Dear Vincent, 
I am feeling pretty sad because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. 
Love, Papa  

A few days later he received a letter from his son. 

Dear Papa,  
Don’t dig up that garden. That’ s where the bodies are buried. 
Love,  Vinnie

At 4 a.m. The next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.  That same day the old man received another letter from his son.  

Dear Papa, 
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now.  That’s the best I could do under the circumstances. 
Love you, Vinnie

Jolanda Hennekam from Groningen Holland

The webmaster of UrbanLegendsOnline.com is a gardener too!
Visit my NJ gardening blog at MyNJGarden.com
And now back to your regularly scheduled urban legends.

DEAR ABBY: I recently made a batch of pancakes for my healthy 14-year-old son, using a mix that was in our pantry. He said that they tasted "funny," but ate them anyway. About 10 minutes later, he began having difficulty breathing and his lips began turning purple. I gave him his allergy pill, had him sit on the sofa and told him to relax. He was wheezing while inhaling and exhaling.

My husband, a volunteer firefighter and EMT, heated up some water, and we had my son lean over the water so the steam could clear his chest and sinuses. Soon, his breathing became more regular and his lips returned to a more normal color.

We checked the date on the box of pancake mix and, to my dismay, found it was very outdated. As a reference librarian at an academic institution, I have the ability to search through many research databases. I did just that, and found an article the next day that mentioned a 19-year-old male DYING after eating pancakes made with outdated mix. Apparently, the mold that forms in old pancake mix can be toxic!

When we told our friends about my son’s close call, we were surprised at the number of people who mentioned that they should check their own pancake mix since they don’t use it often, or they had purchased it some time ago. With so many people shopping at warehouse-type stores and buying large sizes of pancake mix, I hope your readers will take the time to check the expiration date on their boxes. — SUE IN WYANTSKILL, N.Y.

DEAR SUE: Thank you for the warning. I certainly was not aware that pancake mix could turn moldy and cause an allergic reaction in someone with an allergy to mold — but it’s logical. I wonder if the same holds true for cake mix, brownie mix and cookie mix. If so, then a warning should be placed on the box for people like me.

We hear so often about discarding prescription and over-the-counter medications after their expiration dates, but I don’t recall warnings about packaged items in the pantry. Heads up, folks!

Reader Submitted by,
Lisa Klein from Cottage Grove, WI

Comments:

This "Dear Abby" column was published in newspapers in April 2006. The story checks out. As Abby’s correspondent mentions, her son’s allergic reaction to the "funny-tasting" pancakes she fed him matches a case reported in the
September 2001 issue of the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology in which a 19-year-old male with mold allergies died of anaphylactic shock after consuming pancakes made from an outdated mix.

Note that in both cases, the patient experiencing the attack had specific allergies pertaining to food molds.

So, poor Kristie had been gravely afflicted with this "obsessive-compulsive disorder" of eating healthful foods. You know, she had been deceived, by a growing movement of loudmouth health nuts, into becoming obsessed with raw foods, vegetarianism, and worst of all, she had been deceived into avoiding all those normal and beloved supermarket foods, those tried and proven staples such as genetically modified everything, and pesticide, synthetically-hormonized, antibiotic-laden, drug-laden, arsenic-fed, and dead-cattle-and-roadkill-fed beef, chicken, and pork.

But the happy ending of Kristie’s story was that she broke free from this unhealthy health trance, and has struggled back from her misguided self-destructive obsessive-compulsive mental illness, and now she is a happy well-balanced and healthy junk food consumer, rescued from the brink of healthy eating death. The ABC-TV Wizards of Oz then stupidly went on to overplay their scam with a scene showing Kristie, alive and well once again, joyfully digging into assorted boxes of junk foods.  These imbeciles who run ABC-TV . . . this was their idea of a fairy tale ending to Kristie’s story.  You know, like the handsome prince kissing awake the mortified Snow White, resurrecting her from her glass coffin. Here was the ABC-TV moguls’ inane inversion of reality, designed to persuade viewers that nutritionless toxic food will rescue them from health food death. Kristie is shown, all smiling and contented, eating those beloved normal food items: sugar-coated coco-puffs and twinkies. Incidentally, what would you call such underhanded under-the-table advertising of commercial products within a supposedly non-commercial, educational TV report?  "Duplicitous" would be an accurate term.

What, then, is the official name given by the ABC-TV moguls to this new *PHYSICAL* illness, which is now infecting the nation; or, more accurately, this bogus illness infecting the mentality of millions of gullible mesmerized victims of boob-tube reality inversion? The name of this new disease is not "healthnutitis". Rather, the disease was today announced by the moguls of ABC-TV as "ORTHOREXIA." And they declare that "ORTHOREXIA" is related to anorexia. You see, by piggybacking a new lie onto an accepted truth, charlatans project the delusion of truth into their quackery.

Anorexia is an uncommon actuality. Orthorexia is common quackery.

