Free Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends by Jan Harold Harold Brunvand Page A

still in the back seat, and there was no room in the front of the Volkswagen for all four of them. So the father wrapped the grandmother in a blanket and put her in the luggage rack on top of the car. (In emergencies you do what you have to do.)
    They came to a filling station and all piled out of the car to make the phone call, leaving the keys in the car. They returned to find the car had been stolen, along with Grandmother and their luggage and passports. They never did find any of their possessions.
     
     
    From a letter to the travel editor of the Washington Post, December 23, 1990, from Wilfred “Mac” McCarty. Another letter published in that column on May 26, 1991, described a family from Frankfurt, Germany, who also lose their dead grandmother on a car trip in Spain. When Americans repeated this story, they were told that “this is a scenario that is commonly presented to first-year law students in Germany with instructions to determine and list all possible infractions of local and international law.” Using families of different nationalities traveling in various foreign countries, “The Runaway Grandmother” is popular all over Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and Great Britain; it has migrated to Australia as well as to the United States. In American versions the family is motoring either in Mexico or Canada; in the latter setting, the grandmother’s body is put either into a canoe on the car’s roof or into a boat towed behind the car. Although the stolen corpse is the functional equivalent of the dead cat in the preceding legend, the grandmother story seems to have originated in Europe during World War II, whereas the cat story is older and of American origin. Elements of this widespread legend are echoed in sources ranging from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to the film National Lampoon’s Vacation. Novelist Anthony Burgess justified using this story in a 1986 book —The Piano Players— by making the unlikely claim that he had invented it in the 1930s. Whatever its source, “The Runaway Grandmother” legend offers an apt metaphor for the uneasiness modern people feel about aging and particularly death. Like a mortician in real life, the grannynapper takes the problem off the hands of the living.
    “The $50 Porsche”
     
    T he men in the insurance office propped their feet on the desks, puffed cigars and perused the classified ads. It was a Monday morning ritual. They were all talking about the eye-stopper.
    Mercedes 280 SL For Sale. Sun Roof. Loaded. Burgundy, Leather Interior, Stereo. $75.
    Their mouths watered. But their eyes moved on down the column. It had to be a misprint. No one, but no one, would sell that car for $75.
    Finally, the talk turned to other things, and the car gradually was forgotten.
    One salesman didn’t forget it though. He kept looking at the ad, and finally he dialed the phone number listed.
    A woman answered.
    “I’m calling to inquire about the Mercedes,” he said. “Is it still for sale?”
    “Oh yes,” she said. “It’s still for sale.”
    “And the price is $75?”
    “That’s right—$75.”
    “Well, I’d like to come out and look at it.”
    He drove out to the address given him. It was a large, split-level brick home with a swimming pool and tennis courts. The manicured shrubbery and lawns bespoke the presence of a gardener.
    An attractive blonde woman answered the door.
    “I’ve come to see the Mercedes,” he said.
    She waved her hand at the double-car garage. “It’s out there. Here’s the keys. Just lift the door and crank it up.”
    The sight of that car took his breath away.
    He could see his reflection in the hood. Its wheel covers gleamed. The interior was all plushy, shiny, tan leather and dark wooden paneling.
    He tried the sunroof. He tried the stereo. Everything worked.
    The engine ran like a dream. The car was perfect.
    He went back to the door.
    “The price is still $75?” he asked one more time.
    “Yes, it is,” the