Ashes To Ashes

I had a husband and wife go toe-to-toe over an ashtray they got in Las Vegas. The couple spent nearly $5,000 for me and another attorney to duke it out in court over the silly trinket. Prior to proceeding, I explained that it would be cheaper to fly me to Vegas and get an identical ashtray. The husband said he didn't care about the costs—and his reasons were deeply malicious.

It turns out that the husband had other intentions for their marriage memorabilia. When he won, he smashed the ashtray on the steps of the courthouse. He laughed and said the look on his wife’s face was worth much more than $2,500. People get crazy in divorce proceedings.

F-DEVICE

Until The Grave Do Us Part

I wouldn't recommend it, but one of the best ways to stick it to your ex is to kick the can during a messy divorce. In my client's case, the court had orally declared a couple to be divorced. Sadly, before they could finalize the official paperwork, the husband went to his grave. The courts spent two years figuring out how to proceed and made a divisive decision…

The court decided that the wife had to divide everything 50/50 with her deceased husband. And to think, if he had passed two weeks sooner, she would have avoided years of court hearings, thousands in fees, and kept everything for herself.

Pandorac

I’ll Never Let You Go…To The Marriott Hotel

My aunt has been divorced for quite some time, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s still driving her attorney crazy with her requests. Most recently, she took her ex-husband to court. Her motive was ridiculous. She wanted to know where he was working and when, all so that she could have her private investigator keep an eye on him and his new girlfriend.

She should have just let it go…she got the house, the kids, the boat, and even the Marriott International points.

ProfessorMMcGonagall

“X” Marks The Spot…

I worked a divorce case that went to trial. The parties owned a business together, which they started during the marriage and which was their sole source of income. Obviously, the biggest issue was who was going to keep the business. While the divorce proceeded, the General Magistrate ordered my client to keep running the business and to pay the wife temporary alimony. If only it had ended then.

At trial, we went in front of a judge instead of the General Magistrate. This judge was older with poor memory and was fairly new to family law. She ended up giving the wife the business and ordering my client to pay the wife alimony! How is someone supposed to pay alimony if you take away their only source of income for the last 10 years?

I filed a motion for rehearing but the judge denied it. As if that was bad enough, do you want to know the cherry on top of this triple-layered divorce cake? The judge awarded my client his home that he had inherited from his grandmother. The wife had been living in there during the divorce proceedings, and the judge gave her 30 days to move out.

Well, she stayed until the last possible day. When my client went back to the home, the wife had completely destroyed the inside. She took a screw driver and scratched an “X” on the surface of all of the furniture and the walls. My client ended up leaving the country.

Ctheblahblah

I’m Giving You The Cold Shoulder

I once represented one party in a divorce. While the divorce proceedings were on-going, the couple still lived together pending the sale of their family home. But just because they lived together did not mean that they were on speaking terms. In fact, they would not speak to one another for any reason whatsoever. Things were so bad that I even had to negotiate terms for sharing refrigerator space.

Permalink

Don’t Be A Baby, Baby

The court ordered this couple, who had been divorced for four months, to divide up their Beanie Baby Collection, valued somewhere between $2,500 and $5000…and they were seemingly unable to do so by themselves. The couple spread out the collection on the floor and divided up one by one under the supervision of a Family Court Judge.

Jux_

The Couple That Divorces Together, Stays Together

I worked as a courtroom clerk when I was in college. A couple filing for divorce were arguing over custody of their son. I thought it would be the normal "I won’t let you see him,” and name-calling nonsense, but I was in for a surprise. The mom wanted the dad to spend more time during the holidays together—all three of them. But the dad had demands of his own…

The dad in this strange divorce proceeding wanted the same thing as his maybe-ex-wife. He also wanted the family to spend more time together…just more frequently. The couple ended up reconciling and agreed to couples’ therapy before the divorce procedure went further. They came back a month later to withdraw the divorce proceeding. All is well that ends well.

seimungbing

Cleaning House

My friend is a divorce lawyer. They had a client whose former spouse brutally attacked them. Apparently, the former spouse blamed the divorce attorney for “taking him to the cleaners” in the divorce. The worst part is that the lawyer was at the grocery store doing his weekly food shopping with his wife and kids during the attack.

AJAMG

The Honeymoon That Never Ends

I represented the husband in a divorce. During the proceedings, we tried to get the court to eliminate his spousal support obligations. His wife, however, insisted that she needed the support…and wait until you hear why. The whole process took way longer than it should have because his wife was taking vacations to Mexico at least once every month.

asoiahats

The Wedding Photographer

I represented the husband in a divorce. On the day of the trial, opposing counsel presented shocking evidence. The wife’s attorneys produced photographs that they claimed proved adultery. The photos were of my client, the husband, wearing lingerie and a long brown wig, engaging in act of intimacy with another man. I was able to successfully exclude this from evidence...because the wife was the photographer.

KrisCMS

And…The Honeymoon Is Over

I worked for a law firm while in college. We had a client who had just come home from a two-week vacation with his wife. But she wasn’t going to be his wife for much longer. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, his wife’s lawyers served him with divorce papers and a temporary restraining order. His wife didn't say a word and just went into their house.

The poor guy came straight to our office and was massively confused. What happened on that vacation?

MissSara13

Please Play Nice

My first trial. My client’s husband was suing her for divorce. Her soon-to-be ex-husband was alleging habitual cruelty and inhumane treatment. When I heard what he had to say, my jaw-dropped. I had to agree with him. Her husband was claiming that she had grabbed him in a sensitive area really, really hard and hurt him on purpose.

What’s more, I had to cross examine him about it. Awkward.

Permalink

Call Me, Maybe?

I had a client whose soon-to-be-ex-husband used her email address and phone number to sign her up for every bank, loan, religious, mental illness, and adult site he could think of. These companies bombarded her about their products and services. He even put out her information on Craigslist. The joke was on him though…she actually went out with a guy who contacted her!

dirtydlf

Grab Your Pitchforks…

I’ve been a divorce lawyer for more than 20 years, so I've seen it all. I once represented a husband divorcing his wife of over 35 years. At mediation, they divided up about a half million in assets within 30 minutes—and then things went south. They spent the next two and half hours fighting over a couple of hurricane glasses from Pat O'Brien's and a pitchfork.

$1,000 in attorney fees later, they settled…and then got remarried anyway.

LazyMFTX

40 Acres And A Whole Lot Of Revenge

I knew a wealthy land owner who went to some extreme lengths to get even after a divorce. He lost his home to his ex-wife in the divorce proceedings but kept his trump card. He was able to keep the rest of the undeveloped neighborhood land and turned it into an industrial park. In other words, he surrounded his ex-wife’s huge house with a ton of factories.

king-hippo77

Run Away Wife

My uncle is a divorce lawyer, but not a very good one. He represented a couple who had recently started getting into some problems. The wife had had enough of married life and just left one night. Her husband was through with her since she left, and went to my uncle for a divorce. My uncle agreed but he kept delaying because he had plans of his own.

While my uncle stalled the husband, he came up with an ingenious plan. He did what he knew was in everyone’s best interest. My uncle hired a private investigator to search for the missing wife. Fortunately, he eventually found her and talked her into going back to her husband. Things worked out in the end…but my uncle might be the worst divorce lawyer in the country.

