The URBAN LEGEND Hall of Fame
Before there were urban beer legends, there were the original urban legends—shocking, provocative tales with twist endings and murky origins. Here’s a handful of the all-time classics, plus their psychological implications and how they’re linked to beer culture…
Attack of the Giant Sewer Gators
NYC kids buy baby alligators, then flush them after the novelty of caring for a pet reptile quickly wears off. Once dispatched to the New York sewers, the gators survive and thrive, becoming super-predators. Also told with these twists: 1) the sunlight-deprived lizards mutate, turning albino; and 2) the gators somehow snake their way back up the pipes to “visit” their original owners. (Ouch!)
Psychological Implication:
Sometimes we’re at our most vulnerable when sitting—if you know what I mean.
Little-Known Beer Fact:
The albino gator hook was added to spice up the original source story. Actually, it was just a bad batch of barleywine that got flushed.
The Seriously Bad First Date
A disturbing, cautionary tale that we pray never actually happened. Partying convention-goer gets looped and returns to hotel room with hot new “friend.” He wakes up alone, nursing the world’s very worst hangover—naked, lying in a bathtub filled with ice, and minus a kidney.
Psychological Implication:
Fatal Attraction to the nth degree, the story capitalizes on our fears of waking up alone and feeling betrayed by those we trust…not to mention being robbed of our internal organs.
Little-Known Beer Fact:
No connection—but it’s nice not to be worrying about the liver for once, huh?
The Extra “Treat”
You’ve heard plenty of variations on this one: the mouse in the soda bottle, the odd critter in the chicken bucket, etc. It always involves a small, furry animal and some packaged food product. This urban legend’s particularly frightening in that it seems imminently plausible. And, in fact, such things do occasionally happen. (Bon appetite!)
Psychological Implication:
The urban legend of consumer vulnerability.
Little-Known Beer Fact:
Let’s face it: a few beers might actually be improved with some added rodent flavor (“subtle hamster undernotes”).
The Mysterious Hitcher
A back roads motorist picks up a hitchhiking beauty. They talk, but she is mysterious and evasive. Later, after she climbs out and vanishes into the night, the driver finds the sweater she’s left behind. A garment label helps him track her whereabouts, where he learns that she died…decades earlier. Funny thing: this story’s so ancient that even if the hitchhiking girl had been alive when the driver gave her a lift, they’d both be dead by now…of old age.
Psychological Implication:
Story strikes a chord with craft-beer lovers, all of whom have had mysterious encounters with great beers that have vanished almost as quickly as they’ve appeared.
Little-Known Beer Fact:
The mysterious hitcher eventually met the hook-less maniac. They are married with two children, and regularly attend beer festivals around the country. Or so we hear.
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