Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends (5 page)

The second day after they have returned home, coming back from work in the evening, they find that their new pet has had a fight with their cat, chewing the kitty’s fur up pretty badly (in some versions, killing and partially
eating
the cat). They take both pets (or just the survivor) to the vet, who takes one look at their new pet and asks them, “Have you ever heard this dog bark?”

Lane Yerkes. From
Smithsonian
vol. 23 #8

“No,” they admit, “it never does bark exactly; it just sort of squeaks.”

“The reason for that,” explains the vet, “is that this is not a dog. It’s a Haitian rat!”

(In other versions the vet immediately kills the new pet, then explains what it really is.)

This little parable, with its obvious reference to illegal Haitian refugees arriving on the Florida coast, started circulating in the early 1990s. In San Francisco at the same time the lost “dog” turned out to be a Chinese rat, referring to the West Coast smuggling of illegal Asian immigrants. The earlier version that gave the legend its name, however, was about a “Chihuahua” adopted by an American couple vacationing in Mexico. In 1987 the Rumor Control Center of Baltimore, Maryland, was flooded with calls about a Norwegian rat that had arrived on a freighter and was adopted by a couple who believed it to be a Chihuahua. Besides Central and South American rats, other folkloric species mentioned are Himalayan beach rats, swamp rats, “Wampus” rats, and “Coco” rats. European versions of the story describe a Dutch couple adopting an “Egyptian Pharaoh Rat” or a Spanish couple returning from vacation in Thailand with a pet rat that looked like a Yorkshire terrier. The tabloids have exploited this legend under such headlines as “Our New Puppy Is a Killer Rat!” As recently as August 1996 a reputable news agency circulated a widely printed story about a Ukrainian couple who had adopted a pet that resembled a bull terrier puppy but turned out to be a Pakistani rat.

“The Hare Dryer”

As told by Johnny Carson

T
here’s a story going around. I told it yesterday to Peter and Freddy. They had heard it. I thought it was a real story, but apparently it’s one of those stories that makes the rounds and comes up every few years, and my neighbor, whom I play tennis with, Howard Smith, told it to me. About the lady whose rabbit died? (To audience) Have you heard it? (Chorus of “nos” with perhaps a few “yeahs.”) It’s a funny story.

Now the way they told it, this neighbor of their’s—apparently had—the people who lived next door—the little daughter, had a rabbit, and the guy who lived next door had a Rottweiler dog. And one morning his Rottweiler comes in and it’s got the rabbit in its mouth, and the rabbit is dead. (Laughter) And the guy doesn’t know what he’s gonna do; he knows the little girl loves her rabbit. So—apparently the rabbit, there’s no blood on it, but the neck, he thought, had been broken by the dog.

So he takes the rabbit and he cleans it up. He even takes a hair, a hand uh (Ed McMahon: hair dryer) a
hair
dryer. Fluffs it all up very nice, takes it over and puts the rabbit back in the cage, thinking the people will get up the next day and see the rabbit and think it just—the rabbit maybe died of a heart attack or something, and won’t realize that the guy’s dog had killed the rabbit.

Ed: Right.

Johnny: All of a sudden he hears a scream…he runs out next door, and the lady is there. He says, “What’s wrong?”

She says, she’s almost hysterical, she says, “My little daughter’s rabbit died yesterday, and we buried it, and it’s
back!
” (Extended laughter. Camera zooms back to show Ed and Johnny laughing heartily.) Now I don’t know if that’s true, but that is a great story. Ed: Great, oh…

Johnny: Apparently the dog had dug it up, you know, he puts it back, and you see that lady the next day…(Gestures of shock and dismay) Ed: Oh!

Johnny: It’s like Friday the 13th.

Tonight Show,
January 1989. This legend had become so popular the previous year that I dubbed 1988 “The Year of the Rabbit.” Here Johnny repeats on air a “true” story that he had heard from a neighbor and had earlier told to a couple of
Tonight Show
staff members. His performance now was for Ed McMahon, the studio audience, and his vast television audience. Oddly, Johnny muffed the key term “hair dryer” and failed to exploit the obvious pun that I’ve used as the title for the legend. But his delivery, timing, gestures, and facial expressions were perfect, as usual. Surely many who heard him tell it had heard the story before, and doubtless many, many other people repeated the story the next day.

As told by Michael Landon to Johnny Carson

(Just introduced as the first guest, sits, runs his hands through his hair, shakes his head.) Oh, boy—what a week I had!

Johnny: Yeah?

Michael: I had a
terrible
experience. You know I moved in to the ranch.

Johnny: Oh, you finally moved into your place?

Michael: Moved to the ranch; I’m in this smaller place until they finish the other. Wanna move in, get the kids used to it, get to know the neighbors. Well, I’ve got the
nicest
neighbors, right. And I’ve got—you know all the pets I’ve got—I’ve got parrots, I’ve got dogs, I’ve got horses.
The next door neighbor family—it’s a husband, wife, and two kids, they have one pet—a rabbit. Right? Beautiful rabbit.
They go away skiing for a weekend. And I go out to get the paper Saturday morning. My dog, Albert, is sitting by the front steps, and he’s got the rabbit in his mouth. (Laughter)
Now what do I do? I get the dog, I take it in the house, the kids start to…“Oh my God.” I said. “Look, we cannot tell them. These are our new neighbors. You can’t tell them that my dog killed their rabbit.”
I’m gonna live a lie. I take the rabbit in the kitchen, I wash the rabbit off—he’s got a lot of dirt on him. I blow-dry the rabbit. (Laughter) I sneak into his yard, and I put the rabbit back into the hutch.
Monday morning, I go out to get the paper, there he is. Waves. He’s a wonderful guy. I say, “How was the weekend?” I’m playing it cool, “Skiing good?”
“Yeah, powder, beautiful,” he said. “But, boy, a weird thing happened over the weekend.”
I said, “Oh, what was that?”
He said, “Well you know that rabbit I had?”
“Rabbit? Oh, yeah, you have a rabbit, yeah.”
He said, “Well the strangest thing happened.” He said, “The rabbit died on Friday, and the family and I went out and buried it.” (Laughter) Said, “I came home and this morning it was in the hutch again. Clean as could be.”
Believe it or stuff it!

