of the mushrooms were quoted as saying they had no idea the mushrooms could be deadly; “they were mostly quiet and lived in the dark.” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081/20 "2008-09-18T14:07:40Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Neighbors of the mushrooms were quoted as saying they had no idea the mushrooms could be deadly; “they were mostly quiet and lived in the dark.” :D:D:D You win the thread. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-stupid-now-youre-dead-ro-i-guess/464081.md?page=2)