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?

When someone tells you something happened to a friend, you could ask them what the friend's name is.

I bet they can't tell you.

I don't think people who tell these stories are lying as such. I think often they are an example of the unreliability of human memory.

You hear a story, repeat the story and over time you put yourself into the story. The friend you were told about becomes your friend. You remember the story but forget who told you. You remember "a friend".

Haven't seen this one mentioned yet:

A friend of a friend's auntie's neighbour went to a local Chinese / Indian/Turkish buffet style restaurant (insert location) and got food poisioning so serious that surgery was required. And what was found was a microchip from a chocolate labrador that had gone missing 3 months earlier (insert name of dog and road where he had lived).

My cousin told me the one about the babysitter and the guy pretending to be a clown doll and said it happened in a Northern Irish town then I read it on Snopes a few weeks later.

The one I feel for as a teenage girl and believed for many years until I heard the story again was that a friend of a friend was in a shop and the person in front of them dropped some money. The friend handed it back and the person said because they were so kind, he wanted to warm the friend that there is a big terrorist attack planned for central London on Saturday and she should stay away.

This was just weeks after 9/11 so I obviously I believed it, made sure my whole family stayed home that day and kept waiting for the news to come on! 🤦🏻‍♀️

So I thought this really did happen to a friend of mine in halls at uni 😳 I was there when she was drinking (she was well known for overindulging!) and there the next morning when she went to a and e with a friend cos her contact lens was stuck and told this story when she got back! I have always assumed it was true but maybe she was just repeating an urban legend for effect!!

th McDonald’s burger, the kfc rat were all ones I heard. Slight variation on the spider one though - someone cut their tongue licking an envelope, weeks later it swole up an when it burst all the spiders came running out…to this day I’m careful when licking envelopes 😂

I have also been told and then recounted the snake lying next to someone in the bed sizing them up to eat them before my brother rolled his eyes at me and told me everyone’s heard that story.

Is that just gossip rather than an urban legend?’

Urban myths often have a grain of truth in them.

Yes, there are insects and other creatures that will lay eggs in living flesh - but not AFAIK spiders, and very rare in temperate countries .

Yes, a thick steak or a joint of meat can have an abscess in it - but not once it’s been minced and reformed into a burger.

Yes, a pet python or boa will lie full length next to its owner - but for warmth, not to measure up dinner.

I don’t bother correcting amusing myths, but I definitely correct a harmful myth. You would not believe the number of people who told me the spider myth when I had a nasty spider bite. It’s unpleasant enough dealing with the actual consequences of a spider bite. I don’t need such nasty stories told to me and my children.

Haha, I knew that one!

I can confirm the penguin story is true. It seems as though it happens now and again, as PPs have pointed out. My mum worked at a school when a child came back from a zoo trip with a penguin in their coat.

Has my dad been lying to me all these years about the Glaswegian school children smuggling a penguin onto their bus?

I still hear that one doing the round. Especially around Christmas.

Hang on, the KFC rat story is totally true, it happened in Aldershot. I know because I was told it by a really believable guy at work... hang on a minute...

As well as the L-a name story, there was one about people choosing Chlamydia as a name!

My ex manager told me the one about the glitter spray before a smear test , that it had actually happened to her! Embarrassing!

That's sad

Ah yes, Chlamydia and her twin sister Candida - lovely girls!

Absolutely agree. Pretending to believe someone who is clearly lying is just encouraging lying.

I well remember back in the day on another forum when a poster told this ridiculous story of picking an apparently dead deer up out of the road and putting it in her back seat with her son and then the deer recovering - told it as true and it’s on Snopes as an urban myth.

It makes me irrationally annoyed.

This is the perfect Sunday reading that i never knew existed. You are currently my fave mumsnetter 😁

No one has tried to steal me 🐧

I have heard of the spider bite and mini spiders 🕷️ in the arm many times

Hang on… 30 years ago, a good friend who was a primary school teacher told me her pupil had been caught taking a baby penguin from Edinburgh Zoo on a school trip - he popped it in his backpack.
She told me this in a lot of detail as the kid was in her class. Please don’t tell me it was a LIE?

"La -- a" is still turning up on weird baby name threads-
it's always "my brother's girl friends sister's child has one in their class"

This reminds me of when I first started work as a local newspaper reporter and at the time, the big urban legend of the day was the one where somebody woke up from being unconscious or something and found they’d had a kidney stolen. My Newsdesk one day claimed they found the actual person this had happened to and were trying to make me go out to their house to interview them.

It was only when lots of us in the office pointed out that this was probably a load of bollocks that Newsdesk relented and I didn’t have to go after all. I wonder did I miss the Scoop of the Century?

There’s a good joke version of this where the person says “stay away from X town”, the shopper asks why, and the first person says “because it’s a shithole” 😂

YES someone told me this at uni and I believed that it had happened to her neighbour, and went around telling everyone 🤣🙈

Also, penguins are usually some of the most popular animals at a zoo. There’s always peoples crowding around them so would be very hard for children especially to get in and steal one! Plus they’re pretty big, hefty creatures up close, plus wet and fairly smelly. And they do not want to be put in bags.