The World's Most Popular Urban Legends.
A too-good-to-be-true compilation
Indeed at some point in our lives, we have found that someone has told us an implausible story that happened to a friend of a cousin.
These stories are the so-called urban legends, fictional stories with the present context that spread like wildfire and are given high credibility when they are not real.
Today I will talk about my favourite book: The Fabulous Book of Urban Legends, a compilation of the world's most famous urban legends.
Synopsis
Jon Harold Brunman is a Utah college professor who is an expert in urban legends.
Explain one of these stories to him, and he will immediately reveal their origin.
That is the primary function of this work, to explain the natural origins of these legends.
The stories are divided into different sections, and at the end of each comes an explanation of the story's origins.
It is surprising to know where these stories come from and to what extent they have been distorted until they reach our knowledge.
More than knowing the origin of these stories, the book is recommended because many of them are very funny, such as the man with his obsession with beans and suckers, the worker on the scaffolding, the woman with the packet of cookies, etc.
Then there are other classic stories like the one about the rat and the hamburger, the couple in costume at the Halloween party, etc.
The author even presents several variations of the same story to see its connections and how they change throughout its evolution.
The author already warns us at the beginning: the best way to recognize an urban legend is when one feels the story is too good to be true.
That is usually a clear indication that it is all mere fiction, but it is always interesting to investigate where these stories come from.
Some of the urban legends are long, while others are shorter. I recommend reading the stories in no particular order; enjoy the ones you like reading.
Because apart from reading, the book can serve as an encyclopedia to detect urban legends.
The book has about 665 pages, giving rise to an excellent compilation that is not the only one by the author.
In short, this book is highly recommended to have a good time reading unlikely stories, funny and try to recognize if any of the stories is suspiciously similar to any we have heard from the hand of an acquaintance.
Cautionary Tales
The package of cookies
When she arrived at the old station that afternoon, she was informed that the train she would be travelling would be delayed by about an hour.
The elegant lady, a little annoyed, bought a magazine, a packet of cookies and a bottle of water to pass the time.
She found a bench on the centre platform and sat down, prepared for the wait.
As she flipped through her magazine, a young man sat beside her and began reading a newspaper.
Unexpectedly, she watched as the young man, without saying a word, reached out, grabbed the package of cookies, opened it and began to eat them, one by one, casually.
The woman was annoyed by this, she did not want to be rude, but she did not want to let the situation pass or pretend that nothing had happened, so, with an exaggerated gesture, she took the package and took out a cookie, exhibited it in front of the young man and ate it looking him straight in the eyes.
In response, the young man took another cookie and, looking at her, put it in his mouth and smiled.
The already angry lady took a new cookie and, with apparent signs of annoyance, ate another one, keeping her eyes on the boy again.
The dialogue of looks and smiles continued from cookie to cookie.
The lady became more and more irritated, and the boy more and more smiling.
Finally, the lady realized that only the last cookie was left in the package.
"He can't be that brazen," she thought as she looked alternately at the young man and the package of cookies.
Calmly the young man reached out, took the last cookie, and very gently broke it precisely in half.
Then, lovingly, he offered half of the last cookie to his bench mate.
-? Thank you! - Said the woman, roughly taking that half.
- You are welcome. - Replied the young man smiling as he ate his half.
Then the train announced its departure.
The lady rose angrily from the bench and climbed into her car.
As the train pulled away from the window of her seat, she saw the boy still sitting on the platform and thought to herself, "How bold!
"How insolent, how ill-mannered, what a being from our world!"
Still looking resentfully at the young man, she felt her mouth dry with the disgust the situation had caused her.
She opened her purse to take out her bottle of water and was surprised to find, inside her purse, her packet of INTACT cookies.
Moral
How often do our prejudices, and our hasty decisions, make us misjudge people and make the worst mistakes?
How often the distrust already installed in us makes us judge, unjustly, people and situations, and without even knowing why we pigeonhole them in preconceived ideas, many times so far away from the reality that is presented.
Thus, by not using our capacity for self-criticism and observation, we lose the natural grace of sharing and facing situations, causing distrust and worry about growing in us.
We worry about events that are not real, that we may never contemplate, and we torment ourselves with problems that may never happen.
Urban omelette
A friend from Berkeley had just started working at the University. His boss told him the following story:
On October 17, 1989, the boss above and his brother were on their way to watch the third game of the World Series.
The brother was driving his new car, a gleaming white Mercedes with gold trim.
He had bought it three days earlier.
They arrive at the stadium, park and go to their seats.
The earth trembles. The crowd cheers. They all return to their cars.
But our heroes can't find theirs.
It has been stolen.
The men return home; I don't know how to report it to the insurance company and go on with their lives.
A couple of weeks ago, the insurance company called to tell him they had found the car.
But, unfortunately, they had also found the thief.
They found him still in the car on the Cypress Structure viaduct, reduced to a height of eighteen centimetres.
The brother was horrified, but the chief was happy. "Yes, there is justice in the world!"
Moral
This represents the highest level of poetic justice in the story, referring to the car thief getting what he deserved.
Sources:
The Fabulous Book of Urban Legends
Thanks for reading!
Rocio Becerra