Photo by Rick Geary

Drop trou, drink a Dew, and watch.

Dear Almighty Matt: I’ve heard a rumor that Yellow Dye #5, which is an ingredient in Mountain Dew, causes your penis to shrink. Is this true? And I've heard that the clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger is racist. Is this true —N.P.D., San Diego

Do you have a penis, N? Or do you know someone who does? Well, drop trou, drink a Dew, and watch. With some basic science, we often can answer these questions ourselves without cluttering up my desk. But your query is Exhibit A for the morphing of “I heard it through the grapevine” into “I read it on the Internet.” We now can get dumber faster than ever before.

First, let’s take a large stick to Yellow Dye #5. This synthetic, coal tar-derived food coloring is in practically every yellow edible on the shelf. The FDA requires that it be listed as an ingredient because some data suggest it could aggravate asthma and allergies. How this mild medical feat transformed itself into "your penis shrinks” is anybody’s guess. A glass of icy-cold Mountain Dew shrinks your penis only if you dump it in your lap.

Likewise, Tommy Hilfiger does not offer a winter line of cotton fleece hooded robes witl ear muffs and eye holes. A detailed story of Tommy’s alleged scurrilous remarks on Oprah! made the Net rounds recently. But he’s never appeared on Oprah! The Hilfiger hit is an updated version of a story that "proved” designer Liz Claiborne is also racist. But let’s say Tommy and Liz really are clothes-closet racists. Why would either one commit public relations hara-kiri on national TV? If they hate the color of your skin, they certainly like the color of your money.

“Love me = buy my stuff,” a basic marketing equation.