I have a difficult time relating to people who do not possess common sense.
It’s not something you can learn–you don’t grow into it. You either have it or you don’t. It is an often overlooked and underrated human faculty.
Common sense means paying attention to the obvious. This is not as easy as it sounds for many people. I understand we have vivid imaginations but really…Common sense is not always common to everyone.
Sometimes I become frustrated when a certain individual is relaying a story they heard that makes absolutely no sense. I can’t help but tell them, “Let’s look at the obvious here” with emphasis on “obvious.”
I have heard such off the wall comments or stories–especially Internet hoaxes or urban myths. And people actually believe them.
We’ve all heard them, probably sent along in an email from friends. A story that originates as a joke somehow convinces some Internet users that it must be true because it came from a reliable source.
Currently circulating the email circuit is that Lady Gaga underwent surgery to amputate one of her legs for fashion purposes. This one caught my eye because Lady Gaga is pretty out there, but then my common sense kicked in. Why would she cut one leg off and not the other? This is Lady Gaga after all.
Too preposterous you say?, Well many people believed the story and sent it out across the Internet in mass emails. We all love a great story, and if it’s supposedly real, well that usually makes a great story better.
There are too many great email myths to list but I do enjoy anything with an animal in it, as long as the animal is not injured in the telling of the story. I enjoyed “Cyclops” the One eyed kitten and “Hercules” the clever photo shopped 282-pound dog. In the picture it shows a woman walking her horse next to something that resembles a massive dog. They even went so far as to add that Hercules was in the Guinness Book of World Records.
But my absolute favorite urban myth is the story of a couple vacationing in Mexico who found a strange small dog outside their motel room. They feed it for a couple of days and eventually let it sleep in the room with them. They fall in love with the ugly but adorable pooch and decide to take him home.
The couple take a bus to the airport and carry their new bundle of joy wrapped in a blanket on board. AS the little dog is snuggling and smooching with the new found owners they notice an older man on the bus looking at them strangely. They finally ask the man if he might know what breed of dog they have grown to love.
He tells them that it’s not a dog she is cuddling but it is actually a large type of Mexican rat.
A couple of my other favorites are “Dead Frog Found in a Can of Peas,” “The Kidney Thieves,” and “Canola Oil is Hazardous to Your Health.”
In the world according to urban myths horrors await us at every turn, lurking even in the most ordinary places. Be on the lookout for Snowball the giant mutant cat; pay phone slots booby-trapped, toilet seats infested with venomous spiders and so on.
So the next time your co-worker tells you about her PTA friends’ son who locked a short census taker in the closet thinking he was a troll, you can just smile and ask if she heard about Lady Gaga amputating her leg all for the love of fashion.
