To not point out story is an urban legend?

[StingLikeA]

I was in a group earlier of parents of DC's friends at a party. We were chatting away and one of them told an urban legend story (stealing a penguin from the zoo if that's relevant). I just went 'oh really ha ha' and moved the subject on as it felt really awkward.

Would you have politely pointed out that the story was a crock of shit to avoid them repeating it again? AIBU to have ignored it and presumably let them keep on telling it?

Has anyone else been told one of these face to face?

The Marilyn Manson one depends how old you are, when I was at school it was Prince (before he was a squiggle) 😂

What, thats not true.. ??? 45yrs old ffs.....

Oh i remember this one

And Marilyn Manson was in The Wonder Years.

Ours was that someone bit into a McChicken burger and thought it was mayonnaise but it was an abscess on the chicken that burst 🙈 Fell for so much shit when I was younger 🤣

🤣

Think I heard one today, for the first time. A friend sent it via WhatsApp as a recording uploaded to Instagram of a salon owner from Liverpool telling it as though it was told to her by a client. I got the feeling it was 'updated' to make it sound more now/credible, and I admit I was taken in by it until the sort of 'punchline' came, but then the woman telling it used a word that sounded a bit archaic to me, which made the implausibility of the whole story then sound really obvious. But she told it well, I was definitely feeling the suspense!

One I heard in sixth form was about an A-level biology lesson where people took cheek swabs and looked at them under a microscope.
Apparently one girl did this, and there was sperm in her cheek sample.

My own urban legend that I started 🙈 was that Max Bygraves was Rick Astleys dad 🤦🏽‍♀️ I 100% believed it until my mid 30s when I scanned biographies in WHSmith and realised someone had been having me on 🤣 I had told so many people! Tbf they had the same hair 🤣

I have never eaten KFC. Many many years ago (50 to be precise) we had a KFC open locally and my mum told us about the fried mouse being found in a friend’s KFC. It took me years to realise that she told us the story to put us off buying unhealthy processed food rather than recounting the story. It did the trick because I’ve never been able to eat the stuff.

Can only speak for one branch but when I was 18 I had a Saturday job at kfc and they were scrupulously clean! Everything was cleaned to within an inch if its life every night.

So you think the sister or whoever told them the story, and they were taken in and believe they’re repeating a true story? And you could somehow save them from this ignominy?

They probably know perfectly well that it’s a load of old cods, but haven’t let it stop them repeating a good story. I was at a party once when one of the guests told a story about his uni flatmate and a celebrity. I knew very well it had been on Popbitch only a few months earlier - but would there have been any value in pointing that out? It would just have embarrassed everyone.

My cousin posted the La-a one on Facebook and insisted she had met one as a teacher. Lost a fair bit of respect for her when I saw it.

Been in same position with the one about the peanuts having the chocolate sucked off them. I was in USA and I started to say that the last time I heard that one was in Hertfordshire. It was a conversation stopper because person telling story was telling it like they witnessed it (and was a Christian in Bible Belt West Virginia) and me piping up caused a definite awkward silence.

Sure it was this case...

Never say never. If they were discussing a woman as the penguin thief, maybe horseshit, but if they were discussing a man, could be one of these two living brain donors.
www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/02/british-tourist-penguin-australia?

A teacher told me once that she had taken a school trip and a child had knicked a penguin and put it his bag, but they found it on the bus (the kid was very wet) and gave it back.

I think that happens in Our Day Out too but I didn't assume she was lying.

I imagine penguins are one of the more commonly targeted zoo animals when it comes to theft. They are small enough to be portable, not deadly or that strong (tho no doubt one could give a nasty peck when roused) and tend to have lowish walls around their enclosures.

I wouldn't assume it wasn't true if someone told me they knew of a stolen penguin.

(Poor penguins though!).

What’s so unlikely about going to A&E if you can’t get lenses out? Not being snarky I’m genuinely asking.

I had to go to the optician once because mine had dried up and got stuck behind the top of my eyelid. I’ve scratched my eye before with a dry lens and it’s unbelievably painful so I panicked when I couldn’t get it out in case it happened again.

If the optician was closed I might have considered A&E as I’d been trying for ages to get it out but also worried it might already have come out then I was just making it worse fishing about for nothing.

The optician didn’t act like it was unreasonable and got it out quickly but now I’m wondering if this was unusual enough that a similar situation has become and urban legend!

One of my colleagues told me almost exactly the same story – penguin stolen from a zoo, but in his version it was his friend’s kid who’d smuggled it out in a backpack on a school trip. I totally believed it at the time. I had no clue it was an urban legend until this thread!

Oh, god, yes 😳 I swear I SAW a young woman scratch a lump on her face and masses of tiny spiders ran out! I can remember where we were, what she looked like, and everyone's reactions when it happened.

I keep opening my mouth to tell this tale, then reminding myself it's a false memory. If I've had a bit too much wine, though, it sometimes works its way past my mental censor.

Nobody's ever told me it's an urban legend - which is kind of them!!

I work in the zoo sector and get told a version of this story regularly, typically the school kid on a trip putting it in a backpack & parents finding it in the bath. Always told very seriously. I usually just nod & move on rather than argue.

Penguins are fiesty (& heavy, noisy, smelly), no small child is picking one up!

The spider story must be true, l read it in the Sunday Post !
(A Scottish Sunday newspaper which your Granny would read)

@DickieAnderson, I've also gone into opticians' (more than once) for help with a stuck lens. Not sure I'd go as far as A&E though, I'd probably resign myself to a very uncomfortable hour with cups of warm, salty water.

I can believe people do go to hospital for that, though.

Thankgoodness I detest the stuff it may be a myth but shudder

I've had mine fold up and get stuck right up top but they always come back down again with a bit of manoeuvring. I genuinely thought once they were in your eye they can't dry up, I suppose they could if they end up that far up for long enough though.

I never wear contacts now. Especially after I read about Tori Spelling getting an eye ulcer from them (not an urban legend!) she did sleep in dailies for several days though...