Even if it is an urban legend it has enough truth to it to make it really funny. As a southerner who once pronounced all one syllable words as two syllables and who has now lived from NJ to MN and many states in between, I have been just as misunderstood and it can take a while to unravel the translation.
I asked one new friend, "Where do you bank?" and she replied, "Bike?" That was a pretty funny conversation before we figured it out.