Dead Cat In The Package Variant? The Stolen Compost!
RLW
My wife passed on a tale she head from one of her managers at her
place of work and I was very much struck by its similarity to the
classic "Dead Cat In The Package" UL.
The tale goes thusly:
A friend of the informant's was trying to think of a suitable birthday
gift for the informant. Realising that the informant was a keen
gardener, the friend decided to give her a large quantity of compost
as a gift.
The friend went to great efforts to pack the compost in a large box,
gift-wrapped it and tied a bright bow around it.
On her way to the informant's home to deliver the present she stopped
at a mall to buy a gift card.
On returning to her car she found that it had been broken into and the
thief had made away with the box, thinking it must have contained
something of value.
Much hilarity at the expense of the luckless thief and his imagined
suprise and dismay ensues when the friend tells the informant what has
happened.
A search of Deja.com, urbanlegends.com and snopes.com using keywords
"compost" and "fertilizer" did not unearth this as a known variant --
has anyone else encountered it?
Regards and best wishes,
Redman Lucas Wells
Urban Legends Research Centre
http://www.ulrc.com.au
Thomas Prufer
<autumn_...@bigpond.com.au> wrote:
>On returning to her car she found that it had been broken into and the
>thief had made away with the box, thinking it must have contained
>something of value.
(...)
>has anyone else encountered it?
>
Yes, in a nice variant:
The Smith's large dog died, in August, in New York, and during a
strike of the garbage collectors, so the question of what to do with
the dead dog arises. They call their friends in New Jersey, who have a
yard and are willing to bury the body. So the dog is put in a large
suitcase and driven to New Jersey. Mrs. Smith arrives and struggles
with the heavy suitcase. A very nice young man offers to help her
carry the suitcase and then makes off with it.
Much hilarity at the expense of the luckless thief and his imagined
surprise...
Heard mid-70's (L), East Coast, USA.
Thomas Prufer
R H Draney
> The Smith's large dog died, in August, in New York, and during a
> strike of the garbage collectors, so the question of what to do with
> the dead dog arises. They call their friends in New Jersey, who have a
> yard and are willing to bury the body. So the dog is put in a large
> suitcase and driven to New Jersey. Mrs. Smith arrives and struggles
> with the heavy suitcase. A very nice young man offers to help her
> carry the suitcase and then makes off with it.
It turns out he was after the very sturdy and re-sellable *suitcase* and
cared not a whit for what might be inside it....
R H "all those years, he was stealing luggage" Draney
Steve MacGregor
news:u3vphscb3anv2c459...@4ax.com...
>>So the dog is put in a large suitcase and driven to New Jersey. ... A
very nice young man offers to help her carry the suitcase and then makes
off with it.
I heard of one fellow who, during garbage strikes, gift-wraps his
garbage and leaves it on the car-seat beside an open window. Some kind
person inevitably releaves him of the duty of finding a disposal site
for it.
Thank you for your time.
Martin Hardgrave
<pru...@i-dial.de> writes
>The Smith's large dog died, in August, in New York, and during a
>strike of the garbage collectors, so the question of what to do with
>the dead dog arises. They call their friends in New Jersey, who have a
>yard and are willing to bury the body. So the dog is put in a large
>suitcase and driven to New Jersey. Mrs. Smith arrives and struggles
>carry the suitcase and then makes off with it.
>
>surprise...
I prefer the true story of the thief who stole a suitcase from a London
station only to find it had been left by the IRA with a bomb in it.
--
Martin Hardgrave
Chad Nilep
Martin Hardgrave wrote in message ...
[snip various stolen McGuffins]
>
>I prefer the true story of the thief who stole a suitcase from a London
>station only to find it had been left by the IRA with a bomb in it.
>--
>Martin Hardgrave
True story? Presumably that comes complete with a cite which I missed.
Chad "or at least a time and place more specific than 'London station'"
Nilep
--------------------
"Other people think I still don't 'get it'. Get what? ... I don't
understand." --fred klein
Read the Manual: http://www.urbanlegends.com/afu.faq/
Anny Middon
A woman has a doctor's appointment and is told to bring a urine specimen.
The only bottle she can find is an empty whiskey bottle. Thinking "better
too much than not enough," she puts a couple of inches of urine in the
bottle. Stopping at the post office on the way to the doctor's, she leaves
the bottle in her car with the windows down... Etc., etc.
Anny "must be a brown glass whiskey bottle" Middon
Lee Rudolph
>The way I heard it, ca 1975:
>
>A woman has a doctor's appointment and is told to bring a urine specimen.
>The only bottle she can find is an empty whiskey bottle. Thinking "better
>too much than not enough," she puts a couple of inches of urine in the
>bottle. Stopping at the post office on the way to the doctor's, she leaves
>the bottle in her car with the windows down... Etc., etc.
A classic, which I learned (mutatis mutandis) at my mother's knee
about 20 years before you heard it, and which could (for all I know)
go back to Hippocrates. My impression is that it was part of the lore
she had picked up 20-odd years before that, running a microtome for a
pathologist somewhere in southern Ohio.
Lee "another example being, `one night with Venus can mean
ten years with Mercury'" Rudolph
vect...@nospam.here
<mar...@deira.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <u3vphscb3anv2c459...@4ax.com>, Thomas Prufer
><pru...@i-dial.de> writes
>>The Smith's large dog died, in August, in New York, and during a
>>strike of the garbage collectors, so the question of what to do with
>>the dead dog arises. They call their friends in New Jersey, who have a
>>yard and are willing to bury the body. So the dog is put in a large
>>suitcase and driven to New Jersey. Mrs. Smith arrives and struggles
>>with the heavy suitcase. A very nice young man offers to help her
>>carry the suitcase and then makes off with it.
