The Internet has ruined so many things.Case in point: I grew up thinking plenty of lucky guys had purchased a WWII surplus Jeep for the princely sum of fifty dollars. The story was you'd be looking at a factory fresh Jeep after uncrating it and wiping off the cosmoline. While the premise behind this urban legend always seemed plausible, the Internet has squashed that rumor. How sad, because even though I figured those Jeeps were snapped up long before my time, I'd always hoped some other great deal was waiting for me if the Jeep story was true. The heartbreaking truth is you can simply run a web search for "$50 Jeep Myth" and get your answer. Much like my aspirations to become the world's premier Wayne Newton impersonator, another dream has died hard.
Furthermore, the Internet has ruined the time-honored tradition of using urban legends to terrorize younger siblings. For some odd reason, my parents stopped having children after I was born. Yeah, it made no sense, but as the youngest, this meant I was at the mercy of my brothers' story-telling abilities. Amongst other tales, I trembled at the thought of a one-handed killer roaming the nearby woods, especially since his bloody hook was found on a car's door handle after a narrow escape. Kids today? They can search online and find the truth after just a couple of clicks.
Most urban legends likely had a snippet of truth that started the whole thing. With the $50 Jeeps, supposedly a con man "sold" a few, but of course he only took the money without delivering the goods. Nor has anybody even come forward to say they personally bought one of those $50 Jeeps, or had legitimate proof of somebody who did. It's always somebody knew this other guy who had this friend who heard it from his neighbor. What sort of idiot would believe something so convoluted? I'd have to say a tall and handsome idiot, thank you. I never went looking for a surplus Jeep, but during my teenage years, I fell for the tale of another bargain vehicle: The Dead Corvette.
Maybe you already know the myth about this car. The details vary, but it's always a desirable model such as a Corvette. An unfortunate driver met his demise while parked in his car, which was in nearly perfect condition. The car sat undetected at some remote location for a long time. The story goes that the car was available for free, but the entire interior would need to be replaced due to the overpowering stench.
For a bit of background, you'll have to flash back to my days in high school. You may be thinking I was just as suave then as I am now, but that's not true. In the teenage mind, driving a hot car was the only surefire ticket to set the opposite sex swooning. I know I'm not the only one who thought this way, because three good friends were equally entranced as our shop teacher earnestly told us about the Corvette waiting for us, if we'd only drive to a neighboring state and pick it up. We wisely said little in response, lest our teacher decide to snag the car for himself. Nor had we considered how four guys would share ownership, but such was our state of mind with a Corvette on the radar. Flash forward a few days, and our plans fell apart when nobody could pin down the details. This is when my Dad first got wind of our scheme, and he laughed while explaining he'd heard the same story of a similar car in his youth.
The timelessness of urban legends set me to wondering how many other things aren't actually true. (Editor's note: Don't start again with that whole "Santa isn't real" business.) Consider the example of Chevrolet's Nova. I'd heard this car sold poorly in Latin America because the boneheaded marketing department couldn't see beyond their own borders and used a name that roughly translates to "No go." Run your own web search to see the whole story, as it turns out the car sold quite well and the name was just fine. Since people are eager to believe this story, however, I am ready to make a quick buck offer my services to companies looking to avoid unfortunate names for their products.
Let's consider some of the names in the Jeep stable. The Compass? A compass is something I typically use only after getting lost, so this is not the best word association for me. The Gladiator? That was a fine name for Jeep's truck line back in the '60s. What about the present day? I'm not sure who dug that name out of the archives for some recent concept Jeeps, but I'll bet they'd never seen the movie Airplane!
What about the insidious nicknames folks are likely to hang on any product name? Thanks to purloined copies of Mad magazine during my formative years, this is really my forte. Is there any way to get paid for predicting how names will get twisted? Chevy's Astro turns into the Ashtray. It's a no-brainer for Hyundai's Accent to become the Accident. Over at Ford, please tell me at least one person (perhaps a low-level cube dweller who was quickly ignored) had sounded the alarm that the Aspire would probably get nicknamed the Perspire. Did anybody at Honda consider the Odyssey might morph into the Oddity?
I could go on and on (Editor's note: You already have...) but I don't want to give it away for free. I just may get rich marketing my services to companies eager to avoid turning themselves into laughingstocks. The key is selecting the right title to showcase my amazing ability to spot embarrassing names that aren't obvious at first glance. From now on, I'd like everybody to call me a Future Analysis Research Technician. If that's kind of a mouthful, feel free to use the acronym.-Dr. Vern