Education Urban Legend

Some urban legends are quite popular such as:

• the man with a hook on Lover’s Lane who loses it on a couple’s door handle,
• the kids who drive without headlights until flashed by another car, and then they follow and beat the person,
• the percentages of HIV positive donated blood,
• babies born in-flight are given free flights forever, and
• sewer gators growing to enormous size in NYC.

One old urban legend handed down in education circles goes something like this:

A small group of girls at a school kept coating bathroom mirrors with lipstick and then pressing their lips to them to make pucker marks. After a week or so, the principal pulled all of the suspected girls in school into the bathroom, so they could see a quick presentation about the extra work the pucker marks cause for the custodians. The principal then instructed one custodian to demonstrate how long it takes to clean the mirrors. He then dipped his squeegee into the toilet and washed off the mirrors in about a minute. There were no more lip prints on the mirrors that year.