Internet Giveth, Internet Taketh Away

It feeds your imagination with a wonderful story of adventure and luck and then it rips the pleasure of it from you when you find that it was a bunch of lies. Last year one of the coolest stories ever for our household came from Portugal.

A man retires and does some traveling. Along the way he happens across a quaint farm in Portugal that is a steal for the size. The place has been sitting empty for a few years since the old couple that lived there for ages passed away with no family. The place is up for half its value just to cover the back taxes. It is rural but not too far from interesting places to be a base for some travel or exploring. Maybe it's somewhere around Madeira, that would put it about in the middle. Lisbon would be a good weekend trip. The northern parts of Portugal are about the same size trip.

So he has found a great place to retire where he can travel Europe with some ease. The place is a great bargain compared to something about the same size in the States and his modest retirement savings will stretch pretty far in this lazy rural setting. A few months after moving in, he and his wife tear into the old barn on the farm that had been closed for years. He made an amazing discovery. It was stem to stern with cars from every year from the 1930s to the 1970s. Once the inventory was made, the collection would be valued in the millions. Some retirement investment.

Even with though there was certainly no chance for us to repeat his lucky find, we were ready to plan trips to tour old farms in rural Portugal just for the fun of it. We could travel to quiet places, poke around in old buildings, eat strange food, listen to different music, and there might be old cars to be found.

And then the other shoe drops. Teh Internets have sucked the truth out of the story and made it into something else. Should of known. Should have hit Snopes at the first hint of Too Good To Be True. The barn belonged to an automobile dealer and collector who had found cars over the years that he could afford, bought them, and stashed them in the barn. When the barn was full he had closed it up. Some time later he opened it and brought in a photographer to take inventory. Those photos made the basis for the lie some dweeb spun off.

What was the point of taking the already interesting true story and bending, twisting, and stretching it into something completely different? I think I will never understand this aspect of some humans.