Ivica Siranovikj

Man’s Best Friend

My family has a Bernese mountain dog called Ava, who is very big. She’s a quiet and lazy dog, but she also seems to be alert at all times. One night, my parents went out for dinner and left me at home with Ava. I was downstairs watching TV and my lounge is right next to the front door. At around 8:00 PM, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see a guy in fairly plain clothes standing there. He told me that he had a delivery for me. I was confused because he didn’t look like a delivery driver, and he had no parcel. Suddenly, I turn my head and see another guy around the side of my driveway which goes to our back door. This other man is clearly walking towards my back door.

I freak out and the guy at the door notices this. He barges through, shouting for the other guy. This is when Ava wakes up and begins to let out the loudest bark I’ve ever heard, making the guy stumble back. She rushed towards him and jumped up, grabbing his shoulder and literally throwing him out the door. His buddy came along, but saw Ava and started to run.

The other guy managed to slip out of Ava’s grip and run down the road. I somehow managed to get Ava to stay so I didn’t lose her, and they got away. I was so shaken up. I called my parents and then the authorities, and I gave them a statement. It’s safe to say that Ava got plenty of treats from then on, and I always keep her nearby when I am on my own.

reggie2006

Railroaded

I live in Tokyo and commute via those famously crazy crowded trains daily. There exists on them this kind of unspoken agreement that everyone works together to make this suck as little as possible. But that’s only when the trains are full. About two stops before mine, the train goes from sardine can to everyone on this train could lay on the seats and have room left over.

So, usually, I can sit down at this point. I'm also very obviously not a Japanese woman. But despite my appearance, I'm fluent in Japanese. One day, I sit down when the train empties out, ready to enjoy the 10 minutes of sitting that I get on my hour-long commute. I'm sitting with my legs crossed, as there are maybe ten people in the whole car and I'm not in anyone's way.

All of a sudden, a hand reaches out and grabs my bare knee. I jolt straight out of my skin, rip out my headphones, and look up at the hand's owner. It's some skinny old Japanese dude, at least in his 60s. He points at my legs and, in slightly broken English, says: "You must not cross legs on the train!" I'm totally bewildered by this.

I start to tell him in Japanese that the train isn't crowded right now, and that I'm not in anyone's way. But he doesn't like this answer. He starts to reach for my legs again. I scream as loud as I can, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Thankfully, this was enough to get him to stop that, as another thing you don't do on trains here is make a fuss.

Djtaffi

A Taste Of His Own Medicine

I was standing in line at the local pharmacy to get my prescriptions. This is a small town and I am a regular there, so they know me on sight. I was behind a couple of other people in line, and there were a couple of people behind me. I kept feeling a tickle in my hair in the back of my head, but every time I looked behind me, the guy there was a few steps back and looking at the floor.

This happened several times by the time I reached the front of the line. The pharmacist told me she wanted to talk to me about my medication in the consultation room. I thought this was weird, because we both knew I had been on this medication for years and would be for life. Nothing new. I get back to the room and close the door, and she comes in from the pharmacy.

She told me that the man behind me had been stepping forward, sticking his nose in my hair, and smelling it before stepping back and looking at the floor. This shook me pretty badly as this is such weird behavior, especially in my little town. The pharmacy staff insisted on having me wait there until the guy was distracted by another pharmacy employee.

They then had a security guard walk me to my car and watch me drive off, to make sure I was gone before Hair Sniffer came out and saw what car I was driving or what direction I was going in. I still use this pharmacy and some of the same people still work there. I will always be grateful that they took the initiative to make sure I was safe that day.

Cygnus875

Grin And Bare It

A few years ago, I was living alone in a little house. It had a heavy back door that would swell up after it rained. This always made it get really tough to open, and it would make a lot of noise. Late one night, I had passed out on my sofa in the living room on the opposite side of the house. But I suddenly woke up to a strange sound. Netflix was still blaring away on my laptop, but I guess I had felt a vibration or movement.

As I slowly squinted my eyes open, I realized the outline of someone was standing still in the hallway looking down at me. They were not very large or tall based on how much space they took up in the door frame. Being completely disoriented in my not-quite-awake-yet state, my mind assumed that it must be my girlfriend.

I was naked at the time, so I pulled back my blanket with my legs sprawled apart and called to her in my best deep voice "C'mere baby!" I guess once they realized I was a naked 200-pound man beckoning to them with my private parts, the person immediately turned on their heels and booked it for the back door. By the time I stumbled up to the door, all I could hear was them taking off into the darkness at a full sprint.

Arnold_Schrodinger

A Devoted Follower

I was 13 years old and on vacation with my parents in Turkey. We were at an all-inclusive hotel and enjoying the holiday. The hotel was full of tourists from different countries. There was this one guy, around 20 years old, who was staring at me for some time. I felt uncomfortable and asked him how he was doing. Wrong choice.

The next few days, everywhere I went, he also suddenly appeared. Not flirting, just lurking for hours and watching me. He had a really strange vibe around him and I felt I shouldn't be alone with him. Now, I was still young and my parents didn't want to leave me alone in a foreign country. So he couldn’t really bother me at any point.

But one night, there was entertainment in the hotel, which became boring to me after some time. I told my parents I wanted to go up to our hotel room and that I would see them in the morning. I left and walked to the elevator. I didn’t know it, but I was making a dire mistake. The guy who had been watching me for days saw me leaving, and he had followed me.

When I saw him also coming into the elevator, I was shaking with fear. He looked at me silently with a sinister smile. "This is it." I thought. Who knows what horrible plans he had for me. And just before the doors of the elevator were closing, someone stuck his boot between in order to prevent the doors from closing. I am not kidding, all I could see was a boot.

The doors opened and it was my dad. He saw that the creepy guy was leaving at the exact time I had left and didn't trust it. He looked the guy in the eye and said hello. My dad took me to my hotel room. To this day, I am so glad for the rescue because I don't want to know what would've happened if he didn't.

dees94

Home Sweet Home

When I was 13 years old, my family moved from a village to a city. This city had a fairly high homelessness rate, so of course, there were always a lot of people looking for somewhere to stay. An old family friend of mine is a letting agent, so he often lets me use some of the unoccupied houses as a sort of recording studio for music that I create in my spare time.

He is totally fine with me using the houses for this purpose as long as I keep them clean and clear out for a while whenever there are viewings. This arrangement works fine for me. One night, after recording at one of the houses, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet there. So, I cycled back, got my wallet, and decided to check the rooms since the door hadn’t been locked properly.

I go upstairs and open the door to one of the bedrooms. Lo and behold, there was a man in his mid-30s lying on the bed like it was his own home. Both of us just looked at each other, completely startled. Neither of us said anything. I guess we came to some sort of non-verbal agreement, and I showed him out. Definitely a creepy experience…

Metal_Warrior_69

Power Struggle

When I was about 14 years old, my parents were out one night. They left me and my little sister home alone. It was about 10:00 PM when the lights suddenly went out. This used to happen sometimes in my country, since it’s a new country and really poor. But that time, I noticed something out of the ordinary. Only the lights in our house were out, and my neighbors’ lights were still on.

I had a bad feeling, so I quickly locked all the doors and closed the blinds. I told my little sister to hide behind the couch and not to go out no matter what happened. I hid somewhere else with a knife and tried to call my mom. She didn’t pick up, so I waited. After some time, I thought it was over, so I got out of my hiding place and headed to the kitchen to look out the window.

Before I could even get close, I heard a terrifying sound. It was the doorknob turning. It didn’t open, so the person tried it again, now violently. That’s when I panicked and I shouted: “WHO ARE YOU? GET AWAY FROM MY HOUSE. I JUST CALLED 9-1-1!” I heard footsteps and then nothing. I went to the other room and looked out the window. From there, I saw someone running out of my backyard.

My sister was crying so I comforted her while we still stayed hidden until my parents came home. We told them everything and my dad said that whoever it was, he had intentionally cut the house’s electricity to scare us. To this day, every time the electricity goes out, I get kinda scared and I’m glad we are all safe and well.

differentpersonas

Salt And Pepper

I was standing right outside my apartment when an unknown person snuck around a corner and sprayed me with pepper spray while I was looking at my phone. I could make out a tall, thin man with a backpack walking away with his hands in his pockets before I lost the ability to keep my eyes open. There were no other people on the sidewalk in either direction.

I didn't see his face. He didn't say anything or try to take anything from me. He didn't even stick around to watch me be all messed up. Just walked away. Like nothing happened. I'm very thankful that I was able to feel for my keys and get back into my building, but then I started to realize that I could have permanent damage if I didn't get to a sink.

I couldn't find the key to my apartment. I was starting to not be able to breathe. I pounded on every door I could feel until my neighbor, whom I had never met before this moment, opened up for me. She let me bust into her bathroom and toss water everywhere. I felt so terrible for just commandeering her bathroom and bringing in that smell to her place.

But I will be eternally grateful to this lady for helping me. The officers that showed up didn't find the guy, and now I'm wondering whether this was a random attack or if this dude had been waiting for me for some unknown reason. At this point, I have no reason to suspect that I’ll ever learn the real reason behind this bizarre incident.

PuzzledAlbatross

An Uninvited Guest

When I was nine years old, my sister and I were doing swimming classes together at our community pool. One evening, after my mom had picked us up from the pool, she told us to get ready to go to the grocery store. So, I went upstairs to shower and get the chlorinated water off me before we left home. My sister was changing in our room. While I was in the shower, I heard someone come into the bathroom and start rummaging through the drawers.

I asked what my sister was looking for because I couldn't see through the frosted glass and, at that point, I assumed it was her looking for something for her hair. It wasn’t. All of a sudden, this strange man jumped into the shower with me, pulled off his shirt, and draped it over my head. I screamed at the top of my lungs and crouched down into a ball to protect myself.

My incessant screaming and squirming scared the guy off after a few seconds. He jumped out and ran out the back door. Seconds later, my dad came bolting into the room to see if I was okay. I was scared out of my mind, but thankfully I was okay. Unbeknownst to us, earlier in the day, an employee of ours had left the front door open while doing some work outside and a man snuck into our home. This man had secretly been hiding inside our house all day long. I was too traumatized to go into the bathroom by myself for like a year and a half after that.

In_Omnia_Paratus26

Something Much Worse Than A Ghost

I was about seven years old. My brother was about 10. It was well past our bedtime when our mom woke up off the couch to put us to bed. Our dad worked construction out of town back then, so it was often just us three at the house for weeks at a time. Up the stairs and to the immediate right was our parents' bedroom. Going left put you in the middle of a hallway.

Taking another left down that hallway led to my brother's room. The opposite end was my room, which was also across the hall from our upstairs bathroom. At either end of the hallway are windowed doors that we always kept locked and rarely used. The door on my end led to a balcony overlooking our front yard, and the door on my brother's end opened to our back porch.

My brother and mom both had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I only knew this because I was always a light sleeper and they just couldn't help flushing with the door wide open. This night, however, my brother stopped on his way to his room and came back towards the bathroom. That’s when he made a comment that chilled me to the bone.

He told me: "I'm gonna try to pee before I go to bed tonight. The past few nights, I've been too afraid to walk to the bathroom. I keep seeing a man wearing stripes at the end of the hallway." I don't know if my mom wrote it off as my brother telling ghost stories to try to scare me, or if she was already half asleep and didn't catch it, but she didn't react at all to my brother's confession.

I, on the other hand, was terrified by it. The fear of seeing a ghost-like that at the end of the hallway or through the windows is the reason I started running from the stairs to my bedroom at night. Years later, when I was about 18, my mom and I were having a conversation in her car about a dog named Max that we’d had for a very short time when I was little.

We were sharing stories about Max's tendency towards destroying my shoes and other unruly behaviors, when my mom blurted out, "Do you remember that time I opened the front door for the cops and Max ran inside to the kitchen and started tearing open that big bag of dog food we had?" This really caught me by surprise.

In all the years I lived in that house, we never once called law enforcement as far as I was aware. I asked her what she was talking about and she looked equally surprised, as if she had just revealed something by accident. Then, she said: "Oh, that's right! I never told you about this because you were too young at the time…”

She continued: "One night, I woke up hearing noises outside my window and, when I looked outside, I saw a man staring into my bedroom." She went on to describe how turning on the lights caused him to take off running, and how she had grabbed my dad's pistol before calling the authorities. I started to ask some more questions about the experience until something clicked in my head.

My mom said she couldn’t remember all the details she gave them when they showed up, but she remembered describing the man as a tall white male, wearing a striped shirt and jeans, with short dark hair, or something like that. They said it matched the description of a man they were looking for in the area. It turns out he had just escaped from behind bars, where he’d been charged with murder.

Now, I know it sounds so obvious hearing those two stories back to back, but it wasn't until a few years ago, in my mid-20s, that I pieced together that my brother had unknowingly warned us about a murderer who had spent multiple nights staking out our home. Who knows what he had been planning to do…

florianizer

After Hours

When I was in high school, I spent the better portion of my junior year being grounded. I was always in trouble for something and fighting with my parents. During one of these timeouts, a friend wanted to hang out. Being a teen, I wanted to hang out with my friends. I explained that I was in trouble, and he suggested that we wait until my parents were asleep so I could sneak out.

There was a park right next to my apartment building and it seemed innocent enough, so I agreed. My parents fell asleep and I could hear my stepdad snoring, so I tiptoed out of my house and met up with my friend. It was late, about 1:00 AM. As planned, we went to the park to smoke and hang out. We were sitting on the jungle gym, just talking, when we spotted another person walking around.

After a few moments, the person sees us and approaches us. He started asking us a bunch of questions, like: “Are you guys together?”, “What are you doing?”, “Where do you live?”, “Why are you here right now?”, “How old are you?” The person was obviously on some kind of substance and we politely tried to answer him without revealing any information about ourselves.

After a few minutes, the guy asked us if we wanted to come and see his house. Despite it being the middle of the night, we quickly said we had somewhere to be and rushed back to the car. We just sat there for a minute, not sure of what we avoided. All I could think about was that this guy could have done something terrible to me, and my parents would not have known what happened because I had snuck out.

Needless to say, that was the first and last time I ever snuck out of my house.

alixfofalix

Changing Things Up

I'm a 14-year-old girl, but I’m often mistaken for 18 because of my shape. One time, I was at the YMCA with my sisters. We were swimming for a while and then I started to feel sick. My younger sister said, "You don't look good, maybe you should sit in the changing room for a while." I agreed. I went into the changing room for some peace and quiet, and luckily no one else was there.

I sat on one of the benches and closed my eyes. A few moments later, I heard someone come in. It was a guy who was tall, muscular, and genuinely good looking. I brushed it off thinking he was probably waiting on his girlfriend and came in to check on her or something. That is until he approached me and sat right next to me, so close our thighs were touching.

I was really surprised. I scooted over and gave him that “What do you think you're doing?” look. He smiled at me and said, "Don't worry girl, I'm not gonna hurt you." He proceeded to put his hand on my back. I stood up and slowly backed away. I was scared to run because he seemed athletic, so he probably could've caught me.

He asked me "How old are you baby?" in a sickeningly sweet tone. I say 14 and he nonchalantly says "Cool." So I asked how old he was, and he said "23." He then stood up and started walking over to me. I backed away from him. This was the turning point. That was the moment when I heard a bathroom stall open and there, standing in all her glory, was the lady who I'll call my hero.

She stepped out and I know she heard everything. That dude hightailed it outta there. The lady was nice and stayed with me for a while. Her name was Stacy. Thank you Stacy!

Permalink

I Spy With My Little Eye

In December 2018, my ex and I split up after seven years in a relationship. I was new to the dating game so I didn’t want to just jump into it. In February, I met a guy at the bar. The second time I met him, we exchanged numbers. By the end of March, I was feeling pretty comfortable with him and invited him to a party at my house.

He stayed after the party and one thing led to another. After it was all said and done, I had a weird vibe from him. He was too pushy and it made me uncomfortable. So I asked him to leave. I planned to never speak to him again, that is until he started to text me from random numbers. He would say things like “Hope you have fun fishing” when I didn’t post on any social media about going fishing.

“I hope the movie was good” when I hadn’t posted anything online indicating that I was at the movies. He would text me and ask how I liked the bar whenever I was at the bar where I had met him with my friends. I had never told anyone or posted where we were going. We had no mutual friends who he could be getting the information from, so he was obviously following me.

The final straw came when my friends took me to Washington, DC for my 25th birthday celebration. We barhopped all over the city. Around 2:30 in the morning, we came out of a bar and decided to get cookies across the street. As we were coming out of the cookie shop, guess who pops up. You guessed it! He does. And I am not amused...

He goes “I hope visiting the monuments was fun earlier! I wanted to say hi earlier but since you haven’t been replying to my messages I didn’t wanna freak you out.” I was TERRIFIED. Thankfully, my friend's husband stepped in and called him out. He threatened to report him to the authorities. I changed my number and moved. Thankfully, I haven’t heard from him since.

MindfullyMeghan

Phoning It In

When I was 17 years old, my older sister took me to the mall to get a cell phone. The guy who sold it to us showed us several options and let me choose from a selection of phone numbers. He then set us up with a plan and we left. Pretty standard stuff. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary…until I got a text later that evening.

"Hey, it's the guy who sold you your new phone." I don’t remember how I replied to that. What I do remember is that the guy kept texting me and calling me non-stop. He kept telling me how attractive I was and that we should be together. I told him that it wasn't a good time for me and that I was about to leave town for the entire summer.

He asked where I was going and offered to come along. He then offered to quit his job and leave the state with me on a whim. Again, he had only ever spoken to me in-person for around 15 minutes. I asked him to leave me alone, and to stop calling and texting me. He kept calling, I kept not answering. We eventually had to file a complaint and change my number.

SteenPeace

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

I'm a 30-year-old female who lives with my fiancé and our two dogs. My huskies are not guard dogs. They never bark or howl. These dogs just love people so much. My brother-in-law and friends have walked in unexpectedly on multiple occasions, and the dogs don't make a peep. But on this one occasion, it was 8:00 PM and dark out, and I was home alone.

I was in the bathroom with the door closed and I had the blow dryer going, so I couldn't really hear anything going on around me. But when I suddenly heard one of the dogs howling, my ears perked up. I stopped the blow dryer and listened out. Then, I heard a faint knock and the dogs started going insane. Barking, howling, jumping into the window so loudly that I thought they'd break it.

I’m wondering what the heck is making them go crazy like that, maybe a skunk or something. I look out my bedroom window and see two men in hoodies standing at the front door. They start knocking louder. This time, one of the dogs jumps from the side window to the front door and starts growling and ramming his body into the door at full force.

I'm watching this from my bedroom window. As the dog jumps into the door, one of the men jumps back startled. He looks at the other guy, and then they just walk away. I called my fiancé and told him to get home right away. I watched the men walk away down the road. They weren’t selling anything, as they didn't stop at any other houses. I have no idea who they were.

amanda-g

Fairy Tale

When I was way younger, I had gone into my bedroom alone to change into pajamas. Apparently, I then came back and asked my mom why Peter Pan was at my window and if we could let him in. She, of course, ran to my bedroom. Sure enough, someone had pulled the screen off my window and had opened it slightly. Needless to say, we moved shortly after that.

I was oblivious as to what was wrong because, hey, I got to meet Peter Pan!

JordynDeLambo

Cookie Cutter

When I was 11 years old, I was staying home alone with my little brother who was seven. At that time, it was about 9:00 at night. It was dark and rainy outside, and we were reading in our room right next to the front door, with a big window and open blinds. That's when I heard the front doorbell ring, followed by repeated rounds of knocking.

I thought my parents had arrived home, but found it strange that they didn't use the garage or their keys. I looked outside to try and see their car. I saw nothing but rain. As I approached the door, I heard a man's voice that was not my father's yell through the storm: "Would you like some cookies? We're selling Girl Scout cookies!"

I was shocked at this, considering the weather and time of day. Saying nothing, I checked the peephole and peered through the side window only to see that it was not a father with his girl as I had expected. My heart dropped. Standing there was just a fully grown man, maybe in his late 50s, with no box of cookies in sight, soaking on my doorstep.

I can remember the gut-wrenching feeling of having to check the locks while he was right on the other side. He heard this for sure. The two locks were the only thing separating myself and my brother from a potential monster. He continued to knock on the door and mention his cookies, as I considered calling the authorities.

That's when I remembered that the blinds were open in my room where my brother was, with the light on. As I turn the corner into the doorway, I see the man carefully peering into our window, possibly eyeing my brother who was focused on his book. My heart was pounding now as I began to panic. Using all of my willpower, I quickly turned off the lights and shut the blinds, in full view of the man.

As fast as I could, I double-checked all the locks in the house, closed all the blinds, and told my brother to go hang out in one of the big closets in the interior of the house with no windows. I didn't tell him what was going on so that he wouldn't be frightened. For some reason, I never did call law enforcement or my parents. I just waited in the hallway until the man left.

Thinking about it still gives me shivers. So many things could have gone wrong that night. My worst fear to this day is strangers getting to an unlocked door before I do.

iloginonceaweek

Big Plans

When I was a student teacher, I was 21 and working with mostly seniors in high school, many of whom were 17 or 18 years old. One day, the mentor teacher I was working with pulled me aside from teaching my class to inform me that other teachers had overheard some students telling each other what they "wanted to do to me."

While disturbing, my friends and colleagues insisted that this was just a fact of being a young teacher working with high schoolers. The next day, a few girls in my class informed me that three specific boys were no longer just talking about what they WANTED to do, but were graphically describing what they were PLANNING on doing to me in the coming weeks in the parking lot after school.

I went to the administration immediately, and they handled it very quickly and professionally. I was very grateful for their support. I was never touched nor harmed by any of these students, thankfully. What scared the absolute wits out of me, however, was that less than a week later, one of those boys was pulled out of school by an officer.

I didn't find out immediately, but I eventually learned he was being held for the alleged assault of his younger sister. It still makes me sick just thinking about it. I genuinely hope to never meet him again. It's terrifying to think of what could have happened had I not had some wonderful staff and students looking out for me.

BRIanphrionsa

Bus-ted

One Sunday afternoon, I was waiting at the bus stop alone after an outing with a friend. I saw a driver get onto an empty bus, so I asked him if he was going to be stopping at my stop. He said that he was not, so I said okay and continued patiently waiting for the right bus. A few minutes later, he pulls up beside me and motions to me to come onto the bus.

I figure that he has changed his route or something and wanted to let me know that he would now be passing by my stop, but as soon as I approached him he started making a whole bunch of creepy comments about my body. He was also making really awkward eye contact with me the entire time he was speaking. I started to climb back off the bus to get of there, but he grabbed my hand.

I wiggled myself free and ran away as fast as I could. I immediately reported him to the authorities.

momowantsadonut613

It’s A Mall World After All

This happened about eight years ago in Germany. My daughters were four and two years old, respectively. It was a very nice morning, so I decided to take my girls to a little mall to walk around and do some shopping. My girls are and always were very well behaved and never ran away from me. Usually, we always held hands walking around in areas with many people.

On this day, the mall was almost empty. Still, the girls stayed on my hands. I noticed a man passing me. He looked at my daughters with a very stern look that gave me a bad vibe. I just brushed it off and kept walking. We wanted to go to a shoe store. This store had a very cute play area that the girls liked to go to.

As we entered the store, they asked if they could run ahead to the play area. I could see it from the entrance, so I told them yes and they took off. At that exact moment, that same strange man burst into the store and speed-walked past me towards my daughters. It didn’t even take me a second to realize that he was up to no good.

He was absolutely focused on getting to them, and fast. I instantly started yelling while running past him. I told my girls to come back right away. I am never very stern with them, so they knew that something was serious. He got thrown off by my yelling. I got to my daughters before he could, so he turned around and ran out of the store.

nightmind08

Drive My Car

I don't have a car, so Uber is my main mode of transportation to get to work. This morning, I requested an Uber a half hour before I had to be there and the pickup was supposed to take less than five minutes. But, for some reason, my Uber driver kept going around in circles. He ended up calling me asking for directions and I was telling him exactly where he needed to go.

But he just wasn’t listening. At that point, I was irritated and asked if there was a way he could cancel because I was going to be late. He said he couldn't, and ended up finding his way to my apartment at the time I was supposed to be at work. He kept apologizing and I would mumble, "It's fine, I just need to get there."

He ended up taking me to another store that was on the way and asked "This is it, right?" It took all of my patience not to just blow up at that point. I calmly gave him the directions to the actual store I work at and just told him to please listen to the GPS. We finally get to my job and I'm nearly 20 minutes late. I muttered, "Thanks," got out, and bolted to the office to clock in.

An hour or so into my shift, one of my managers came up to tell me that my Uber driver has been harassing the people in the front of the store, trying to get a hold of me or my manager to take fault and apologize for my being late. He tried four or five separate times to come inside. An hour later, a different manager lets me know that the driver is now blowing up the store's phone and begging to speak to me.

My manager suggested that I not leave alone that night, and that I be on the lookout in case he came back. I contacted Uber support multiple times to let them know. You wanna know what they did about it? They gave me a three-dollar credit! I made sure to give him a one-star rating so that I wouldn't get him as a driver again, but it's just scary to think that he knows where I work and live.

jellyfishgardens

Bathroom Break

About four years ago, I was living with an ex-boyfriend, his aunt, and her boyfriend Len. I woke up in the middle of the night and had to pee. My ex was asleep in bed when I got up. I walked across the house and his aunt’s door was open. She and Len were both passed out. I made my way sleepily to the bathroom and saw that the light was on.

Since I knew everyone was asleep, I innocently assumed the aunt had left the light on. So I opened the door. I was wrong. I saw multiple things in a few seconds. The first thing I remember is that it smelled horrible, like poop. I also immediately noticed that someone had just taken a shower based on the steam. Then, I spotted a pile of clothes folded up and organized on the ground.

There was a random man on the toilet. I, having manners, and very much still half asleep, jumped, apologized, and closed the door. I panicked, went to my room, and texted the aunt. I said: “Hey, there is a man in the bathroom!” She texted back, “I know, it’s okay. He’s a friend of mine.” This calmed me down and I went back to sleep.

The next day, I bring it up when everyone is around. I was still shaken…but this is where it got so much worse. The aunt says she never texted me, as she was completely passed out. We soon realized that this guy had taken her phone into the bathroom, and that he himself had sent me that text. What in the world?? I was so confused and freaked out by this whole thing. It was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had.

harley242424

Message Delivered

I was around 10 or 11 years old when this happened, and I was home alone. The doorbell rang while I was watching TV, so I hastily moved my bowl of cereal and got up to answer the door. It was the mailman, who said we had gotten a package. But it was so big that he needed help carrying it in. Something felt off about him, as he wasn’t wearing a uniform, but a dirty white shirt and jeans.

I asked him where his truck was, because I didn’t see it parked out front. He said it was around the corner, and that I should just follow him out to grab my parcel. He kept telling me to go with him, but I politely said I wasn’t feeling well and that we would just get our mail from the post office. He said that would be a big hassle, and that I should just go out and get it then and there.

I said I had to get my shoes on from upstairs and he waited outside. I locked the door and bolted upstairs, closing all the windows. I called my mom and asked her to come home, explaining everything. The man was still outside and he shouted at me, asking if I’d gotten my shoes. I replied that my mom was coming because she’s much stronger and could help carry the package.

Once I’d said that, he was quick to run away. And I never saw him again. They never caught him and I hope that he never lured any other kids or tricked them into going near that van.

gracerussellx_

On The Road

I was driving home when I realized a truck had been behind me for miles. Just to be precautious, I made an abrupt last second U-turn. He did too. It was then that I realized he was following me. While on the phone with an officer, I made sharp turns and ran red lights to try to lose him. He wouldn’t stop. He literally almost hit my car a couple of times as he sped up trying to catch up.

The operator instructed me to go to a local grocery store and wait for help to arrive. I parked right in front of the store’s entrance, in front of the surveillance cameras, and waited. He decided to park his car at a distance and waited for me to get out of my car. All of a sudden, I heard a hard knock at the window. I freaked out.

It turned out to be the grocery manager, letting me know that the officer had just notified him of the situation. He asked if I wanted to go inside the store and have him protect me until law enforcement arrived. I honestly feared the worst and told him no. I was shaking, but I thought: “This maniac might be dangerous. He could shoot me and everyone in there.”

The officers arrived and cornered him in the back of the parking structure. I was shaking as they came to my car. My hand was gripping the wheel very tightly. They took him away soon after and charged him with driving while under the influence. I didn’t know who he was. Apparently, he lived a couple of miles away from me.

inezzzz

I Want You Back

When I was seven years old, I went to a small school in our little town in Alberta. There was this guy named Daniel. Daniel had slept with my mom ages before I was even conceived, yet he somehow had in his brain that I was his child. Full-blown delusional. So, Daniel decided that the smart and rational thing to do was to stalk me.

He apparently plotted out a map to my school, he knew my name, he knew how old I was, and he knew what I looked like. I have no idea how he got this information. My mom never really used Facebook, and he lived in a different province. I had never met this man before. As if that wasn’t bad enough already, Daniel decided that one day he wanted to take it a step further.

He had been ranting to his wife about me. He kept telling her that I was his kid, and that he was going to drive from British Columbia all the way to Alberta to bring me back. He was convinced that I was conceived earlier than I was, and that my mom had made some kind of conspiracy to hide the fact I was his kid from the world.

He had a whole plan for how to kidnap me, right down to the date he was going to do it. His wife decided to call my mom and warn her. My mom put safety measures up, like making sure I was always in groups and that I was home by 4:00, etc. I was only told about all this when I was about 14, and still don’t know all the details. Obviously, Daniel never successfully went through with his plan.

Gurowho

An Offer You Can Refuse

My son looks nothing like me and I have a babyface. So when people see us together, they typically see babysitter rather than a mother. One day, I'd just gotten off work at McDonald’s and my husband was waiting for me with our son, who was four months old at the time. We ordered something to go and my husband went to use the bathroom while my coworkers cooed over my baby at the counter.

I see this older man watching us, but I dismiss it because my son usually gets a lot of attention. Plus, this guy came to the McDonald's pretty regularly and never raised any red flags. He came up to us and smiled at my son. He then asked if he could hold him, which I politely declined. He pulls a twenty out of his wallet.

"Why don't you take this, get yourself a sandwich, and leave the baby with me," he said, while trying to hand me the money. "No, thank you," I replied. I tried to be polite. He came back with, "Aren't you hungry? It's so hard to work two jobs. I'm sure if anything happened, the parents wouldn't blame you." When he said that, I was about to go off on him.

Just then, my husband came out of the bathroom and placed himself between the man and me. "Oh, you must be the father." He offered my husband the money but didn't talk about taking our son.

We made our way out of the store and the man followed, offering us money the entire way. After a while, my husband abruptly stopped and stared the man down until he went back into the store.

A few weeks later, he came back to the store. He ranted about how he could have given that baby a better life than that young man could. I told him that I was the baby’s mother and that he could get his sausage biscuit somewhere else from now on, because he wasn't welcome here anymore. I’m glad I never have to see that guy again. What a creep!

forgetfulbuttbutt

Calling Card

When we were both really young, my parents once left me and my brother at home while they went out. The two of us were all the way down in our basement, playing video games. We had the home phone in between us, just in case one of our parents called. About an hour goes by, and the phone starts to ring. We look down and the caller ID shows it’s our uncle calling.

We decide to just let it ring. Now, this phone usually rang four times when someone called, but I noticed that it stopped in the middle of the third ring. I couldn’t understand why this would have happened, unless someone else in the house had picked up one of the other phones. But no one else was in the house with us, right?

I got really suspicious and my paranoia got the better of me. I took my brother upstairs. We see that the phone is still there, but there is still a phone on the third floor in my parents' room. So we walk towards the stairs. What we saw next chilled us to the bone. A man in his late 40s was standing by the door of our parents' room and staring back at us.

The second we saw him, we both screamed, ran out of the house, and went straight to our neighbors’ house. We tell them what happened and they proceed to call the authorities and then our parents. They come fast and I don’t know what was wrong with the man, but he never left the house. He just stood there and let the officers take him away. I later heard he was taken to a mental hospital.

I shudder to imagine what could have happened to my brother and me if my uncle hadn’t decided to call at that exact moment.

joedcorey

In Hot Water

When I was around six years old, I was with a bunch of people from my church having a barbecue at a river. All of the kids were swimming in the water. I didn't know how to swim yet, so I was just staying waist-deep in the shallow part. At some point, this girl came up to me and was playing with me. We were splashing each other and stuff.

The weird thing was that she was probably 13 or so and I didn't know who she was, even though I knew everyone else there. Apparently, no one was paying attention to us. She started pushing me out deeper and deeper, to where I couldn't touch the ground anymore. She just kept laughing the whole time. My head kept going underwater.

I tried grabbing onto her arms when she would push me, but she easily knocked my grip loose each time. The slight current slowly pulled me away from my friends and family while I struggled to tread water. I was panicking, but she wouldn't stop pushing me and laughing. I could not possibly have looked like I was having fun. I would try to yell, but was only ever above water long enough to take a breath.

Every time my feet touched the mud for a split second, she would just push me again. I couldn't believe she was laughing. I was sure I was going to drown. No one seemed to notice. Of all people to intervene, it would happen to be my childhood bully, Zachary. He had always been a jerk to me before. But I still feel like he saved my life this day.

He came up and told her to get away from me. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up to where I could stand again. Then, he ran off and continued to play with the other kids his age as if nothing happened. The girl was already far away by that time. I went on playing, and I don't think I ever told anyone until I was much older. Pretty sure I never saw that girl again.

SmirkyShrugs

Center Of Attention

This happened a week ago. My blood still runs cold when I think about it. My brother wanted to get a drink from a place we both love to go to. It was going to close soon and he had work to do, so I went by myself. It wasn't very late, but it was already dark and my parents had drummed into me since birth about the dangers of walking alone at night.

I went and got both drinks and, for some reason, didn't get a bag. As a result, I was walking along with both hands full. As I was walking towards the street where my house was, I suddenly became aware of two men near me. One was in front of me, wearing a maroon pullover, and the other was behind me, wearing a grey zipped up hoodie with the hood pulled up.

I only turned around for a flash of a second, so I couldn't describe his face to you. I was weirded out, because I was walking between them and I was beginning to feel uncomfortably like they were trying to herd me. And just as I was telling myself that I was clearly overreacting, I came across a garage that was down an alleyway and a black Subaru was coming out.

I had time, so I crossed before they reached me. The person inside clearly wasn't counting on me doing that, so they swung around and parallel parked next to me, at most two feet away. So now I was between three men and a wall. When I saw the car door open, that was it for me. I bolted and didn't stop running until I reached my house.

maxyagirl

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Dad’s Frenemies Closer

I have known my father's best friend and his wife since I was a baby. But they always unsettled me. The wife hated me, like she hated all kids, and the man would obsessively pay attention to me the entire time he was around. He would constantly watch me, even if I ignored him. By the time I was twelve, I knew things about him that I shouldn't.

The kind of stuff one would expect someone to tell their best friend in confidence, though usually not with their best friend’s daughter around. When I turned 16, there was a night where he was over and I was about to go to bed, saying goodnight to everyone in the house. My dad had gone to the bathroom and this guy's wife wasn’t there.

He got up from the table and went to give me a hug goodnight. This was really weird, since I never initiated any hugging and he would never have initiated one with me in the past. This hug lasted forever. My arms were at my sides, and his arms were trapping me against him. He finally released me from the hug, but placed his hands on my arms and looked at me.

This look still makes my skin crawl. He looked down at my chest and whispered, "Wow, you are getting so much bigger!" His thumbs were ghosting over my arms and closer to my chest. I was so startled and unnerved that I just froze. I couldn't think to move. This man, a man that helped my dad change my diapers, was lusting over the size of my 16-year-old chest.

Thankfully, before anything got worse, my father came out of the bathroom and this guy immediately backed away from me. I would never go around him again from that day forward. I haven’t seen him a single time since. Right after this incident took place, I told my dad that whenever he would be over, I was not going to stay there. Marvin, let's not meet again.

Eienharu

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

I had just fallen asleep when I heard my dog outside losing his mind. I then received a notification on my phone, stating: "There is motion detected at your front door." I open my phone to the live view of what's happening outside, only to be greeted by an eyeball staring directly into the camera. The man standing there was mumbling to himself.

He proceeds to knock and ring the doorbell. Now, I live in a suburban, quiet town, with wholesome neighbors who are all good people. I had decided to actually lock my door that day, which wasn’t always the case. That was a lucky thing, because the man started trying the doorknob, and then attempted to climb in through the window.

I turned on the microphone of my security system and told the man that he would be behind bars within the hour if he didn’t leave immediately. He got all huffy and puffy, and started talking about how he was just looking for his dog "Fido." Uh-huh, by trying to enter my house and acting like a creep on video? I’m more careful to always lock my door nowadays.

permalink

A Helping Hand

My boss has four children. When they were younger, she was driving along when her van broke down on the side of a motorway. She pulled over onto the hard shoulder and put on her hazard lights. She got the kids out of the car and took them to stand behind the barrier. She called roadside assistance and her husband. All standard stuff.

About 10 or 20 minutes later, a car pulls up behind her with a rather good looking chap in it. He says he lives just off the next exit and had seen her, so he decided to circle back to see if she needed any help. All the way through this interaction, my boss says he didn't throw up any red flags. He just seemed genuinely concerned about the kids being on the side of the road.

He offered to take her back to his place for a cup of tea while they waited. He even said she could call her husband to tell him where she was, just to be safe. Again, my boss is very sweet and kind and thinks the best of people, and there were still no red flags. Nevertheless, she turns him down only because she had four kids with her.

She said if she had been on her own, she probably would have taken him up on the offer since he seemed so genuinely kind. She turned him down because she didn't want to take the children back to a stranger's house, not because of mistrust. He sort of pushed it a little bit more but eventually shrugged and left the scene.

A couple of weeks later, she saw his photo in the paper. Apparently, he had stopped to help another woman whose car had also broken down, and he had attacked her and taken her life after offering her a lift. To this day, she maintains that she genuinely didn't see any red flags when she spoke to him. She insists that the only reason she's alive is because of her kids.

QueenChoco

The Sound Of Silence

When I was around 13 years old, I was granted the privilege of staying home alone. Every now and then when I was home alone, I’d hear sounds coming from upstairs, and so I would instinctively call my mom. She then told me a story of how she used to hear things in her old house all the time and how it’s just the house “settling.”

Fast forward to many instances of sounds later. I decided that the very next time I was going to be home alone, I was going to be completely silent and make as little noise as possible. Within the first half an hour, there was nothing. Not a peep out of the entire house. I eventually got bored and felt safe, so I went to grab the TV remote to watch something.

But a few seconds before I grabbed the remote, I heard a sound that I’ll never forget. There was a huge crash upstairs and running footsteps. I was more sure than ever that someone was inside the house. By now, there were plenty of consistent sounds coming from upstairs. I decided to hatch a quick plan. Being the skinny, non-threatening little girl that I was, I first grabbed a kitchen knife.

Then, I grabbed a shoe and propped open the front door. After a few moments of some deep breaths, I yelled out in the deepest voice I could, “I know you are upstairs! I am giving you a chance to leave now without me reporting you. I have propped the front door open and I will be in the bathroom. Be aware that I am armed and ready to take immediate action if you refuse to leave.”

Sure enough, I walk into the bathroom, absolutely terrified that someone is about to attack me. I wait and wait until I hear the one unforgettable sound. I heard the front door close and the shoe being moved. I quickly locked the door and turned on the alarm system. I hope to never see this person or even hear this person again.

itsmiichristine

Like A Moth To The Flame

I have always been a lanky and non-muscular man. Needless to say, when I came face to face with a big dude holding a knife in the middle of the night, I was pretty much screwed. I was walking home from my closing shift on a warm summer night last year when he stepped out of the shadows and demanded my wallet. I didn't immediately reach for it, as I guess I was in shock.

He stepped closer and yelled at me to empty my pockets. When the realization set in that this guy was ready to take my life over the meager $20 I had on me, a white moth fluttered between us. To my surprise, the mugger began screaming and swinging his knife at the bug, which only caused it to fly around more sporadically.

Those fierce eyes which had been looking at me just a few seconds ago were now shrouded in terror and not breaking their focus on the moth. I took karate lessons for a few years when I was a young boy, so I took advantage of the large man desperately flailing at a small insect and performed the number one move recommended by all reputable martial arts schools. I ran like a madman.

I ran all the way back to my house, occasionally glancing behind myself, but I never saw him following. He had other matters to attend to, I suppose. So, an important lesson for all you wannabe criminals out there. Before attempting to commit a mugging, go see a therapist first who can help you get over your dumb phobias.

fifthfire

Mountain Music

When I was a kid, I used to often go up to the Smoky Mountains and stay with my friend and her family for a few days to a week. One time, my friend's dad drove me and my friend down to Asheville, North Carolina, which was about an hour and a half away. My friend and I had put on a lot of makeup that day, because we were preteen girls who enjoyed having fun with makeup.

