Or: Yet Another Urban Legend.

Sometimes managing our spam pile can be entertaining. In addition to the various Nigerian money scams and penile enlargement drugs, you get an occasional legitimate but extremely gullible user forwarding something so many times the filters catch it anyway. That's how I learned about The Legend of the Ball Pit, relating how a kid died from a) a bite from a snake hidden in the balls or b) a heroin overdose from a hidden hypodermic needle.

It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise rational, functional people can take this sort of ridiculous pap as gospel. And don't even try to convince them otherwise. I've been labeled a rude troublemaker more than once for trying to point out the logical inconsistencies in, say, someone getting their leg cut by a mugger hiding under a car (I've worked under cars folks... it takes a pair of TALL jackstands before you can even squeeze underneath them) or flashing headlights at people can get you killed in "bad" neighborhoods. Nowadays I just smile to myself and try to find someone a little smarter to talk to.

This sort of thing used to regularly end up in my inbox courtesy of my mom, but after several embarassing gaffs involving viruses and other nonsense, she's finally wised up and is almost as skeptical as I am.