Posted on October 6, 2003 4:32 PM by chadley

A friend of mine sent me the following email. He sent it to me because he knows how much I hate emails like this. While he sent it to me as a joke, I believe that the person who sent it to him was serious.

Typical urban legend folks:
urbanlegend.about.com

Subject: Read this !

If this is true, it's sick!

***********DANGEROUS PRANK:******************

Please read and forward to anyone you know who drives.
My name is Captain Abraham Sands of the Ontario Provincial Police Department. I have been asked by local authorities to write this email in order to get the word out to car drivers of a very dangerous prank that is occurring in numerous cities.

Some person or persons have been affixing hypodermic needles to the underside of gas pump handles. These needles appear to be infected with HIV positive blood. In the Simcoe area alone there have been 17 cases of people being stuck by these needles over the past five months.

We have verified reports of at least 12 others in various provinces around the country. It is believed that these may be copycat incidents due to someone reading about the crimes or seeing them reported on the television. At this point no one has been arrested and catching the perpetrator(s) has become our top priority.

Shockingly, of the 17 people who where stuck, eight have tested HIV positive and because of the nature of the disease, the others could test positive in a couple years.

Evidently the consumers go to fill their car with gas, and when picking up the pump handle get stuck with the infected needle.

IT IS IMPERATIVE TO CAREFULLY CHECK THE HANDLE of the gas pump each time you use one.

LOOK AT EVERY SURFACE YOUR HAND MAY TOUCH, INCLUDING UNDER THE HANDLE.

If you do find a needle affixed to one, immediately contact your local police department so they can collect the evidence.

***********PLEASE HELP US BY MAINTAINING A VIGILANCE AND BY FORWARDING THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO DRIVES. THE MORE PEOPLE WHO KNOW OF THIS THE BETTER PROTECTED WE CAN ALL BE.

This post has been looked at 164 time(s).

Posted on October 6, 2003 4:47 PM by kailden

For those of you still new to modern technology--you can check to see if an email is a hoax by checking this site: Snopes.com

Just search on a key word from the email, for instance, you can type in "captain sands" and it will show you the information on this very old hoax email, that is apparently still circulating. (ca. 2000, though the 'orginal' hoax claimed it was happening in Florida)

Posted on October 6, 2003 5:01 PM by chadley

Why do people still send these messages around? If something like this was truly happening, don't you think you would hear about it someplace besides your email inbox? Authorities find a bird that tests positive for West Nile Virus here in Pennsylvania and I hear about it on the news.

Don't you think if people were getting HIV from gas pump handles you might hear about it? Or if people were getting poison LSD off of pay phone push buttons I think that's something you may hear about on TV or on the Radio, or on the CNN website.

But NO, you only get these vital pieces of information through email from highly qualified sources such as your Aunt Mildred who also makes a really kickass fruitcake that she forces on you every Christmas.

Do me a favor people, the next time you get an email talking about the latest gang intiation prank or whatever, check out UrbanLegends.about.com because in all likelyhood, the email that some police officer somewhere sent to your Aunt Mildred has been floating around this quagmire that people call the internet since Al Gore invented it.

Posted on October 6, 2003 5:07 PM by chadley

Sorry, I should have probably been more clear in my original post that this is obviously an urban legend.

Thanks for the link kailden, unfortunately most people won't check it before they send ridiculous stuff out. And some people pretty much know that stuff is a hoax, but send it out anyway "just to be safe."

Posted on October 23, 2003 11:18 AM by chadley

My name is Billy Evans. I am a very sick little boy. My mother is typing this for me, because I can't. I was born without a body. It doesn't hurt, except when I try to breathe. The doctors gave me an artificial body. It is a burlap bag filled with leaves. The doctors said that was the best they could do on account of us having no money or insurance.

I would like to have a body transplant, but we need more money. Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody hires crying people.

I said, "Don't cry, Mommy," and she hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, even though she's allergic to burlap and it makes her sneeze and chafes her real bad. I hope you will help me. You can help me if you forward this email to everyone you know. Forward it to people you don't know, too.

Dr. Johansen said that for every person you forward this email to, Bill Gates will team up with AOL and send a nickel to NASA. With that funding, NASA will collect prayers from school children all over America and have the astronauts take them up into space so that the angels can hear them better. Then they will come back to earth and go to the Pope, and he will take up a collection in church and send all the money to the doctors. The doctors could help me get better then.

Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can only be third base. Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can take more prayers to the angels and my dream will be closer to coming true.

Please help me. Mommy is so sad, and I want a body. I don't want my leaves to rot before I turn 10.

If you don't forward this email, that's okay. Mommy says you're a mean and heartless bastard who doesn't care about a poor little boy with only a head. She says that if you don't stew in the raw pit of your own guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die a long slow, horrible death and then burn forever in hell. What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take five freakin' minutes to forward this to all your friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about ignoring a poor, bodiless nine-year-old boy?

Please help me. I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty that wouldn't chew on me and try to bury its turds in the leaves of my burlap body. I wish that very much.

Thank You,
Billy "Smiles" Evans

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