(Always verify & check out a hoax site before passing
these on to your entire mail list!)
True story? Don't bet on it. The two accounts you've
just read, the first set in Virginia and the second in
California, arrived in my inbox five days apart. They
are variants of the same urban legend.
There are plenty of reasons to disbelieve. For one,
cockroaches don't lay eggs in the manner implied by
the story. A pregnant roach carries her eggs in a hard
capsule called an ootheca, in which they incubate
intact until they're ready to hatch. Outside the
ootheca the eggs can't survive at all, let alone
flourish within a human body. You wouldn't find
cockroach eggs strewn about or deposited on envelopes.
There are the logical inconsistencies, too. How is it
that when the victim visited the doctor the first
time, reporting a paper cut and having visible signs
of swelling, It's not as if wayward insects never,
ever find their way into crevices of the human body -
they can, and sometimes do.
he found nothing wrong? And what was the point, during
the second visit, of x-raying the poor woman's tongue?
The "lump" supposedly detected by the x-ray was
already evident.
Infestation legends derive from and play on people's
horror of insects. The subtype in which "creepy
crawlers" invade the human body evoke an especially
visceral response and are especially popular for that
reason. "Roach Eggs on Envelopes" is very similar to
1998's "Roach Eggs in Tacos," wherein cockroach larvae
supposedly incubated in the lining of the victim's
mouth.
In a general way, both stories resemble "The Spider
Bite," an older legend about a traveler in a foreign
country who discovers a seemingly innocent insect bite
after an outing.
...She goes to her doctor, but he says that he can see
nothing suspicious and that she should not worry. And
then one day, while brushing her hair - not
blow-drying - her brush accidentally touches the spot
and the sore bursts open and hundreds of tiny spiders
are running all over her.
- Contributed by Kerstin Nowak
It's not as if wayward insects never, ever find their
way into crevices of the human body - they can, and
sometimes do. But the bulk of infestation legends are
just that: legends. They're concocted from a nugget of
truth, latent dread and a generous dose of
imagination. It's hard to resist passing them along.
Reuters, the wire service, ran a news story last year
about a British woman who went to her doctor with a
headache and "strange noises in her ear." On examining
her, the doctor found a large spider lodged next to
her eardrum.
"The doctor removed the spider with a syringe," the
item continued, "but also raised an unsavory
possibility - that the arachnid was a female intent on
laying eggs."
Why raise the "unsavory possibility" at all? 'Tis
obvious - to make a good story even better.
Sources:
Cockroach Facts. Schendel Pest Control. 25 Nov. 1998
Brunvand, Jan H. The Mexican Pet. New York: W.W.
Norton, 1986
Ebeling, Walter. Urban Entomology. UC Riverside. 4
Apr. 2000
"Patient Gets an Earful from Snuggly Spider." Reuters,
29 Oct. 1999
Related articles:
Cockroach Egg Tacos
Six variations on a fast-food horror story
Creepy Crawlers
You've got them under your skin
Dan
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"The test of a race driver is to control horsepower"
Roger Ward
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