The Vanishing Hitchhiker - American Urban Legends and Their Significance

Author: Bruce Van Dyke
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This is a work about contemporary American folk tales—many of which have been heard by people and are often taken as real stories. The author combines discoveries about famous, funny, weird, thrilling American urban legends and attempts to reveal the various patterns and potential meanings of these contemporary folk narratives. As the author points out, people spend time telling and listening to legends not only because of their strange and interesting plots, but also because they genuinely convey the context in which the creators and disseminators lived and the resulting social psychology, which in turn affects our psychological, knowledge, and behavioral systems. Horror, ghostly, funny, embarrassing "Boyfriend's Death": A couple driving their car is forced to stop. The boyfriend tells his girlfriend to stay in the car while he goes for help. He never returns. The next day, the police who came to rescue warn, "Miss, don't look back!" The girlfriend, who looks back, is instantly scared to the point of turning white, because she sees the "vanishing hitchhiker": A girl asks the driver to take her home. Seeing how cold she is, the driver even lends her his coat. When they pass by the Evergreen Cemetery, the girl asks them to stop for a moment, but she never comes back. Her coat is left hanging on a tombstone, and the person in the photograph on the tombstone is the girl. "Embarrassing Nakedness": A boss is upset because his wife and children seem to have forgotten his birthday, so he readily agrees to have lunch with his secretarial assistant, who has always had a crush on him, at her apartment. When the assistant comes back with a cake—followed by the boss's wife and children—they discover: The boss is completely naked, except for his socks. "Fart in the Dark": Jenny goes on her first date with a boy, and her stomach is bloated from eating spicy food at lunch. While the boy is opening the door for her and moving to the other side, she lets out a fart that sounds like thunder. She rolls down the window to fan the smell away, thinking everything is fine, only to find that there are two people in the backseat.