Even with the makeup, it was still very obvious that we were children. We went into a pizza shop to sit down and eat, when a man in his 30s or 40s started talking to my friend. The situation quickly turned sinister when it became apparent that the man thought my friend's dad was a pimp, and he was interested in my friend.

I'm pretty sure that my friend's dad threatened to disembowel the guy, and then we all promptly left and drove back to the mountain home. My friend's dad had to explain to us later what happened, and why we went home so abruptly. We were too young to understand it completely. It was definitely a very strange experience for both of us...

snail-overlord

Low Key

Someone just tried to break into my house while I was home alone for the weekend. I am the only one in my family who uses the spare key that was hidden in my garden, and no one but me would have known where to find it. Yet, I saw this attempted burglar walk right up to the hiding spot and pick it up, which makes me think he had been stalking me beforehand.

Thankfully, my dog scared him off before he could do any damage.

EuropeanAustralian

Hate Thy Neighbor

When I was about five years old, my mom and I lived in this duplex that was off the main road and in a wooded area. We lived on one side and on the other was a woman and her son. He was studying to be a teacher. My mother had me young, so she was about 25 and the guy in the other unit was in his early 20s. He would often come by to talk to my mom.

My mother said he would ask a lot of questions about me. He once even asked if he could take me for a walk in the woods. My mother declined. One night, while I was sleeping over at my grandma’s house, my mom came home from work late at night. When she got into her room, she made a chilling discovery. She a pair of feet wearing socks sticking out from the end of her bed.

She grabbed her bedside lamp and was about to hit the intruder with it when all of a sudden he identified himself as that guy from the other unit. He couldn’t explain why he was in our apartment, nor why he was naked and only wearing socks. But he begged my mother to not tell his mother about the incident. My mother, of course, called the authorities.

She ended up going to court and making a victim impact statement against this guy, because she was terrified that he would become a teacher and be around children. We ended up moving immediately, because my mom couldn’t stay another night in that house. She is very thankful that I was out of the house that night, because for all we know he could have been trying to target me.

Clumsybee

Window Shopping

This happened a few weeks ago and I’m still a bit shaken up by it. My husband and I like to take long drives in the desert with our dog. We live outside Las Vegas and are fortunate to live in a city with abundant beautiful areas to stargaze. My husband just got a new telescope for his birthday in October, so he was excited to try it out.

We drove our Kia up to a popular overlock, and he pulled out the telescope. He showed me a bunch of constellations and we saw a shooting star. Our pet dog sat in the car with two of the windows rolled down. At one point, my hubby had to pee. He told me to wait in the car for him. So, I got in and locked the door. After a few seconds, I hear gravel moving.

Thinking it’s my hubby, I remark “That was fast.” Suddenly, my dog goes berserk. She’s snarling and barking like crazy. So I turn around and see this dude standing there that’s not my husband. I then see that the dude had stuck his hand into my car window and that my dog had latched onto his arm as soon as he did so.

The guy was screaming in agony as my dog bit into his arm. I was screaming in terror. My husband is now yelling as he runs towards us with his pants half on. The dog finally lets the guy’s arm go and he takes off. I immediately call the authorities. My husband tries chasing after the guy, but he manages to get away. The doggo got a cup of Dairy Queen that night.

wifey4lifey78

Taking You For A Ride

This happened last year, at the peak of my partying stage. I was at a friend’s house drinking one night. At around 2:00 AM, I was pretty intoxicated and decided to call an Uber to take me home. The car pulled up, and I have this habit of sitting at the front with the driver. He was a young man in his 20s. I don’t remember too much about what we were talking about.

However, I do recall his compliments going from “You’re really pretty,” to “You’re really hot,” and he also kept saying that I reminded him of his mom. I found it really strange, especially considering that I was 19 years old, but I tried to laugh it off because I didn’t want to appear rude. I asked him to swing by the drive-thru at a burger spot because I was hungry.

We got the food and he was supposed to take me home, but I noticed he was driving in the complete opposite direction of where my house was. I looked at his map and it kept telling him to turn around. I asked him where we were going, and I remember him looking over at me and saying, “Oh, you don’t wanna come over to my house?”

I remember I completely sobered up in that instant and said “No. Please take me home.” I don’t recall if we continued talking after that, but luckily he took me home and I never heard from him again. I also reported him the next day. What really upsets me is that he clearly knew I was inebriated and yet he tried to take advantage of me.

It’s safe to say I won’t be Ubering alone at night anymore.

Misscuudi

Hall Pass

I was in Las Vegas on a business trip many years ago. If you’ve ever stayed on the strip in Vegas, you know that the hotels there are absolutely huge. The hallways are mazelike and extremely long. I am a small lady, and I was in my early 30s at the time. I had just left a meeting downstairs and was heading back up to my room.

I pushed the button for my floor when I got onto the elevator, and I got off when it reached my floor. There was a man walking towards me down one of the long halls. We passed each other. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see him turn around. I take a right. He takes a right. I go left. He goes left. I determine that he is definitely following me.

No one is with me on this trip and I’m staying alone in my room. But he doesn’t know that. I pick up my cell phone and make a fake call. Loudly, I spoke into the phone: “Hi babe. What are you doing? Oh, you’re back in our room? You finished your workout super early. Okay. I’m almost back at our room, so I’ll be right there. Love you.”

The creepy guy following me immediately turned around and headed in the direction we had just come from. Whew. I made sure he was extra gone, then got into my room as fast as humanly possible and bolted the door. I never had any more issues for the rest of the trip, and I was happy that I learned a new trick.

ExpensiveArm5

Tunnel Vision

I was leaving college and about to take a train to visit my family as I used to do every weekend. Usually, my best friend and her friends would join me at the exit of a pedestrian path which takes the shape of a tunnel. This day, they were late, so I walked through the tunnel on my own. As I was passing by an opening in the tunnel, a car suddenly approached me.

The car was black and its windows were tinted. Yet I could see who was inside because the driver had his windows opened. The car parked right in front of me, almost reaching my legs. I did not move. I was tired anyway. And I saw two guys inside of the car. The passenger opened the door and tried to reach for me.

That's when I got extremely lucky. At the precise moment when he tried to grab me, I saw my best friend and her friends emerging from the tunnel. I loudly screamed "Hello!" to her. The dude turned back and saw my group of friends approaching. He went back into the car and drove away quickly. My best friend looked at me and said: "Were you just about to be kidnapped?"

I said yes and we laughed it off very nervously.

Permalink

Living Happily Ever After

Me and my ex were together for two months. Within that time, he swiped money from me and blamed it on me when I asked him about it. We actually broke up after I asked for advice on Reddit. Now, everyone who knows me knows my daily routine. I go to college for most of the day, then go to my work, go home, and do homework. And repeat.

One day, I was at my job, doing my work. All of a sudden, I get an alert on my phone that there’s someone at my house. I figured that I would watch the cameras after I got home. But then, over the next two hours, I got three more alerts. As I was taking the bus back to my home, I watched the cameras. And I saw my crazy ex taking a hammer to my back door!

I kept on watching as he struggled against the deadbolt, and then I saw him enter my house. I called the authorities faster than I thought I could and told them there was a break-in at my address. I continued to watch the video after that. 15 minutes after he entered, he left with a duffle bag. I arrived back at my house and officers were already on the scene.

I identified myself as the homeowner and went inside to check the damage. The place was trashed and, along with my duffle bag, some jewelry was missing. I gave the officers the evidence that it was my ex. And I gave them the address of the place he was crashing at. I then arranged to get a restraining order against him.

Not long after the incident, they caught him at a nearby pawn shop trying to sell my jewelry. When questioned, he claimed that he was trying to “get back” at me for dumping him. I am now happy to announce that the restraining order is officially in place, and my ex is also behind bars for a year for breaking and entering.

Chipsarethebest

Toying With Your Heart

I used to work for Macy's in their beauty department. We had all kinds of weird customers that came in. Guys who would come rub lotion all over their legs, women who would take perfumes and spray them down their pants, all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t believe. I literally would never use a store tester under any circumstances. But one interaction was by far the strangest thing that happened to me.

I was standing at my counter and was approached by a guy who looked like he was in his late 30s. He asked if I had any kids and I told him I didn't. He said he was giving away free toys at the old Big Lots parking lot the following morning. I was like, that's cool but I don't have any kids. He asked me if any of the girls I worked with had little girls who would want free toys.

I told him that they didn't have any kids either. I was getting super creeped out and walked behind the counter. He was like, "Tell your friends if they have little girls to come tomorrow morning and get their free toy." I called my husband on my lunch break and told him about it. He agreed that it was super weird and that I should for sure not to tell any of our friends about the free toy event.

I also called our local security office and they were basically like, what are we supposed to do about it? Yesterday, one of my girlfriends shared a story about a local guy who is being investigated for human trafficking and a string of unsolved murders. I looked at the photograph and immediately recognized the suspect. It was the creepy toy guy!

shankliest

A Lesson You Won’t Soon Forget

When I was around six years old, my family and I were just leaving the supermarket. I was begging my mom for some candy. By the time we left, I didn't get any. So I threw a huge fit. I started stomping and crying at the exit and threatened my mom that I wouldn't leave without getting the candy. She said, "Fine, stay here then." She left me by myself at the exit to teach me a lesson.

This made me cry and scream even louder. As she was getting closer to the car, a man approached me. He just said these simple words: "Get in my van boy, we will catch her." I stopped crying immediately, as I knew what stranger danger was by then. I just looked at the guy and knew that something bad was going to happen.

My mom quickly rushes back, grabs my hand, and yanks me away. She didn't say a word to the man, but she gave him a dirty look. Needless to say, I was quiet the whole ride back home. I'm not sure what would have happened if my mom had decided to pack the groceries before she came back to get me from my little fit.

organic-dinosaur

Late Night Stroll

A few months back, after a night drinking, I hooked up with a much younger bloke. He was an average guy, nothing out of the ordinary. We messaged each other a few times afterward, but I just wasn’t keen on seeing him again. Tonight. Literally, an hour ago, he started to call me. I ignored it, as I was in bed. It’s the middle of the night.

But the calls continued. And to make things worse, I could hear someone walking outside my house. Then, someone started knocking on my windows. I have my six-year-old next to me. I kept ignoring the calls. I should have just said go away. But I lay frozen in fear, and this went on for 45 minutes. Next thing I know, I hear my door open and he enters my house.

I immediately shouted at the top of my lungs, “Get out of my house right now!!!” He said, “Are you sure?” Ummmmm, YES!! What’s wrong with this guy?? He will be immediately deleted and blocked on all of my social media channels. My heart is still racing from the experience. It made me realize how vulnerable I really am as a woman.

klmolk

No Place Like Home

I suffer from schizophrenia. The other night, I had an extreme episode of psychosis. I don’t remember much about what happened. I was wearing sweatpants and high heels and was wandering around my apartment complex. I decided to go home. The main door in my apartment complex requires a key card like a hotel, but my roommates always leave the back door open.

So I walked into what I thought was my apartment and made myself comfy on the couch. I tried to go into my room, but it was locked, which confused me because I never lock my door. It took me a while to realize that I had walked into the wrong apartment. The people who lived there thought I was a friend of one of the other roommates, so it took them a minute to register what had happened.

When they did, they freaked out, understandably, and called the authorities on me. The officer thought I was drinking or on substances, but I showed him my medical emergency card that explains that I have schizophrenia. After he read the card, I was totally out of trouble and he just wanted to make sure I got home safely.

I don’t even remember the specific interactions that I had with the people who lived there when they saw me, as I wasn’t super lucid until the officer came. So yeah. Now these people just have a story about how a random schizophrenic woman in sweats and high heels walked into their house one night and made herself at home.

bklove1

Glass Ceiling

I live on the second floor of a three-level apartment building. We have a crawlspace that connects all the apartments. We aren't sure why it's there, but we all have stuff in it and none of us would ever even attempt to go inside of it. So it’s never posed any issue. The other night, the sun was setting but it wasn't pitch black out yet.

I'm walking through my living room when I see a short woman on my fire escape looking into my windows. This is extremely bizarre, considering it's still semi-light out and she had literally climbed onto our fire escape somehow. We have two windows that the fire escape reaches. She was looking in both but didn't see me.

I crawled onto the ground and my heart was racing as I watched her try to open the windows. I didn't know what to do because my phone was in the other room. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally left. I went into my room to get my phone to text my landlord and call the authorities. I came back into the living room and was looking out the windows to see if I could locate her.

All of a sudden, I hear a weird noise coming from the ceiling. We have one of those tile ceilings made out of separate slabs of cork. I look up to see one of the slabs lifted up and two eyes staring down at me. I have no clue how she got into the crawlspace so quickly, but I grabbed the nearest thing, which was a broom, and started hitting her with it through the ceiling.

She crawled away. An officer soon showed up and searched the place. They found her a few days later, when she was on someone else's fire escape. The officer said she was definitely on some illicit substances and that she had been violent towards them. I'm glad she's gone and that she won’t be coming through my ceiling again any time soon.

Permalink

Coming In Handy

This happened when I was around five years old, but I remember everything like it happened yesterday. We had gone to a funeral for my mom's cousin in another town a couple of hours out. We got to the house and my mom went to see her aunt. She gave her condolences and I followed, holding her hand. I guess during the hugging and crying, my mom let go of my hand.

I started looking for her hand but not really looking up, just keeping my hand out for her to grab it while calling her name. There were a lot of people and the house was small, so I could only see the people standing around me. A couple of minutes later, I found her. Or so I thought, because she took my hand and started walking towards the door to leave.

