ABSTRACT
The “Sick Old Lady” (SOL) story usually begins in a shopping-center parking lot. A woman shopper returns to her car and finds an elderly woman in the back seat. The old woman says that she’s sick and asks the driver to take her home. The driver agrees, but something about the situation arouses her suspicion. She makes some excuse to return to the shopping center and returns with a security guard. J. H. Brunvand argues that the SOL story is an Americanized version of an urban legend popular in England since the late 1970s. This English legend, which Brunvand calls the story of the “Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker,” has a female driver giving a ride to an older woman. Viewing the SOL story as reflecting women’s fear of attack establishes at least a family resemblance between this story and several other urban legends.