Levelis

Sharing Marriages Makes For Caring Marriages

How much time do you have? Over the course of my career, I’ve seen nearly a dozen wife-swaps. And it’s just as weird as it sounds. Usually, the husband will cheat on his wife with his friend’s wife. This causes a divorce for both parties, and their respective spouses (wife of first party and husband of second) end up getting together. Happens quite often for whatever reason.

rainemaker

Divorce, The Family Game

I saw a mother and father live together during a divorce and fight over the location of their children’s Xbox and Wii. At first, the gaming consoles were in the family living room. The father then put the consoles in his bedroom so that the children would spend all of their time in his bedroom. The mother literally went to court to have the Xbox and Wii returned to the living room. They spent thousands on this.

odgunz

Debarred And Divorced

I'm not a lawyer, but I’ve got a story about one. There was a case in which a man found out that his wife was having an affair. Heartbroken, the man found a divorce lawyer. In court, the husband learned a brutal truth. His lawyer was the man his wife was having the affair with. Of course, the lawyer got his license taken away after that.

cgKush

Off To Sunny Mexico

I’m a family law paralegal. We had a client whose husband had taken her kids on an unscheduled bus trip to Mexico. We expedited everything. I went above and beyond for this woman—even contacting attorneys in the deep south of Mexico and writing out very clear instructions to get back her kids. As it turns out, our client was no victim.

This woman had physically accosted her husband because he confronted her about sleeping with his brother. Now you see why the husband packed up and took the kids.

Bey5ever

The Most Expensive Therapy Ever

My client (the husband) was living in the same house as his wife throughout the divorce proceedings. He'd call me and complain about things like: his wife ate a bag of chips and didn't replace it, she invited one of her friends over who he disliked, she binged watched TV instead of fixing dinner, etc., etc. He paid me $250/hour for the privilege of venting over the phone to an attorney.

Cheezmergency

Why So Salty?

One of my father's friends tried to “salt the earth” before getting divorced. He transferred the deeds to a rental house and a cabin to relatives and sold the family cars to relatives for tiny sums…and he was just getting started. He put stocks in a trust “for the children” and vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife.

He even stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead. Well, he might have salted the earth but he was in for just desserts. When the divorce proceedings went to court, he learned that judges really, really hate it when you try to play dirty games. Turns out that hiding or intentionally diminishing assets is actually not a good idea.

In fact, judges will absolutely refer you to prosecutors. I don't think that he spent time behind bars, but his ex-wife did get everything, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.

technos

Let’s Break Up The Bank

A friend of mine is a divorce lawyer. His favorite story is the time that the husband in a bitter divorce said that he would “out-lawyer” his wife and break the bank before giving her anything she wanted. He said this in front of my friend, her lawyer. My friend looks at the wife and says, "I'm working for you pro bono (free) from this moment forward."

WhiteRabbit86

Think About The Children

I took a domestic relations class run by a retired judge who told us a few good stories. My favorite was a story where both parties in a divorce were acting unreasonably and not thinking of the kids. In the end, the judge awarded the house to the kids who would live there permanently while the parents—who had joint custody—would take turns living there.

The best thing was that neither party could afford to buy an additional place, so they had to rent a small flat together and also share that.

Rwhite_93

Oh, Brother!

I had a case in where husband found some incriminating texts on his wife's phone. He suspected that she was cheating on him with some guy. What’s more is that he also got the impression that his sister-in-law (his brother’s wife) might be in on it in some way. He and his brother end up hiring a private investigator to tail both of their wives to get to the truth. But the truth can hurt…

The brothers essentially confirmed that both women were seeing other people. My client’s sister in-law admitted to carrying on an affair. His brother attempted to reconcile but eventually filed for divorce. My client’s wife admitted that she was looking for an affair but only "met for some kisses" and she "touched him a little bit.” He filed for divorce anyway.

Stubbula

To The Clink!

My dad is a retired lawyer and he got this story from a judge. A man and a woman went through an unhappy divorce, and their poor kids got stuck in the middle. The wife got custody and the man got visitation rights but, apparently, that wasn’t good enough for her. She made parental alienation her goal in life. So, her ex-husband took her to court over this and she actually ended up behind bars for contempt more than once.

The judge who told this story to my dad finally told the man, "I can throw her back in prison as many times as you want, but there's no winner in this."

lefschetz

I Want The News, Not The Weather…

I used to work for a judge when two prominent local news personalities were getting a divorce. They filed for mutual restraining orders against each other for an unspecified use of force. The filings were vague on details but still managed to convey a sense of savage levels of blood. When the time came for the hearing, it turned out that the use of force they were referring to was spitting.

Specifically, during a heated argument, flecks of spittle managed to touch the other party. The judge denied the restraining orders, and both parties' attorneys probably bought new yachts. Such is justice in a divorce.

gnujack

That’s Not My Name

This is the story of a potentially thwarted divorce case. A man and his fiancée were buying a house together. They got to the paper where you sign off on all your aliases. In a Mr. & Mrs. Smith-worthy turn of events, the woman had a full-page's worth of former names. The guy asked, "What is this?" The woman's response made his blood run cold.

She nonchalantly replied, "Oh, I've been married five times before." The guy got up and walked out. Crisis averted.

-Dee-Dee

“Extra! Extra! Read All About It!”

I was a secretary for an attorney. Divorce can be pretty depressing but it can also be a real laugh. I think that the most entertaining divorce story was when a guy had to get creative in divorcing his wife. He had to have the divorce papers sent to her the newspaper because she wouldn't leave the house or answer the door for the process server.

Eensquatch

And Your Little Dog Too…

My friend’s firm handled the divorce of an extremely rich man who claimed his wife was cheating on him. The lawyer proceeded to ask him about his assets and what he wanted to keep. The man said that his wife could have the house, the car, the boat, the kids, etc. Given that he seemed willing to give up everything, the lawyer asked him what he wanted to keep. Not even Cruella de Ville would have asked for this.

After the man’s lawyer asked him what he wanted to keep in the divorce, the man angrily responded, "My wife only loves her dog. I want her to suffer so I want the court to order that the dog be taken away from her and cremated. She can have 50% of the ashes and I'll have the other 50%." What would have happened if his wife only loved their kids?

akasakasan

Micro Aggressions

I represented a woman who was convinced that her husband was the real-world equivalent of Lex Luthor or something. She claimed that he had implanted micro-robots in her brain and was trying to control her. She would bring us all of this nanotechnology and try to convince us that it was possible. She dragged the case out for four years. We almost had to get a conservator for her estate.

porntoomuch

I’m A Professional

My first divorce case was the most memorable. My client was a nice looking, 50ish waitress who was breaking hearts at the local small-town cafe. She was on divorce number five. I had a little lawyer kit of things she should do such as clean out the joint accounts, change the car title, etc. To my surprise, she had done all of them…plus a few things I hadn’t thought of.

“Husband No.5” came into my office to cry and concede everything. Now that was a guy who needed a lawyer with a list. Suffice to say, our client got everything she was, or might have been, entitled to plus a little more.

AnathemaMaranatha

Roomies!

I was a family law attorney for years. It was nasty all the time, which is why I finally switched to a different area. But not before this crazy couple…I worked a divorce where the ex-couple lived together after their divorce. It wasn’t for love. It was just pure and simple spite. Neither wanted to move. I believe they still live together.

Silly_Willy

Leaving The Nest

I once interned for a small family firm and had some really odd stories. This attractive lady relocated from Florida to the mountains of Virginia with her husband to restart their relationship. Unfortunately, they were moving in with her parents and had not found a new place to live yet. Well, the move didn’t help and they ended up seeking a divorce.

