This is one of those stories that gets passed from one friend to another by e-mail and twitter, and quickly spreads around offices. It almost sounds like something you’d read in The Onion, but the deeper you get into the story, the more serious it becomes. Who knows if its even true? The story is being reported by a bunch of international newspapers, which would lead you to believe so (but I’m still skeptical). Read on..

Shanghai Daily is reporting that a 14-year-old from Yibin in Sichuan, China has been drinking Gasoline for the last five years to become a “valiant fighter” like Optimus Prime. The youngster first saw the animated Transformers tv series when he was nine years old, and was so impressed that be “that he began drinking fuel on a daily basis to “obtain energy” and become a mighty warrior like the Transformers.”

The kids parents scolded the kid after he started smelling the gas in cigarette lighters, and later began to notice that the gasoline in their motorcycle had begin disappearing. They caught the kid in the act and locked the motorcycle away, but the boy started stealing gasoline from unsuspecting neighbors. After the parents learned that their child was drinking two or three bottles a day, they decided to take him to a hospital. The doctor explained to the boy that he would not gain supernatural strength, but instead now has mental disorders from the lead and a strong “gasoline dependence.”

“Since my son start to drink gas, his intelligence quotient dropped sharply and he couldn’t figure out addition and subtraction of sums within 100,” the father said. “Before that, he was a very smart boy, and he could even repair the television. But now he doesn’t know the answer of 7 plus 17.”