Small Village, Big Lie

When your home village has only 726 inhabitants, you can bet that everybody knows everybody, so when you tell a porker, nobody is going to believe it, because they know you. Well, one 54-year-old man in such a village, deep in the Alpujarra, decided to report that he had been mugged and kidnapped, as an explanation for being unable to pay a bar bill.

He had started drinking in the morning and progressed from one bar to another until being nearly cross-eyed with drink, he ran out of money. He was on the point of staggering out, his insides slopping over with everything from country wine to whiskey and Coke, when the barman, who probably went to school with him, reminded him that he hadn’t paid the bill.

Stood there, swaying, he decided that the best course was to delve into his waterlogged imagination and come up with an excuse, so he announced to all that he had been mugged and kidnapped. Now bear in mind, that the total population of the village could probably fit in an Austin Mini, the chances of suspicious individuals infiltrating the village to pounce on our bendy friend without anybody noticing were slight to nil, but a good story is always a good story.

However, when the barman said that he should report it immediately to the Guardia Civil post and being three sheets to the wind (very drunk) he thought that this was a spiffing idea. So off he staggered and reported his ‘ordeal.’

He explained, as best he could… that two men had pushed him into their car, taken him to the municipal rubbish dump and deprived him of his wallet containing 272 euros – a quantity that exactly matched the total debt that he had accrued in his last ports of call.

The police immediately smelt something fishy – over the stench of alcohol, that is – and helped him stagger back around his hazy route and with each step his story mutated until the truth came out.

Now, besides having a monster hangover, owing 272 euros to his local watering holes, he has also been charged with reporting a false kidnapping. Never a dull moment in the badlands of the Alpujarra.

(News: Alpujarra, Granada, Andalucia)

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