I thought to myself as I was putting on my shoes that it seemed weird to come such a long way just to be here for five minutes. That thought led me to look up at the lady holding my hand. I instantly realized it wasn’t my mom. I have no idea where the woman was planning on taking me. I jolted my hand away from her and ran towards the room I had lost my mom at.

Redifar

You’ve Got Company!

I was watching my daughter’s kids while she and her husband were out of town. They have a teenage daughter, who we can call Alyssa. In the middle of the night, I‘m woken up by a weird rustling sound. I look out the window and see movement. I see a boy emerge from the bushes on the side of the house. I then see a bike tossed on the lawn that definitely wasn’t ours.

My first thought was that it must be a burglar casing houses. But since he looked young and came through on a bike, I figured scaring him straight would be enough for him to decide to head home. So I went out on the porch, flipped the lights on, and politely said “Can I help you?” The guy looked surprised, but not nervous.

He was wearing a letterman style jacket, but once I got a clear view of him in the streetlights, he seemed much older than my granddaughter. He walked up closer to the house and said “Yeah, I’m looking for Alyssa.” I gave him a disapproving glare, hoping he’d realize that looking for a girl late at night and getting a grumpy old person meant it was time to split.

I figured Alyssa must have known that her parents were going out of town and, before she knew I’d be staying over, told a secret older boyfriend to come over. It was late and I was alone with several kids, so I didn’t want him coming any closer to the house. I also thought it was weird that he came so late and I wanted to be sure Alyssa actually wanted to talk to him.

I said: “You wait there.” He started to walk up and I felt a sick burning feeling in my gut. Instinct kicked in. I yelled: “NO. STOP. FREEZE.” I readjusted and said, “You stay right there. This is private property. Don't take a step closer. Wait. There.” So I go in and Alyssa is asleep just one room over from where the rustling first occurred.

I wake her up and say something to the effect of “I don’t know what the big idea was to have friends over this time of night, but you tell them to go home.” She has no clue what I’m talking about. I say “There’s a guy outside asking for you.” Confused, she gets up and goes to the window. She sees him and goes white as a sheet.

“He asked for me?” “Yeah.” “By name?” “Yes.” Her reply made my blood run cold. She told me: “I’ve never seen him before in my life!” I called the authorities immediately, but as I was on the phone with them, Alyssa started tugging at my arm. “He’s coming up!” I had younger kids in the house to think about, so I kept the door latched and pulled it just open enough to yell “None of us know an Alyssa. Leave my property immediately.”

He got angry and started yelling for her to come out. Thankfully, an officer came pretty quickly. When the guy heard the sirens, he grabbed the bike and ran off. I watched where he was running to and he jumped into the passenger side of a car without headlights or front plates and sped off. The officer followed in the same direction, but couldn’t find him.

ligamentary

You’ve Got A Friend In Me

My mother has always wondered why I didn't have too many friends back in high school. The real reason is a secret that I would never want her to know about. It is because, growing up, my family was always broke and I knew that she was struggling financially. So, in order to avoid anyone seeing how we lived, I always refused anytime people from school wanted to do things with me or have get-togethers at my house.

To make matters even worse, I decided during my senior year that I did not want to burden my mother by asking for money when I needed to buy things. As a result, I started working as much as I could outside of school. This gave me even less time to make friends. I would never want my mother to find out about this, and I would never want her to feel guilty or blame herself for my lack of social life as a child.

winenotbecauseofrum

Always Remember Where You Came From

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the truth about my location for the past 25 years. They have no idea where I have been living that entire time, and I want to keep it that way. It’s a long story, but I have now spent more than half of my life going out of my way to make sure that they never suspect the true location of my residence.

Metatron_Fallen

No More Pomp And Circumstance

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I knowingly recorded one of my favorite movies over the video tape of my sister's high school graduation. It was the only copy of that ceremony that we had, so we will never be able to look back on that memory again. Luckily, it's been about 18 years since I did this, and no one has noticed yet. Nevertheless, I still feel really bad about it.

sheldonowns

An Unwanted Gamble

If my mom ever found out, she’d never forgive herself. The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that my cousins used to repeatedly take physical advantage of me when I was a kid. Throughout my childhood, my mom would regularly leave me at their house for hours at a time so that she could go to the casino and play her favorite games. If she knew what had taken place while she was away on those casino trips, she’d be horrified.

Sad_Mars22

Handling Things On Your Own

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I was falsely accused of violently attacking someone when I was 17 years old. I am legally considered an adult in Texas, so the authorities didn’t have to tell them. A detective actually confiscated my cell phone for an entire school day to verify the veracity of the text messages proving that the encounter was consensual.

The whole thing was a really scary experience and a really weird time in my life. I had to deal with the fallout at school, as well as the challenges of not telling my parents about it.

Permalink

Moving On

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’m not straight. Me and opposite gender fiancé don’t consider it cheating as long as whatever I do is with someone of the same gender, and as long as we inform each other prior. I hate my parents and can’t wait to leave. I don’t trust them to take my feelings seriously if I come clean to them about this secret.

The only reason I’m getting mentally healthier nowadays is that my therapist and fiancé have worked hard to help me learn that some things can’t be fixed and need to be thrown away, in this case, my relationship with my parents. My doctor is very excited about me becoming mentally stable enough to care for myself so that I can pursue university in a place where they are not around.

There’s just one thing that makes me want to stay—and breaks my heart. My 11-year-old sister trusts me more than she trusts them, and one time she cried asking me not to leave because she didn’t want to be left there alone with our parents. She’s been showing very obvious symptoms of anxiety and depression due to being bullied at school for the past few months. I want to help her, but my mom keeps getting in the way.

When I say anything about the situation to her, she quickly shuts me by saying “She probably did something wrong and that’s why she’s scared". I can’t do anything because I’m not her legal guardian, so I’ve been trying to teach her grounding techniques. I tell her the things that work for me other than my meds.

rhemasu

Money Makes The World Go Round

The secret that I choose to keep hidden from my parents is that I make a lot more money than I let on. My parents have always been and always will be the "I took care of you all your life, time for you to pay it back" type of parents. Except as far as they’re concerned, there is no end to this "debt" that I allegedly owe them. So, I just hide money from them so that they can't take advantage of me.

Nagaisbae

Swiper, No Swiping!

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once swiped some money from them in order to buy a bunch of illicit substances that they would never approve of me using. I regret it to this day. It was a horrible thing for me to do. My lazy self should have just listened to their good advice and gotten a job instead of getting myself into that kind of bad behavior.

Permalink

Blame Canada For This One!

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that, for my entire childhood, I used to frequently watch South Park on TV when they thought I was sleeping at night. Not only would they have been angry at me for staying up past my bedtime, but this was also a show that my parents considered inappropriate and would never have knowingly allowed me to watch.

I guess this explains why I was always tired as a kid!

Permalink

Thrown In The Slammer

My mother has no idea that I have been locked up twice—but that’s not the worst part. One of those times, I was in there with my father. He has been just as adamant as I have been in refusing to tell her about what happened. I don’t plan on ever letting her find out that we were there. I don’t think she would be too happy about it if she found out...

Permalink

An Untarnished Academic Record?

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I became extremely depressed during my first year of university and nearly failed out of school because I couldn't handle the pressure. In their eyes, I am a model student and the farthest thing possible from someone who would have ever come close to failing academically. Little do they know…

Sarcastic__

A Family Man

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I recently got someone pregnant and I'm pretty sure she kept the baby. She never told me officially, so I honestly don’t even know if I have a child. If my parents found out about this, they would be horrified. It would totally go against all of their deeply-held values, not to mention it would shatter their impression of me as a person.

LonelyPauper

Sister Act

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that my sister is a lesbian. She openly admits it to everyone she knows, except for our family. She eventually opened up to me about it, but both my parents and our older brother still know nothing about it. Since then, she and I have become a lot closer to one another than we were when we were growing up.

vkuma

Does Not Compute

When I was around 14 years old, I once overheard my parents arguing with one another. My mom was yelling at my dad about some inappropriate adult searches that she had found on their computer’s internet history. But I knew the dark truth It was really me that was going on the computer in their room without permission and watching adult videos. But I chose to keep that a secret and say nothing as they argued.

Needless to say, my silence meant that my mom blamed my dad for the searches. He kept adamantly denying it, and she kept calling him a liar. As a result of this whole ordeal, he had to sleep in the guest bedroom for an entire month after that fight. The secret truth was never revealed, and hopefully, it never will be…

postedUpOnTheBlock

Not Very Sweet Emotion

They knew I had a nervous breakdown during my freshman year of high school and they knew that I went through a very dark phase at the age of 15. However, they didn’t know the heartbreaking reason why. I was attacked and taken advantage of as a kid, and I wanted to take my own life for many years afterward as a result of the incident.

SageRiBardan

Nothing Of Substance

My parents have no idea that I have ever used a single bad substance. In reality, the first time I ever got high, it was right under their noses. I was with one of my best friends. We were at my house and my parents were at home. I made sure we stayed mostly upstairs and we tried our best to be quiet. Things were going fine until I started seeing colors all around us.

I started to hallucinate and I thought the colors were fighting each other. At a certain point, I just started laying there on my bed because I was no longer enjoying the experience. I literally felt like I couldn’t move. Everything felt numb. She kept trying to do intimate stuff with me and I kept saying I wasn’t interested. I ended up not knowing whether it was real life or not anymore.

My parents would kill me if they ever found out that I had done that, especially in their own home. I hated having to act like everything was just okay and normal afterward while I was still feeling physically and emotionally confused. They spent years trying to instill in me that playing around with substances was a bad idea, and I went against their wishes. I feel awful about it and can never let them find out.

carmexkisses

Following Doctor’s Orders, In Private

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I always suspected that I suffered from some kind of mental health struggle, and I now know this to be the case thanks to a doctor I have secretly been seeing. As far as my parents know, there is nothing wrong with my mental or emotional health whatsoever.

bllaaushpibu

For The Love Of All That Is Holy!

My parents are very devout members of a strict religious sect, and they raised me to be the same way. Members of this sect believe that their church is the only true church on Earth, and so it is very important to members that all their loved ones remain believers. My secret from my parents is that I no longer believe that their religion is true. They think I still go to church and believe, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

TheCardgageCurse

Keeping Up Appearances

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I spent several years living as a barely functioning and depressed alcoholic during my college days. My life was really out of control back then, but I always managed to keep it together just enough to still be capable of putting on a facade for my parents. They never suspected a thing.

TimDuncanCanDunk

This Is Pretty Dark...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I don't actually love them. I care about them in the same way that I care for a hurt stranger, but I won't be crying when they pass except for over the stress of handling the funeral arrangements and finding a place for their kid and animals to live in their absence. I know this sounds harsh, but that’s the way I truly feel.

Some explanation is probably needed. Let’s start with the fact that my parents have done some pretty heartless things towards me over the years. They ran up a whole bunch of debts in my name and never helped me out with trying to pay them all off. That is just one example of their reckless and inconsiderate behavior towards me over the years.

Another example is that I was homeless twice in my mid-20s, but they absolutely refused to let me stay with them. At the age of 18, I still didn't have a driver’s license because I was never allowed to borrow their car. Eventually, I saved up and paid for my own lessons. Not that I could afford a car anyway until a few years later.

At the age of 20, I had a job interview at a well-paying company. I asked my parents if they could drive me for an hour to get there or let me drive. They agreed, but then the day of the interview, they never showed up. They also completely wrecked my confidence and self-esteem when I lived with them from the ages of 16 to 22, when they went off on outings almost every weekend while leaving me behind to watch their other kid and their animals.

There is also a lot more to the story that I would prefer not to talk about publicly. Of course, their other kid is technically related to me and would be considered my sibling by most people, but we do not have a good relationship or really much of any relationship to be completely honest. I know that it’s not his fault, but for my own mental health, I can’t bear to associate with anyone who reminds me of my awful parents.

Phenoix512

How Much Is That Secret In The Window?

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents for a very long time is that I used to frequently sneak out of the house from our second story bathroom window to go nightclubbing with my friends after the two of them had both gone to bed at night. This little secret of mine made some of my greatest high school memories possible.

Vyzantinist

The Suspension Of His Disbelief

My dad doesn't know that I was suspended from school for an entire semester back in college due to my low grades. He always thought of me as a terrific student and not at all as someone who would spend a lot of time partying and neglecting my studies. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this happened to me, but it really did.

_ohhello

No Tech Support Needed

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents is that I actually did know why my laptop wasn't working when I told them that it had suddenly broken and that I needed a new one. I had spilled a fair bit of Jack Daniel's on it during a night of partying, and it has not been working properly ever since. But as far as my parents know, it just failed to turn on one day and there is no logical explanation as to why.

dramaticeffect_

A Lot To Deal With

The secret that I hide from my parents is that I've been struggling with depression, crippling loneliness, abandonment issues, and social pressure ever since I was six years old. I've come dangerously close to nearly ending my life on many occasions. I've been managing my life better as of late, but I have kept all of this hidden from my parents regardless. I don’t want them to ever know.

Z_Silver

Passing The Bar

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I’m not going to finish my degree and I’ve already paid off all my student loan debts. My degree was pointless and I don’t do well in school anyway due to my ADHD. My dad constantly asks me when I’m going to finish and stop bartending. I just keep saying I’ll be finishing soon.

I hate disappointing my parents because my father always gets very proud of my sister and me with all of our accomplishments. But truth be told, I’m quite content with the $60k a year that I make bartending right now. My degree would only have pulled in about $35k as a starting salary. I really like my current job and don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything, even though it’s so different than the vision that my parents always had for me.

I’m planning on keeping my true intentions a secret from them for as long as I possibly can.

absurdapple

Playing With A Full Deck

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that when I was at Walmart with my mom one time, I swiped two of those big cartons full of Pokémon Cards. I took the cards and stuffed them all into my back pocket. I planned the whole operation more than a week before. It was completely premeditated. I was the best and craftiest thief in the world at the age of nine.

