News stories offer urban legend fodder

Admirers of the genre will doubtless let me know how wrong I am, but until then I’ll stick with my definition.

Urban legends may not be true; however, it’s fun to imagine they are. For instance, I have heard of people who claim to have seen signs advertising “Ears Pierced While You Wait.” Leaving ears to be picked up after being pierced is a bit of a stretch. But the iffy prospect that a sign actually existed sometime, somewhere makes for a perfect urban legend.

A story that seems to have become an urban legend is about the death of a man known as a drunk. What made him special was that he had learned to get drunk on mouthwash, which is a lot cheaper than booze. Somehow, his system managed to accept for awhile, at least, various mouthwash ingredients that probably shouldn’t have been ingested.

The alcohol kept him pickled. Upon hearing of his death, an elderly lady, trying to say something kind about the wasted life of the mouthwash abuser, provided his urban legend epitaph: “He seemed to be a nice man, and his breath always smelled so nice.”

I first heard this story on a radio newscast; however, I have heard it told as truth with no mention of being a news item. It is a typical urban legend.

This may mean that some, not necessarily all, urban legends have some basis in truth. A recent news story from San Jose, Calif., has all the ingredients of a full-fledged urban legend. It is about the lady eating at a Wendy’s restaurant who chomped down on a severed finger floating in her bowl of chili.

This is a story to cause Jay Leno and David Letterman to rub their hands with glee. For them, it was manna from joke heaven.

Since it should be obvious that no one working in the restaurant accidentally sliced off a finger and hasn’t yet figured it out, the whole thing had to have been a morbid prank. Who is responsible, and how did the prankster come to possess the finger?

The lady who bit into the finger was pretty shaken up. I feel bad for her, but I expect the millions she will receive from Wendy’s will help ease the trauma. At last report her lawyer was at work on the claim.

Beyond the finger donor, of course, the loser in this story is Wendy’s, who is receiving abominable publicity for something it apparently didn’t do. With every Jay Leno finger-in-the-chili joke, Wendy’s takes a major public relations hit.

Tales with a bit of mystery make the best ones. Like their counterparts, nighttime scary tales told around a campfire, urban legends need a certain eerie quality about them.

Another story with urban legend potential is the one about a Pennsylvania high school that collected 500 cell phones to send to soldiers overseas. A thief stole them. News accounts of the event labeled the thief as a real low life.

Shortly thereafter, the phones were left in a spot where they would be found. An apology note from the thief was found, claiming he wouldn’t have taken the phones had he known they were for soldiers. The bad guy/good guy switch gives it the mysterious element that will allow it to be passed on as an urban legend. I prefer fashionable fable.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.

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