>>
>>Much hilarity at the expense of the luckless thief and his imagined
>>surprise...
>
RRS
> I prefer the true story of the thief who stole a suitcase from a London
> station only to find it had been left by the IRA with a bomb in it.
The police log of the town paper had an account of a couple of teenaged
boys who stole a car that happened to have a dead body in the trunk.
Robin "the body was discovered when they crashed the car into a phone
pole" Storesund
Martin Hardgrave
<nilep.at.turbonet.com@nospam> writes
>
>Martin Hardgrave wrote in message ...
>[snip various stolen McGuffins]
>>
>>station only to find it had been left by the IRA with a bomb in it.
>>Martin Hardgrave
>
>True story? Presumably that comes complete with a cite which I missed.
>
>Chad "or at least a time and place more specific than 'London station'"
>Nilep
>
remodelling the London landscape. It was in the Daily Torygraph.
--
Martin Hardgrave
Ulo Melton
>>>I prefer the true story of the thief who stole a suitcase from a London
>>>station only to find it had been left by the IRA with a bomb in it.
>>>--
>>>Martin Hardgrave
>>
>>True story? Presumably that comes complete with a cite which I missed.
>>
>>Chad "or at least a time and place more specific than 'London station'"
>>Nilep
>>
>One of the London mainline stations. When the IRA were still
>remodelling the London landscape. It was in the Daily Torygraph.
Are you sure? The only story like it I can find seems to have appeared in
a few papers, but the _Telegraph_ wasn't one of them. Here's the version
from the _Independent_ of July 22, 1994:
[begin quote]
HEADLINE: Terrified thief foils terrorist bombers
BYLINE: STEPHEN WARD
BODY:
A PETTY thief apparently foiled a bomb attack on Reading railway
station yesterday when he stole the suitcase containing the device.
He took it home and opened it, hoping to find valuables inside. When he
saw the wires, detonator and explosives, he panicked, ran outside and
dumped the case in Basingstoke Road, Reading. A man was being questioned
by police last night.
Thousands of commuters and shoppers were cleared from the area for more
than six hours while an army bomb disposal team and the Scotland Yard
Anti-Terrorist Squad were called in. Ron Clark, 66, who lives close by,
said: "My son and his two mates were walking down the road when this
bloke ran past them shouting, 'It's a bomb, it's a bomb.'"
[...]
The IRA was thought to be responsible for two bombs at Reading station
last October. One exploded a few hundred yards from the station, and
another had been found earlier in a lavatory.
No group claimed responsibility for yesterday's device.
[end quote]
No absolutely definite connection to the IRA either, though one might
guess it's not beyond the realm of possibility. The _Times_ and the
Glasgow _Herald_ covered the same story, but not the _Telegraph_, near as
I can tell. The _Independent_ version is definitely the most suited to
retelling, with the thief running down the road in terror of his
discovery.
--
Ulo Melton (melt...@sewergator.com)
http://www.sewergator.com - Your Pipeline to Adventure
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> I heard of one fellow who, during garbage strikes, gift-wraps his
> garbage and leaves it on the car-seat beside an open window. Some kind
> person inevitably releaves him of the duty of finding a disposal site
> for it.
Story along similar lines appeared in Readers Digest circa
1950. When I finish grading papers and hand my grades in
I will try to dig it up. I seem to remember that the
protagonist would put his garbage in neatly wrapped package
at corner where his country lane met highway.
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Martin Hardgrave
<melt...@sewergator.com> writes
>
>No absolutely definite connection to the IRA either, though one might
>guess it's not beyond the realm of possibility. The _Times_ and the
>Glasgow _Herald_ covered the same story, but not the _Telegraph_, near as
>I can tell. The _Independent_ version is definitely the most suited to
>retelling, with the thief running down the road in terror of his
>discovery.
That seems to be the one - and as I was abroad at that time your comment
about the Indy as against the Torygraph would make sense. And Reading
isn't too far from London colon close parenthesis.
--
Martin Hardgrave
Simon Slavin
melt...@sewergator.com (Ulo Melton) QUOTED QUOTED QUOTED:
> Ron Clark, 66, who lives close by,
> said: "My son and his two mates were walking down the road when this
> bloke ran past them shouting, 'It's a bomb, it's a bomb.'"
This is so funny. I can only visualise that happening in animation
(complete with funny footstep sounds). I can't 'see' it happening
in real life at all.
Simon.
--
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | _Microsoft_ is going to write the software
No junk email please. | that spies on me? I feel better already.
| -- John D. Goulden
c krin
sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost (Simon Slavin) wrote:
>In article <8fo72n$m3f$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>,
>melt...@sewergator.com (Ulo Melton) QUOTED QUOTED QUOTED:
>
>> Ron Clark, 66, who lives close by,
>> said: "My son and his two mates were walking down the road when this
>> bloke ran past them shouting, 'It's a bomb, it's a bomb.'"
>
>This is so funny. I can only visualise that happening in animation
>(complete with funny footstep sounds). I can't 'see' it happening
>in real life at all.
>
>Simon.
A number of years ago, one of the local bomb techs gave a class that I
was able to attend...the back of his T shirt read, "I'm a Bomb Tech.
If you can read this, you aren't running fast enough!"
ck
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)