But my parents had no idea, and they still don’t to this day…

j-benz

Brothers In Arms

I kept the truth of how I got the giant, noticeable scar on my forearm a secret from my parents and others for close to 15 years. In order to understand the real story, you first need to know that I had an old metal bed frame and one of the posts had snapped off, leaving a pretty good sharp point that was dangerous but also pretty avoidable.

When I was about 16, I got very intoxicated with my older brother one time and we got into a huge fight. He tried to hit me, and in the process of the fight, he accidentally slashed my arm with a sharp blade while I was trying to avoid a punch. We both started freaking out when we saw the damage and the huge bloody gash that we had left on my arm. We rushed to the hospital and I was given 21 stitches for it.

When we got home, we realized that we would both get into huge trouble if our parents found out that we had been drinking. But we had to be able to give some kind of explanation for the giant scar on my arm that had never been there before. So, in the end, we told my mom, grandma, and pretty much all other concerned parties that I had merely fallen next to the bed and accidentally sliced my arm across the open part of the metal post.

And none of them ever doubted that story for a minute!

soiledsanchez

This Is The Worst Trip I’ve Ever Been On

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I had actually planned on ending my life during a school trip overseas back in the day. I was really having a bad time on the trip and it made me feel incredibly depressed. My head became filled with such bad thoughts, and I wanted nothing but for them to go away.

I didn’t go through with what I was planning, as you can tell. But I seriously considered it, and that fact alone still shakes me to my core to think about. In the end, the only thing that stopped me was that I didn’t want to ruin the trip for everyone else. That’s how close I came. I couldn’t imagine ever telling my parents that this happened.

FrontRow22

I Know What You’ve Been Up To...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once found my dad’s stash of illicit substances hidden in his room. I feel like I don't even know him anymore. I never want him or my mother to know that I found this. I’m still a minor and I still live with them. I just don’t want them to think that I violated their privacy or found out about something that I wasn’t meant to see.

rhinoceroblue

Such A Sad Situation

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was taken advantage of in our home for years when I was a child by the person that they know I hate the most. If they knew about this, they might finally understand why I hate this person so much. This is also the person that they would probably least suspect of ever doing a thing like that.

I doubt my parents would even believe me if I ever told them about what happened. In fact, my mom once actually walked into the room during one of the times that this was actively happening to me but she did not pick up on what was going on. She held a full, nonchalant conversation with us while it was going on right under her nose.

I was horrified because I was very obviously in danger and yet she was totally oblivious. I didn’t know what to do about it, and I’ve never brought it up to her ever since.

JessaRoo2

To Tell, Or Not To Tell?

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I fully know that my mother is cheating on my father. He doesn’t know that it’s happening, at least not to my knowledge, and she doesn’t have any idea that I know what she’s up to. I honestly have no idea what I should do with this information, but for the time being, I cannot bring myself to let either of them know that I know about it.

throwaway28386472828

The Green, Green Grass Of Home

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I sold weed in high school. This may seem like nothing compared to some of the other stories that people have shared here, but it is still something that would cause a whole lot of shock and disappointment with my family if they ever found out about it. Thankfully, it’s all in the past now, so hopefully, I will never have to say anything.

PlantExact

Stepping On The Wrong Toes

The secret that I keep from my parents is that, as a teen, I used to constantly fantasize about ending the life of my verbally and physically abusive stepfather and then ending my own life right after. He treated my mom like garbage and one day he actually punched me in the face for not washing my dirty dishes. This blow left a permanent gash above my eyebrow.

I was really depressed and wanted to end my life anyway, so I thought that I might as well take that jerk with me if I was going to have to go. I always tried to talk myself into finding some way to do it, but I could never actually bring myself to go through with it. The closest that I ever came to doing something was when he was asleep on the couch and my mom was off at work.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and just stood over him for a few minutes, contemplating whether I should do it or not. Of course, I never did. Thankfully, he and my mom separated less than a year after that incident. He is now out of our lives completely. My depression has been minimized tremendously since that. And no one ever needs to know how bad things were in my head before.

Seriously though, screw that guy!

dailydonuts16

Big Plans For The Future

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a secret plan to take my own life many years from now. I've crafted the plan carefully, and it is specifically designed so that I can focus one year on spending time with each of the people that I love. I'm scared to tell them about it because I don't want them to get stressed out about it. But at the same time, I just can't mentally take life anymore and I can't cope with living like this for 20 or so more years.

Permalink

Living On The Edge

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I lived with my girlfriend for more than a year and a half prior to us being married. We lived in a house less than 45 minutes away from where my parents lived, yet they had no idea that we were there. My parents are very conservative both socially and religiously, and they would have likely not attended our wedding had they known about this.

atlienk

Getting The Job Done

My parents have no idea that I left my job with the cable company to sell cars and write up oil changes for almost a year. I was emotionally burnt out from all the nonsense of the corporate world and I just couldn't take it anymore. So, without telling my parents, I tried switching careers. It didn't really pan out as I had hoped, but it did get me away from that trash heap of a company and allowed me to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life and where to go from there.

Lyn1987

A Strong, Independent Woman

It may seem weird to some people, but I prefer to keep it secret. My parents don’t know that I work out regularly. Pretty hard and heavy, too. My mom thinks that muscles on girls are gross, and for the years that she knew I worked out she treated me like I was gross too. It was heartbreaking for me. So now I pretend that I lost all interest in lifting weights and that I'm much happier this way.

The true fact is that I gave it up for about two months and couldn't stand life without it. It's sad that I can't keep my own mother in the loop about my most loved passion, but I've accepted it as just the way things are. In the grand scheme of things, this is far from the worst secret I could have had from my parents!

Retinator99

Food For Thought

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a pretty serious eating disorder. I’ve had it since I was just 11 years old, and I even went to the hospital for it. I am keeping it under control more now than I used to thanks to the help of the doctors at the hospital. But my parents still have no idea that anything is wrong with me.

Vale_M10

A Work Of Art

When I was in my early teens, we didn't yet have a computer or the internet at my house, but we did have Cinemax and my friend Doug introduced me to the late-night movies that were shown on the weekends. The secret that I hid from my parents was that, as a teenager who read comics and was not fully aware of the female anatomy, I would try to draw pictures of my favorite characters from those movies without their clothes on. Well, my mom found out…but it didn’t really go how I thought it would.

I used to hide the drawings either inside my comic books or in between my mattress and my box spring. I never considered the possibility that my mom would one day change my sheets. When she did, she discovered my secret. She told me that she was disappointed with me for drawing the pictures, but she was also impressed with the artwork.

So, she put the drawings into her special “hope chest” with all of my other stuff that she was proud of. I was embarrassed then, but now in my 30s, it's just nice to know that my mom cared that much about me and the things that I did. I bet not everyone could say that about their parents. Especially not after they discovered your secrets!

Permalink

Three Square Meals A Day

My secret from my parents is that I sometimes grab lunch or dinner on the way home from class, and I don't tell them about it. If I did tell them, I would probably just get yelled at for "wasting money when we have perfectly good food at home". My mom's cooking is great, but sometimes I just want to grab some pizza! Is that such a horrible thing to want? I enjoy variety from time to time!

Recently, this whole situation has gotten even more intense since my mom has gotten into some kind of obscure health diet plan that she's forcing everyone to take part in. It’s a bit ridiculous, but I don’t mind humoring her.

Kent_Knifen

Little Brother Is Watching You

I know an awful lot of things that my parents don’t realize I know. That is thanks to the fact that I overhear all of their private conversations every single night. I have horrible sleeping patterns, and people always assume that I’m asleep when I’m not. This is because when I lay down for too long, my mouth opens and, when I close my eyes, it looks like I’m sleeping.

Because of this, I know that my dad is cheating on my mom. I’ve been hearing him calling another woman every single night while he thought I was asleep and unable to hear. I also happen to know that my mom steals money from my dad on the regular, as well as from me and my brother. She also badmouths my dad a lot of the time and complains about the fact that I'm not good at dealing with conflict.

She also thinks I'm too sensitive. Many nights, I can hear them arguing behind closed doors, and then, in the morning, they just act like everything is great and like nothing ever happened. But I know that that’s not true. I’ve also secretly heard them badmouth me and my brothers, and talk about wanting a divorce. And it still gets so much worse...

I’ve heard them express the fact that they both don’t want me or my brother. They also both don’t want our pet cats. They openly admit that they hate each other, and they love pointing out sensitive things that will anger each other. They also hit one another from time to time. Night after night, I learn more and more secrets about how awful they really are. And I never let on that I know any of it.

It all started messing with my head a lot for the past couple of years. Slowly, it affected my personality and had even changed my reputation in school a lot. My friends told me that I wasn’t the same anymore. Apparently, I used to be totally carefree, let them borrow all my things whenever they asked, followed them around, wanted to be near them all the time, and would hug them a lot.

After my personality change, they told me they noticed that I was no longer hugging them at all. They said it felt like I was distancing myself from them. My grades got horrible and I always asked them to leave me alone whenever they tried to spend time with me. I’ve lost a lot of friends and teachers who used to talk to me and care about me.

I would open up to them, but in my community, we have a policy of not bringing our problems at home into school. It upsets me a lot and the only thing that I ever have to distract me from all of this is when I get to spend time with my older brother. We usually watch a little bit of football together, which I consider to be my favorite sport.

My older brother loves football and rabbles all the latest news to me whenever we hang out. I love it. I feel like I can trust him with my secrets, more than I could ever trust my best friend, mom, dad, or teachers. We share a lot in common. But even he doesn’t know about the mom and dad situation. I don’t have the heart to tell him about it.

But at the same time, he’s the only one who listens to me. Whether I’m angry, sad, upset, disappointed, happy, or any other emotion, he will always be happy to listen. Any topic goes, from video games, to sports, to movies, to books, to some new fact I heard about some obscure topics of science, to some random fun fact I learned about history. Anything you can imagine.

Needless to say, you can add the true state of my emotions to the long list of secrets that I now have from my parents, thanks to my late night accidental spying habit.

JohnWickMonDaddi

We Hope They Get Well Soon

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I really want to become a dental surgeon. This might not sound like anything controversial, but to my parents, it would be the end of the world. That is because they really want me to go into some crackpot, unscientific, antivax "holistic" naturopathic medicine business that fits with what they believe in.

Don’t ask me why, but they are convinced that modern medicine and science are a hoax and, as a result, they don’t trust regular doctors at all. I'm completely afraid that if I tell them about my true career intentions, they will refuse to pay for my college and dental school expenses. If my worst fears come true, they might even disown me over this.

CrimeLordOfSesameST

A Tragic Experience

From the age of ten until I was 14, I was “best friends” with a man who had said he was also 14. In reality, he had been saying that for three years on the internet. It was very far from true. He emotionally manipulated me to stay at home, talk to him online all day, and to falsely tell my parents that I was writing. I actually do write in my free time, so my parents never doubted the excuse.

My parents completely drank up the lies and I was never free from this person’s manipulation. When holidays came around, I wouldn’t go out with my friends. I would stay at home and talk to him all day. Eventually, he began to pressure me to send him naughty pictures of myself. I finally broke down and gave in when he threatened to find me and beat me up.

He knew where I went to school and where I lived. After that, he stopped talking to me for a few months because I was “too fat and needed to lose some weight". I was a tubby child, but I felt disgusting and started to hate myself after he said that. I fell into an eating disorder and almost lost my life. I was sent into therapy a year or so later to help recover from the disorder.

I’m recovered from anorexia now, but my therapist was trying to figure out the root cause for it back in May. My mum was in the room with me, and I finally broke down and told them everything. I had kept it a secret from her for my entire adult life, but I couldn’t hold back anymore. We immediately went to the authorities, but I’ve never heard from the guy since and we were unable to track him down.

It still scares me to think about him. Even all these years later, it still feels like a fresh wound every time I think about it. Thankfully, though, I can honestly say that I’m doing better than ever now. I can balance my writing with my social life and everything is going great for me! I regret having kept this secret from my parents for so long. They probably could have saved me a lot of pain if they had known what I was dealing with.

teaholic_

Story Time

I would never be able to live it down if they knew. The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’ve been writing explicit fan fiction since I was 16 years old. I have no idea what they think I have been giggling about for the last 10 years whenever I’m on my laptop, but I’m glad they don’t know the truth. Some of it is pretty darn explicit and embarrassing.

something-sensible

She’s A Real Pain In The Teeth

I have a secret that I keep from my parents. My mom has no idea that she is the reason why my dental health is terrible. My teeth are a disaster due to stress-induced teeth grinding. She knows nothing about this, and cannot do anything about it either. She is also a major part of the reason as to why I have notable social anxiety and other psychological problems.

She's bound to find out sooner or later I am sure. I do not live with her anymore for these reasons, among others.

Darthd101

Pen Pals

When I was 12 years old, I secretly saw some emails on my mom's iPod touch. The emails were very suggestive and were between my mother and another man. I never told my dad that I saw those emails. I wish I did, because it turned out that she was cheating on him. This is the first time I've ever mentioned it to anyone. It feels good to get it off my chest.

stitchessnitches

Wanted On The Telephone

The secret that I kept from my parents is that I was working as an operator for an adult phone line back in university. I told everyone I know that I was working the phones for our local department store. One day, my dad innocently asked me whether they were hiring, as he thought he might want to give my alleged job a try. Nope. We were not...

Bornthisweigh

Mind Over Matter

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was heavily addicted to painkillers and other mind-altering substances for the entire time that I was away at university. I think that this information would devastate them if they ever found out, and I can’t imagine ever telling them about it. As far as they know, my time away from home was nothing more than a perfect, storybook college experience.

