Ack! Don't lick that stamp or envelope!

[Blondie]

I received this as an e-mail today. Don't know if it's true or not, but it will make you wonder.....

Subject: Envelopes & Stamps

I work in a factory and we have 2 employees who used to work in an envelope factory. They told me that when the machine jams up, they use whatever water is handy to thin out the glue. This includes water that they just mopped the floor with. Since then, I've avoided licking envelopes...

1. ) If you lick your envelopes... You won't anymore!!! A woman was working in a post office in California. One day she licked the envelopes and postage stamps instead of using a sponge. That very day the lady cut her tongue on the envelope. A week later, she noticed an abnormal swelling of her tongue. She went to the doctor, and they found nothing wrong. Her tongue was not sore or anything. A couple of days later, her tongue started to swell more, and it began to get really sore, so sore, that she could not eat

She went back to the hospital, and demanded something be done. The doctor took an x-ray of her tongue and noticed a lump. He prepared her for minor surgery. When the doctor cut her tongue open, a live cockroach crawled out!!!! There were roach eggs on the seal of the envelope. The egg was able to hatch inside of her tongue, because of her saliva. It was warm and moist...
This is a true story reported on CNN.

2.) Andy Hume wrote: "Hey, I used to work in an envelope factory. You wouldn't believe the things that float around in those gum applicator trays. I haven't licked an envelope for years!"

3.) To All: I used to work for a print shop (32 years ago) and we were told NEVER to lick the envelopes. I never understood why until I had to go into storage and pull out 2500 envelops that were already printed for a customer who was doing a mailing and saw several squads of roaches roaming around inside a couple of boxes with eggs everywhere. They eat the glue on the envelopes. I think print shops have a harder time controlling roaches than a restaurant. I always buy the self-sealing type. Or if need be , I use a glue stick to seal one that has the type of glue that needs to be wet to stick.

 

[Serena]

Ewwwww!

 

[kild]

I can believe 2 and 3, but 1 is just a little to out there. Reminds me of the urban legend about the bug that flew in someones ear, laid eggs, and the guy had a swarm of insects in his brain.
Ok, that isn't exactly how it went, but something like that.

 

[DwarfMaster]

I just came back from depositing some checks in the Bank ATM ~ I was honestly thinking that the envelope tasted really funny today...I'll keep my eye out for a strange growth.

I've heard the one where the envelopes were laced with acid.

 

[phamton]

It's false: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/tacobell.htm
You'll have to look halfway down the page.

First of all, the story was not reported on CNN. Pasting such authoritative-sounding taglines into the text of hoaxes circulating on the Internet in an effort to give them credibility is commonplace, and this is just another case of some nameless prankster doing just that.

Second, no one knows who "Andy Hume" is, so why give his supposed comments about working in an envelope factory any credence? It ain't all that tough to make up a comment and a name to go with it.

Expectant roaches carry their eggs in a largish brown sac called an ootheca, a firm-walled egg case attached to Mama Roach's posterior. A roach ootheca is about the size of dried bean, not something that could be worked into anyone's gum line.

 

[luv2nascar]

I don't know if any of that is true but I don't lick envelopes just the same
Yuck on the taste and you just never know

 

[stinkerbelle]

yeah - I've heard this a zillion times...some times you just have to take some of those email forwards with a grain of salt.

 

[ripleysmom]

The email is not true.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/tacobell.htm


Claim: The cause of swelling in a girl's jaw is determined to be cockroach eggs that entered her salivary glands when she ate a Taco Bell taco. Or the roaches get in there from her licking the glue on an envelope flap.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1998]

You'll never eat fast food again!
This girl was really in a hurry one day so she just stopped off at a Taco Bell and got a Chicken soft taco and ate it on the way home. Well that night she noticed her jaw was kind of tight and swollen.The next day it was a little worse so she went to her doctor. He said she was just have an allergic reaction to something and gave her some cream to rub on her jaw to help.

After a couple of days the swelling had just gotten worse and she could hardly move her jaw. She went back to her doctor to see what was wrong. Her doctor had no idea so he started to run some test. They scrubbed out the inside of her mouth to get tissue samples and they also took some saliva samples. Well they found out what was wrong.

Apparently her chicken soft taco had a pregnant roach in it that she ate!!!! The eggs then some how got into her saliva glands and she was incubating them in her mouth. They had to remove a couple a layers of her inner mouth to get all the eggs out. If they hadn't figured out what was going on the eggs would have hatched inside the lining of her mouth!

She's suing Taco Bell! Of course.


Origins: McDonald's and KFC have long had their special yucky food contamination legends, so it's about time Taco Bell got their own. Although informal versions of this wild tale circulated on the Internet as early as March 1998, it was November of that year before the text quoted above made its appearance in inboxes everywhere. Later versions of the e-mail end with the tagline "The article can be found in the Nov. 19th NY Times." Disabuse yourself of the notion that anything remotely resembling this tale appeared in that publication on that day or any other. (The only roach story in the 19 November 1998 New York Times was a piece by Douglas Martin, titled "City Said to Use More Pesticides Than Farm Counties." It contained no mention of Taco Bell or roaches being found in food and was merely a story about pesticide use in the city and its possible dangers.)

We're supposed to take this scary e-mail as yet another warning about the lurking dangers of fast food prepared by faceless automatons working for monolithic corporate chains. To wit, the lack of attention and cleanliness allows icky bug stuff to get into our food. Not only is bug stuff gross, the legend says, but it can make you physically ill -- and we're not just talking nausea.