He ended up kicking the woman out of the house. Yeah, you read that correctly, he kicked her out of her parents’ house.

thotnumber1

Failed Marriages And Flat Tires

This wasn’t my case, but I overheard it in divorce court once. While separated, a guy went around to his wife's house and took revenge on her car. Apparently, in an act of brazen post-marital rage, he slashed her tires. And if you were thinking about calling the authorities, you’ll have no luck there. He was a law enforcement officer. That’s just crazy.

malachi410

The Defenestration Separation

I would never disclose a client's details because, you know, confidentiality. But I did have a mediation professor who told me this gem of a divorce story. She was mediating a divorce and the couple was so close to making a settlement. Until it all went out the window…literally. You see, this couple had purchased a lovely Victorian home together.

The husband, while unemployed, had painstakingly restored all of the old windows. Restoring the windows was a very time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Fast-forward to division of assets: The couple agreed to split the sale of the house equally, but he demanded a larger share because of the value of the windows. She said she should have that money, because she was supporting them at the time.

He returned that she could keep the entire house, but he was getting those windows. Then she said, “You can shove those windows up your...” Well, anyway, you get the idea. They went back and forth while my poor professor tried to mediate them into a neutral position.

petit_cochon

That’s Just Pea…NUTS!

I worked a divorce case that was frustrating enough to make anyone pluck out their eyelashes. It took the couple two hours to decide who would get the groceries left in the fridge. The estimated value of the groceries was around $40. Two hours of my time, opposing counsel’s time, and mediator time added up to about $1,000. It all came down to an oversized jar of peanut butter.

All I could think of the whole time was, “Who keeps peanut butter in the fridge?!”

ammjh

The Hand That Feeds You…

I once had a case where the estranged wife just didn’t know what was good for her. She was calling my client's employer repeatedly, accusing him of theft and other white-collar crimes to try to get my client fired. The funny thing about it all was that she was also demanding child support…which was based on my client’s income. Income from the job from which she was trying to get him fired.

JournalofFailure

A Hairy Situation

My dad was a divorce lawyer. He had a client who wanted to divorce her husband for two very odd reasons. For one, she claimed that he did not have enough hair on his chest. And the second reason was that he did not drive fast enough. In all fairness, this was 1970s when chest hair was a bit more important. The speeding thing, that I can’t explain.

Bodhi_ZA

Fighting For Fido

I was in a mediation once where it took the couple an hour and a half to split their personal property, retirement accounts, real property, and custody of their six-month-old son. The rest of the day, about four hours, they spent arguing about how to split the time with the dog. For the kid they just said, "as agreed upon by the parties" but the dog had a strict schedule.

FattyBinz

Join The Mickey Mouse Club…Of Divorce

I was a clerk for a family court judge. Believe me when I say that the kids always suffer in a divorce. We had a woman go to extreme lengths to spite her ex-husband, even if it meant disappointing her daughter. She even tried to get an injunction to keep the father from taking their daughter on a trip to Disney World. Like it is whenever love ends, it was so sad.

clumseey

Reply All?

There are so many crazy divorce stories and they always bring out the absolute worst in couples. Like this one: A couple did their will with our firm. We drafted everything for them as they were an older couple; they had been married for 40 years total. The husband wanted us to put in his will that his kids get his entire estate, with one small caveat: He did not want us to tell his wife.

Instead, he wanted to have us make a secret will and a fake will. He had a whole plan. He would sign the fake will with her present, and then we would shred it. Then he would come in later to sign the "real will.” There was just one hitch in his Ocean’s Eleven scheme…he copied his wife on the email. Two weeks later, he called us and said he wanted to file for divorce.

PetiteChaos

Attorney On Demand

A previous client of ours was livid that his wife was cheating on him. She wanted a non-contested divorce and wanted to use my boss specifically because she knew he was a great lawyer. So, our client pretended to go along with her terms but contacted us literally two days before his wife and retained us. He said he didn't care how much money the retainer was going to be.

He just wanted my boss so his wife couldn't have him as a lawyer. He called and paid first, so he won that battle.

PetiteChaos

The Love Has Dried Up

My aunt was a divorce lawyer. She worked a case where the wife glued all of the outdoor hoses together so that her husband wouldn’t spend any more time washing his car. When the glue didn’t work, she just cut up the hoses instead. And when this woman’s husband bought new hoses, she finally filed for divorce. The only question I have is…”Was it a nice car?”

amazinglymorgan

Bear With Me

I used to clerk for a judge, and we had a week-long divorce trial between a couple. The husband was a wildlife photographer and the wife was a stay-at-home wife who “remodeled” the house. They had no kids. Anyway, one day the husband was photographing a grizzly bear but must have gotten a little too close and the bear mauled him.

He spent several months in the hospital and rehab. As if surviving a bear attack wasn’t enough, his wife had him served with divorce papers shortly after he got out of rehab. Of course, she wanted half of everything. The guy had lost an eye…what more could she possibly have taken?

Mehndeke

Plastics Are Forever

Neither side would follow the court orders. When they had to go back to court, they were fighting over the husband’s grandmother's bowls. I assumed for weeks that these bowls were some sort of heirloom or expensive china. When they finally brought the bowls into the courtroom to swap them, I discovered that they were Tupperware. Who knew plastic was more precious than diamonds?

Carcharodons

Divorcing Scrooge

My client was the outrageous one in this story, and my heart went out to his poor wife. My client had OCD which manifested primarily in the family finances. He made their lives a penny-pinching nightmare. For example, he was obsessed with avoiding unnecessary driving, so he cut the whole family’s hair at home and never let them eat at a restaurant or go to the movies. That wasn’t even the strangest thing.

Weirdest of all, he kept one toilet paper roll on him at all times, and you had to get one square from him before you could go to the bathroom. He never gave more than one square. His wife finally got tired of him and left him when he gave her bangs during an in-home haircut. Even their daughter was so traumatized by the whole toilet paper thing they couldn’t potty train her.

Being such a miser, he viewed my whole job as a divorce attorney as an unnecessary expense.

Julietcaravello1

Shaking Like A Dog

My mom was a divorce lawyer. One specific story I remember was about a couple fighting for custody of their dog. The guy already lost custody of the children and then lost the case for custody of the dog. When the ex-wife’s mother came to pick up the dog, he told her that she could get him out of the freezer...Yes, that’s right, he froze the dog.

doggo24-7

The Frog That Hopped Away

I once worked an interesting—and very, very sad—divorce case. It’s not uncommon for parents to fight over custody in a divorce, but that’s not what happened this time…not at all. My client and their spouse had a son that they named Snoop Frog (I kid you not) and sadly, neither of them wanted custody. Honestly, it was nothing that a name change couldn’t fix.

6NippledCharlie

Not A Lucky Divorce

This woman won $1.3million in a lottery pool and filed for divorce 11 days later. She never mentioned her lottery winnings to her husband. She also did not disclose the proceeds during the divorce. She would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for a letter that arrived at their former marital residence over two years after the divorce…

The letter was an offer to buy out her lottery annuity with a lump sum payment. The husband promptly lawyered up and the family court awarded 100% of the prize proceeds to him.

grumpyGrampus

Truck on Truck Violence

I was driving to work one morning at about 2 am. As I was behind this slow 18-wheeler, I was getting a feeling I needed to move. When we came up to a red light, I switched over a lane so that I wouldn’t be behind him anymore. Just about a second later I heard something that sounded like an explosion. It was a tow truck slamming into the back of the 18-wheeler at about 70 mph.

It tore off the two rear axles on the trailer, and most certainly would have smashed my car to pieces.

