# Urban legends when you were a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2009, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262 "2009-09-08T10:18:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/81 "2009-09-10T09:04:02Z")
Where did you grow up? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/82 "2009-09-10T11:04:31Z")
> [@MerryMagdalen](#): > > Did you grow up in Northampton, MA? Buffalo, NY, actually. I guess the psychiatric condo craze is sweeping the nation. After looking at the web site, it appears the condo conversion in Buffalo is still a [work in progress](http://culturalniagara.com/richardsoncomplex.html) but the site gives you a nice picture of the creepy castle. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/83 "2009-09-10T12:58:51Z")
You always heard about the kid that stuck his hand/head/arm out the window of the moving bus and got it cut off, but you never knew WHO it was, or how long ago. I bet it was started by parents so kids would be scared of trying it. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/84 "2009-09-10T14:02:48Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > In first or second grade, there was a story of some kid the previous year who was leaning back in his chair and fell over, and his HEAD split open when it hit the floor and there were BRAINS all over the place! It really happened- [there was an article in the paper about it last week](http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_some_kids_head_cracked_open)… ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/85 "2009-09-10T15:11:05Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > In my town, there was a really old psychiatric institution that looked like a creepy Gothic castle. That part is true. > > The urban legend went like this… > > You know the movie _The Texas Chain Saw Massacre_? Well, it was based on a real story, and one of the guys who went to jail? Well, when he got out of jail, he would move to a town and then they would find out who is was, and run him out of town. And this happened town after town, and he couldn’t live anywhere. So finally what they came up with was to give him an apartment at the psych center. He blends in with all the other inmates, so no one knows who he is. And during the day, he can come and go as he pleases (unlike the other inmates at the psych center), so when you are walking around, THE GUY STANDING NEXT TO YOU COULD BE THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE GUY. Well, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was partially based on the story of Ed Gein, but that’s nowhere near the story you heard 😃 Growing up, I lived down the street from a really old graveyard. I think it hadn’t actually even been used since the 1800’s. It wasn’t a family plot, but it was pretty small - wait, managed to find a [street view](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=27+atwood+road,+pelham,+NH&sll=42.7339,-71.324873&sspn=0.017148,0.051069&ie=UTF8&ll=42.733238,-71.313482&spn=0.000536,0.001596&t=h&z=19&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=42.73332,-71.313509&panoid=rW9SGiDTEqpdnvNEO1006w&cbp=12,44.16,,0,14.51) of it on Google maps! Anyway, you can’t see it in the picture above, but way in the back right corner, there was a stone box that looked like a grave\*, but the top of the box was slightly open. Supposedly, if you looked in, you could see a body. I looked, and you couldn’t. It just looked full of leaves and sticks. Of course, I didn’t dig around, so it could have actually contained a really old skeleton, but who knows. \*it wasn’t marked and was very plain, but a lot of the very old gravemarkers were so worn you couldn’t read them, anyway ---
**Author:** ![Gesturing\_Mildly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@Gesturing\_Mildly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gesturing_Mildly)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/86 "2009-09-10T15:53:52Z")
My mom taught me not to reach in the change slot of payphones or slot machines because people put hypodermic needles with AIDS on them in there. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/87 "2009-09-10T16:02:58Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > My math teacher really did have a son who got his eye shot out with a BB gun and blinded in that eye. Which reminds me…there was a math teacher in our school with a glass eye. Every single year at the student faculty game I’d overhear some upperclassmen telling 7th graders that _last year_ Mr. R’s eye had fallen out and the whole gym watched and listened in stunned silence as it rolled across the floor. The school was grades 7-12. I went to 6 student faculty games. My sister went to 3 before I arrived there so we are certain that this didn’t happen at any of those 9 games. Still, every year the 7th graders would be told that it happened last year. Oh and…don’t ask him about it he’ll give you an automatic F if you ask him about it. > [@Gesturing\_Mildly](#): > > My mom taught me not to reach in the change slot of payphones or slot machines because people put hypodermic needles with AIDS on them in there. A customer at the deli I worked in explained he always used straws 'cause his mom told him that the cases of soda and beer get delivered early in the morning and left outside places and dogs pee on them. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/88 "2009-09-10T16:44:37Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Well, there was the “gross-out contest” between Frank Zappa (None of the kids who told this really knew who Zappa was but we were all sure he was bad-ass) and Alice Cooper (who we all knew about as the puppy-killing Satanic rocker who got his name from the spirit of the original A.C., a witch who was burned in the Middle Ages, that he contacted on a Ouija board). Zappa pooped on the stage, but Alice won the contest by eating the poop. > > Or vice versa. > > . Of course, Zappa and cooper were friends, and I’ve heard Cooper say several times that, early in his career, when sick rumors like this would come out, he’d try desperately to tell the media, “That’s not true! We never really did that!” But, he says, Zappa would advise him, “Don’t try to deny it! This is the greatest publicity you could ever ask for! Embrace it!” ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/89 "2009-09-10T17:05:15Z")
Cecil Adams really is … ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/90 "2009-09-10T23:38:36Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Man, what the hell was it with the '80s and satan-worship? The answer is pretty much Mike Warnke, who made a killing for a while scaring the bejeebers out of the American church with his pack of lies. Look him up on Wiki, and read the damning article Cornerstone magazine wrote about him. [http://www.cornerstonemag.com/features/iss098/sellingsatan.htm](http://www.cornerstonemag.com/features/iss098/sellingsatan.htm) They really popped his balloon, but I heard years later that he was back doing speaking gigs in churches. Man, that guy is going to hell on a rail. And coming from me, that’s not a metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/91 "2009-09-11T00:14:51Z")
Bubblegum balls sometimes contained live spiders Decapitated car accident victims were “kept alive” in a special hospital ward Babies had been found dead; when autopsied, their brains contained ants (who had eaten their way in through the ears) Passionate lovers had been found, trapped in their cars, unable to move Mass murderes were regularly released from prison, roaming at large on Halloween eve (ready to collect more victims) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/92 "2009-09-11T01:04:23Z")
… ---
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262/93 "2009-09-11T11:16:46Z")
> [@Maiira](#): > > I mostly remember the one where apparently chewing gum stays in your digestive system for 7 years. (It was always 7, too, for some reason.) > > Most of the “urban legends” I heard were in the form of ghost stories…as in, “this didn’t actually happen, but it’s spooky anyway.” Such as the one where the babysitter gets a call from a kidnapper/murderer, only to find that said baddie is in the house. Or almost anything involving a lover’s lane. The gum one. And yep. ALWAYS 7 years. All the typical Halloween scares (poison, razor blades, Satanic cults, etc.). The golf-ball thing, which immediately struck me as stupid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-when-you-were-a-kid/509262.md?page=4)