"The Exploding Cactus"
My 2nd hub entered in the Hubpages Hub Challenge (which started yesterday, May11) is about an urban legend called "The Exploding Cactus."
In this incredible story, usually a family has been out of the country on vacation. The family brings back an exotic plant (almost always a cactus) that can't usually be found in their usual hometown or country.
Unfortunately, along with the exotic and rare cactus, the family unknowingly also brings back some other unwanted sorts of pets...which are somehow linked to the purchase of the cactus.
Read a version of the urban legend on the 2nd hub I submitted in the Hub Challenge at a website called "Hubpages."
Hub 2: The Exploding Cactus
Here are a few tidbits that aren't on the hub above yet...
One of the most important elements that makes the story, The Exploding Cactus, successful as an urban legend is the cactus itself, along with public ignorance about cactus plants.
(admittedly, I know almost nothing about cactus plants, myself - but knowledge of these items is not necessary for storytelling, either...)
Cactus or "cacti" are usually considered an EXOTIC plant. The care of these flora is necessarily different than that of plants that most people are familiar with. Therefore, not as many people KEEP Cacti as will keep 'ordinary' and more common plants.
This also means that people who know about cacti or cactuses have EXCLUSIVE information about their growth and care...
The average person who does not know anything or who knows very little about cacti can be easily taken in by the details given in the urban legend The Exploding Cactus. Those who know little to nothing about cactus plants easily assume that what happens in the story CAN REALLY HAPPEN!
Another tidbit: readers of this blog now have exclusive information about one of the most important things that makes The Exploding Cactus urban legend successful - because this tidbit has not been posted on the hub at all...
You see... 'logic' and plain 'common sense' of an average person who does not know anything about cactuses will actually MAKE THIS STORY APPEAR logical, true, plausible, etc.
Don't we live in a strange world? Where logic can actually allow a myth to perpetuate and spread?
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