The Choking Doberman Lives...

the hook: an enduring urban legend

Way back in 1985, a ski lift at Colorado's Keystone resort collapsed, killing two and injuring scores more. The tragedy happened a week or so before Christmas on a Saturday, prime vacation skiing. At the time a Denver resident and avid skier, I knew plenty of people out on various slopes that day. In the following weeks, at least half a dozen people told me that they knew the person next in the lift line when the bull wheel collapsed.

Oh, sure: a friend of a friend...

That's the quintessential FOAF, to quote folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, a guy whose life work is compiling so-called urban legends. Those are the horrible things that always seem to happen to someone three people removed from you: not your friend, but a friend of one of their other friends. That's what's known in the biz as a red flag.

I had someone play the good ol' FOAF card not long ago. Accordng to this guy (the father-in-law of one of my step-kids), he has a client who has a part interest in a Ford dealership in Tampa. They sent four salesguys in to get tested for COVID-19. The quartet checked in at the test site but when they found out that there was a two-hour wait, they split. Two days later, all four of them got letters notifying them  that they had tested positive.

Note the red flags:

• Not just a FOAF, but four people who work for a FOAF. 
• Overload of specific details: a "Ford dealership in Tampa," not "a car dealership in Florida."
• Not just one false positive, four of 'em.

So let's apply a little critical thinking: given how strict HIPAA regulations are, how would anyone have the name and contact information of someone who hadn't taken a test? OK, OK, I know: people make mistakes; maybe, just maybe there have been goofs and forms for people who bailed before getting tested have gone through, although anyone who's been in a medical facility in the past ten years knows damned well that the staff ask you your name, age, and other details over and over and over and over...
But it's all about wanting to believe. You see it every day: the simple bullshit claim is soooooo much easier to believe than the complicated explanation.

Yup: the choking doberman rides again.

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