Toxic Thoughts

My dad left for work, got a weird feeling, and drove back home. When he walked in, he entered a nightmare. Everyone in the house was unconscious. He had to drag or carry them all outside one by one and call the ambulance. It turns out that my mom and her entire family had severe carbon monoxide inhalation. Because he trusted his gut, they all survived.

bellrunner

Speed Demon

When I was 18, I was on a back road with some friends. A girl I didn't know was driving really fast. Now, I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and I have always enjoyed a calculated risk in the name of a good time, but I just had a terrible feeling this time. I told her to either slow the heck down or let me out. I literally had to start screaming at her before she listened and slowed down.

A week later, a friend told me a story that made my blood run cold. She had crashed on that same stretch of road at 90mph, killing herself and the three passengers of her car.

Canadian_Neckbeard

Warning Signs

I work at a psych hospital. I was in the cafe with an adult unit and the adolescent unit was also there. I had known one of the kids from when she was on the children’s and normally we had a good rapport. I went to say hi and told her I was proud she had been staying out of trouble, a few of the other girls reacted weirdly to me saying it and the girl looked guilty.

I told the staff on the unit and said they should keep an extra eye on the girls because I had bad vibes about it. The staff kinda brushed me off. A half hour later four girls—including the one I knew—literally almost killed the two staff, one got her head bashed in and suffered brain trauma and the other staff was blinded in one eye.

1standten

Tragically Right to Be Worried

My mom called me when I was out with a friend. She told me my brother didn't come home last night. She was very worried, even though this is not the weirdest thing for a 21-year-old. I went straight home, and we both felt like something bad had happened. At home, his phone was on the couch in the living room so we couldn't contact him. We called the police and after a week of investigation, his body was found drowned in a nearby lake. I miss him every day.

zielsongelukkig

Don’t Laugh At Your Kid's Gut

A storm was gathering as my dad was driving. I was 8, sitting in the back and looking out the window. I told him: "You better hurry, that construction crane looks like it might topple." Everybody laughs at the idiot kid. That evening the whole family was watching the local news. They opened with that crane crashing down due to heavy wind.

Although nobody had been hurt, I felt vindicated.

MarvFromDieHard

Not What I Meant By Date & Dinner

Once at a party, I was about to kiss this girl, but my spider senses tingled. I took a few steps back, and she was like "what the fu- " before throwing up. So glad I dodged that bullet.

Lightstrider101

The Wheels of Fate

Was riding my motorcycle with a friend on the back. We were going down a country road behind a truck hauling a bunch of old car tires, when all of a sudden, I decided we shouldn't be there. I slowed way down to let the truck go ahead of us. Just as I did, one of the tires fell off the truck and landed right where we would have been.

deadeyeAZ

Early Learner

When I was in middle school, I got into a local college’s summer program where kids study advanced subjects. The day was over before my mom's work day, so I would take the light rail to the library or sometimes the local community center. Anyway, it was my first time ever really being on my own in a city or in public in general.

My parents got me my first cell phone because of all this. They didn't make me scared but I was prepared about how to stay safe. I sort of did the same thing everyday; get off my stop, go get a burger, and then go to one place or the other, making sure not to talk to strangers and all that. A couple of times, I noticed a man walking behind me. He'd also go the same burger place that I went to.

He never tried to talk to me or do anything like that, but after the fourth time I noticed, I called my mom and she told me people are just going about their day, on a schedule like I am, so it could just be a coincidence. Well, one day I decided to eat inside the burger place instead of take it to go, and I saw him walking outside and straight toward the way I would normally go.

Before he got out of the parking lot, he started looking around, like he was looking for someone or something. I went to the restroom, called my mom, and told her to get me. I didn't go that way ever again after that, took a new route. About a week or so later, a chilling story came on the news about a girl who had gone missing. The video footage was from the same strip center as the burger place.

The suspect was the man who had been following me.

Mongoosedog12

Kids Know More Than They Let on

My mom told me this story the other day and it freaked me out. When my oldest sister was little, like 3 years old, she asked my then-pregnant aunt to pick her up to hold her. My mom said she was like "She can't pick you up, honey, she has a baby in her tummy." And then my little sister was like "That baby is dead!" My mom freaked out, but my aunt and grandma were fine and were telling my mom it was all good, she was just a toddler and didn't know what she was saying.

Well, lo and behold my aunt goes to the doctor the next day for a routine pregnancy checkup, and the baby was dead. Give me the willies just thinking about it.

Stanleythemanly44

Sometimes a Hot Shower Doesn’t Cure All

One day, I felt a sudden pain in my lungs when I inhaled. I’ve never been stabbed, so I don’t know what it’s like, but the pain should have been equal to it, if not worse. It had happened before, years ago. After some hot water in the shower, the pain was gone. My wife insisted on going to ER. I insisted on hot water. “I feel like we should go and see a doctor,” she said.

When I was examined, I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism on both lungs. The doctor said “One or two more hours, and you would’ve been gone.” So yeah, I owe my wife one.

verpin_zal

Watching The Ones Who Do Not Smile

I was at a party when I was in college when two older dudes showed up. The place was packed and most people were loaded. I noticed something was a bit off about them. They never smiled and weren’t really talking to anyone. Finally, someone accused them of feeling around in their back pocket and it turned out they were lifting wallets from dumb college kids.

Once confronted, one of the guys stabbed the kid in the stomach with a smallish knife. They left slowly and were never caught. It was pretty surreal. The kid who got stabbed turned out fine.

Z_witha_ZED

Granny Knows What's Up

We had a psychopath roaming South Carolina a couple years ago. No one knew what he looked like yet but he had already killed three people at this point. Well, my granny has lived alone since my paw-paw passed about 15 years ago. She lives at the end of a long dirt road with about 10 other families but the closest one was about a quarter mile up the road.

One afternoon some random guy comes knocking on the front door of her house. My granny is a practical woman, she has never been to school because she grew up on a farm and was expected to pull her weight, but she is a smart woman. She goes to the door but doesn't open it—it’s a glass door. The 40ish-year-old man is there asking if he can use the phone since his car broke down, but Granny doesn't like the look of this guy. If he doesn't live here there is no reason for him to be on this road and if he was visiting someone their house or anyone else's house would have been closer since she lives on a dead end.

Anyways, she tells him that no he can't use the phone and needs to leave. She backs up and picks up my paw-paw's 410 as she goes. Once he sees the shotgun he hightails it out of there. About a week later the cops finally catch pyschopath and lo and behold if it isn't the same man.

arcamdies

What’s the Harm at a Farm?

I had a co-worker who used to go to parties in high school. Several of the parties in her senior year were at some guy’s farm. She went to one and bailed right away, saying it felt weird. The guy who owned the farm was Robert Pickton.

rustyshacklefordrsw

The Nose Knows

I was like eight when my parents took me and my younger brother to stay the night at my paternal grandparents' house because they were in the middle of divorcing. They lived in a farmhouse that was connected to a barn with machinery, gasoline tanks, and hay on the ground floor and furnished rooms on the floor above that. The room we were supposed to stay in was in that barn.

As soon as we went into the guest room, I was overwhelmed by panic and felt really dizzy. I turned around and just said that we will not sleep in that room, and we spent the night on the couch in the living room instead. Later that night, a gas leak in the barn ignited. The entire barn exploded, including the guest rooms on its top floor.