Alvadar65

Video Games

Back when I was in the seventh grade, I started to get into watching adult videos and my favorite kind, for some reason, was guy-on-guy stuff even though I’m a girl. Anyways, I didn’t know how anything but YouTube worked back then, so I ended up downloading and saving something like three explicit gay videos on my phone.

Needless to say, I did not tell my mom about this secret interest of mine. But I had an Android phone so when I deleted the videos, the titles were still in my phone and could be viewed in my download history. For some reason, my mom took my phone from me one day and went through it. She then sat me down and asked me about the video titles she had found on it.

Now, I’m not necessarily proud of what happened next. I’m a very good liar. But in this particular situation, I didn’t have to do much lying. That was because as soon as I started crying and saying that I didn’t do it, she immediately believed me and blamed the whole thing on my stepdad. She said that she’d had a suspicion that he was gay throughout their whole relationship and all that.

After that, she never confronted him and just continued to stay with him even though she thought he was gay. Unintended side effect? That was when I realized that my mom was a golddigger. But regardless, my secret remained intact.

gluntie

I’m Not Who You Think I Am

Sneaking out, bad grades…my secret is a bit different. I routinely pay random escorts to show up to family events as my “girlfriend” so that my parents will stop telling their friends to try and hook me up with their daughters. Every time we have a gathering, a paid date shows up with me to meet everyone, and then they always claim to have to leave early. I pay by the hour. It gets the job done, and my parents have no idea that I’m happily single all the while.

joblagz2

Going In A Different Direction

Back in the 70s, friends and I planned a camping trip for a long weekend. We picked up a hitchhiker headed to Kernville and dropped him off on the way. We thought it was no big deal, but when we got to our campsite, my girlfriend made a chilling discovery.

She found a note from the hitchhiker on her bag. It said, “I could have made all of you disappear forever". We didn’t sleep that night.

adanipse

Lost Backpack

I was exploring the forests near my house with my cousin. We were on a steep hill and as we looked down, we saw that there were a bunch of craters at the very bottom. As we looked inside one of the craters, we saw something strange. There was a backpack in there.

We tried to climb down, but the hill was too steep and slippery to do it safely, so we planned on returning later with a rope. The next day, there was a news story about how there was a backpack with the remains of a girl in that forest.

A guy walking his dog found it after the dog would not stop barking at the edge of the crater and staring at the backpack. My cousin and I decided not to go exploring in the forests anymore after we saw that news clip.

somewhatofalegend

All In Your Head

When I worked in healthcare, I had a patient who got a sinus infection. He stopped taking his antibiotics after a few days because he felt better. Then, overnight, everything fell apart. He got to the Emergency Department, where the doctors realized he was experiencing stroke symptoms.

It turned out that the sinus infection had spread to his cranial cavity. There was so much pus in there that it was twisting his brain. No one thought he would survive the surgery. The family was advised to expect the worst, but amazingly, he somehow made it through. It wasn’t an easy recovery though.

He ended up needing three more surgeries to wash all the pus out and then spent almost two months in the hospital. Take your full dose of antibiotics, people!

slappy_mcslapenstein

Break And Enter

When I was 16, I went to a flea market. It was the last day the flea market was open before closing down for the season. I came across a man in a booth selling knives, throwing stars, and all sorts of bladed instruments. Behind him on a rack was a katana. He sold it to me for $20.

Now, what is a 16-year-old guy going to do with a katana? Nothing. I kept it for years. It stayed either in a closet or under my bed for years. When I went to college, it followed. Fast forward to August 18th, 2006. I was living by myself in Charleston on the ground floor of a one-bedroom apartment.

My katana was under my bed. I have a sliding glass door with vertical blinds, a screened in patio, and a hammock hung outside. That night, around 3:00 AM, I woke up and heard my blinds rattling. I thought to myself, "Wow, it's windy outside”. But I soon came to a horrific realization.

I remembered that I never sleep with the sliding glass door open, and that someone was in my apartment. I was laying in bed, thinking of things that I can use as a weapon to defend myself and my home with. Then, I realized that the sword was under my bed. Oh, yes. It was righteous.

With my sword gleaming in the dim light, I crept around the corner and looked into my living room to find two very large men stuffing my belongings into garbage bags. When you're amped up on adrenaline, you say some dumb things. So, I yelled, "YOU! STOP!" They both turned and ran out the sliding glass door.

The only thought that going through my mind was that those jerks have my stuff...and I want it back! I chased them out of the door, through the wooded area behind my apartment and into a marshy area behind that. All of this was in my underwear, no shoes, no contacts, and with a big sword.

Sadly, I lost track of them and sanity seeped back into my brain. I realized that they might have a piece, I'm practically blind, carrying a very large blade, and the only people that know that I'm out here are me and them. I went back inside and called the authorities.

The burglars had cut away my screen on the patio and using the blade as a prying instrument, forced the lock on my sliding glass door open. How they managed to get past the hammock in the dark without getting wrapped up like a spider's prey is beyond me. For weeks, I made rounds to area pawn shops, but to no avail.

None of my stuff was ever recovered and I was uninsured. I lost my laptop, my DVDs, all of my video games, and my keys.

DeepFacedKiteFlyer

Distant Relative

I met a guy who had been traveling through Australia with a couple of friends, hitchhiking around as many people have done. He told me a story that I'll never forget.

One day, one of his friends told him they were near his distant uncle’s house. He'd never met him before, but he got his uncle's phone number from a family member. He called him and, as the hitchhikers had hoped, the uncle offered them a place to stay for the night.

He picked them up and drove them to his rural property way out in the bush. They said he seemed like a pretty friendly, cheery, and normal guy, so they had no worries about staying with him.

When it was time to set up a place to sleep, the uncle opened a closet that was totally full of sleeping bags and bed rolls. They didn’t think too much about it at the time, but looking back, that was a sign that something wasn't right.

They set up on the floor and stayed for a few days. Then the uncle drove them to the bus station, and they went on their way. A year later, the authorities took the uncle into custody. It turned out that he had been picking up young hitch-hiking backpackers, then taking their lives.

The guy telling this story was 100% certain he had slept in the sleeping bag of one of his victims.

pasomider

Warning Signs

My ex and I were out driving on a big Canadian road trip a year ago. One night, it was getting dark, so we decided to grab a hotel room and settle in for the night. On the way, we came across a car and a girl standing on the road and trying to flag us down.

Keep in mind, this was in a rural area and we hadn't seen any cars in a while, so we were already confused and weirded out.

Just to be safe, we stopped, mostly to see if the girl needed help. As my boyfriend rolled down his window to talk to the girl, I slammed my foot on the gas and took off. I happened to look at the opposite side of the road and saw three guys coming out of the bushes with baseball bats.

I don't know what that girl was doing, but I'm pretty sure she was going to lure us into something horrific.

Loundlooo

Shed Some Light

I lived in a house with four housemates for a year. We had a pretty big backyard with motion detector lights, a garage, and a tool shed that we never really used. Two of my housemates were very superstitious—they believed in ghosts, spirits, and other stuff like that.

So, when the lights in our backyard kept turning on randomly, I assumed it was animals, while my housemates were sure it was a ghost. One even said that she had caught a man-ghost looking through our window one night. She thought it was scary; I thought she was just being ridiculous. A few nights later, though, I became a believer.

I looked outside and swore that I saw a man standing behind the mesh door that led into our back patio. I screamed, got my roomies down, and made us all investigate. But by the time we got out there, whoever was there (if anyone had been there at all) was gone.

Anyway, flash forward a few months. I moved back to my home country and FaceTimed with one of my housemates. Well, it turns out that man hadn’t been a ghost. A homeless man had been living in our toolshed for God knows how long. It gave me the creeps for sure.

ieams85

Let Us In

I lived with three other girls in college. All three took off early for spring break, leaving me alone in the house. During my first night on my own, I heard someone bang on my front door at 2 AM. Then I heard more knocks at my back door. A man yelled, “I’m an officer. Open the door!” I didn’t believe him. I stayed in my room and started to panic.

As I heard bodies slam against both doors, and a man saying, “Little girl, open the door. We know you’re alone,” I frantically dialed 9-1-1. Thank God I did. As the sirens approached, I saw officers chase four boys from our school hockey team and pin them face down on the grass. I had to file restraining orders against all of them.

etrain828

The Lady In The Hall

When my son was not even three years old yet, he came to my room and kept telling me "the lady" was in his and his sister's room. I was half asleep and dismissed it, and told him to snuggle up in my bed with me. So he got in my bed, but every few minutes he kept waking me up to tell me about "the lady". Then he says she is at my bedroom door.

In an effort to show him there is no lady and we should just go back to sleep, I pick him up and walk him in the dark out of my room. We stand in the hall and I say, "See, there is no lady". His reaction terrified me. He points his finger down the hall where there is nothing to see at all and says, "Mama she’s right there. That's the lady! And this is HER house".

Nothing, not even a shadow where he was pointing. I kind of just tried not to show he was freaking me out and said, "Okay, she must be a nice lady," and took him back to my bed where he promptly fell asleep and I stayed awake for hours thinking this "lady" in my 100-plus-year-old apartment must be hanging out and watching me sleep.

kookenhaken

An Intersection Of Eeriness

I had an Android phone that had a Google "cards" feature option that could notify you like "15 minutes to home" if you were out. I thought this feature was annoying and useless, so I kept the feature off. After several months of no cards notifications, the strangest event happens.

One night I'm at home and a card pops up saying "35 minutes to home". It then pins me at a random intersection on the other side of town, let's call it 1st St & Story. I think, that's weird, I'm not even way over there, I don't even know where that is, and I’ve never been to that area.

I go to my card's settings to turn it back off…but it's already turned off. "That's weird". The next night, exact same thing happens.

"35 minutes to home from 1st St & Story". What the? Still definitely not over there. I check the cards feature and the notifications are still turned off, so no idea why I'm getting a notification. A few days later, a friend and I are out running errands, and he misses his intended exit so he takes the next one. Once on the streets, I ask "Where are we? I've never been over here".

Suddenly, a car to our right tries to turn left and crashes right into us. It messed up my friend’s wheel, so he pulled forward to the curb to call a tow truck. We had our kids in the car, so I call my sister to pick us all up. When my sister asks me for the location, I was chilled to the bone. I look up at the street signs: 1st St & Story.

permalink

Calling All Angels

After I totaled my car, a man with burn scars all over his face and hands came up to my window. He asked if I was ok and then came and sat in the passenger seat. He said, “I need you to know that everything happens for a reason". I said, “I know". The next thing I know, I’m talking to the other driver and the authorities, and the guy is just gone. No one else saw him.

cloud9atlass

Geriatric Grandparents

My sister and I were playing outside when an elderly couple walked by our yard. Our yard had this cemetery in the back that was a common local attraction for tourists as the house was built in the 1800s. Most of the graves were of children lost to illnesses. The old couple was pestering my sister. They were asking her to tell them her name.

We got scared and ran inside to tell our mom what had happened. The following week, I heard a chilling story on the news: It was about an elderly couple approaching a teenage girl and then grabbing her. It was the same couple who came over to us that day. It still scares me.

eddieswiss

Pause For Effect

When I was younger, my mother managed the apartment where we lived. Right before Halloween, she told a scary story about a tragic accident involving the two little boys and their mom above us in the vacant apartment. She said if you listened closely, you could still hear their footsteps running up and down the hallway.

At that very moment, we heard the sound of running upstairs. The look on my mother’s face was pure terror. She called the neighborhood patrol man and one of the on-duty maintenance guys to go and check the apartment. They found a homeless mother living there who had slipped through an open window with her two children.

My mom never told ghost stories again.

codeusasoft

What’s Out There

When I was eight, we all had to take swimming lessons at school. My mom worked late, so I went to after-school care and didn’t get home until after it was dark. One day, when we came home, my mom told me to get my swimsuit and towel, and hang them on the clothesline to dry. That way, I would be able to wear them the next day.

I was so confident going outside to do this. I had this real feeling of finally being a big kid, you know? But as I walked into our backyard, everything changed. Suddenly, a man leapt over our gate and started sprinting towards me. I screamed, jumped inside, and instinctively locked the back door.

Thankfully, he ran off and didn't try anything like that again, but it really messed me up. I slept with the light on until I was 16, and I get my husband to go outside for me when it’s dark.

CtrlAltDelusional22.

Face Off

I saw a dude with no face driving a car. No features at all, it was just blank. I did more than just glance at him, too; I was staring. Just smooth skin and a men's haircut. I've never told anyone because it's so ridiculous sounding and I don't think people would believe me. Maybe there’s a rational explanation, but I know what I saw.

onionofbensis

A Unseen Presence

It was like 4:00 in the morning. I’m quite the night owl, so I’m headed downstairs to grab something to drink. The kitchen is separated from the living room by a dividing wall, but I realize someone is in there because I can see a person's shadow from around the corner. I think to myself, "Oh my roommate must be up already. Maybe he has something to do".

So as I turn the corner I say, "Hey, good morning". I immediately get a chill up my spine. No one is in the kitchen besides me. I’m totally, completely alone. In fact, I search the entire first floor of the house frantically, and no one is there at all. So I head back upstairs and give a hard knock on my roommate's door.

No answer, so I slowly open the door. The roommate is passed out asleep, and doesn't seem like he is waking up anytime soon. There is no way he could have made it back up to his room that fast without running, and I would have noticed because the floors are creaky, especially on the staircase.

When he woke up in the morning, I told him about what had happened. His eyes got real wide and he turned pale. He looked me right in the eye and said, "That isn't a funny joke don't mess with me".

It turns out, he had been having bad dreams all night about someone being in the house who shouldn't have been, but whenever he confronted the person, he could never see their face; all that was there was a black silhouette. Haven't had that experience since, and we agree not to talk to each other about it.

DrConradVerner

Rebirth

I have memories that aren't mine. I described them to my mom one day, down to the house I was in, the view out the windows, what I was wearing, what I was doing. My mom looked at me with absolute terror in her eyes. It turns out the memories belonged to my cousin who drowned in a river before I was born.

