# Urban legends you heard of as a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 26, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758 "2007-04-26T17:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/21 "2007-04-26T21:07:34Z")
[QUOTE=Dante] Rod Stewart and an ungodly amount semen in his stomach. [/QUOTE] I remember this one, and something about Mick Jagger and David Bowie having sex with each other. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/22 "2007-04-26T21:09:56Z")
When I was in high school my friend told me about a FOAF who - with is buddies - was at the prom and they were drinking heavily. On the ride home one stuck his head out of the car to throw up and the driver swerved too close to a tree/telephone poll/bridge support/what have you and a headless body came back into the car. I then heard it several times in college. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/23 "2007-04-26T21:32:34Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji] When I was in high school my friend told me about a FOAF who - with is buddies - was at the prom and they were drinking heavily. On the ride home one stuck his head out of the car to throw up and the driver swerved too close to a tree/telephone poll/bridge support/what have you and a headless body came back into the car. [/QUOTE] [Submitted for your approval.](http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51218) ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/24 "2007-04-26T21:38:20Z")
I also heard the one about the babysitter getting threatening phone calls that turned out to be coming from the upstairs phone extension. ---
**Author:** ![Gr8Kat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gr8kat/32/18668_2.png) [@Gr8Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gr8Kat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/25 "2007-04-26T21:42:41Z")
Show & Tell might as well have been called Urban Legend Time in my classes. That was where I find out that old people washed their poodles in the dishwasher, and/or dried them in the microwave, strangers were handing out stickers with LSD on them which, when licked, would cause you to fry up and eat a baby, and a surprising number of bottles of 7-Up had mice or severed thumbs in them. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/26 "2007-04-26T22:17:13Z")
In junior high, my school paper printed the “babysitter on PCP roasts baby” as fact. :rolleyes: Back in grade school, there were TV commercials for the Jhoon Rhee martial arts studio featuring two very young boys (maybe four or five) wearing _gi_, probably related to Mr. Rhee, saying “Nobody bothers me!”, “Nobody bothers me either!” A rumor was going around school that the two boys had been beaten to death by a grown man. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/27 "2007-04-26T22:21:17Z")
When I was ~20 I had a friend who stratred telling the large black man “Sit Lady!” elevator story, which he said happened to a friend of his mother. When he was about to reveal the identity of the large black man, I said “It was Reggie Jackson, wasn’t it?” He couldn’t understand how I knew it was Reggie Jackson, and swore up and down that it really really happend to his mother’s friend. And when I tried to explain that when he heard it it almost certainly wasn’t his mother’s friend, but rather the friend of his mother’s friend, and when she told it, it was the friend of HER friend, and so on and so forth, he didn’t believe me. But he never could figure out how I knew it was Reggie Jackson in the story. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/28 "2007-04-26T22:27:48Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] I also heard the one about the babysitter getting threatening phone calls that turned out to be coming from the upstairs phone extension. [/QUOTE] Me too – the plot of “When a Stranger Calls”, long before the movie (or its remake) came out. I also heard about Rod Stewart’s stomach. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/29 "2007-04-26T22:38:10Z")
I remember the LSD tattoos; everyone on the playground in elementary school feared those things. One day a kid came to school with one of those blurry temporary tats you used to get in Cracker Jack boxes on the back of his hand; we all avoided him like the plague and he went crying to the teacher because no one would hold his hand during “Red Rover”. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/30 "2007-04-26T22:51:30Z")
[QUOTE=Shoeless] I remember this one, and something about Mick Jagger and David Bowie having sex with each other. [/QUOTE] That one is almost true. Bowie’s ex-wife Angela once said that she found Bowie and Jagger in bed together naked. Later she admitted that she thought they’d just passed out in bed after a party, and that it didn’t necessarily mean anything sexual had gone on. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/31 "2007-04-26T22:55:08Z")
