A date's a good start, but we need names as well.

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We usually recognize an urban legend not only by the quality of the story itself (meaning, usually, that it's too good to be true) but by the fact that it happened to the friend of a cousin of a co-worker who told it to whoever is telling it to us. Names and dates, even if they're not accurate or even real, are necessary for us to even start believing. (And when you live in the area where the events are supposed to have happened, you find yourself asking why you know the story via a web site rather than from the daily paper.) In the case of the reported Palestinian terrorists who blew themselves up before reaching their destination because they hadn't set their clocks correctly, getting the date right isn't much of a problem. But what about the names?

The people who give out the Darwin awards, however, are sticklers for detail. They don't like giving awards to a story. They want the real thing. So, if the Darwin Award for 1999 went to those would-be bombers, even without their names I guess we can recognize their achievement as genuine.

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Go to: Is one less hour less tedious?, or
Go to: The tedium of real time.