Urban Legends and the Truth

I think I have all the makings of being a pest. Not as bad a pest as Husband can be, mind you, but a pest, nevertheless. And that's the truth.

While others may identify some other kind of pestiness, I am specifically specifically speaking here of my penchant for setting people right when they are believing in rubbish as being truth. I have realized as I've gotten older and more mature that the truth isn't quite so cut and dried as it might seem, particularly to those of us who find it easy to think concretely. But it still irritates me to the point of growling when people are taken advantage of by others, simply because these people are not discerning enough to be squinty-eyed about everything they see or read.

Let me offer a couple of examples.

A couple of days ago I called over to my parents' place to check on them, as I do nearly every day.  My dad answered the phone, and the following conversation ensued.

Daddy: "I turned on my computer today, and there was a warning that one of my files is corrupted.

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Daddy: "Yes, and I ran the scan and it told me which one was corrupted. So I wiped everything off my hard drive and reinstalled it.  And my Facebook program works!  But I still don't have Skypee, so I will have to put that one back on. I hope it works."

Me: "Daddy, you don't have to wipe your computer clean! It just makes a lot more work for both of us!  Just because a notice says you have a corrupted file, doesn't mean you do."

Daddy:  "Well, it said the file was corrupted, and it told me which one it was."

Me:  "Daddy, you can't believe every notice that pops up!  If you don't know where the notice comes from, never, never, NEVER click on the buttons to let it do anything, whether they are to scan your computer or to go to a website. They just want to steal your information or get access to your computer."

Daddy: "Well, it's all clean now, and I think I didn't mess anything up!  And later I'll try to get the Skypee program back on. I hope I can do that."

Me: (with exasperation) "Daddy, that's the problem. You may not get Skype set up, and then I have to come download it again and figure out what your login and password were, and it's just a mess. Quit wiping your computer clean!"

I know, I know. I should be more patient. But I get so tired of seeing my parents, who come from a more trustworthy era, believing everything that comes in the mail, trusting strangers who cold-call them and want to sell them medications more cheaply from a "Canadian pharmacy," and getting concerned about news stories from less-than-reputable sources.

Which brings me to another case in which I become a pest--viral urban legends.  I discovered snopes.com some years ago, and ever since then, when there's a story that sounds wild or scary, I'll run a search on Snopes for it. We MUST have the truth!

So people who send me sensational e-mails that are geared to strike fear into the heart, or people who post them on Facebook, are more than likely to get a response from me that links to a web page written by the good Barbara Mikkelson--who happens to be Canadian, by the way--setting us all straight. I'm not always nice about it, either. I don't quite say it this straightforwardly, but essentially the message is, "Don't be an idiot. Check out your stories before trying to perpetrate them on the rest of us."

Yeah, I know I have a hangup about truth-telling.

My latest foray into setting someone straight by citing Snopes received a response saying, "I figure passing along a 'keep your eyes open' type thing like this usually won't hurt." 

Um... well yes, it will hurt. As much as I love you, it hurts, and you'll figure that out if you think about it a bit.  First of all, passing on things that scare other people, hurts. There is too much in this world that is scary without making us fearful every time we turn around that we'll get carjacked, assaulted in the night, and so on. Second, simply passing on a story that is untruthful hurts the little bit of ability we have to trust one another. I desperately want to be able to trust people, so much so that I consider myself rather gullible. Having people pass on false information doesn't help me at all. I want to be a part of a wholesome, dependable world, not a cynical one. You are forcing me to become more and more cynical, not only about your stories, but about you. And that hurts.

Actually, I think I've gotten my dad to not believe the tabloids by the checkout stand anymore. I didn't realize I had accomplished my goal until my dad told me that a lady had glued her baby to the wall. (He likes to opine to me about the latest news.)

"No WAY!!" I exclaimed. "Daddy, you've got to quit reading those tabloids! You can't believe something just because you see it in print somewhere!"

"No, really," he said, and dished out the story with a few more details. He had read it on the internet, actually, which of course makes it true. I didn't believe him about the story ... not a bit.

And then I saw it in my newsfeed. A woman did indeed superglue her kid's hands to the wall. And of course she was sentenced to a lot of years in jail for that an other abuses, as she should be. It's a horrible story, and made me sick to my stomach. How is it that the news can find so many stories of people degenerating into behavior that's worse than that of animals?

Consider the true story of the abusive mother compared to a viral false story about how carjackers might trick you. Truth can be much, much worse than fiction.