A local one. I grew up at what was then northern part of Denver’s suburban sprawl…there was some stuff north of us, but you had to go past virgin prairie or farm land to get there. One large tract of said prairie was just a couple blocks from our house. This was known as “The Field”. We would sometimes pack a lunch and spend the day exploring The Field. About a mile and a half into The Field, on top of a rise, sat a single ancient farm house. Looking back, I’m pretty sure it was abandoned, as I NEVER saw any sign of human activity there. But among us kids, it was universally known that Farmer Brown lived there. It was also well known that if Farmer Brown caught you in The Field he would shoot you with rock salt. And that this very thing had happened to a friend of a friend’s older brother’s friend, and some of his friends. Thus we never, ever, got closer than a quarter mile or so to that old farmhouse, and we always kept an eye out for Farmer Brown when exploring in The Field. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/32 "2007-04-26T23:08:27Z")
[QUOTE=Neidhart] Back in grade school, there were TV commercials for the Jhoon Rhee martial arts studio featuring two very young boys (maybe four or five) wearing _gi_, probably related to Mr. Rhee, saying “Nobody bothers me!”, “Nobody bothers me either!” [/QUOTE] I’ve got that song stuck in my head now. I had managed to be rid of that particular earworm for the last 20 years, and now you go and bring it all back to me… ---
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/33 "2007-04-26T23:59:37Z")
The brand new…with 10 miles on the odometer…1963 Corvette Stingray that was the location of the suicide death of a teenager. The body wasn’t discovered for two weeks, and since then, the stench of death has never been successfully removed. It even entered the metal parts. It remains unsold, somewhere in the South. I had friends that had seen it from a distance. ---
**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/34 "2007-04-27T00:10:23Z")
I remember three from my childhood: 1. There once was this kid who buried himself in leaves during Fall. He did this in the street with his feet against the curb\*. A truck came by and ran over his head. - I believe leaves were piled on the curb for city pick-up or something. 1. The neighborhood psycho kid[sup]TM[/sup] once buried a pregnant cat up to it’s neck, then proceeded to run over the cat’s head with a lawnmower. 2. HALLOWEEN CANDY WITH RAZOR BLADES INSIDE!!! ---
**Author:** ![Brynda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/35 "2007-04-27T00:24:57Z")
I remember a neighber telling us that a girl had gotten bitten by a snake in the pocket of a coat that she tried on at a new local store. A few days later, I saw a story on TV about urban legends and they featured that one. It was a cool introduction to urband legends. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/36 "2007-04-27T01:18:09Z")
The thread on LSD over in GQ reminds me: I heard when I was a kid that taking LSD would give you chromosome damage. Or maybe you’d pass on chromosome damage to your children upon their creation… I don’t know where it started, either in an official misinformation campaign, or just rumor and innuendo, but there don’t seem to be any cases of LSD mutants walking the rock. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/37 "2007-04-27T01:22:23Z")
[QUOTE=fishbicycle] I heard about the man who would hang around the schoolyard or playground, offering candy to kids, to get them to do something horrible with him. Has one documented case of this ever happened? Or was it parental paranoia and overactive imaginations? [/QUOTE] :o Modesty forbids. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/38 "2007-04-27T01:22:59Z")
[QUOTE=fishbicycle] The thread on LSD over in GQ reminds me: I heard when I was a kid that taking LSD would give you chromosome damage. Or maybe you’d pass on chromosome damage to your children upon their creation… I don’t know where it started, either in an official misinformation campaign, or just rumor and innuendo, but there don’t seem to be any cases of LSD mutants walking the rock. [/QUOTE] Cecil discusses the LSD/chromosome scare story [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_229.html). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/39 "2007-04-27T01:28:27Z")
[QUOTE=erie774] - Playing with yourself will make you go blind or give you hairy palms (if that was true then I’d be soaking my hands in Nair so I could get a better grip on the leash of my seeing eye dog). [/QUOTE] IIRC, that one had its origin in the 19th Century, when some doctors observed insane-asylum inmates masturbating. They concluded masturbation causes insanity (as opposed to the Occam’s-razor explanation – these guys are so crazy they don’t care who’s watching). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758/40 "2007-04-27T01:32:50Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] When I was a Girl Scout, every year at Camp Scott we would hear, from the counselors, horrific legends about a man who lived in the woods like an animal and occasionally approached the camp to snatch girls out of their tents and murder them. In the spooky, shadowy campfire light, a tale like this was mighty believable. In 1977, three young Girl Scouts were raped and murdered after having been snatched from their tents at the camp. A man was accused, tried, and acquitted, but no one has ever been convicted of the crime. The camp was subsequently closed forever. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that’s what they **told** you. Actually, it was reopened three years later, under a [different name](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_%28film%29) . . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/urban-legends-you-heard-of-as-a-kid/401758.md?page=3)