Maybe I had that weird feeling because the gas had leaked into the room already, but no one else felt anything. I'm sure I would be dead if I hadn't noticed it

CichaelMlifford

Trust Your Gut

A few years ago, I was at a bar with a couple of friends. All was good, we were drinking and having fun. All of sudden, we heard this discussion taking place just a couple of tables away from us. Two guys decided to have a shouting/threat match. I stopped everything to pay attention to them. My friends were making fun of me, saying I was gossipy. One of the guys in the discussion got up and left.

Immediately after he left, I told my friends we had to go. Right away. I was adamant. They didn't get why I was being weird, but we’d been friends forever, so they reluctantly agreed. We went to a different bar in a different neighborhood, but I couldn't take my mind off of those two guys. The next day, I turned on the news and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There was a report about a bar fight. Apparently, the guy who got up went home, grabbed a gun and came back for a drive by. He mowed down four people in the process. My grandpa taught me to never ignore my gut, and I couldn't be happier to have listened.

beardedalien013

Ditching Danger

I was driving a friend home late at night when I was around 21. She lived in a pretty rural area outside of St. Louis, MO and about a quarter mile from her house was an old abandoned farm and farm house. I always thought of this place as non-threatening as she told me she and her two sisters would go there as kids and they found an attic full of cool things, including a trunk of vintage woman’s clothing and old love letters. It was like something out of a movie.

Anyway, I’m driving her home and it’s a hot, humid Missouri summer so we have the windows open. We are also singing at the top of our lungs. We pass the abandoned farm and I drop her off at her house. I wait long enough to see she makes it inside and I head back out the way I came. I’m driving along and I get to where the farm is. I see two things in the middle of the road, but I can’t tell what they are.

My danger meter goes off. I had just driven this road and there was nothing there. That’s when I put the windows up and made sure the doors were locked. I got closer and realized the items are two car batteries, spaced out in the road in such a way that I would have to get out and move them to drive on the road. I immediately knew I wasn’t getting out of the car.

I picked the side of the road that had the more shallow ditch and I gunned it. I was driving a little SUV and remember feeling the car run over branches and things in the ditch, but I just gunned it and got out of there. All the way home, I felt creeped out and kept checking my rear view mirror. I called my friend the next morning and told her what had happened and we both agreed it was weird.

Shortly after that, I moved to another state and didn’t think much of it after that. Fast forward to a couple of years later when I was back visiting my hometown. I randomly ran into my old friend and she ran up to me with wide eyes and grabbed my arms. She asked me if I remembered what I told her that night. I said yes and she proceeded to tell mea story that made my blood run cold.

Not too long after the night with the car batteries in the road had happened, her family was awakened in the middle of the night to someone pounding on their sliding glass door. Her dad went to check and saw two naked, injured women. He let them in and immediately called 9-1-1. They had been abducted from St. Louis City, about 40 minutes away, by two men and brought to the old abandoned farmhouse where the men had attacked them.

The women somehow managed to get free and ran like heck to the only light they could see—the light over my friend’s garage. They both survived, but the men who grabbed them were never caught. There was evidence the men had been going there for a while. My friend was convinced they had put the batteries in the road to get me to stop.

I’m just really glad my gut told me not to get out of my car.

elzamay

The Man in Red

Well, I was walking home. Wasn't late and I'm from a pretty safe area, but it was that time of year when it starts to get dark really early so felt kind of ominous. Anyway, I pass this guy in a red sweater and red tracksuit bottoms, and he looks at me funny. Maybe he's high, maybe he's loaded...either way something not quite right about him.

I keep going. Look behind me, he's still there. Cross the road. He crosses with me. As soon as I turn a corner, I sprint to my apartment complex and run into the coded gate and wait. He rocks up a minute later and stares at me through the gate. He just stares at me for a good 10 or so seconds then runs back the way he came.

Shivers.

The_PurpleZone

No Party Favors Tonight

Had a friend who said we should go to this party he was invited to by a classmate of his. We ended driving out to it. We noticed the neighborhood was not too pleasant and sketchy. We saw that house had some lights on in backyard but kind of quiet for a party. I decided that we should not go since something felt really off.

Friend ended finding out that the classmate that invited him got robbed and threatened when he went to the party. It ended up being a fake party.

My_Names_Jefff

The Byes That Never Were

Years ago, I was staying the night at someone else's house, maybe an hour from where I lived. That night I was so tired, but I couldn't get to sleep. I was super anxious all night, which was very unusual for me, and I just couldn't relax. I came so close to just grabbing my things and driving home in the middle of the night several times, but I convinced myself not to.

Turns out I should have. If I'd gone home that night, I would have had the chance to say goodbye to my dad before he passed away that next morning. I still regret that to this day, and I promised myself that the next time I get a feeling like that I'll listen to it.

ITGCYS

A Mother’s Intuition

When my mom was pregnant with my older sister, she and her family decided to go hiking in the mountains. On the day of the hike, she suddenly felt weird and uncomfortable. She stayed behind while the rest of her family went for the hike. Her family got lost, and this was long before cellphones. If it wasn't for my mom staying behind, no one would’ve noticed they were gone and so no one would’ve gotten help.

ToldNoOne

Road to Nowhere

I was offered a dream job at almost double my salary in a different city. It was only two hours away, but something told me not to take the job. I had a number of people tell me I would never have another opportunity like this, and my fear of leaving my hometown was holding me back. Two months after I turned it down, that division of the company was sold, and everyone in that department lost their job.

I would have been stuck in a new city with no friends or family nearby, and no job prospects.

Charleroy26

When You’re the Responsible Adult

About 15 years ago, I left work early, like really early, for no real reason. I got home and all these kids were standing near my door (apartment complex next to a pond) and they were all staring at me and not saying anything. I went inside and dropped my bag. It wouldn’t stop weighing on me how weird it was, so I went back outside.

I spoke to them asking what was going on and one kid meekly asked if I could help his friend. A kid I didn't see was sitting on a curb surrounded by all the rest. They had all jumped the fence next to the pond, except he slipped and impaled the flesh of his inner thigh and got stuck, the kids helped pick him up off of it, but he was just sitting there bleeding everywhere with a bunch of meat hanging out. I got him treated and ambulance on the way, he came back a few weeks later with his family to thank me, said I saved his leg.

There were 6-7 kids who all just followed me with their eyes without any sound (no talking, no shuffling, no kid sounds) as I walked down the sidewalk, that’s what freaked me out. The kid in question was sitting on a curb in between them facing away so I didn’t notice him. When I asked what was going on, they parted like the Red Sea.

He was in shock and asked me if he needed help and then lifted his shorts leg. Everyone was eerily calm about the whole thing. However, once lights and sirens came, they scattered to the four winds. The railing was made of 1/2” steel tubing. The top had a horizontal runner about eight inches from the top of the picket. Each picket was four inches apart and the tops of each picket were pinched together flat then the edges were folded in, creating a spear but without any barbs.

This created a place to put your foot to hop the fence, provided you didn’t slip. So luckily it was smooth in and smooth out. What’s horrifying, and I never thought of until now, is the way that he had to fall to impale his thigh means he hung there with all his weight on it. Jesus.

ZaxonsBlade

Raining Down

I don’t know if it was a gut feeling or lucky coincidence, but either way, it was a really, really close call. I decided I should empty the garbage as I left the house for class, which added maybe 10 seconds to my journey as the bin was 10 feet from my front door. I began my walk to school. Just in front of me, some idiot from the third floor flat threw a load of glass out his window, smashing all over the path.

If I’d left ten seconds earlier—AKA if I’d left without taking out the garbage—it would’ve rained down on me.

