Post by The Curmudgeon on Oct 3, 2011 15:48:26 GMT 2
If this has cropped up before, I apologise, because it does SEEM like the sort of thing I would mention, but for the life of me I can't remember. Ah the hell with it. The best conversations are the ones we've already had, right?
A few years back, I became pretty involved with the whole Urban Legend phenomenon, buying huge books on the subject and reading them cover to cover at least more than once. When I discovered the Urban Legend website Snopes, I was hooked again.
And once I got a little bit of knowledge on the subject, I realised the huge crock of utter shit I had been told growing up and accepting as truth. Such as;
A little kid hides in his sister's wardrobe to jump out and scare her. He watches her take out a bunch of scary looking Devil worship stuff from under her bed, begin to dance wildly and then kill herself in front of him.
The whole "dog lies under girls bed. Dog licks girls hand at night. Girl gets up in the morning and find dog lying in the bath, slaughtered. So what licked her hand...?" story.
I was in Memphis years back, and my sister (who was living there) told me she never flashed her headlights at drivers who had "forgotten" to switch theirs on, because it was a gang member thing that, if you did that, they followed you and killed you.
I actually believed all of that shit.
Last year, a girlfriend of a friend of mine actually got pissed at me because I debunked her story about her college, where her some of her classmates were being stabbed in the back as they sat in their chairs, where they would find needles with "welcome to the AIDS club" notes attached. She swore this was true, even though I'd read the same story in my Urban Legends book a year before.
Mrs C told me about a friend of hers that knew a girl (a Friend of a Friend, the Urban Legend books call that) who, whilst driving, saw a guy flashing his lights and honking his horn behind her. She stopped the car and, wouldn't you know it, the guy driving saw a maniac with a knife hiding behind her in the backseat!
Just last week, an old guy was telling me and my dad about a formula created that was cheaper than any known fuel (vegetable oil and water or some shit) and BP bought the formula from the inventor and now have it kept secret, buried forever.
If any of these sound familiar, then you're not alone. Here's the website, that once you get reading, sucks hours out of your day.
www.snopes.com
I'm surely not alone here. Anyone else been told far-fetched tales as "this really happened, honest" before?
A few years back, I became pretty involved with the whole Urban Legend phenomenon, buying huge books on the subject and reading them cover to cover at least more than once. When I discovered the Urban Legend website Snopes, I was hooked again.
And once I got a little bit of knowledge on the subject, I realised the huge crock of utter shit I had been told growing up and accepting as truth. Such as;
A little kid hides in his sister's wardrobe to jump out and scare her. He watches her take out a bunch of scary looking Devil worship stuff from under her bed, begin to dance wildly and then kill herself in front of him.
The whole "dog lies under girls bed. Dog licks girls hand at night. Girl gets up in the morning and find dog lying in the bath, slaughtered. So what licked her hand...?" story.
I was in Memphis years back, and my sister (who was living there) told me she never flashed her headlights at drivers who had "forgotten" to switch theirs on, because it was a gang member thing that, if you did that, they followed you and killed you.
I actually believed all of that shit.
Last year, a girlfriend of a friend of mine actually got pissed at me because I debunked her story about her college, where her some of her classmates were being stabbed in the back as they sat in their chairs, where they would find needles with "welcome to the AIDS club" notes attached. She swore this was true, even though I'd read the same story in my Urban Legends book a year before.
Mrs C told me about a friend of hers that knew a girl (a Friend of a Friend, the Urban Legend books call that) who, whilst driving, saw a guy flashing his lights and honking his horn behind her. She stopped the car and, wouldn't you know it, the guy driving saw a maniac with a knife hiding behind her in the backseat!
Just last week, an old guy was telling me and my dad about a formula created that was cheaper than any known fuel (vegetable oil and water or some shit) and BP bought the formula from the inventor and now have it kept secret, buried forever.
If any of these sound familiar, then you're not alone. Here's the website, that once you get reading, sucks hours out of your day.
www.snopes.com
I'm surely not alone here. Anyone else been told far-fetched tales as "this really happened, honest" before?
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