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Want to have a little fun?
I keep getting these urban legend emails -- almost always from people who seem to believe the bologna what they are forwarding. At least, their comments indicate that they might: "Does anybody know if this is true?" -- that kind of thing. At first reading, a few of these stories are marginally entertaining -- even if the holes in them are big enough to provide parking for a pair of 70's era Buicks. But after getting essentially the same emails from a dozen sources, it can get a little old.
These stories start somewhere, don't they? A few of them start out semi-legitimate -- "CNN stated that the Government would in two weeks time decide to allow or not allow a Charge to your (OUR) phone bill equal to a long distance call each time you access the internet…" Unfortunately, the fact that it was briefly considered and turned down -- two years ago -- doesn't stop people from getting unnecessarily riled up and forwarding emails into perpetuity. Regardless of how many web sites dedicated to urban legends there are, people keep sending them.
Drug addicts are sticking needles in pay phone slots to infect the unwary with AIDS and don't read any emails with the subject "Good Times" 'cuz you'll get a virus. Bull crap!
Somebody writes them, other people pass them along -- sometimes with their own modifications, and pretty soon a lot of people have heard or read about some not-specific-enough-to-verify event often enough, that they believe it.
So we thought, what the hell? Let's do something a little different at the Unquietmind -- an experiment. I'm going to present you with a new and reasonably absurd story. This work of fiction will simultaneously play on people's fear of technology and the government. (Fear is the stuff urban legends are made of.)
If you'd like to participate in our experiment (Please?), send copies to everybody (or the chosen few) in your address book. Let's see how long it takes to get back into some unquiet reader's in-box. It might never, but then again … some people are pretty gullible. (Gullibility is why they continue to circulate.)
Use this as a subject:
Fwd: Why that Intel / Homer Simpson commercial isn't funny
Here's a text file, suitable for copying and pasting -- as is -- into the body of your email. (We've made it look like it was forwarded to you already.) For the experiment to work the best, don't tell where you got it. Do remember where you saw it first, in case it comes back around.
From: N.O. Reely <cummon@wouldilie.net>
To: SanMiguel@beer.com, quantum@mechanics.org,
donny-n@marie.net, producto@environment.co.uk
cadgodde@superchicken.net, david@goliath.com
Subject: [Fwd: Why the Intel / Homer Simpson commercial isn't funny]
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 12:34:56 -0700
Message-ID: <3672CF05.45F5@wouldilie.net>
Please read this and forward this to everybody you know with a prayer.
The other day, I was talking to my second cousin who has been an EMT for years, and works at a well-known hospital in the eastern U.S. He related to me a story he heard from one of the doctors in the maternity ward. Apparently, a woman was admitted to the hospital for complications with her pregnancy. She was only eight months along, but her life was at risk, so the doctor decided they would have to induce labor and hope for the best.
They induced labor and everything seemed to go well at first. When the baby's head started through the birth canal, one of the nurses noticed -- and pointed out to the doctor -- some kind of dark mass the size and shape of a quarter, barely visible in his head. The doctor thought it was a little weird, but he had plenty on his mind, so he forgot about it for awhile.
The child seemed to be OK, however -- especially for being a month premature -- and the mother was fine too. The next day, when the doctor was checking in with the new mother and her baby, he remembered the dark mass. He examined the boy, and there was still something odd, right below the soft spot. He thought it might be some kind of a tumor or deformity, so he had the baby sent down to be x-rayed. He didn't say anything to the mother, in case it was just a discoloration. He didn't want her to worry.
A couple of days later, the mother and baby were doing fine and ready to check out of the hospital. They only had to wait for the doctor to do one last checkup, before they could be officially released. He looked them both over, and pronounced them fit to go home -- but at the last minute, he remembered the x-rays. He called the lab, who delivered the pictures to him. There was obviously some kind of foreign object in the baby's head, but it was unidentifiable. Without telling her that it was an x-ray of her own baby, he showed it to the mother and said, "Do you have any idea what this is?"
She glanced at it -- got a real furtive look on her face as said, "Those are supposed to be secret. Where did you get that?" The doctor says, "What do you mean?"
She tells him she works in a fab for a semiconductor company, and they have a special contract to make some kind of experimental chip for the Department of Defense. The workers don't know what they are for and everybody is supposed to be real tight-lipped about it.
At this information, the doctor became even more worried -- but since he didn't know exactly how to tell her, he released them until he could figure out what to do next.
Two nights later, the doctor's office was burglarized. His files and everything related to the woman and her child was stolen -- including the x-rays. He tried to contact the woman, but she had mysteriously moved away -- with no forwarding address.
Obviously, this is the first step in a government program to robotize its citizens. To be safe, you should also be suspicious of people in the semiconductor or computer industry -- especially engineers. They may know something about the future of your freedom, but can't -- or won't tell you.
If anybody receives this email in the future -- or some version of it -- forward the entire message to us. If we can verify it (we do know how!), we will post the results of the experiment. Let's have a little fun, shall we?
Also see...
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