_helloalien

Bouldering Is Dangerous

Went for a weekend away with a group from my local Scouting area, back in the ‘80s. I didn't know them all, went to make up the numbers and get some climbing/canoeing/caving done. We stayed in a rented house in the Peak District (UK). One evening, a few guys went out to try "bouldering"—climbing boulders 10 to 15 meters high.

I got there, took one look and said no, we have no climbing gear, that's high enough to die if you fall. I got the mickey taken, called "chicken," etc., so I left them to it and walked back. An hour later one guy fell 10 meters and split his skull open on the rocks below, killed instantly.

Stooby2

Stranger Danger

I was maybe six years old and playing with a friend at the playground. An older man came and asked us if we would like to play at his private playground. I remembered my mum telling me to not interact with strangers, so I declined. I was sure as a kid that he had a private playground and was actually kind of mad at myself for not saying yes.

Years later, I was 25 and walked home alone from a club, being tipsy. That’s when it struck me. Suddenly, I remember this man from my childhood and it occurred to me what that really was. I see in the corner of my eye two guys behind me, one leaning on the wall, the other one just nodding and walking out of my perspective. Got chills like crazy.

All of a sudden, this dude locks me in his arms, trying to touch me. I said no, he didn’t stop. No one was around. So I said let’s just walk, because I was convinced that the other guy was just waiting as well. We walked, he held me super close to him. I asked him for his jacket because I thought I could run if he has to mess with his zipper.

He just grinned at me, held me even tighter and didn’t say a word. So I felt that I was running out of time, and there was still no other pedestrian in sight. So I relaxed my body on purpose while walking. He sensed it, stopped holding me so tight. I focused for 30 seconds and right at the moment when he looked back, I punched him as hard as I could on the side of his jaw.

He fell to the ground and I ran.

l1a2

Stranger Danger!

This happened almost 30 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and had been at the store buying candy for the weekend with the girl from next door, she was one year younger than me. A car stopped and the man inside opened the passenger door and asked me and my friend to get in the car. He was picking us up for our parents, he told us.

I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong and remember thinking "this is what my parents were talking about!" I grabbed my friend’s hand, said that we lived in that house "right over there" and pulled my friend with me. Went to their door, rang the bell, went straight in and told the people living there what had happened.

Turned out I was right, we were about to be kidnapped.

bipbopbipbopbap

Expertise

Airline pilot here—warning, do not continue reading if flying makes you uneasy. One day we loaded up passengers and cargo and everything and we were ready to taxi. I noticed that the nose of the airplane seemed to be higher up than usual while we were sitting on the ground. I told my first officer about it and he agreed. We double checked the weight and balance and everything seemed to be right.

I decided to just taxi out towards the runway and see if the wheel struts would go back to their normal positions during taxi. Still felt weird to me. Something wasn't right. I told ground control we needed to go back to the gate. Called Ops and told them we're headed back because I think something isn't right with the weight and balance.

After we get back, I ask them to check how much ballast we have in the aircraft. It's verified on my sheet as 500lbs., but I have a feeling...Turns out, yep, they forgot to put it in the plane. So had we taken off, the center of gravity would have been out of whack—way past limits. It could have resulted in an airplane that was impossible to control. Just like that 747 that took off and had the load slide to the back.

That was a day that I was really pleased that I had so much experience flying to give me that feeling & that feeling could very well have saved my life along with others.

TangoFoxtrotSierra

The Watcher

I used to date a girl who I would go see every night after I got off work, when I worked until midnight. After meeting, I would stay at her house until about one or two AM. Sometimes as I left her house, she would follow me in her car and stop at a nearby all-night grocery store. I always begged her not to go alone, but she always said she'd be fine.

Sometimes I would wait in the parking lot until she came back out and then we'd go our separate ways. Sometimes I wouldn't. One time I felt ill so as we left she said, "Just go straight home, I'll be fine, I always am." For some reason, I felt like that was the night I needed to be there, so I stayed, but I didn’t tell her. She thought I went straight home.

I was in the parking lot as she pulled in but she didn't see me. As she walked in, a shady looking dude was walking out. She ignored him but he looked back at her about three or four times. Then he gets to his truck and another guy is in there and they talk through the window for a minute looking back at the store a couple times. The second guy gets out of the truck, gets something out of the back of it then they both head back into the store.

I couldn't be sure they were going to do anything but I was not about to take a chance, so I go into the store too. I see them going past every aisle and then motion to each other like "there she is." So, I walk a bit faster to catch up. I turn into the aisle just as they are approaching her. They are looking at each other. From behind I yell "Hey!" They both turn, and so does my girlfriend.

I brush by them and give them a look and say "Hey guys." They nod awkwardly as my girlfriend says to me "What are you doing here?” I kiss her and make up some story about wanting to buy aspirin. The two guys leave. I never told my girlfriend that story, I don't know why. I don’t know what they were up to, but it wasn’t good.

Paulvs88

Kill Em With Kindness

I have a story of what happens when you don’t listen to your gut—or at least, you listen to it a bit late. That day, my gut said “Don’t get into the car with this person you’ve just met.” I didn’t listen. He legit kidnapped me and drove me to a forest and tried to drag me out. My gut said to calm down and be nice to him. I basically talked my way out of the situation by being kind and stroking his ego.

I was able to convince him that he didn’t need to do this and that I’d be “his,” but he needed to let me go because my friend was waiting for me. She knew I was getting a ride and that if I didn’t show up soon, maybe we couldn’t “be together.” This guy was crazy but it worked and he drove me to where my friend was waiting. The entire time, I had to keep reassuring him that I wasn’t mad and that I was happy “he chose me”—gag.

Anyway, I got out safe and unharmed except for some bruises from when I first tried to fight him off. He spent a year in jail after that, and ended up going to jail for another crime right afterward.

chumbucketfan4life

Not Good With Rejection, Or Humanity

Worked as a Shot Girl at a pub. One night, I rejected someone who attempted to get my number. Not unusual and he didn't seem that bothered. The whole exchange wasn't strange to me. In the early hours after the bar closed, I went to leave through the back door into the car park like usual, when I saw the sensor light outside was on. Someone was standing just outside the door.

I felt uneasy so went out the front and asked one of the bouncers to walk me around the back to my car. As we rounded the corner, we spotted this guy lurking outside the door holding his belt like a makeshift garotte. When he saw us, he started screaming that I was a freaking shrew and I should die. He scampered off into the road and never came back.

Goldfishguru

Read, Aim, Fire!

I'm a firefighter. We got called out to a tree fire started by fallen power lines. We pull up in the truck, and I'm trusting that my driver and crew leader are doing their job and have good situational awareness. We get out of the truck, and we've parked next to a set of power lines (not fallen). It's a very windy night and I can see the lines swinging so I voice my concerns to my crew leader who says it'll be fine.

We get out hose out (risk of the tree fire catching onto a house outweighing potential risk of arcing plus the line disconnected when it fell), and I'm on the branch ready to start putting it out with 2 others near me when I get a chill. I look up to see the lines swinging violently and yell "everyone freaking move!” As the three of us sprint and dive out of the way we hear a thwip and crack, and, sure enough, the line we were under came loose and stayed connected to the power pole.

If I hadn't got that chill chances are, we would have had three fried firies.

DYESMOD

Get Your Own

Not me but my best friend, who was driving to California from Arizona with her two-year-old for work (about 5 months ago). She stopped at a gas station and just got a weird feeling. She normally doesn’t lock her car when she pumps gas, but she decided to do it. During that process, a woman came up to her and started talking all nice and whatnot.

