Roach Eggs on Envelopes Hoax Email
Summary:Email claims that licking envelopes to seal them can result in cockroach eggs incubating and hatching in the person's mouth (
Full commentary below).
Status:False
Example:(Submitted by email, May 2004)
Subject: Licking Envelopes
A woman was working in a post office in California. One day she
licked he 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.
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!"
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.
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR FRIENDS. After reading this you will
never lick another envelope or stamp ever again
Commentary:
Above is an example of yet another horror story email that
involves creepy-crawlies. This one involves cockroaches rather
than
spiders, and relies for effect on our natural human revulsion
at the thought of insects invading our anatomy.
Although it makes for a lovely little in-box tale, there is not
a grain of truth in it. A little research on the subject reveals
that roach eggs are actually laid in batches and stored in an egg
case. Depending on the species, each egg case can hold as many as
52 individual eggs and the eggs cannot survive outside this case.
Therefore, if the story were true, the hapless victim would have
ended up with a mouth full of the critters rather than just one.
Also, the egg cases are quite large, and even if one did end up
on the lickable portion of the envelopment, it is quite unlikely that
the person doing the licking would not have noticed it!
What's more, the claim that the story was reported on CNN appears
to be false. A search of the CNN site reveals no mention of the
story. A similar, and equally false, tale claims that a girl was
found to have roach eggs in her salivary glands as a result of
eating a taco. The similarity of the emails is further evidence
that both stories are fiction.
Mind you, the email's advice to "never lick an envelope" might be
worth heeding. The taste of the glue can make your coffee taste
bad!
References:
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html
http://www.unexco.com/roach1.html
http://pested.unl.edu/roachind.htm
Write-up by Brett M. Christensen
