James Silverton wrote:

> Kathleen wrote on Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:43:02 -0600:
>
>>> The Neiman-Marcus cookie story is an Urban Legend as is the
>>> Red Velvet cake There IS a Red Velvet cake and it does
>>> contain an entire bottle of red food coloring, but the story about
>>> the recipe costing a small fortune is not true.
>
>
>> Golly! For real?
>
>
> You know, if Dante had thought about it, he'd have had a place in the
> Inferno for debunkers of good apocryphal stories :-)
>

I used to work with a gal who believed every dumbassed urban legend
she'd ever heard. She came in all hot under the collar one morning and
announced that she'd just dumped every container of cleaning product in
her home down the drain because they said on Oprah that Proctor and
Gamble promoted satanism. And she had typed up a petition that she
wanted everybody to sign to boycott the company.

I asked her if she'd seen that episode of Oprah. (I knew she hadn't
because we'd have both been at work during its air time)

"Well, no, but my neighbor did and she told me about it."

"Huh. *She* saw it, or somebody told her about it?"

"Um. I'm not sure."

"When was this?"

"Just last week! The guy, the president of the company, said he could
do anything he wanted and people would just keep buying his stuff.
Well, I'm sure not!"

"You know, I read the paper. I read it every single day, you've seen me
on break and at lunch, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, it seems to me that something like that would be considered kinda
newsworthy..."

"Werrlll, no, maybe not."

"Margie. It makes the paper when Oprah changes her hairstyle."

"Ohhh, you just think you're soooo smart!"

"You bring me anything in writing that confirms this rumor and I will
pucker up and kiss your big white ass in front of the whole department."

"Well, I just will. You wait and see. You're gonna be sorry."

"How much do you figure it's going to cost to replace the dish soap,
bleach, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent and fabric softener you
poured down the drain? Puts kind of a big ding in the old weekly
budget, I'd imagine. I bet Chip is going to be thrilled."

And I actually was sorry. Baiting morons is no sport at all, like
shooting fish in a barrel.