She got an uneasy feeling about it and heard a noise like someone trying to open a door. She turned around and saw the woman’s husband trying to get into her car to steal her baby. She told him to get the heck away from her car, and the man tried to play it off. She told them to screw off and got in her car to leave.

The couple got in their vehicle and followed her, tried to swerve her off the road and brake check her on the highway for a few miles. She was smart enough to call the cops (this was in Primm, Nevada btw), and they caught up to her and ended up arresting the couple. They had gotten multiple reports that day of issues like that.

IdRatherSleepOrEat

The Longest Run

I was 13. The bus would take me home from school in 15 minutes, but I liked taking the one-hour walk home. While walking on a main road, a van pulled over some 100 feet away from me. It wasn't a family van, it was one of those utility, boxy-looking ones. The van door was open and a man was waving at me with both of his arms. I was too far away to hear what he was saying.

Usually, I love to help people, but something told me to keep walking. So I kept walking. I look back five minutes later and this guy is walking behind me. Relaxed pace. I'm not worried, but I walk a little faster. I look back maybe two or three minutes later and he's still walking, but closer, and waving his arms again. So I start jogging a little. Now he's jogging. Then I start running as fast as a I can, not stopping to look back.

At one point, I turned onto the next street and couldn't see him anymore. I was so cold with fear, out of breath, waiting for the intersection light to change. The light changed and I went back to walking, but I was out of breath. Five minutes later, I look back and I can’t believe my eyes. He's still following me. So I ran the last two minutes to my building, even though I didn't want him to see where I lived.

I ran into the building lobby, looked through the glass doors. He wasn't there. I pushed the elevator button, and went back to the glass door and saw him on the street far away, still walking. I've always tried to make sense of what he was going to do. This was a busy suburban area. Was he going to just stab me and run away? What did he want with me in particular? Did he just leave his van behind to get towed?

So many questions. So, so weird.

Leelougirl89

Voices in my Head

After a party many years ago, I was driving home at like four in the morning with my friend passed out in the passenger seat. I was driving fast down a steep hill that's like a half-mile long, at least. I was on autopilot, as I drive down that street every day. Suddenly, about a half a block from a major intersection, which I had a green light for, I heard a voice in my head.

It said these exact words: "You may want to slow down, because if you don't, you might lose your life." It was weird, because that's not really what my tone of voice of style of speaking is like. Anyway, I slowed down, and as I was entering the intersection, a car blew the red light at about 50-60mph, right in front of me. It was so close that I nearly threw up. I started shaking and punching my friend, yelling how I just saved our lives, He just groaned and went back to sleep. Jerk.

permalink

Depend on the Kindness of Strangers

I was at a party for my boyfriend’s father but I had a headache that wasn't going away. I had been drinking, but I wasn't drunk. I was just feeling terrible. So I made my excuses and left to walk home alone, as I didn't want to ruin his night with his dad. It was a ten-minute walk, if that, from the pub to our house and it wasn't properly dark yet.

I walked down the street and passed a man sitting on a wall drinking a beer. A minute after I passed, I heard the bottle smash and then footsteps a little while back. Nothing unusual, it was a main road and there was another pub further along but my gut was screaming that something was wrong. I hurriedly walked back to the pub and stopped outside to ask the smokers for a light and a chat as I smoked.

That’s when I saw him pass me, and then stare at me from across the street for an uncomfortable amount of time. With my heart pounding, I asked a bouncer working the doors if he could order me a taxi. A few weeks later, while in the town center, I saw a mugshot of the same dude. He was wanted for assault.

McStaken

Just in Time to Say Goodbye

This happened just this week. My grandma got diagnosed with cancer about a month ago. We caught it late so there wasn't much we could do. She was too old and weak for chemo, so we decided against that. Last Sunday I just had a gut feeling I had to fly out to visit her. So, I did that, got back on Wednesday. She passed away Friday, a few weeks earlier than the prognosis predicted.

I'm really glad I was able to see her one last time.

crazed3raser

War Never Changes

Iraq in 2006. We were going to be inserted for 48hrs. It was 2200 and past curfew. As we snake our way in our armored trucks down from a main avenue and just before my truck makes the left, a man smoking a cigarette and I lock eyes, he flicks the cigarette in my trucks general direction and walks away from our convoy. I leaned towards the center of the truck to look out the front windows and say "Stuff’s about to go down."

The first two IEDs and shots were fired within seconds of me saying that. The ambush lasted for what seemed like hours, was only a few minutes.

doneski

A Blast From the Past

It was near Halloween time when my friends and I were telling ghost stories. My friend said she was going to tell a story about her parents' first date. She said she didn't like telling the story, since it was actually true, but we prodded her on. To cut to the chase, the parents had spent a nice, if awkward, first date together and around the time that they would have said "good night," the male in the situation—my friend's dad—suggested that they go for a midnight hike up Provo Canyon.

He apparently knew the place, since he had done a fair amount of rock climbing in the area. So the two drove up to the mouth of the canyon, got out of their cars and started hiking under just the light of the stars, since it was a new moon. At some point, the male starts getting a "bad feeling," since the pathway ahead, which would pass under some trees, would be dark, and because it was getting to be quite late.

He ignores the feeling and presses on. In later rehearsings of the story, the female would say that she had felt the same feeling at what was probably the same time, though she didn't know the trail like he did. A minute later, the feeling came back to the male. He ignored it again, and started walking a bit of the way into the trees when his foot hit something "soft" in the middle of the path.

Under the trees, it was too dark to see just what this soft thing was, and the feeling came back stronger than ever. Instead of finding out what his foot had bumped into, he and the female both agreed to hightail it out of there...Years later, after being married for some time, they were watching an interview with the serial killer, Ted Bundy.

In response to a question asking him to describe the time that he felt the closest to being caught, he explained about the night that he lured a girl into Provo Canyon, and had just killed her when he heard some people coming up the trail. He explained how he hid in the trees just in time, only to watch some guy walk right into the body, and for some reason, just turn around and walk away.

Rwbingham

Time for a Detour

First month, I was a student at college; I was bored and lonely and decided to walk to my best friend's house across town at midnight. It was a walk I'd made several times with no issues, but this time when I got to the edge of the campus parking lots, I had a gut feeling hit me that I needed to go back to my dorm, NOW. I did, and the next morning a campus alert went out through email that around 12:30 that morning, a student had been attacked in the parking lot I'd have had to pass through.

Permalink

Not All Rest is Easy

About six years ago, my sister and her family were visiting. Her daughter—four months old at the time—was napping in the house while the adults were hanging outside. I went into the house to grab something and glanced over at my niece. She was limp and strange looking, like spaced out. It really freaked me out, so I picked her up, panicking a bit, and handed her to my brother-in-law.

By this time, she was back to normal, so we shrugged it off. I said something like "Oh I forgot how babies look when they sleep." Within 1-2 days, my niece started having 10 seizures a day. What I had witnessed was a seizure. That was the beginning of a multi-year nightmare of seizures, hospital visits, neurological testing, and many different types of anti-seizure meds.

She was diagnosed with a seizure disorder. Thankfully, the docs found meds that worked, her seizures went away, and she was eventually weaned off her medication. She has been seizure free for four years! Now she is a healthy, beautiful and happy little lady!

coffeeismyfriend

You Nearly Blue Your Life Away

A guy dyed blue came into the motel lobby at 1 am. In and of itself, not terribly unusual. Clubs get out, you see folks with body paint, foam, etc. But he just seemed "off." When he came up to the counter, I took a step back. Which is why his bowie knife hit my tie and not my neck. Slammed the fire door down, called the cops.

