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?

This is true . Happened in 1982. He claims he thought it was a toy when it was thrown on stage.

He had to have rabies shots.

Yes it it. I’ve actually heard this one in two different countries.

Yep. My mates mum told us that one. You'd think someone's mum would know better?!

Though the thing is a rodent probably has fallen into the fryer in a fast food restaurant at some point between now and the beginning of time. It's just that it's not the case that it happened to the friend of everyone you'll ever meet?!

You wonder why people say it. Nobody ever says it was them. It was always their friend. So nobody is telling the story from a first hand perspective it would seem.

Same way nobody ever says they made up a joke, its always i heard this joke...

I dont mean jokes heard as part of stand up routines, I mean the thousands of jokes that just appear seemingly out of nowhere and always have done well before people had constant instant access to material by looking on the Internet.

My XH tried the 'semen found in food in the local Indian takeaway' story on me. He'd been told and it believed it totally (he was a credulous numpty though). I pointed out the ENORMOUS plot holes in the story and told him it was an urban legend and he totally lost his shit. People do not, it turns out, like being told they are wrong. Or credulous numptys.

They do not seem to care about being utterly racist shits though.

you are wrong OP, another example which made headlines here in Ireland:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0708/133130-penguin/

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/herald/penguin-theft-ive-seen-it-all-at-dublin-zoo/29308930.html

so you were better off saying nothing.

As my mother says, don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. Whenever I hear her retell a story, she’s embellished it with a new feature.

I think if I made up a funny joke I'd be making sure everyone knew it was my original creation. The thing with jokes is by their nature they are told to you by someone who heard it from someone else.

So it doesn't quite equate with the phenomenon of so many people lying that they know someone who this insane urban myth thing happened to?

Went to school in Surrey. These urban legends travel fast and wide

That's the one! Wow thanks, the history of it is super interesting. It still makes me emotional reading about it!

I’ve actually taught a girl called ‘yur ree nee’, but it was spelt Yazhini. Not sure where the name comes from but English wasn’t her first language. No urban legend here 😂😂

just remembered two more - that McDonald’s milkshakes had been tested and were 90% (insert own percentage of choice here) chicken fat. My dad pointed out they couldn’t get away with this due to vegetarians and food labelling standards, even in the 90s.

Also, that slipknot used to release a live puppy in to the audience and say they wouldn’t start the show until the audience had killed the puppy. Again, my dad was quick to point out animal rights groups would be all over this.

turns out my dad was quite good at shooting down urban legends. Ironic because one of his favourite pastimes when we were kids was making shit up to see what we’d believe 😂

I was always told it was a ferret!

A relative of mine was convinced that a newly arrived migrant had named her daughter Female pronunced Fa ma lee.I assume it's bullshit but stranger things have happened.

Friend at a dinner party told the Anne Frank stage play story(acting so bad an audience member yelled “She’s in the attic!” when the Nazis arrived). Said he was there. Then a bit later trotted out the one about stopping on a car journey and peeing in an empty whisky bottle. Later of course the bottle was stolen when his car was broken into. Everyone was roaring laughing, so annoying. I did have a quiet word with him afterwards and he insisted both things had actually happened!

Is that an urban legend? I (not a friend of a friend) have gone go a&e with a contact lens in my eye.

It's also in a Ross O'Carroll book.

That story went around about Prince too

I've met someone whose "brother's friend" had had the mouse in the KFC, and someone whose "auntie's friend" had had some experience with a person in the back of her car that I've since found out is an urban myth. I always wonder, if it's someone as close as the "brother's friend" rather than just "someone I heard about," did that mean the bother originally told it as"my friend" and at the end of the line there's someone who's claiming it actually happened to them? And if so, why do we never actually meet that person? I can only assume that quite a lot of the "brother's friend" people know full well they're telling a lie.

Oh yes, I've heard the poo on the roof one too, in fact a friend of mine, who claimed it had actually happened to someone she sort of knew at one remove, wrote a short story based on it. I don't think it was ever published and I suddenly understand why.

I have heard so many multiple times and the storyteller is always furiously adamant that its true and the person they heard if from knows the source directly (even though theu don't)

The teenager whose friends thrown her a surprise party. They hide in the kitchen pantry when she returns home and burst out to find her with the dog licking dog food off her intimate parts.

The family who are on a day out at the beach, find a dog swimming and take him in their to the vets. .. it's a giant rat.

The woman who hooks up with some man on a night out then gets a strange rash on her face. After some investigation bodies are discovered in the dead man's attic and he was engaging in necrophilia.

A particularly vile one that signalled the end of a relationship for me as my then boyfriend believed it and found it funny: his colleague returned home and found his flatmate taking acid with his friend. They were completely off their faces and said they had gone to the park and captured a goblin. They put the goblin under the stairs and didn't know what to do next. The bloke checked under the stairs and found a young boy with downs syndrome. He let him out of the house and hoped he found his way home. I knew it wasn't true but my then boyfriend thought it was... And he found it hilarious. I was repulsed.

The contact lens is an actual common reason to go to ED (I worked there many moons ago and have also had trouble with my contact lenses, although managed to get them out myself eventually). People forget to take them out before bed and they stick to your eyes until you’ve rehydrated,

The story isn’t about genuine stuck lenses. The story is always they where drunk and kept pulling at them but they where stuck half way, he to the hospital and they had half pulled out their cornea.

I mean torn cornea like that would require surgery

Yes, that has happened, they had to be referred to our specialist eye hospital.

I usually let them be (and perhaps discreetly roll my eyes) unless it’s racist - as it often is (Eastern Europeans/swans etc) where I do make a fuss

Yes!! I believed that one for years!!

It was told when I was a kid in the south of England and then when we moved to Scotland, it was being told up there too! No internet!