h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Urban Myths.
Sorry if these are a too late and I’m not sure if they are what you’re looking for and I'm only a two fingered typist, but
here they are if you can use them sometime anyway
These have been circulating around the motor trade for a while.
1)An unhappy lady owner pulled up outside a garage and went in to speak to the
Service Dept Receptionist complaining that she was having difficulty getting her car
started in the mornings. Each morning the car refused to respond to the starter and she
would have to resort to getting assistance from neighbours to push the beast or ‘jump
start’ it from another car. The receptionist went out to the car with the owner to
diagnose the fault. Sure enough the only response he could get from the car was a
rather dead sounding ‘clunk’ from the starter motor. He lifted the bonnet and checked
the battery terminals and pronounced that ‘The battery’s flat’. The woman, looking a
little perplexed asked ‘Well, what shape should it be ?’
2)A Panel beater in a car body shop was welding a new wing onto a car using arc
welding equipment. He had recently purchased contact lenses to use in place of his
spectacles which were cumbersome to use behind the face shield. During the course of
the job his face had ended up quite close to the area being welded due to the confined
space he was having to work in and he accidentally shorted out the arc rod against the
surrounding bodywork causing an arc without his shield being up for protection. He
noticed nothing wrong until he came to remove his contact lenses later that night and
found that they wouldn’t detach from his eye. It transpired that the unprotected arc
flash had caused the lenses to become welded to his eyes cornea. Hospital treatment
was unable to save his sight.
At risk of being labeled a chauvinist this one’s about another lady driver, but remember
I didn’t make it up, it can also be confirmed as a myth from the ‘the boys own book of
urban myths’ :
3) A lady driver repeatedly complained that her car wouldn’t run very well. It misfired,
it was sluggish, wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding and drank petrol as if there
was no tomorrow. But, every time the car went into the garage workshop and was
tested it was found to be fine. Eventually the garage sent their tester out with the lady
to see if they could experience the problem. She was more than happy to do so if only
to get to the bottom of the problem. The tester walked out to the car with her and
asked her to drive. She settled into the driving seat put on her seat belt, pulled out the manual
choke knob to full on and hung her handbag on it.
This one has circulated through various running/athletic clubs since the running boom
of the ‘eighties.
4)A keen jogger who was in training for the London Marathon had been out on a long
training run on an exceptionally cold January morning. He had been out for at least a
couple of hours wearing his usual jogging kit including Lycra shorts which although
they may look sexy to some eyes, they are not renowned for their heat retaining
properties. One of the side effects of running long distances is that the body will reduce
the blood supply to its extremities and on returning home he found not only that his
wife had gone out but that his little ‘one per cent’ was completely numb. Fearing frost
bite he decided to apply first aid in the form of warm water. At this point his wife
returned and on opening the door finds husband with shorts around his knees and his
wedding tackle in a pint beer mug full of warm water resting on the hall radiator.
All the best A.M.

It's never too late to add more. I think I can use number 3. 2 seems a bit too complicated, and 1 and 4 seem more like water-cooler jokes than actual legends. Good job!

The page looks great!

Has this link been posted already?


http://www.urbanlegends.com

Austin: your contribution can now be found in Volume II.

Hi! Came to this page late, but would like to contribute stuff anyway.

Further to Peta's snake-in-the-guts, there was a story reported in the paper a couple of weeks ago (can you have true myths?) about a woman who went to the doctor complaining of noises in her ear which had begun one morning after she woke up and had been going on for several days. The doc stuck his opthalmascope in and discovered... a spider, which had already laid a clutch of eggs (shudder).

A few years ago, everybody seemed to know of somebody who knew of somebody's otherwise young and healthy son who hadn't come home after a night's heavy drinking. When the prodigal finally did return, he'd blame his extended disappearance on the booze, until he sobered up enough to notice the stitches on his abdomen. A visit to the doctor would confirm that he'd lost a kidney. Whilst the worse for wear, he'd been drugged, kidnapped, crudely operated on, and his kidney removed and sold on the medical black market. Maybe this was circulated in an attempt to stop youngsters drinking to excess...

And lastly, when I was at University, there was the story of the guy who snored so loudly when drunk that the infuriated people from neighbouring rooms in the Halls of Residence broke into his room and lifted his bed, complete with him in it, outside. When the guy woke up next morning, he found himself, and his bed, first in the queue for breakfast outside the Refectory.

