Opinion: The Gullibility Of All And Sundry

"My God! Coke is soooo erosive, it can, like, corrode half the toilet seat away!"

"And it's true! If you stuff roasted almonds into the mouth of a suffocating person, then you force his forehead to touch his knees three times, while someone simultaneously slaps his face with a slipper (clogs are optional), he will be miraculously healed!"

"I daresay! Put Kampung Koh chilli sauce mixed with Kikkoman soy sauce into your engine, your car will go an additional gazillion miles per gallon!"

Funny, isn't it? Half-truths and non-truths making their rounds on the e-mail circuit are immediately accepted as honest-to-God facts. Told to finish our course of antibiotics (in order to prevent bacterial resistance), we would pooh-pooh after the second day. Or we'd stuff roasted almonds into our mouths. Yet we'd stay away from 'heaty' foods such as seafood, red meat, and everything tasty so that our bodies could heal, despite the non-existent logic in that. Yes, sickly foods are for sick people - all things bland, colourless and mucky. Porridge, bread and toilet-paper soup.

I wonder what pre-conditioning process we were put through to blindly accept nonsensical fallacies masquerading as irrefutable commandments, and yet disbelieve all things factual? Is it because, at some basic primeval level, we seek such consolatory vagaries? Some blind need to 'think we know better'... simply because the e-mail says so? Why trust a forwarded e-mail, when we distrust the professional in front of us?

I can only attribute that to having an 'itchy backside'. Not that professionals are all fine upstanding people anyway. Most of them have vested interests in ventures, relationships and affiliations that compromise the objectivity of their opinions. But that's a story for another time. This time round - I groan at how these e-mails affect our lives.

Initially I took the trouble to correct, backed by professional qualifications, a couple of health- or drug-related lies. After some time, I just shrugged it off. Why bother? This nonsense makes for an entertaining read. Why stir up shit? No one cares what the 'professional' opinion is. They like novel exciting facts popping up in their mailboxes every other hour.

Besides, if anything bad happens - they only need eat roast almonds.

And have a slipper ready.