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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoax Photo Database, the Hoax Forum, and the Hoaxipedia.

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RUDE ROVER
The Christmas dog with no class! He sings and toots Jingle Bells.
INFLATABLE TREE
Who needs the hassle of a real Christmas tree?
FARTING SANTA
Go ahead and pull his finger!

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.
Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.
"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper on Wednesday. The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

And he's visiting the brothel because?

leshka, my thought exactly. However, it could be that he was visiting because his wife refused him sex. However, it is more likely he wanted unusual sex and didn't want his wife to find out how kinky he was. It's still odd, and Alex is probably right, it's an urban legend.

I recall this story being used in a porn movie I saw back in my misspent '70s youth. I can't remember the name of the film. But as I remember, the husband has a business client who wants to go to the brothel.

This is an old, old legend (an urban legend, except it's so old that it may predate the existence of cities). Jan Harald Brunvand (sp?), the man who popularized the term "urban legend," has documented some of the occurances of this one in some of his books.

The Polish newspaper may have just had space to fill and dragged out this ancient chestnut, but I think it's more likely one of their writers heard it somewhere and, and like a lot of newspapers and tabloids, this one may not do much fact checking.

Of course, the incident "could" happen, but it hardly seems likely. She's working in a brothel to pay his bills at other brothels. Why would he divorce her for that? And what are the names and the address of this couple? Not mentioned, are they? (I did try to check this by going to the paper's web page, but I can't read much Polish. I couldn't help noticing the daily weather forecast features a picture of a naked model, though-- always a good indicator of sober journalism.)

I think it's not only possible that this could happen, but it probably has a few times somewhere in the world. What I find unlikely is that one of them would call the press. It's an embarrassing story for both, but something personal that would never make it as far as a media story.

On my weedding night, by force of habit I put out $100 on the nightstand. I awoke in the middle of the night, realized my mistake and went to take it back before offending her. Only $50 remained.