If you are a card-carrying skeptic and believe that the numbers 9-1-1 coming up in the New York lottery admidst all the hoorah on Sept. 11 was just too perfectly “coincidental” to be devoid of human tampering, well, welcome to the club.

Your reassuring doubtfulness dovetails neatly with today’s harangue, which concerns a healthy skepticism of the bill of fare to be found on the Internet, that fertile ground for misinformation and mischief where bunkum abounds and no “Buyer Beware” tag comes attached to warn an unsuspecting public.

As the all-pervasive media saturation coverage of the first anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist rampage got cranked up in good shape, reader Mike Gleason of Bangor e-mailed a flowering Internet rumor, along with a simple request: “Old Dawg: Can we nip THIS one in the bud?”

The article, forwarded to Gleason by a friend, urged a boycott of Dr. Pepper Co. products on the grounds that the soft-drink firm had allegedly produced a post-Sept.11 patriotic can featuring the Pledge of Allegiance, minus the words “under God.”

Gleason was asked to spread the boycott alert amongst several hundred of his closest pals, but he declined on suspicion that the allegation had about it the air of runaway urban myth. He suggested that his friend contact “the evil Dr. Pepper Company” to ascertain the report’s truthfulness. She did, and received this reply from the firm’s consumer relations division:

“Thank you for contacting Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. concerning the Dr. Pepper patriot can. The information you received is incorrect and is currently circulating the Internet as fact, when it is actually incorrect and taken out of context…

“After the terrible events of Sept. 11, we felt as a small company of 1,300 people that we needed to somehow show our support for the nation and for all those impacted.

“We created a can, available only in a limited area, that had the Statue of Liberty and three words from the Pledge [of Allegiance] that best described how we felt as a nation. The words we chose were ‘One Nation … Indivisible.’ We felt that as a nation we were more united than ever before and that no act of terrorism or war would break our united stance against evil.

“We did not deliberately leave out the words ‘Under God.’ They were just not the three words we felt symbolized how we felt as a nation. This can design was produced only to be in market for a few months and was out of circulation by about March of this year. Our intent was never to offend anyone. It was to communicate our support for the nation. You may view the graphics of the actual can by logging on to our Web site at www.dpsu.com and click on the link for Dr. Pepper’s Patriot Can…We would appreciate you sharing this information with any friends who have also been sent misinformation about our intent.”

Shortly afterward, I received e-mail from Down East making the same anonymous allegation – this time against Pepsi Cola – and pressing for a boycott of that firm’s products. In this version, the Empire State Building had been substituted for the Statue of Liberty. But, like Dr. Pepper, Pepsi was charged with dissing America, big time, by omitting the words ‘Under God’ from the pledge.

“Pepsi said they did not want to offend anyone,” read the anonymous message. “If this is true, then we do not want to offend anyone at the Pepsi corporate office. If we do not buy any Pepsi product, then they will not receive any of our money. Our money, after all, does have the words ‘Under God’ on it.

“Please pass this word to everyone you know. Tell your Sunday School class and tell your pastors so that they can tell the whole congregation. Christians, stand up and let your voices be heard. We want the words ‘Under God’ to be read by every person who buys a can…”

Skeptical because of the Dr. Pepper thing, I checked out the Pepsi Web site to see what the firm had to say for itself. And there it was, bigger than Billy-Be-Damned, under the red-flagged heading, “False Rumor Alert: Patriotic Cans.”

“We want to clarify an erroneous report that has been circulating around cyberspace for the past several months. Pepsi has not created an edited version of American’s Pledge of Allegiance. A patriotic package used last year by Dr. Pepper was inappropriately linked to this rumor. Dr. Pepper’s position is very clearly articulated [on its Web site…”].

So there you are. Once again, the facts stand in the way of a good story. Bummer.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.