The Vanishing Hitchhiker

A man was driving home from a country-club dance late one Saturday night. Out of the corner of his eye appeared a lovely young girl, dressed in the sheerest of evening gowns, beckoning him for a lift. He jammed on his brakes, and motioned her to climb into the back seat of his sedan. "All cluttered up with golf clubs and bags up here in front," he explained. "But what on earth is a youngster like you doing out here all alone at this time of night?"

"It's too long a story to tell you now," said the girl. Her voice was sweet and somewhat shrill -- like the tinkling of sleigh bells. "Please, please take me home. My car broke down a few miles back and I have been trying to get help for the longest time. I live up the road about 5 miles. I do hope it's not too far out of your way."

He drove rapidly to her destination, and as he pulled up before the house, he said, "Here we are," and turned around. The back seat was empty.

"What the heck?" he said to himself. The girl couldn't possibly have fallen from the car. Nor could she simply have vanished. He rang insistently on the house bell, confused as he had never been before. At long last the door opened. A gray-haired, very tired-looking man peered out at him. "I can't tell you what an amazing thing has happened," began the doctor. "A young girl gave me this address a while back. I drove her here and . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know," said the man wearily. "This has happened several other Saturday evenings in the past month. That young girl, sir, was my daughter. She was killed in a car accident two years ago in the spot where you picked her up.

Variations:

Sometimes the ghost leaves a book or scarf in the car, which the bereaved parents then identify as belonging to their lost daughter. Sometimes the driver spies the hitchhiker's photograph on the family piano, wearing the
party dress in which she died (and which she was wearing when he picked her up).

In versions where the hitchhiker disappears when the vehicle drives past a graveyard, the driver discovers the coat he lent his passenger draped over the tombstone of a girl who'd died in a car accident a few years earlier.

Another version of what happens the next day:

After he got home he remembered that Lavender had borrowed his coat. The next day he went to her house and knocked on the door. An old woman answered and he asked her if Lavender Blue was at home. He went on to explain that she had borrowed his coat and he came to get it back and to talk to her if she was there.

The woman had a sad look and asked him if this was some kind of joke. He insisted that it was no joke. She informed him that Lavender Blue had died 5 years before after she had been out on a date. Her date left her in the middle of no-where and she was hit by a truck while walking home on a dark road.

Tom looked so confused when she told him this story that she told him that she would show him Lavender’s grave, as she was buried in their back yard. They walked around the house and in the back corner of the large property there was a small cemetery and in the center was Lavender’s tombstone. Both the woman and Tom were surprised to find Tom’s coat folded neatly laying on the grave.

Stupid Laws in The U.S.

Here are some crazy laws that are still on the books in the United States today. I seriously doubt that they are enforced, otherwise we would all be in jail! Crazy Laws in America.

STRANGE NEWS

NYC Newcomer Gets Lost for Five Days
Mon Jan 22, 8:49 PM ET
NEW YORK - A newcomer to the city became hopelessly lost for five days after going for a walk. Damon Mootoo was staying at his brother's house in South Jamaica, Queens, when he decided to go for the stroll last Wednesday, 12 hours after arriving in New York for the first time, the Daily News reported Monday.

The 32-year-old man quickly got disorientated by the confusing streets of Queens.
(More...)

Man Arrested for Smuggling 500 Parrots in a Car
ALMATY, Jan 23 (Reuters Life!) - Kazakh border guards arrested a man trying to smuggle 500 parrots in his car from neighbouring Uzbekistan, media reported on Tuesday.

"Border guards discovered a live cargo of 500 parrots in his car," Kazakhstan Today news agency quoted a KNB security service official as saying.
(More...)


Diver Says he was Partly Swallowed by Shark
SYDNEY, Jan 23 (Reuters Life!) - An Australian abalone diver told rescuers he was partly swallowed head-first by a Great White Shark on Tuesday but managed to fight his way free, suffering a broken nose and bite marks around the chest.

Diver Eric Nerhus, 41, was underwater with his 25-year-old son and other divers off Cape Howe, near Eden on Australia's southeast coast, when the 3 meter (10 foot) shark attacked. (More...)


Pet Shop Owner Creates Beer for Dogs
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Jan. 22) - After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold bottle of beer. So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt. (More...)

Did You Know...

Here's something a little different...

Did you ever wonder how 7Up got its name? Ex-advertising and merchandising executive, C.L. Grigg spent several years testing eleven different formulas of lemon-flavored soft drinks. in 1929, he introduced Seven-Up, then a caramel-colored beverage. 7Up is actually a blend of seven natural flavors and early advertising promoted it as an uplifting tonic for our physical and emotion ills: "7Up energizes-sets you up-dispels brain cobwebs and muscular fatigue." Fortunately, its advertising has since improved.

