When the term urban legend is used most people automatically think of scary stories we heard as children. Scary stories can be urban legends but are not the only kind of urban legend out there. By definition an urban legend is an unproven story that circulates in an urban population base. An urban legend doesn’t have to be scary, in fact a lot of urban legends are more funny than scary. The following list contains ten urban legends that are both commonly known and quite funny.
9. Famous Star Insures Body Part
Believe it or not Michael Jackson’s nose, Jennifer Lopez’s butt, and Cindy Crawford’s mole all have something in common. Each of the above body parts has at one time or another been rumored to have been insured for millions of dollars. It is true that many famous people insure themselves against injury, but very few have actually ever insured a particular body part. It is true that there are people who do indeed insure specific body parts, but this is almost always related to their profession, and while Cindy Crawford’s mole is distinguishing feature, it is highly unlikely she ever felt the need to insure it.
8. Rat Meat in Your Hamburger
If you have ever eaten in an elementary school cafeteria then you most likely have heard more than one child tell their friends that the meat they were eating was not what they thought it was. This same thing is most likely behind the very common myth that McDonald’s, Burger King, or any number of fast food places server hamburgers that have been government tested and found to contain more rat meat than real beef. Along with rat meat, other popular variances of what is really in your hamburger include possum, kangaroo, horse, dogs, and for some fans of the morbid, human flesh. The truth is that our food safety standards are extremely high in the U.S. and while occasionally things to make their way into places they are not supposed to, it is not a common occurrence.
7. Chain Letters
Most of us have received a chain letter at one time or another either through the U.S. postal system or via email. Most of these chain letters are in some way asking us for money, but some claim that if you don’t forward on the letter to five of your friends you will suffer from bad luck of some form. While the above is true, the part where chain letters enter the world of urban legend is that there always seems to be someone that had a sibling, cousin, or friends not respond to a chain letter and something horrible did happen to them. There is no doubt that out there somewhere someone did befall bad circumstances after receiving a chain letter, but the refusal to respond to it had absolutely nothing to do with this.
6. Drug Dealing Government Agencies
It seems that almost every government agency has been responsible for dealing drugs on an epic scale. Whether it was the FBI, CIA, or even the CDC for some reason there is always a legend circulating around about our government dealing drugs. This legend most likely has its roots in the fact that there have been several government officials prosecuted for dealing drugs and the rumor mill got hold of this fact and it blew out of proportion. The truth of the matter is that it would actually be very hard for a government agency to be involved in wide-spread drug dealing. Our government can be screwy, but it’s not quite that bad.
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