Now, after watching this maddening five-minute pseudo-medical pseudo-reality piece of Alice-in-Wonderland in Kristie’s kitchen and backyard, I figured: Well, they wouldn’t dare try to promote this hitlerian big lie any further, so, I figured that this must be the end of their skit.

   But no! Next appeared a serious studio discussion with Dr. Marie Savard, a "recognized authority" on this worrisome new national plague called "ORTHOREXIA.  That was it, folks. I wished to avoid the frustration of silent rage, so I walked away, angrily determined to write this condemnation of the corporate killers’ TV treachery against America’s naive victims of viewing.

Friends — everyone with a sense of moral responsibility: please get a video copy of this brazenly deceitful "Good Morning America" assault on the public’s healthmindedness — this sinister attempt to proclaim good for evil, and evil for good — healthy for unhealthy, and unhealthy for healthy. Do not let this bullet go over your heads, especially since this is only the first shot being fired in a new battle within an old war — a war long since waged by the viciously depraved power elite who are desperately trying to debilitate and dement the populations of nations, in preparation for their global genocide, which the global power elite have admitted to in their now-public "National Security Study Memorandum 200". These global ruling elite are the matador, designing to confuse, disorient, and fatigue the bull before plunging the sword through it. Dear people: we and our families and our countrymen are their bull.

John DiNardo

UrbanLegendsOnline.com has confirmed the Good Morning America story appears at this link: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/orthorexia-obsession-healthy-foods-leads-eat…

Looks like he is finally FULL!

"Mama" Cass Elliot’s death has been reported over the years as having been caused by "choking on a sandwich while in bed and from inhaling her own vomit." The true cause of death, a heart attack, was not determined until an autopsy was performed a week later, but by that time it was too late. Another of rock’s urban legends was born.

At 5’5" and 238 lbs., Mama Cass was twice the normal weight for a woman her age and height. The effects of long-term obesity, drug abuse and crash diets had weakened her heart to the point of failure. Because she was a large woman, and there was a sandwich on the nightstand when her body was found, an irreversible connection was made. That it was a ham sandwich (an obvious commentary on her weight) was added after the fact. However, no traces of food were found blocking her trachea, and there was never any indication that food played a role in her death.

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

You can imagine the woman’s surprise when she found her daughter feeding off THE FAMILY DOG!

The dog, a rather large Dane cross breed had just recently lost her pup pies when her owners decided it was time to give them away. However, the dog was still lactating and she had known the baby all her life, so she had no problem taking in this new "puppy." They should make a movie about this: "The Paw that Rocks the Cradle."

Richard from Adelanto, CA

She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed. But she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She went to the police, who raided the address on the envelope, where they found heaps of human flesh for sale. And what was in the envelope? "This is the last one I am sending you today."

A butcher named Joe owned a diner with his wife, whom he loved dearly. One evening Joe came home to find his wife having sex with his best friend. Joe went crazy finding out about their affair this way. He yelled and screamed and during their heated argument, Joe killed them both. He disposed of the bodies by chopping them up and sending them piece by piece through his meat grinder.

The next day, Joe called his dearly departed wife’s parents and the parents of his ex best friend and invited them to dinner at the diner. There he told them that the two cheaters had run off together and left him a note telling him she wanted a divorce and that she and his friend were to be married.

Joe served the uncomfortable and confused parents their dinner. Ground meat in a special sauce on a bun. The meat had a unique flavor, one none of them had never tasted before. His mother-in-law said "This is delicious, but it’s kind of sloppy Joe."

Since then, Joe started selling Sloppy Joes at his diner.

It’s also the reason that sloppy Joes are also called “Man-Wich”. The meat in the sandwich was made from the man and the “witch” who committed adultery and the horrible act of betrayal against the butcher.

Chris from Savannah, GA

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It’s not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms.

These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.

The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will ot see or hear the word chicken.

I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know. Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we make KFC start using real chicken again.

Please read this and pass along to as many people….

Mitzi Lyons and her husband Kyle live here in Gainesville. Their daughter Marissa has had menstrual problems, bleeding every day for three years and within the last year she started producing milk.

They have performed tests, surgery and put her on birth control without success. They were considering giving the girl a hysterectomy in January, but Mitzi’s Dad started doing research on the internet about his granddaughter’s problem. He found out that farmers were injecting rBST (hormones) into cows so that they would produce more milk.

Wal-Mart sells Great Value milk, which contains rBST and is the kind that the Lyons family always drank.

Her parents stopped giving Marissa Great Value milk 3 months ago and she has since stopped bleeding and lactating. All her symptoms are gone. Her doctors in Houston are going to write a medical journal discovery on her, because the FDA says that rBST is safe.

Mitzi asked me to please share this with everyone I could think of to hopefully save someone the pain and suffering that Marissa has endured. Mitzi knows this was an answered prayer.

Ginger Clark from Cleburne, TX

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online