Sure enough, with our roots ranging from Hawaii to California, Chicago to New York, we all knew different versions of the same stories. There were dozens more myths, including versions of the ones we had discussed over dinner. There's the organ harvest story, where the victim wakes up in a bathtub of ice water, one kidney short. That's probably still a favorite with sixth grade boys across the country. The Neiman-Marcus cookie story, reputed to be one of the older myths out there, has taken on a modern twist, using the internet for the revenge of spreading this overpriced cookie recipe.
Campuses are hotbeds for encouraging the urban myth, and most campuses have their own campus myth.
My first night in Ethel Moore, someone from public safety casually asked our neophyte group if we'd met Ethel yet. She'll just turn your stereo down if it's too loud. Days later, I heard about a young woman who killed herself in room 104-by mistake. Playing an April Fool's joke on her friends, she pretended to hang herself. Yeah, it seems that Mills, trying to be save money and be eco, got a bunch of goats to trim the grass on campus.