Wasn't difficult for them to find a bright blue guy (who got naked for some reason after I slammed the door) running around in the snow at 1 am.

geopolit

Just Say No, Mmmkay

At a research institute, I walked into a mouse procedure/surgery room for a quick moment to grab something and leave. After walking out I felt, well to be honest, like I was a little high. There were three other people in that room, including 2 undergraduates so I got worried and went back inside to check things out. When I got back inside I asked if they were feeling ok, one of the undergrads turned to me and said she was fine, but was flushed and looked a little out of it.

So I went around to all the isoflurane chambers (odorless volatile liquid that KOs mammals at low doses and kills them at higher) looking for leaks. Sure enough, the gasket at the bottom of one of the chambers had failed and it was leaking out and immediately boiling into a gas, and filling the room. I told them their isoflurane was leaking, and the postdoc told me they were fine and that he uses that machine all the time.

He also pointed out that the isoflurane was in an air curtained biosafety cabinet and so even with the leak, they were protected. I called him an idiot because a biosafety cabinet recirculates air and doesn't evacuate it like a fume hood—which is what he should have been using. So I ignored him, propped open the door, and ordered the undergrads to get out of the room.

I then went to their lab manager and told her what I had found. Their lab manager came down like the wrath of God.

Chagroth

Crazy Step Mother

My father started publicly dating a woman shortly after my mother died—I later learned she's likely the woman he'd been having an affair with before she died. I liked her. One evening my father took me to one side and asked how I'd feel about him asking her to marry him. I got an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach and felt nauseated.

I told my father I didn't want him to and he asked why as he thought I liked her. I explained that I did like her but had a bad feeling and he said: "that's just a feeling, they don't mean anything." He already had the ring and proposed straight away. I got really excited about the engagement, the wedding, moving house, and my impending little sister.

After the wedding, she changed. And when my half-sister was born, she went crazy. She abused me, my sister (my mother's child), and later, my half-sister (her own child). He only left her when my doctor told him something was clearly going on with her that was affecting my health. She was putting a substance that I'm intolerant to in my food and my father wouldn't believe me and would force me to eat whatever she made.

However, I couldn't get a doctor alone without her to tell them. My maternal grandmother told him if he didn't leave her she'd go for custody that he finally left her. He accused me of lying for the entire time leading up to that and has never asked me about any of my attempts to get help since.

PhDOH

Day Care Don’t

Posted this before...took my two babies to an in-home daycare run by a lovely woman. About nine days in, the woman’s teenage son was home when I picked up my kids. He gave me a super creepy vibe. Pulled the kids from the daycare and placed them elsewhere. Maybe 10 years later that kid shot two people then shot his mom.

mysterysciencekitten

Have Heart, Not a Heart Attack

Came back to work after a week off for Christmas vacation and immediately noticed something was off with my friend. I had no clue what it was, but I just knew was something was wrong with him, but I couldn't explain what it was. I kept asking him if he was alright, but he kept saying everything was fine. On the second day, he came up to me and asked me how to do something that I know he knew how to do; I had trained him on how to do it.

I became very concerned at this point. The third day was New Year’s Eve, so we only had a half day and he was working on a spreadsheet. End of the day came around and I took one look at it and I could have printed it out and called it modern art, that's how horrifying it looked. I called the boss over and he pulled him off of it which caused my friend to break down and start crying because he couldn't understand that he had done anything wrong.

I was moving to a new place over our day and a half off, so I simply told him that something was wrong with him and he needed to get some help. We came back in for one day on Friday and my friend wasn't there. I learned that he was in the hospital because of a heart attack. Later on, we learned that during the days leading up he was suffering from mini strokes and that all of my constant nagging about if he was alright ultimately led to him thinking that maybe there is something wrong with him.

So, he called a taxi to take him to the ER on New Year’s Eve where they immediately recognized that he was having a heart attack. A doctor later told him that if he had not gone to the ER when he did, he would not have woken up if he'd gone to sleep that night. Because of this, my friend says that I saved his life through the power of our friendship.

Asirr

Granny Senses

Not mine but my grandma's. We went camping at this one spot in the woods by a small creek every summer. One summer she gets this bad feeling and makes us pack up and we leave. Couple days later they end up finding a dead body right near our then-campsite.

ihatemakingthese69

Mom Knows When Something Is Wrong

My mom had one. I was there with my brother but we didn't believe her at the time. Three years ago, my brother, my sister and I were supposed to meet at mom's place for dinner at 7. My mom and sister are very close; her being the firstborn, the only girl and us being a Lebanese family. Anyway, they talk throughout the day quite a bit, daily.

Around 6:30 pm, my sister is not answering phone calls or texts. My brother and I think she's asleep or just doing whatever and it's nothing to worry about. By 7:15, still nothing from my sister and my Mom at this point is pretty much saying "Something is wrong here, I can just feel it." We still don't believe her but it's not her style to worry and she is really now worrying.

I call up her now ex-husband who was at a conference saying we haven't heard from my sister. It turns out neither has he. I asked if he knew her iTunes credentials so I could track her phone. Turns out she was at home. We called a friend, sent someone knocking at her door, and no answer. My mom started driving there and made the decision that we need to break into the house.

She texted her friends to kick the door down. They did and found my sister unconscious. She had a major stroke and a concussion. The aftermath was very, very difficult. I won't write a novel and be brief. Major stroke, concussion and required open heart surgery. Was told she may never talk and would likely be a vegetable and if we actually wanted to proceed with the surgeries.

We did. She's alive, she talks, she can walk with a cane and will at some point, walk without a cane. She lost everything on the left side of her body. The only part of her that may never come back is her left arm.

MrCarlEdwardsSagan

There Are Some Sick, Sick People Out There

Not me but my mom. When I was about ten years old I got invited to spend the night at my really good friend’s home. My mom said no. I begged her to let me go but she was adamant that I couldn't. She said she just didn't feel right about it and that no amount of pleading was going to change her mind. A few weeks later my friend’s dad was arrested for inappropriate child imagery.

After he went to trial it was found that he had also molested several young girls. He would have his daughter invite them over for a slumber party and then touch them when they went to sleep. If my mom hadn't trusted her gut feeling I could have been one of his victims.

MuttyAndMalarka

Knowing What Is Best For Your Daughter

My oldest daughter (30-something) stopped by my work one day and introduced her new boyfriend. He seemed a little off to me, but I decided it was just "guy dating my daughter" and let it go. Later, he met my wife and I and she told me later that he seemed off to her, too. She has pretty good instincts about people, so we decided to investigate him a bit.

Typing his whole name into Google, the first result was a mugshot from a couple of years ago. The third was an active warrant. More searching resulted in finding three warrants from different counties, an extensive record (check deception, theft, driving while suspended, driving after a lifetime suspension, and driving while a habitual traffic offender), and a brand-new marriage license for him and my daughter. They were going to get married later that week.

We, of course, told her about him, but she insisted that he'd already told her about all of that and had "taken care of it." We emailed links to her roommate, who showed her, but she didn't have any luck talking her out of the relationship. They were in love, and everything would work out OK in the end.

We sent in an anonymous tip, and he was arrested the next day at her apartment. My daughter then found out that he'd been lying to her about pretty much everything. He had entangled her in a business he was trying to start that mostly involved her financing things for him, because his credit was trash due to records for bounced checks and theft. She's still working to untangle herself from that.

He is still in jail, and, according to her lawyer, will be for at least two years depending on what happens in two other counties.

Wadsworth_McStumpy