Johnny: (echoing) or stuff it! We’ll be right back. (Extended laughter. Camera zooms back, and fades to commercial break)

Tonight Show,
April 1989. Despite having told his own version of the same story just three months earlier, Johnny gave no hint that he’d heard this one before. Landon adroitly converted the legend to a supposed personal experience story, then dropped his serious demeanor at the end to repeat a line from a skit, “Believe It or Stuff It,” that Johnny had just performed. Although this telling has all the earmarks of a scripted comedy routine, Landon’s manner was convincing and innocent throughout. One “folk” version of “The Hare Dryer” describes a baby-sitter who washes the dead bunny in Woolite, then hangs it by its ears in the shower to dry.

“The Air-Freighted Pet”

As told by Paul Harvey

J
oe Griffith of Dallas informs our For What It’s Worth Department…of the airline baggage handlers who retrieved an animal carrier in the luggage bay of an airliner….

But the dog in it was dead.

With visions of lawsuits dancing in their heads they advised the woman passenger that her dog had been mis-sent to another destination….

Promised they would find it.

They disposed of the dead dog.

Meanwhile they set out to search animal welfare agencies for a look-alike live dog.

They found one.

An airline baggage handler put the substitute dog in the animal carrier with the lady’s name and address on it—delivered it to her front door.

She took one look and said, “That’s not
my
dog!”

She said, “My dog is dead; I was bringing it home for burial.”

April 30, 1987

Paul Harvey’s For What It’s Worth
(1991), edited by Paul Harvey, Jr., p. 67. In his trademark telegraphic style, Paul Harvey retells what he describes in this book as a “truth-is-funnier-than-fiction” story sent in by a listener. There are many other baggage-handler versions of this popular legend, varying as to place, description of the pet, and reaction of the owner. In July 1988 the
Willamette (Oregon) Week
free newsweekly reported that former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, star of the Iran-Contra hearings, had told the same story during a lecture in Portland, Oregon. Rural and foreign prototypes for the “resurrected pet” theme go back at least to the 1950s, and these stories probably gave rise to “The Hare Dryer” legend quoted above.

“The Poisoned Pussycat at the Party”

A
woman had just put the final touch on her preparations for an elegant buffet dinner in her palatial home by adding as the centerpiece to the table a large baked salmon. The doorbell rang as the first guests arrived, and the woman turned away from the table for a moment. Then, hearing the maid answer the ring, she turned and took one more look at the buffet.

To her horror, she saw that her cat had jumped up on the table and was nibbling at the salmon. She snatched the cat from the table, tossed it out the back door, and hurriedly put a lemon slice and some parsley over the bite marks. Then she composed herself and went out to the entry to greet her guests.

The party was a great success, and everybody complimented her on the meal, the salmon in particular. But later as the house got stuffy, the maid opened the back door to let in some air and was horrified at what she saw. The maid tiptoed in and whispered in her boss’s ear, “Your cat is lying dead out on the back porch!”

The hostess had no alternative but to admit to all of her guests that the cat had earlier eaten some of the salmon and was now dead, presumably from food poisoning. She even had to telephone a few couples who had departed the party early. The hostess and all of her guests rushed to a hospital to have their stomachs pumped.

The morning after the disastrous dinner party the woman’s neighbor came over to offer her apologies. She explained that during the party last night she had accidentally backed her car over the cat, killing it. “I knew you were having a big dinner, and I just didn’t want to spoil your good time, so I left your cat’s body on the back porch.”

This story has been a staple of joke books, newspaper columns, and oral tradition for at least 60 years. The main dish at the party is generally seafood—a fish casserole, shrimp salad, salmon mousse, or the like. Even in modern versions mentioning pizza, the suspect topping is anchovies. In Europe the preferred version of the story is that a family picks wild mushrooms and tests some of them on their dog or cat; I heard this one in Romania in 1981. A version in which the mushroom-fed cat seems to be having convulsions was published in a German tabloid in 1981 with its variant conclusion referred to in the headline, “Katze warf Junge—Familie ins Krankenhaus!” (The [pregnant] cat had kittens, but the family went to the hospital!) A transitional American version has the hostess skimming off some scum from atop a can of mushroom soup required in her recipe, then feeding the skimmed scum to her dog. Several stories, plays, and movies have incorporated the poisoned-pet legend, the most recent being the 1989 film
Her Alibi
in which the cat is thought to have died from eating contaminated stew.

“The Bug under the Rug”

As told by Alex Thien

A
friend of mine says a man and wife enjoyed travel more than anything. With the new welcome to Americans from the Soviet Union, they decided to visit Moscow.

In their room at an old, classic hotel not far from Red Square, she said, “I’m still nervous about all this. Are you sure this room isn’t bugged?”

“There’s no reason why it should be,” he said, “but I’ll look around.”