No Halloween Mall Shopping

“A friend of mine emailed me a warning today. Apparently, someone she knows was made aware of the possibility that terrorists may be planning to "do something" on Halloween at a mall or many malls. The story goes like this: A woman was dating a man from Afghanistan. The last time she saw him was on Sept.6. She got a message on Sept. 10 that he could not see her anymore, that she should not fly anywhere on Sept. 11 and she should not go near a mall on Oct. 31. The FBI collected the message from her after the Sept. 11 events, so the story goes. I can't verify the accuracy of this, but wanted to mention it in case people want to take this story seriously. Part of terrorism is to strike fear in the heart of the enemy. Missinformation to cause fear, is to be expected. But it is also important to be cautious of any crowded places in these uncertain times.”

“TD, I think this one is up soft and easy for you,,,”

“Lyndy, TownDawg sent an email out on this today and then had to follow up that it was a hoax”

“Well that's a relief! Then we'll know that all the white stuff on the floor is just Sweet & Low.”

“Yeah.. the girl that sent it to me.. her son is in the military.. apparently this one made its rounds really fast.. and sounds REALLY authentic.. but no.. it has already been discovered to be a hoax.

(soft and easy?.. my kind of girl.)”

“white stuff on the floor?.. oOops, did I let some slip off the glass again?

Dang.. it is so hard to get it all up using that straw.”

“From the urbanlegends site regarding this mall scare:

"This is one of those rare cases where the name and contact information of the original author appears intact on copies of a widely forwarded email. We have spoken to that author, Laura Katsis, who told us she passed the information on to friends because she believes it to be true.

However, in classic "I heard it from a friend of a friend" fashion, Ms. Katsis admits she is not personally acquainted with the woman the information originally came from and cannot vouch for its authenticity. This by no means proves the claims false, but it does give us very good reason to be skeptical until information from more credible sources is available."

Which at first sounds kinda scary until you read further.. and see that there are at least SIX variants of this email from six different people who all supposedly dated this guy..

LOL.. it drew me in this morning when I first got it from a good friend of mine.

but was just as glad to see it was nothng but a hoax.”

“I got the e-mail also. As soon as I read " a friend of a friend" I deleted it.”

“Whew, good thing it was a hoax. I do all my Christmas shopping on Halloween.”

“I'm not paraniod but you couldn't pay me enough money to go to the Superbowl or the World Series. The mall is fine though.”

“No mall shopping this Oct 31....darn it!!!! How am I gonna take advantage of Victorias Secret's fall sale on pumpkin orange thongs??????”

“Nigal, can I have your tickets?”

“yeah maybe Pac'y and my sis can finally get together!!”

“I can't stand the mall, so it seemed like a easy thing for me to avoid. There will be many of these email hoaxes, in coming weeks, I'm sure.”