Logistically, though, this one falls down flat on its face. Even if the medical details were correct (and they're woefully wrong), how would the teller know that the roach had come from a Taco Bell taco? Had the poor girl eaten nothing else for the previous several days? There's no mention of her saving the remnants of her meal, much less of anyone's examining them. Even if the victim had retained some taco scraps, since she allegedly ate the roach along with the taco, what evidence would be left behind to discover?

How did the eggs manage to get out of this "pregnant roach" and into the girl's salivary glands? Expectant roaches carry their eggs in a largish brown sac called an ootheca, a firm-walled egg case attached to Mama Roach's posterior. A roach ootheca is about the size of dried bean, not something that could be worked into anyone's gum line.

Did mama fortitously lay her eggs a split second before the grinding of a hungry girl's teeth shuffled Mrs. Roach off this mortal coil? If not, how did mama's eggs amazingly survive the crush of masticating molars that did her in? And how could the eggs enter the salivary glands, from which saliva (of course) is generally flowing out?

Our horrific little story also stars a doctor who prescribes a topical cream for a swollen jaw supposedly caused by an "allergic reaction," and who "removes a couple of layers of inner mouth" to get at an obstruction in the salivary glands. Maybe we're wrong to classify this one as a contaminated food or insect infestation legend -- it sounds more like a scary indictment of our medical system.

A related "roach eggs" scare involves envelopes:


[Collected on the Internet, 2000]
If you lick your envelopes . . . You won't anymore!

This lady was working in a post office in California, one day she licked the envelopes and postage stamps instead of using a sponge.

That very day the lady cut her tongue on the envelope. A week later, she noticed an abnormal swelling of her tongue. She went to the doctor, and they found nothing wrong. Her tongue was not sore or anything. A couple of days later, her tongue started to swell more, and it began to get really sore, so sore, that she could not eat. She went back to the hospital, and demanded something be done. The doctor, took an x-ray of her tongue, and noticed a lump. He prepared her for minor surgery.

When the doctor cut her tongue open, a live roach crawled out. There were roach eggs on the seal of the envelope. The egg was able to hatch inside of her tongue, because of her saliva. It was warm and moist...

This is a true story . . . Pass it on

Everything said about cockroach eggs earlier still applies. This incarnation of the tale is every bit as much a hoax as the taco one.

In May 2000 someone thought to add further snippets of implied credibility to the e-mail quoted above, namely:


[Collected on the Internet, 2000]
This is a true story reported on CNN.

Andy Hume wrote: Hey, I used to work in an envelope factory. You wouldn't believe the things that float around in those gum applicator trays. I haven't licked an envelope for years.

This is a true story . . . Pass it on

First of all, the story was not reported on CNN. Pasting such authoritative-sounding taglines into the text of hoaxes circulating on the Internet in an effort to give them credibility is commonplace, and this is just another case of some nameless prankster doing just that.

Second, no one knows who "Andy Hume" is, so why give his supposed comments about working in an envelope factory any credence? It ain't all that tough to make up a comment and a name to go with it. If "Andy Hume" works for CNN, it's news to them. Searches of news databases for any reporter of that name turn up one who writes for The Ottawa Citizen, and wider searches turn up a British sports figure who also carries that name. There was also a Washington reporter, Sandy Hume, who killed himself in February 1998. But there's also no reason to assume any of those folks penned the comment now being circulated as a bolster to the e-mail.

Last updated: 4 March 2001

 

[ripleysmom]

You beat me to it phamton!! LOL!

 

[mickeyfan1]

You have to wonder how these stories end up getting around for so many years. If it was true, don't you think that self sealing envelopes would be the only type found in the stores. Or does this really explain the increased sales of self adhesive stamps?

 

[Jenn Lynn]

This reminded me of the girl who told me her friend felt a bump on her head. She was brushing her hair and hit it with the hairbrush and it opened up and a bunch of baby spiders came out.

Of course I believed it and it grossed me out at the time, but I was only in Middle School!

 

[phamton]

No problem, RM. Looks like we frequent the same sites.

Obviously anyone who believes this have never seen a roach egg sack. I have seen them and those suckers are too big to go unoticed if it was in your mouth.

Bev

 

[monkeyboy]

My fiance passed away while licking envelopes for our wedding, because I was cheap and bought ones with toxic glue


J/k

 

[Aimeedyan]

Thats an old urban legend, remarkably around even before the days of Internet and emails!

 

[Jolie C]

Originally posted by monkeyboy
My fiance passed away while licking envelopes for our wedding, because I was cheap and bought ones with toxic glue


J/k

George, is that you??

 

[Pin Wizard]

I'm glad I switched to self sealing!

 

[Poohbear123]

George Costanza, indeed. Just because of that episode, I do NOT lick the envelopes.

 

[mom2boys]

Originally posted by monkeyboy
My fiance passed away while licking envelopes for our wedding, because I was cheap and bought ones with toxic glue


J/k

And how relieved you were!


Back to original topic - I don't lick envelopes. While I have never heard the cockroach story, I have heard of some disgusting stuff that floats in the glue vats at an envelope factory about 30 miles from here - hair comes to mind. As someone who works there pointed out, this stuff is not considered food and therefore cleanliness is NOT regulated.

 

[KNBNESMOM]

All of the talk about the roaches does seem a little far fetched. The unsanitary conditions of the envelope glue are true. My mom worked in the factory of an envelope manufacturer for about 20 years. She is forever reminding me not to lick envelopes because you never know what is floating around in the glue

 

[Winka]

Originally posted by KNBNESMOM
My mom worked in the factory of an envelope manufacturer for about 20 years. She is forever reminding me not to lick envelopes because you never know what is floating around in the glue

I read the snopes....so the specific examples in the urban legend in the OP can be discounted. Still, I'm now suspicious enough about envelope glue that I won't lick. Ick!