Claim: Customer becomes sick after eating a steak at a chain restaurant; analysis of her meal reveals the presence of human urine in the meat.
Status: False.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
Oh girl do I have a story for Okay, a guy here at work went out to eat to an eating establishment with a few friends and their wives. One of the wives ordered a steak well done. To make a long story short she ended up having to send the steak back Well, she got sick that night. So sick her husband took her to the Emergency Room at Carle. There she had to have her stomach pumped. The doctors asked her where she had eaten, what she had eaten. After telling the doctor, the doctor asked if by chance they brought some home. The husband said yes and went home to get it so they could take tests on it in their lab. After taking the steak to the The lady has to have tests every 3-6 months now for disease for the next
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Variations:
- The rumor spread to include Timber Lodge Steakhouses in Mankato and
St. Cloud, both in Minnesota. - Some versions add the detail that the sickened victim returns to the restaurant to confront its management and is offered $10,000 to remain silent.
Origins: Urban legends involving adulterated
foods used to feature the discovery of worms, disgusting animals, or even human body parts
in foods purchased by customers at stores or restaurants, with the offending substance having been included through negligence or a careless lack of cleanliness on the part of the producer or preparer. Now the vogue seems to be the finding of yucky bodily fluids (such as semen) in the remnants of meals consumed by restaurant patrons who have fallen ill, said yucky fluids having been "placed" there out of spite by employees whom the customers have managed to annoy or offend.
This one fails the credibility test for most of the same reasons as similar tales about hapless customers made sick by the addition of semen to their meals. (Just picture the physician in the emergency room: "Run this steak down to the lab and have it checked for salmonella, botulism, and e.coli. Oh, and
The clue to this one is probably given in the first line: "I want this place to go out of business." That's likely an honest motive, accompanied by a disingenuous reason. Unfortunately, the scheme seems to be working on some innocent victims:
"These kinds of legends have caused serious damage to a number of companies through the years. The rumors apparently spread rapidly in communities where there's a large university," Olson said. "The rumor has already leaked up to the She said the persistent and vicious nature of the rumor has already caused a slight decline in business at the Mankato Timber Lodge.1
"We have received calls asking about the rumor. It's just terrible. We've built a beautiful restaurant in Mankato, and we're absolutely finicky about quality assurance," said Siobhan Olson of the public relations office for Timber Lodge.
Last updated: 28 January 2007
Sources: