Saturday, May 13, 2006

Urban Legends for a Post-Social-Network-Analysis Age

Cross-posted to The American Street.

1.

An American businessman visiting San Francisco on a sales trip met a beautiful Chinese woman in a bar. She tempted him back to his hotel room, where the effects of alcohol and a Rohypnol chaser caused him to fall unconscious.

To his spine-chilling horror, he awoke the next morning in a bathtub full of ice, excruciating agony piercing his lower back. A note scrawled on the bathroom mirror in lipstick enjoined him to call for a paramedic.

When the authorities arrived, they discovered that the man had a fresh surgical scar on his back, where a kidney had been removed. The Chinese Tongs, who, it is well known, deal in the international human-organ market, had claimed another victim.

The NSA, through telephonic data-mining, was immediately able to trace the Tongs, roll them up to the last foot-soldier, and return the man his kidney.

2.

The friends of a friend of a friend of mine, at the approach of the birthday of a vivacious young woman -- we'll call her S., although her name is actually D. -- conspired to throw her a surprise birthday party in the basement of her home. The plan was to hide there and surprise her when she arrived home from her secretarial job that day.

When the day arrived, the friends secreted themselves behind her furniture and in her closets, their presents and party favors at the ready.

However, the unsuspecting S. had other plans. Arriving home, she stripped herself nude, collected some peanut butter and a DVD of some hardcore lesbian porn, and called to her dog. "Come on, Skippy," she said. "Let's relieve some tension!"

The overhead speaker in her kitchen crackled. "Ms. S., this is NSA. You have a house full of guests. Repeat, you have a house full of unexpected guests."

S. put on her bathrobe, quickly stashed the porn, and began to make herself a PBJ.

"Whew! That could have been embarrassing! Thanks for the warning, NSA!"

3.

A passerby in a supermarket parking lot happened to notice an elderly woman seated rigidly in the driver's seat of her car, clutching her head.

The Samaritan knocked on the window of the car and enquired if she needed help. She replied heatedly that she needed immediate medical attention -- she believed she had been shot in the head and could feel her brains oozing out.

Before her benefactor could even dial his cell phone, an ambulance screeched around the corner. NSA had already alerted the local authorities.

The story has an amusing ending: What the woman had thought was a gunshot to the head was actually an exploding can of Pillsbury biscuit dough in the back seat, which had sprayed its viscous, yeasty contents all over the woman's head. The microchip inside the canister that informed NSA when it was opened had alerted her NSA Case Officer, who had the presence of mind to put two and two together.

Thanks again, NSA!

4.

The young lovers sat in their car on Lovers' Lane, less than pleased with one another. He claimed the car had run out of gas; she wasn't buying his obvious subterfuge to gull her into heavy necking.

"You know, I've heard that Man With the the Bloody Hook for a Hand roams these parts every anniversary of the Notorious Unsolved Bloody Hook Murders, dear."

"Oh, don't assay that old chestnut on me, you dreadful masher! I know men's dissembling ways!"

"No! It's true!"

The car radio, completely unbidden, crackled into life. "Confirmed. Bloody Hook Murderer is approximately three feet from your vehicle, approaching fast from two o'clock. Advise immediate -- repeat, immediate -- strategic redeployment to neutral ground."

When, some minutes later, the swain's car pulled up outside her home, he jumped out to open the door for her, as any polite young man should. Imagine the shriek of horror he emitted when he found, hanging from the passenger-side door handle, a bloody hook!

9 comments:

roxtar said...

A couple of "ladies who lunch" were dining at a tony, upscale boite. For dessert, they shared one of the establishment's famous chocolate chip cookies. So toothsome was the treat that one of the ladies asked the waiter for the recipe.

When the waiter brought the bill, a copy of the recipe was attached. Upon reviewing the bill, the diner was aghast to see that the restaurant had charged her $500 for the recipe.

Now, the lady could easily afford the $500, but she became irate as a matter of principle. So she leaned forward and whispered into the elegant floral centerpiece, "NSA, someone is trying to take money from rich people at table 6."

In a trice, a team of NSA operatives diverted $500 from a federally funded anti-poverty program for pre-school nutrition. A man in a Homburg hat and a black overcoat silently and surreptitiously slipped five Benjamins into the tray along with the bill.

So thrilled was our fair damsel, that she had her illegal immigrant housekeeper make a dozen of the famous cookies, which she delivered to the NSA by placing them in a public phone booth, picking up the receiver, and uttering the magic word, "Impeach."

Within 30 seconds, the Guardians of Freedom had claimed their sugary reward.

nash said...

Lonnie had always wanted to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force; however, poor eyesight disqualified him for pilot training. He did his time in the service, and then spend many years wistfully watching airplanes -- from the ground.

One day, he figured out a way that he could fly after all. He went to the local Army-Navy store and bought several dozen weather balloons and some tanks of helium. He took the weather balloons and tied them to a lawn chair -- which he first securely anchored to the ground. He inflated the balloons. Sure enough, the lawn chair rose off the ground and strained at its tether.

Delighted, Lonnie grabbed his binoculars, his camera, some potato chips, a pistol, and a six-pack of beer. He secured these things to the lawn chair. Then he climbed aboard and cut the tether -- and floated off into the sky!

Lonnie had figured that he'd rise up a few hundred feet, drift over Los Angeles for a while, then shoot out a couple of the balloons when he wanted to land. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

He rapidly shot up several thousand feet, whereupon prevailing winds caught him and took him swiftly toward Edwards Air Force Base. At first, he enjoyed the magnificent God's-eye view of Los Angeles and environs; soon, however, as he headed out over the desert, he became concerned. This was restricted airspace, after all.

