My friend's Dad knows the guy...

I’ve always wanted to start an Urban Legend, just to see if it makes the rounds and gets back to me.

I mean that it gets back to me legitimately, not by force like when your coworkers send you Power Point presentations that you are compelled to forward to 10 people in order to prove you care; get laid; thank your guardian angel; or help sick Jimmy beat the World Record for Get Well cards.

I became disillusioned by those e-chain-mails when I found out sick Jimmy was faking. To make matters worse, I learned that Microsoft is not working on a way to track the number of times an email gets forwarded. And besides, even if I had forwarded that “other” chain mail, I didn’t really think anyone in my Address Book was about to come calling wearing nothing but a raincoat. Especially not within 10 days.

No, I don’t want to contribute any more cyber-junk-mail to an already spam-burdened universe. I’m not talking about chain mail. Just a good old fashioned Urban Legend. For no other reason than to see if someone ever tells it to me as if it were true, because their cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s Dad heard it on CNN.

Urban Legends cover a broad range of topics, so I need to narrow it down. First off, nothing too salacious, or it might not get back to me. Or it might get back to me, and that could be worse. Nothing gory – too 70’s.

And certainly nothing involving any terrorist related topics that CIA search engines comb for daily. I do not need that kind of attention ever again.

I’m thinking of something relatively harmless. Perhaps it could involve the Lottery, or a haunted house; or maybe a central vacuum system. I really like central vac. I might throw in a natural disaster or a great act of kindness for good measure.

Here goes….

Just after Hurricane Juan hit the East Coast a retired vacuum salesperson was out walking along the beach in Saint John. Among the debris he noticed something odd sticking out of the sand. It was a plastic shopping bag, barely visible. He gave it a pull, and dug around it for a minute to see if it contained anything more than just sand. To his surprise the bag did have something in it – a paperback novel. Then he noticed something else – the novel’s bookmark – it was a Lottery Ticket. He checked the novel, but it had no name and no other means of identifying the owner. Since it was rather soggy, he dropped the book and the bag in the garbage, but he decided to hang on to the Lottery Ticket just in case. A few weeks later he remembered he still had the ticket in his pocket. When he went to the corner store to check it he was amazed to learn that he not only had a winner, but a huge winner -- $1 Million dollars!! Being retired and financially secure, and having no family he thought long and hard about what to do with the money. He eventually made his decision – the hurricane brought him the ticket, and that’s where the money should go. The day after he turned the winning ticket in to the Lottery Commission the City’s Parks Department received an anonymous donation of $1 million.

Now – to proliferate the “legend”. There is only one rule…
If anyone reading this – i.e. anyone who “hears” it directly from me -- decides to pass the legend along, they must also pass along the fact that it is fictional, and that I was just trying to see if I could start an urban legend.

Who knows, maybe one day someone will try to convince me that this story is true. Meanwhile, I’m going back to lemon tea and my shot glass full of cough syrup.