Fact Or Fiction?

A couple of weeks ago, a coworker from the factory stopped by our department to drop off some reports, and while he was there, he told us a little story. Actually, it was a pretty big story; a big tale, if you will. The wife of another coworker in the factory said that this "event" happened to one of her coworker's 20 year-old mentally challenged son. Apparently, the son is able to stay at home, and his mother calls home every couple of hours to check on him. One day, just a couple of weeks ago, the doorbell rang and the son answered it. It was a Census Bureau worker who happened to be a midget. The son became fascinated by the midget, picked him up and locked him in the closet. When his mother called to check on him, he kept telling her over and over "I found it. It's mine. You can't have it. It's mine."

While my coworker was still telling this story to us, I was already on the internet checking it out, and boy was I [not] surprised to find about 187 different versions of this urban legend/hoax floating around. Some versions tell about a social worker stopping by the house to check on the boy and finding the boy telling about "a troll in the closet". And just today, I heard a version about a midget Jehovah's Witness coming to the house and ending up in said closet. Anyhoo, this big urban legend/tall tale reminded me of another hoax story that circulated a few years ago about a woman who had been to the grocery store and was on her way home when a can of biscuits exploded and hit her in the head. She reached back to feel the biscuit on her head and thought she'd been shot in the head and was feeling her brains. People believe both of these stories because the people that orginated them made them personal - they added people's names to the stories that the listener vaguely knew, so of course it had to be true.