Sure enough, before long, two big, noisy military helicopters, bristling with guns and rockets, came to investigate. Lonnie wasn't too concerned, as he thought that the security choppers would pick up the code from the CitIdent microchip embedded just under the skin of his left arm, cross-reference his identiscan with his NSA phone/email/internet database records, realize that he was a Class 1 Ordinary American, chalk the whole thing up to stupidity (he'd noticed the chopper pilots pointing at his six-pack -- or was it his binoculars and camera?), guide him to a gentle landing, and share with him a hearty laugh.

Chuckling, he reached over to pat the skin over his CitIdent chip. Suddenly, his blood ran cold. A scratch! That tree that I scraped through on liftoff . . . could it have damaged the chip? If the chip isn't registering correctly. . . . With fresh terror in his eyes, he turned nervously toward the approaching helicopters.

A voice boomed out: "Unidentified aircraft! You are entering top secret restricted airspace! Land your aircraft immediately or you will be fired upon!"

Lonnie frantically sought to signal his innocence to the men in the choppers. He tried everything: waving, saluting, making the sign of the cross. No effect. One of the helicopters began maneuvering to come above him. They were going to use the rotor wash to drive him down! Lonnie knew that this might toss his frail craft around badly enough to disintegrate it. He had to think fast.

Then he remembered the revolver. He yanked it from its concealed holster and waved it excitedly in the air, yelling, "Wait! I'll shoot some out! I will!"

Lonnie had a split second to notice the 7.62mm minigun centering on him before a hail of bullets tore him and the lawn chair into tiny pieces that went plummeting to the ground. Free of the weight, the weather balloons swiftly rose into the sky -- and were swiftly shredded by a burst from the other helicopter. The limp, flopping balloons, the remains of the lawn chair, and the remains of Lonnie all fell to Earth a few hundred feet from an Edwards AFB guard post.

Amazingly, Lonnie's Little Playmate cooler escaped damage. The guards soon polished off his two remaining Budweisers.

http://categoricalaperitif.blogspot.com

Kevin Wolf said...

Jesus, Neddie, I'll just give you my Koufax Award for Best Post (or would do if I had one) right now and we'll all just relax for the rest of the year.

But you have to share it with roxtar.

The Viscount LaCarte said...

Once upon a time there was a totally inept fool, and in spite of being born into wealth and privilege, had been a miserable and abject failure at every single endeavor he had ever attemped.

This somehow qualified him to be the leader of the free world. As President of the United States of America, among other flagrant acts that violated the rights granted to all US citizens from the Constitution, he ordered the NSA to start assembling a database of connections between the citizens of the USA. All of this was done in order to protect us from the terrorists, who wanted to take away our freedom and destroy our way of life.


Wait.

That one happened, didn't it?

Bobby Lightfoot said...

HOW AM I EVER GOING TO STUFF THIS FUCKIN' LUNG BACK IN, EH? EH?

So, this elderly American couple are vacationin' in their mobile home in Mexico, down 'round Xlbtixlan City. So, they're out antiquin' in th' marketplace and these two ne'er-do-well cholos break into their mobile home and steal some crap.

On their way out they have an amusin' thought and each of 'em shove one of the elderly couple's toothbrushes up their arses and use the camera sitting on th' table to take pictures of the toothbrushes up their arses.

They replace the toothbrushes and th' camera and the couple doesn't know what they've been brushing their teeth with until they develop the film two weeks later!

How does th' NSA figure in? Um...I know- it's Mikey Hayden's parents.

Anonymous said...

This incident happened recently in North Texas. A woman went boating one Sunday, taking with her some cans of cola which she put in the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday, she was taken into an Intensive Care Unit and, on Wednesday, she died.

An autopsy revealed that the woman had died from Leptospirosis. Tests later established that a can from which she drank was contaminated with dried rat urine containing Leptospirose. The cans had been stocked in a warehouse and had been transported directly to the store without being cleaned.

Dried rat urine contains toxic and deathly substances. It is, therefore, highly recommended that rights-indifferent chickenshits water down their rat urine and consume it from a bucket, not a can.

Boldly Serving Up Wheat Grass said...

Hey Neddie-

Nice blog! I stopped by through BlackSkyTheory, and knew right away this was one to bookmark. Plus, we have some eerie stuff in common -- both have discussed urban legends this week, both have referenced women engaging themselves sexually with dogs, both have a numerically listed running-serial category of posts, and both link to some of the same people. What's not to like?!

-P.H.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if I'm using up too much bandwidth here, but I'm having fun, so...

A sad old widow was sitting alone in a dimly lit room at a retirement home in Palm Beach on a recent summer night, waiting out another hurricane that was passing through. The wind was howling outside and the rain was beating hard against her two tiny windows, which were trimmed with frilly pink lace curtains. In a short lull between cracks of thunder, her telephone rang. When she answered, she was shocked to hear the familiar raspy voice of her deceased husband speaking quietly to her. He told her how much he had missed her this past year since his death and, by the way, she could find the missing TV remote behind the credenza, where it had fallen when she was dusting last week. Another boom of thunder, and the line went silent.

The following day, still somewhat shaken, the widow was riding along in the community bus on her way to senior center. They paused briefly, for a red blinking traffic light, across from the cemetery where her husband was buried. A work crew was there, trying to re-erect a utility pole that had blown down the night before. As the bus started off again, she clearly observed that the fallen telephone lines passed directly over her husband's grave.

Dum, dum, DUM!!

A record of the call was found in the NSA database and Governor Jeb was informed immediately. In response, he had the rotten corpse exhumed, a feeding tube inserted and the man's name returned to the Florida voting rolls.

XTCfan said...

"Skippy." Heh.

You funny, Ned.