Urban Legends

There are "urban legends", or something like them, in most every culture.  Ours are ridiculous, but we hear them so much that we tend to forget how laughable they can be to another culture.  Take South Korea (note to self: add interjecting Kim Jong il: "I wish I could, hoho!")  In South Korea, it is widely believed that sleeping with the fan on will kill you.  This tragic phenomenon is known as FAN DEATH (note to self: invent html coding for spooky letter animation).

Here's where it differs, though.  In America, we have mechanisms in place to demystify urban legends (like the popular "Myth Busters").  However, it is my understanding of a Wikipedia article that Korean scientists have proven death by mechanically-induced wind to be a fact of life.

Since our thinkers are obviously not discovering the world on the same level as their thinkers, I have decided to interscend to their rationale (that is, to move over without the judgment implied in either ascent or descent).

In other words, let's treat logic as subjective and propose some logical solutions based on Korea's explanations for fan death:

Explanation #1:  Electric fans eat up all the oxygen in a room and spit out carbon dioxide, just like humans do, only faster.

This shouldn't be too hard to fix, especially if I think like a South Korean scientist.  The logical solution here is simply to reverse the production of carbon dioxide by placing another fan, whose blades rotate backwards, in front of the first fan.  Like so:

Explanation #2: Fan motors create O₃(Ozone), which is deadly in high concentrations.

This con is easily turned into a pro when you think about its practical (and logical) potential application, which is to turn all the fans of the world towards the sky and repair the ozone layer.

Explanation #3: Every theory combined says that fans cause hypothermia, dehydration, asphyxiation, paralysis of the heart and lungs, and consequently death (I'm not making this up!)

Sleeping with a fan will leave you a cold and shriveled up shell of your former self.  Given that these effect are facts of science, the least nonsensical defense against the electric fan is to wear garlic.  Because fans are obviously vampires.

Explanation #4:  This one is actually a proposed explanation I have formulated to accompany the songbook of explanations for South Korean fan death, and it is arguably the most logical.
Let me begin with this question: Why are electric fans killing South Koreans exclusively, and leaving all other nationalities with nothing more than a sore throat in the morning?


The answer is very simple: all fans are from North Korea.

Personally, I will sleep well tonight knowing my fan is only interested in soliciting me for food.


This post is dedicated to Chris Landers, donor and inspiration to the piece.