How did they keep beer cold in the saloons of the Old West? In the 19th century, beer drinkers didn't drink it as cold as they do now. In cold areas of the West, saloons used to gather ice from frozen lakes in the winter and store it in ice houses where the blocks of ice were insulated with sawdust. When there was no ice, they would fill a cistern with water from cool mountain streams to store and cool barrels of beer. Beer in the Old West didn't need to be as cold as it does today--beer then was not artifically carbonated like today. Slight, natural carbonation only required the beer to be cool to be refreshing and tasty. Modern beer with its artificial carbonation needs to be very cold to hide the sharp taste of excess carbon dioxide.

What exactly are we smelling when we enjoy the "new-car smell?" It's just that--new car stuff! The "new-car smell" is a combination of aromas generated by fresh primer, paint, plasteric materials used on instruments panels, around the windows and on door trim panels. Plus, there's the new carpeting, new fabrics, leather, vinyl, rubber, adhesives and sealers. The combination of all these materials creates this unique smell.

Why can't you buy macadamia nuts in their shells? The shells are too hard! It takes 300-pounds-per-square-inch of pressure to break its shell.

Weird News

Stolen GPS Device Leads to Suspects' Home
Fri Jan 19, 10:13 AM ET
LINDENHURST, N.Y. - Three thieves who allegedly stole 14 global positioning system devices didn't get away with their crime for long. The devices led police right to their home.

Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.

According to Suffolk County police, the GPS devices were stolen Monday night from the Town of Babylon Public Works garage in Lindenhurst. The town immediately tapped its GPS system, and it showed that one of the devices was inside a house. Police said that when they arrived there, Kurt Husfeldt, 46, had the device in his hands.
(More...)


Man Says he Killed Grandma in Rage Over T.V.
Fri Jan 19, 12:34 PM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters Life!) - A Russian confessed to police he killed his grandmother because they could not agree on what program to watch on television, prosecutors said on Friday.

Arguments over who controls the television remote are familiar to most families. The suspect, from Russia's Karelia region near Finland, took things to extremes by stabbing and bludgeoning to death his 81-year-old grandmother.

"When he started to testify to police, he said he killed her because they could not agree on what TV program they wanted to watch," said Tatyana Kordyukova, a spokeswoman for the Karelia prosecutor's office.
(More...)

Cheat on Your Spouse in Michigan and Spend Life in Prison?
Thu Jan 18, 8:16 AM ET
DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Philanderers beware: spouses caught cheating in Michigan could end up spending the rest of their life in prison.

And not the emotional kind.

The state's appeals court recently ruled that extramarital flings can be prosecuted as first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in jail.
(More...)

Cambodian "Jungle Girl" Struggling to Adapt
PHNOM PENH, Jan 19 (Reuters Life!) - A Cambodian woman who went missing in the jungle for 18 years before being found last week is struggling to adapt to life as a human and wants to return to the forest, police said on Friday.

"She prefers to crawl rather than walk like a human," said Mao Sun, a district police chief in the jungle-clad northeastern province of Rattanakiri where the girl's family live.

"Unfortunately, she keeps crying and wants to go back to the jungle," he said. "She is not used to living with humans. We had to clothe her. When she is thirsty or hungry she points at her mouth," he told Reuters by phone.
(More...)


Helicopter Blows Deer Safely Off Ice
Awwwe.. Watch the Deer Blown to Safety

Top 10 Net Hoaxes / Urban Legends of 2006

About.com Urban Legends

IDIOMS... WERE YOU BORN IN A BARN?

I received the following email:

"I have a question that maybe you can answer or pose on your blog. I had left the French doors open in my front room and it is too cold right now to do so, and a friend said to me “Do you have a 40 foot tail?” Later he left them open, and I said “What? Were you born in a barn?” Neither of us knew what the other meant or could even explain as to how those sayings came about. Though, if you think about it, one can make more sense about the tail too long thing – it being caught in said door…. Do you know the history of the born in a barn? Or could you find out, please?"

I researched these idioms without much luck. I found the following for "were you born in a barn?"

1. Supposedly from the UK meaning why have you left the door open was originally "were you born in Bardney". Bardney in Lincolnshire was the site of an important monastery Tupholme Abbey and when the king Saint Oswald was killed they tried to bring his bones into the abbey but the monks kept the doors shut...the monks were subsequently forced to leave the doors open...

Hmmm... somehow this doesn't sound quite right, barns sound more U.S. thank U.K.

2. Those who like open drafty places; or
3. Barn doors are opened in early morning to let the cows out to pasture and remain open until the cows are herded back in for milking in early evening.

Does anyone know the origins of this saying? Please post your comments!

As for "were you born with a 40-foot tail", I found nothing. Anyone?