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

Alligators in the sewers....a hook rattling against a car door....a man waking in a tub of ice without a kidney

What is your favorite urban legend?

There's a popular one, in the UK at least, which revolves around a young girl stealing a penguin from the local zoo without her mother noticing.

Then again there's another which comes round very few years which a lot of people take seriously, about LSD-spiked 'tattoos' being handed out at schools. Someone actually sends round warning letters (or emails, these days) about this.

No-one ever bothers to wonder whether LSD can actually be applied through the skin, or why anyone would go to all the trouble to surreptitiously hand out free samples of a non-addictive drug to children who couldn't afford it anyway and would be very unlikely to enjoy an acid trip in the first place... I suppose it just hits all the right buttons about our fears of drug dealers preying on children. but still, very odd.

There is always the one where someone phones up IT Support to say that their cup holder has broken.


(I have actually had that one so it is to me more of an Urban anecdote rather than a myth/legend)

An overweight lady's beeper goes off in the Supermarket and a child says 'She must be backing up!' Or something like that.

Urban legends are so much more fun than real life.

By the way, I don't have a cup holder in this computer

<blacksheep.

We used to go back and forth across the Mexican border a lot. There was a story about a woman who wanted to buy some baby parrots and smugle them into the states. You could buy a parrot for $50 and turn around and sell it for $300. She took some sleeping pills and drugged the parrots and stuffed one in each bra cup. Well, the story goes that they woke up too soon and started flapping around under her blouse as she was going through customs. And the customs officer looked at her and said in a deadpan voice.....

"Madame, you appear to be so happy to see me that your breasts are dancing with delight."

I remember one about a guy who's driving home in the middle of the night and misses his exit from the motorway. It'll put another hour on his trip if he goes on to the next one, the road is deserted, so he decides to reverse back down the motorway to the ramp. Of course there's an enormous crash as someone goes straight into the back of his reversing car.

His heart sinks as the police arrive, he knows he's looking at losing his licence as a best case scenario. But the police officer comes up to him, smiles, and says, 'I shouldn't worry too much about the insurance, sir, the guy who crashed into you is so drunk he swears you were going backwards.'