Latecomers are always welcome! Hope you enjoyed the collection.

I dont see that I can use any of this, unfortunately. First of all, my stories are suposed to be fakes, so the first story wouldn't make the grade. The second one is good, but in Volume III I already have a much more detailed and interesting version of the Kidney Donors myth. As for the third one, as badly as I could use a couple more stories in the University volume, I just don't think there's enough to the story to merit its inclusion. It describes a rather well known practical joke, so there isn't much shock or humor value to it.

Sorry to disappoint.

No, that's alright. I enjoyed setting them down anyway, and maybe somebody will get a laugh out of reading them.

Spiny

I did! We did the same thing to a guy in our dorm in college, except we broke into the college library and put him in the fiction section!

Hi GB. Thanks for the inclusion in your U/Legends page.
Here’s another couple you might like if you haven’t heard them before..
1 The body of a scuba diver was found on a Californian hillside which had recently suffered a forest fire. He was clad in the full diving gear complete with aqualung, flippers mask etc. Police traced his last moments to diving about 20 miles off the coast where firefighting aircraft, skimming low to pick up water to dump on the fire, had picked up and included the hapless diver in it’s load. The cause of his mysterious appearance on the hillside was attributed to him being dropped on the fire from the ‘water bomber’.
and there's another..
2 A few years ago patients in one particular bed of the intensive care ward of a South African hospital kept dying off. The mortality rate of that one bed was 100%. Doctors eventually discovered the cause was due to a cleaner who was unplugging the life support equipment to plug in her floor polisher and reconnecting it when finished.
I've also heard a great one about the US and Canadian navies but I'm still trying to find the full text.. keep you posted, all the best A.M.

Welcome back, Austin! As a scuba diver myself, I am very familiar with that particular tale. I want to include it, but first I have to find out for sure if it is truth or myth. If you know of a source that can verify that, I'd appreciate it, and I'll look about on my own, as well. I think I can also use the bed one, although it'll require a bit of work, as there isn't much there. I'll have to fatten it up a bit.

Thanks for the additions, and I look forward to any story that lampoons the US Navy!

...Where he immediately became a "Heavily Requested Item"!

Naw, he was a spotty git!

Hi GB. Both the above come from a publication by the Carling Brewery called 'Club Carling' on a page listing u/legends, though I'd heard them both before. The sky diver one is rated on their 'porki-ometer' with 8 out of 10 pork pies (lies). Also you can find it listed in the Darwin Awards as a legend, look in the section legends/older than 1999. The 'bed' only gets 2 porkies so their may be an element of truth in it. (but I doubt it)
All the best AM

Excellent work, then, super sleuth! I'll get around to adding them both after I've finished up a couple other projects I'm toying with.

Hi agin GB,. Here’s the story I promised you, I’m not sure if it’s what you’re looking for but it made me lol when I heard it on GLR local radio last week (Greater London Radio). It has all the hallmarks of a urban legend but I only heard it once and I wrote it down to the best of my memory at the time. For confirmation I finally found it on http://www.snopes.com

This was a transcript of a radio conversation between the US navy and the Canadian coastguard somewhere off the coast of Canada...
Canadain C.G. 'We have you on radar and advise you that you are on a collision course with us, Alter course 18' north'
US Navy 'We will not alter course, You alter course'
Canadian C.G. 'We say again, you must alter course 18' north to avoid collision'
US Navy 'You alter course to avoid collision'
Canadian C.G. 'It is imperitive that you alter course now to avoid collision'
US Navy 'This is the US Navy aircraft carrier Enterprise We are x ?? thousand tons and have two support cruisers and four destroyers and numerous supply ships in attendance, You alter course'
Canadian Navy 'We are a lighthouse, your call'

The text above differs somewhat from the confirmation but it’s close enough.
The page ref is http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/lighthse.htm which I’ve tried
and doesn’t seem to work when tested from my page but you can get to the story via their search using ‘us navy
and lighthouse’ The story’s called ‘The Obstinate Lighthouse’
All the best A.M.

I have heard this one before, but as a water-cooler joke, and not a legend. Maybe I'll squeeze it in anyway, just to piss off the Navy.

By the Vets then...

Austin: I decided there wasn't enough meat on the death bed story to include it, but the scuba diver and navy tales are now included in volume 2. Thank you once again for your contributions.