From snopes.com
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