Claim: The purchaser of a new pair of shrink-to-fit jeans attempted to achieve the perfect skin-tight size by wearing them while soaking in a bathtub and was killed by the crushing force of the constricted pants.
Status: False.
Examples:
[Collected on the Internet, 1997] Allegedly some teenage girl was trying to get her jeans as tight as humanly possible, as was the style. So she wore her new 501's in the bathtub and then waited for them to shrink to fit. They became so tight she couldn't get out of them. [Marsano, 1987] Somewhere in California, a young woman decided to fit herself out with a sexy pair of skintight jeans. Having bought the tightest pair she could find, she went further, using the traditional technique of immersing herself in a tub of water and allowing the jeans to dry and shrink on her body. The jeans shrank tight enough to bring her blood circulation to a total stop. |
Variations:
- Some
versions of the legend end not with the wearer's death, but with the embarrassment of the wearer's having to be cut out of the jeans by an emergency rescue crew.
- The legend sometimes ends with the claim that the victim (or the victim's relatives) received a large cash award/settlement from the jeans manufacturer (always Levi's).
Origins: This legend originated in the
Last updated: 19 May 2011
Sources:
Also told in:
Fiery, Ann. The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends. Philadelphia: Running Press Books, 2001. ISBN 0-7624-107404 (pp. 87-90).