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

For a comprehensive web-based guide to Urban Legends and FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) tales, visit http://www.urbanlegends.com . They have background information on some of the most popular & persistent ULs, including the poodle in the microwave, the business card collecting cancer victim, kentucky fried rat and many more. Pay a visit. Read and get your eyes opened. The information here should make you stop and think before you forward that free Nike trainers email to all your friends. Another excellent source of information on the same subject is http://www.snopes.com.

Have URL, will travel. Check out these sources for good info on ULs after you check out http://www.snopes.com and http://www.urbanlegends.com -

http://urbanlegends.about.com/
http://www.qis.net/~jschmitz/afu/
http://www.hoaxkill.com/
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~imunro/ring.html

All excellent on-line resources Agent 13. However, they're not much use when you're sitting in a restaurant listening to the pus-exploding chicken tumour story for the Nth time. What we need is a portable Earth edition of the HHGTTG that I can force vectors to read before they try to ruin my enjoyment of dinner.

That's when those things made out of paper that were around before the internet are helpful. A book was recently published in New Zealand by Robert Pollock called Good Luck Mr Gorsky. It has heaps of those pesky urban legends nailed down as true, false or somewhere in between and I have found that it delivered in the perfect format to throw at those people who insist on repeating the really irritating ones. Alternatively we could start a myth that there's a genetic disease out there killing off people who needlessly repeat obviously untrue stories incessantly.

Another good resource is anything by Jan Harold Brunvand, a professor of English and folklore. He has written at least five books about urban legends. If you don't like to read books without pictures, you should read "The Big Book of Urban Legends" published by Paradox Press. It is adapted from Brunvand's work.

Here is a story from it that should sound familiar.

This woman is going on a trip, and has to wait for a while for her bus. So whe gets some coffee and a package of cookies. While she is waiting a young guy in a leather jacket sits down at her table. Then he begins to eat her cookies, and eats them all, except he offers her half of the last one. Of course, she freaks out and yells at him and pushes the table onto him. Then, when the bus driver asks for her ticket she finds it in her purse, right next to her cookies.

Are you saying DNA lifted the tale? Oh, that did it. I just lost all respect for the man. Who knows what else he stole? Perfectly Normal Beast? Wonko the Sane? Vogon poetry?

GargleBlaster, NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I know that you realized what you were doing in the nick of time. Right?

Seriously though, DNA acknowldges that it's a FOAF. Arthur says that it sounds like one of those stories, but that it actually happened to him.

GreyRose

Not to worry...there hsn't been a fire in there in 13 years.

LOL