(Update August 9th, 2008) Most of us know that Mikey, the kid who starred in Life cereal commercials, didn’t die by eating a Pop Rocks followed by a can of Coke. All it took to disprove this urban legend was $1.50 and a younger sibling. Yet other urban legends die down only to rise up again, and some of them even have credible backers (like moms and dads). Below are ten urban myths still heard to this day.
1. Shoes on Phone Line=Crack House.
A pair of sneaks strung over a phone line is a common occurrence in many neighborhoods. Observation has lead to speculation: gang members marking their territory, the shoes of some poor kid who got beat up, an informal meeting spot for a drug deal. In my hometown, when you saw a pair of running shoes hanging from wires above, you were 99.9 percent positive the house below it was selling crack. But now it seems clear that drug dealers, even though they might not be the sharpest pencils in the pack, probably wouldn’t advertise their whereabouts so flagrantly. So why are the shoes there? Some say it has origins in the military, where soldiers would hang their boots over the wires when leaving for a new post, or after completing basic training. Or perhaps it’s a sliver of rebellious entertainment for kids with old shoes.
2. The Last Sip of Your Soda is Backwash.
How many times have you refused to take the last sip of a shared soda because you believe it is backwash? Even if you and your friends drink like St. Bernard’s, the last part of a drink isn’t going to be spit. This would require the density of our saliva to be much heavier than whatever beverage it is were consuming, and it is not. Whatever spit goes back into a bottle (probably very little for most adults) doesn’t sink to the bottom; it may even rest near the top.
3. It Takes Seven Years for Gum to Pass Through Our Systems.
Gum is made of all kinds of indigestible stuff, but even so, it doesn’t hang out in our innards for seven years. Gum may not look much different when it comes out the other end, but it comes out in the same amount of time as other swallowed material. (My sister and I tested this theory when she was eight and I was five. We swallowed some bright orange Hubba-Bubba and vigilantly checked our poop. It appeared a few days later.)
Still, gum is probably not something you want to swallow habitually. There have been rare instances where gum has, in fact, gummed things up. Intestinal obstruction accompanied by pain and constipation were reported in a few youngsters who were found to have small masses of gum in their tummies; one of them reported swallowing gum every time he chewed it, about six times a day.
4. Go to Bed/Go Outside with Wet Hair and You’ll Catch a Cold.
This urban legend reminds me of the miasma theory of disease—short on science, long on hot air. We don’t catch colds from being cold or wet, we catch colds from a virus. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine substantiated this fact, exposing subjects to the cold virus followed by extreme temperatures. Regardless of whether they were cold or warm or had dry or wet hair, their incidence of infection was the same. The legend probably stemmed from the fact that when it’s cold outside, people are more likely to be indoors in confined environments and thus have a higher chance of being exposed to viruses.
5. Hair Grows Back Thicker and Darker After It’s Been Shaved.
It always seems like it does. But the base of the hair is courser than the ends, so when it first grows back it seems thicker and darker, but will eventually thin and lighten. A shaven hair ends up looking just like the rest of the hair on your head/face/legs.
6. Eat+Swim+Cramp=Drown.
As legend and parents have it, if you go swimming within an hour (I was always told half an hour) of eating, you’ll get cramps and drown. However, there has never been a drowning death due to noontime nachos followed by noontime laps. Swimmers can develop cramps, but their cause isn’t necessarily due to eating, and most people who know how to swim would likely survive a little side stitch. However, if you’re noontime nachos are accompanied by a pitcher of beer, then you’re probably the big guy wearing water wings in the shallow end anyways. No fear of drowning there.
7. How a Woman Carries Her Baby Predicts Its Sex.
The predictions vary, but I always heard that if a woman carries her baby high and round it’s a boy; low and flat, it’s a girl. While it’s fun to try to predict a baby’s sex, especially when your prediction has a fifty-fifty chance of being right, there’s no real evidence behind it. In a study done at Johns Hopkins, researchers recruited 104 pregnant women and found that the shape of the abdomen was a poor predictor of a baby’s sex. Try ultrasound.
8. Glass of Warm Milk/Turkey is Soporific.
Milk supposedly helps us fall asleep because of tryptophan, an amino acid known for its sleep inducing properties. Tryptophan is also found in turkey, and the reason why so many people claim that Thanksgiving puts them to sleep.
However, for these foods to result in sleepiness, tryptophan has to cross the blood brain barrier. When it is in the presence of high protein foods (like milk and turkey) it has to compete with other amino acids, and has little chance of getting across the barrier. Carbohydrates may facilitate the uptake of tryptophan, and thus a turkey meal may help with this uptake, but the level of tryptophan is actually quite low. More likely is that eating a large meal diverts blood to the stomach to aid in digestion and this combined with alcohol make us feel tired. Warm milk, on the other hand, may not weigh heavy in our stomach, but it certainly does in our minds. Association of milk with sleep may just work to put us under.
9. Indian Shooting Star=Free Tootsie Pop.
When I was about ten years old, I tested this one out. Guess what? They don’t send you a free tootsie pop. Instead, they send you, a small child who went to the trouble to save your tootsie pop wrapper, write a personal note, and pay postage, a lame form letter about some distinguished Indian that does not hand out free pops.
10. Drinking Coffee Will Sober You Up.
If only. It’s too bad, but coffee, water, food, and exercise do not help speed up the road to sobriety. Though coffee may help counteract the depressive effects of booze and make you feel more alert, it won’t help your liver metabolize alcohol any quicker. Your blood alcohol level remains the same with or without coffee.