Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Urban legend averts would-be robbers?
Is it an urban legend if it actually happened?
A young woman working a night shift alone is approached by someone offering discounted perfume. A few innocent sniffs of the samples renders the young woman unconscious, allowing the "perfume salesperson" and a couple of waiting partners in crime to quickly rob the business.
While this "knockout perfume" story sounds plausible, it is, in fact, an urban legend that has been circulating through e-mails since November 1999. On Nov. 8 of that year, Bertha Johnson of Mobile, Ala., reported to authorities that she had smelled an unknown substance offered by a stranger and woke up in a different neighborhood with $800 missing. An article about the reported robbery appeared in the Nov. 10, 1999 issue of the Mobile Register newspaper, and shortly thereafter, the story - with embellishments and omissions - began to jump from e-mail inbox to inbox across the Internet.
posted by Prof. Hex at 9:58 AM
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