The Gremlin

I got told this story just a couple of days ago and it's difficult to know how much of it is true or how much has been caused by elaboration through re-telling.

Here goes anyway....

The main character of our story is a young man with the mental age of a six-year old. A young man, but a quite a big man. Strong. Tall. Well built, you might say.

One day, this young man came home covered in mud.

"Why are you covered in mud?" asked his mother.

"It was the gremlin, mum" he replied.

"There's no such thing as a gremlin. What really happened?"

"No. It was the gremlin. Really."

The mother was naturally dissatisfied with the answer, but far too busy to care. Five hours later, however, her husband arrived home.

"Why are you covered in mud?" he asked his son.

"The gremlin, daddy" came the reply.

"Now. There's no such thing as gremlins. What happened?"

"No. It was a gremlin. He's out in the garaged!"

The father, mother and son trotted off to the garage and found, to the horror of two of them at least, a dwarf, tied up in the corner!

Many hours earlier, the dwarf had been walking a dog when the son grabbed him and tied him up with the dog's lead. His reason? He seriously thought the dwarf was a gremlin.

The interesting thing about the story is that it has provoked one of two reactions. Either people find the scenario absolutely hilarious or they find it deeply disturbing and quite frightening.