Urban Legend

About four years back, I played a real dumb joke on some people I knew. Four friends of mine and I decided we were going to walk through the cemetery near our college on Halloween night. Why? Because it was Halloween night! Duh.

Well, the cemetery was cold and boring. It's filled with dead people after all. They don't really do a whole lot.

So on our way back, one of my friends decided I should go sit in the Student Center, while they returned to our dorm and pretended not to notice I was gone until someone brought it up.

Well, I was sitting on a bench bored out of my mind, and I decided to crank my watch back an hour.

So my friends returned (actually a different set of friends. they were the "search party"), and amazingly enough, reported that some members of the gullible crowd of my dorm actually bought the fact I was missing. Ignoring the fact it was Halloween and that we were prank prone idiots.

Anyway, I returned with the search party, and acted indignant at them taking off without me. I also mentioned the time according to my watch.

Jaws dropped. Had I really lost an hour of my life? "Holy crap," one resident cried, "You went through a temporal vortex!"

Me, I was trying not to laugh.

Four years later, my friend (the one that originally suggested the prank) was walking by the selfsame cemetery. A group of kids from my Alma Mater were outside, looking in.

One of them was recounting a tale, in the same tone of voice as one would tell the tale of the Headless Horseman or whatnot.

"And when they got back to where they lost track of him," he said, "they found out he thought only a few minutes had passed! He was missing for an hour!"

My friend had to reach deep within himself to not yell "IT WAS US!!!"

The prank has passed into Urban Legend. And I, for some reason, am now ridiculously happy I decided to wind my watch back that fine evening.

Rock on, kids.