The Top 5 Urban Legends About Backpacking Through Europe

1) Gassing The Train - One of the oldest and most persistent, this one is amazing simply because of how utterly impossible this would be to pull off, and yet it still continues to "happen" to so many naive backpackers. This conversation usually starts with, "I had 150 Euros in my fannypack when we left in , but when I woke up this morning, I only had 15 Euros!"

Let's start by asking: How many drinks did you have before you left? Did you forget that you had to pay for dinner? Did you pay for the sleeper upgrade because your Eur-rail pass didn't include it (which would have been nice to know before the college campus travel agent sold you the friggin thing)? Do you think you might have been too f*$*ed up to remember how much you spent at the ultra-techno uber-disco before you stumbled onto the train and passed out?

There are so many things wrong with this it's hard to know where to start. Do you really think someone who is sophisticated enough to rig several canisters of non-lethal, odorless gas to knock you out is going to rob people who can't afford to fly? And why would he only take some of your money? I asked this a few times and the response most frequently given is the hilarious, "They don't want you to know you've been robbed." WTF?!?!?! Somewhere back in the States a village is missing an idiot. And throughout Europe the KGB has dispersed an elite force of highly-trained criminals that have an unlimited supply of NOS to rob every American traveler of a few hundred Euros. And it's impossible that you aren't keeping an accurate accounting of how much of your daddy's money you're pissing away, right?

2) Gypsy Baby Toss - Gypsies unexpectedly throw you their baby, then pick your pocket while your hands are busy playing catcher.

Wow, whoever originally came up with this one put in some serious overtime in the creativity department to keep it short and simple and yet so fantastically full of bullshit that it seems to fuel this rumor forever. Once you've seen how filthy the "gypsies" are, the last thing you'd want to do is touch one of their babies. My natural instinct would be to ali-oop the thing right into a trash can. Again, this is much too sophisticated to actually be feasible. It's so much easier just to pull a knife on a mark like we do back home, not to mention, WHAT MOTHER WOULD THROW HER BABY to anyone, let alone a total stranger?!?!?! Even a disease ridden gypsy mother has an ounce of mothering instinct.

3) Kidney Theft - Featured as a major plot line on last season's (2006) Nip/Tuck and in the movie "Dirty Pretty Things", I first heard this one during a weekend in Las Vegas about ten years ago. Like a good VD, this one has gone global.

You're out at a bar or club, and the girl of your dreams actually starts hitting on you! You get some drinks, you take her to her hotel or private hostel room, and... wait, where am I? In a bathtub filled with ice? And is that the phone ringing? You pick it up and hear (pick the European accent of your choosing), "An ambulance is on it's way. Don't get out of the tub or you will die." You try to move, but are crippled by the pain in your side! You realize you've been cut open, and are horrified when the paramedics tell you you've had a kidney removed by a notorious Russian/Czech/Italian etc. underground organ harvesting mob.

Complexity must be a fundamental part of these stupid stories. What surgeon (who is talented enough to remove your kidney without killing you) would ever take part in such a risky and monumentally difficult way to make money? Last time I checked, organ transplant surgeons made upwards of $500K/year, and I don't recall reading about too many multi-millionaires with kidney disease who could ever afford to compete with that. Every hear of a little problem called "compatibility"? It's so much easier to take both kidneys out with a hatchet and a hacksaw, along with the heart, liver, eyes, and any other transplantable organ that's fetching top dollar on the Black Market, and then grind the rest of the body up to turn into sausage that you feed to the other semi-retarded American tourists that stop by... not that I would know...

4) Sex Show Becomes Rape Show. My sister knows a guy who knew a guy who had a friend that this happened to. Really!

You're in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, and you hear about this amazing sex show that's just a few blocks further out of the way. You and your friends find the place and pay the door guy to get in, and after a few minutes a smoking hot Dutch girl comes out and asks the crowd if anyone wants to be the star of the show. Your buddy, aka "Animal", jumps up and gets a roaring cheer when he raises his fists over his head and pumps out a Happy Gilmore thrusting display. The female co-star tells the crowd that your friend can do anything he wants to her, but then she gets to do anything she wants to him. What could a beautiful girl like this want to do that you wouldn't like, right? Now he's on the hook and he doesn't want to disappoint his new fans, so he agrees. He thinks he's a stud, and he starts pounding her every which way he's ever seen in any porno they had back at the frat house.

Once he's spent, she says, "All done? My turn!" at which point a mob of the biggest, meanest looking guys you've ever seen comes out of nowhere and stands between the stage and the crowd, preventing any chance of escape or help for your friend. The encore is Mustafa himself, a 6'6" 280 pound black monster with a 13" cock and mouthful of Viagra. He precedes to cornhole your buddy into a blubbering, crying, bleeding mess. What are you going to do now, report your shame to the cops?

Again, WTF?!?!? Does this even sound remotely possible? And let's be honest, who doesn't like a good forced cornholing every once in a while? Why does this have to be a myth? And the fact that the guy that always comes out is black speaks to the pandemic of global racism. White guys can be 13" too!!!

5) The Gypsy Florist - If any of these filthy mutants tries to sell you a dead bouquet of weeds or anything on a tray, call out for a hand check, and don't forget to throw that snap-kick you learned in karate when you were 8, which is how old you'd have to be to believe this crock of shit. This is a novelty shop gag gone amuck. Ssshhhh, the secret is that her gloved hands that look like they're holding up the tray are really props, and her real hands are under the tray going through your pockets.

If there's one thing I am acutely aware of, it's when a woman has her hands near my package. And I'm also usually aware of someone else's hands getting shoved into my pockets where I keep my passport and cash. Americans have a much larger personal space bubble than their fellow Europeans, and most of the guys I know are throwing punches by the time someone gets 8 inches away from their grill, which is how close these smelly little freaks would have to get to pull this technique off.

Stay tuned for my next bit on the reals scams that those Euro-trash pussies try to pull.

Please do everyone a favor and comment about how wrong I am and how one or more of these happened to you or someone you know. We could all use a good laugh...