I hadn't seen any pictures of her, the house, or anything. It still keeps me up at night.

Nightmare_King

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House

I was watching TV at home alone one night. It was Mad TV I think. Or Nick at Nite. Something harmless and not at all frightening. Then I noticed the image on the screen flickered slightly. Curiosity got the best of me, as it often does. I rewound it and then hit pause right at the point where it flickered. What I saw made my blood run cold.

In a little box on the screen sort of embossed into the picture were the words "I WILL BE BACK," and the E in BE was backward. It was so creepy. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had to just convince myself it was a glitch or something but I had the heebie-jeebies for the rest of the night. Luckily my sister came home a couple of hours later.

I've always wondered what that meant, who it was for, and how it even happened.

permalink

Quick Thinking

A girl I knew had a few drinks and decided to hitchhike home to a town about 40 minutes away from the one in which she’d been drinking. Note: It’s very common for people to hitchhike in this area.

She got picked up by a car full of guys, and all seemed fine until she pointed out they could drop her off just up ahead, but they ignored her and kept driving. She had that "instant sober" feeling that only comes with sheer panic.

She played it off like she was clueless and totally down to keep hanging out with them, and she acted like she was very plastered. In the meantime, they were passing through a more forested area of the highway. She fake dry-heaved and said she was about to puke, and really put on a show, so they stopped to let her out. She booked it into the bushes and just didn’t look back until she was safe.

whitethrowblanket

Hang Up

My mom once stopped to help an overturned car on the side of a highway. As we got out of our vehicle, my mom immediately called emergency as I wandered over to see if anyone needed help. Near the wreck, I saw the driver treating a woman (I think it was his wife) roughly. I was only a teenager and the guy was almost three times my size, so I tried to get my mom to come over.

She was busy on the phone, leaving me with these two people. I quickly realized that the man was plastered and looking for a fight. I figured that the only way we were going to get out of this was by playing it cool and then driving away as fast as we could. Once I could get my mom's attention, I'd find a way to tell her, but in the meantime, it was me and the two passengers.

The man asked me to help him move the car. I just stared at him and told him that was a ten-man job and there was no way he and I could do it. Then his wife started to scream at him. She was shouting that she got him hurting her and crashing the car on camera and that she sent the video to his sister. This caused the man to lose his mind.

He picked me up and literally threw me. Then he shoved my mom, took her phone, and pushed her down the bank. Panicking, I told him I had a blade, and I wasn’t afraid to use it if he touched my mother again. With that, he took his focus off my mom and stared right at me. As I tried to calm him, my mom snuck back into the car. When she was ready, I made a run for our vehicle.

On my way, a car that was speeding on the road almost hit me, but I made it to my mom. I heard her start the engine as I jumped in, and we tore off to the local station. The man was apprehended a couple hours later for two charges: one for hurting his wife and the second for assaulting an officer. We call emergency when we see crashes now.

El_Chapos_Cousin

How Kind

Once, my friend went out and met this girl who seemed really nice. After drinking with her, she passed out and woke up in an Uber. She told the driver that she didn’t know where she was. He told her that a girl brought her to his car because she wanted to make sure her "friend got home safe". My friend insisted that something very wrong had happened and told the Uber driver to pull over. He was a good man; he immediately believed her, stopped the car, and called for officers to come and figure out what was going on.

When the officers heard what happened, they said they recognized the address that the Uber driver had been given by this mystery girl. It turns out that there was some kind of human trafficking operation. A girl would slip something into a pretty girl's drink, then pour her into a cab, and send her to the same house. Until my friend called in, none of the girls had been seen again.

spacelordmthrfkr

Freak Incident

When my friend came home after work, his wife was gone. He thought she had taken the dogs for a walk and so checked the normal walk route. Then he saw all of these flashing blue lights. An officer stopped him and said he wasn't allowed to come any closer. But my friend had this sinking feeling. He looked over the officer's shoulder and realized that there was a woman bleeding on the sidewalk. That's when his stomach dropped: the woman was his wife.

It turned out that she had been on a walk in her neighborhood when a man randomly lunged for her. He had just been released from a mental institution and randomly happened to cross paths with her. Sadly, her injuries were too extensive and she passed in the hospital. It's the scariest story I've ever heard because it's so meaningless. This man ended her life for no reason.

Nick_Pears

Baked Even

There's a big bread factory in my town. One day, years ago, maintenance men had to go into the bread oven to fix some issue. The oven had been off for 24 hours before they arrived, but it was still hot. The maintenance men didn't want to go in, but the company insisted, saying that anymore time lost would lose them even more money.

So the maintenance guys took out baskets that held the raw bread on the conveyor belt, climbed onto the conveyor, and started up the machinery. Almost immediately upon entering the oven on the conveyor, the maintenance guys realize that something is terribly wrong. It's way, way too hot to be safe. They tried to run out, but there were too many baskets on the belt for them to get out. The path was blocked. They were trapped.

The only thing they could do was stay on the conveyor and go through the oven, a slow and horrifically painful process that essentially baked them alive. Those outside assisting with maintenance had to listen to their screams. Then the oven went completely silent. They saw one burnt body emerge on the other side of the oven. The second man somehow lived, but only for a few moments.

tails142

Baked Even

There's a big bread factory in my town. One day, years ago, maintenance men had to go into the bread oven to fix some issue. The oven had been off for 24 hours before they arrived, but it was still hot. The maintenance men didn't want to go in, but the company insisted, saying that anymore time lost would lose them even more money.

So the maintenance guys took out baskets that held the raw bread on the conveyor belt, climbed onto the conveyor, and started up the machinery. Almost immediately upon entering the oven on the conveyor, the maintenance guys realize that something is terribly wrong. It's way, way too hot to be safe. They tried to run out, but there were too many baskets on the belt for them to get out. The path was blocked. They were trapped.

The only thing they could do was stay on the conveyor and go through the oven, a slow and horrifically painful process that essentially baked them alive. Those outside assisting with maintenance had to listen to their screams. Then the oven went completely silent. They saw one burnt body emerge on the other side of the oven. The second man somehow lived, but only for a few moments.

tails142

Period Piece

I worked as an engineer and, unfortunately, being security detail came with the job, considering the hours were from 2 PM-11 PM. I was doing some rounds, and we’d noticed the previous day that there was a lock to an electrical room that had been removed. It was mid-winter, and we figured someone was trying to stay warm.

As much as I wanted people less fortunate to get ahead any way they could, it was my job to make sure that there wasn’t someone occupying some spot on the property. So, I went to check on the room. I walked up and noticed that the door was cracked ever so slightly. I popped my flashlight out and beamed it inside there.

There was slightly less than a foot of space between the wall and the machines that were in the room. Thinking it would be impossible for someone to be crammed inside, I did a lazy scan and went to close the door. As I was heading to the stairs, I could hear a shuffling behind me. It was late. There’s nothing going on.

I was newish to the city, so seeing owls or really big rats was still a thrill. So, I went back up and popped out the flashlight, but this time I crouched down to see the space beneath the machines. Sure enough, I saw legs. I called out to whoever it was and told them they need to vacate. They stayed still for a while.

Then they started to wriggle themselves out from the tight space. I stayed there because procedure would be to escort them off the block entirely. A woman popped out looking rough and started muttering absolute nonsense. She was taking her time, and it was snowing, so I got a little aggravated and told her to hurry up. Her insane response was absolutely horrifying.

This woman turned to look at me, stuck her tongue out at me with her mouth gaping, broadened her stance, and started to dig at her crotch. She pulled out a warm, totally used tampon and threw it at me, hitting me in the jaw and neck area. Then she proceeded to clamber away from me just yelling about something nonsensical.

theycallmeick

Tipped Off

I was a hostess at a nightclub. I had a tip jar at the front. It was a Saturday night, so it was looking nice. This dude came up and started talking to me. Apparently, while he was talking, he nudged the tip jar behind my computer screen, so I couldn't see him take $120. I only noticed when he went back into the club.

I told security who checked the cameras, saw him do it, chased him down, and forced him to give me my money back. It felt great—but then things took a dark turn. As they were dragging him out, he looked at me with this crazy look in his eyes and said that he was going to wait outside for me. All of the security guards walked me to my car that night.

crusty_peach

Satan Take The Wheel

I was driving home from work one morning and was waiting to turn right at a stop sign on a somewhat rural road. A number of cars were turning left onto the road I was on. As the last one passed, a blue minivan, I locked eyes with the driver. I nearly jumped out my skin from fear. I am 100% convinced that I either saw a demon or some physical manifestation of pure evil.

The minute I noticed him, the hair on my neck stood up and I felt physically sick. From what I remember, he had no deformities or anything explainable, but something still felt so...off and terrifying about him. It was like looking at something ALMOST human. This was probably two years ago now, and I've never forgotten that otherwise normal ride home.

wiscowarrior71

None Of His Business

When I was maybe seven or eight years old, I went to a local Burger King with my mom. I was impatient to eat, so I went to go play around in one of those plastic playground things that are about 20 feet high. There were no other kids in it, so I just started to climb to the highest point. But things got really weird, really fast…

A businessman in a white shirt and tie looked at me climbing up, then calmly put his burger down and proceeded to climb up after me. He didn't say anything as he did it. I was old enough to think that this was weird, and had flashbacks to our school counselor talking to the class about getting kidnapped and such. I rushed to the slide and ran straight to my mom.

I gave her a giant hug. I didn't tell her about the incident until later.

Permalink

Coming In Handy

My sister's bedroom was on the second floor of our childhood home. Late one night, she suddenly screamed and said she saw a hand on her window. We thought she was just having a nightmare and told her to go back to bed. The next morning, when we all woke up, we made a truly chilling discovery. We found a ladder leaning up against our house by her bedroom window…

Ruddiver

Getting Up Close And Personal

I drove my sister to get sushi in a not so good part of town one time. We were in the car about to get out, and I reached down to get my wallet. I looked back up to find the creepiest, most strung-out looking human being I've ever seen in my life. He had his face against her window, licking the glass. He then pulled his sleeve up to show us some scars on his forearm, face on the glass all the while.

I don't drive out to get food at that restaurant anymore...

Brosendorfer

Gone Girl

My cousin works at a truck stop in Kansas. She told me about some guy who parked his truck and got out, and then a woman got out of the passenger seat. It was kind of cold, so the trucker was wearing a coat and hat. But the woman was wearing summer clothes. My cousin thought nothing of it and did her whole "Hi, welcome in".

The trucker bought a coffee, but the woman just stood there in the doorway. Now my cousin was freaked out. She didn't want to be rude, but she was a teenage girl alone in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. "Excuse me miss, do you need anything?" She asked. "Who are you talking to?" The truck driver asked when he got to the checkout.

"The woman who got out of your truck?" My cousin pointed, but the woman had disappeared. She told me she had never seen a look of such pure terror on a man's face before. He just whispered a quiet "Oh no". Got his coffee and left. The woman did not get back into his truck, and my cousin couldn't find her in the store afterward.

She says it was one of the most terrifying experiences she had ever had while on that job.

Spirit_of_the_dusk

Man’s Best Friend

My family has a Bernese mountain dog called Ava, who is very big. She’s a quiet and lazy dog, but she also seems to be alert at all times. One night, my parents went out for dinner and left me at home with Ava. I was downstairs watching TV and my lounge is right next to the front door. At around 8:00 PM, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see a guy in fairly plain clothes standing there. He told me that he had a delivery for me. I was confused because he didn’t look like a delivery driver, and he had no parcel. Suddenly, I turn my head and see another guy around the side of my driveway which goes to our back door. This other man is clearly walking towards my back door.

I freak out and the guy at the door notices this. He barges through, shouting for the other guy. This is when Ava wakes up and begins to let out the loudest bark I’ve ever heard, making the guy stumble back. She rushed towards him and jumped up, grabbing his shoulder and literally throwing him out the door. His buddy came along, but saw Ava and started to run.

The other guy managed to slip out of Ava’s grip and run down the road. I somehow managed to get Ava to stay so I didn’t lose her, and they got away. I was so shaken up. I called my parents and then the authorities, and I gave them a statement. It’s safe to say that Ava got plenty of treats from then on, and I always keep her nearby when I am on my own.

reggie2006

Railroaded

I live in Tokyo and commute via those famously crazy crowded trains daily. There exists on them this kind of unspoken agreement that everyone works together to make this suck as little as possible. But that’s only when the trains are full. About two stops before mine, the train goes from sardine can to everyone on this train could lay on the seats and have room left over.

So, usually, I can sit down at this point. I'm also very obviously not a Japanese woman. But despite my appearance, I'm fluent in Japanese. One day, I sit down when the train empties out, ready to enjoy the 10 minutes of sitting that I get on my hour-long commute. I'm sitting with my legs crossed, as there are maybe ten people in the whole car and I'm not in anyone's way.

All of a sudden, a hand reaches out and grabs my bare knee. I jolt straight out of my skin, rip out my headphones, and look up at the hand's owner. It's some skinny old Japanese dude, at least in his 60s. He points at my legs and, in slightly broken English, says: "You must not cross legs on the train!" I'm totally bewildered by this.

I start to tell him in Japanese that the train isn't crowded right now, and that I'm not in anyone's way. But he doesn't like this answer. He starts to reach for my legs again. I scream as loud as I can, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Thankfully, this was enough to get him to stop that, as another thing you don't do on trains here is make a fuss.

Djtaffi

A Taste Of His Own Medicine

I was standing in line at the local pharmacy to get my prescriptions. This is a small town and I am a regular there, so they know me on sight. I was behind a couple of other people in line, and there were a couple of people behind me. I kept feeling a tickle in my hair in the back of my head, but every time I looked behind me, the guy there was a few steps back and looking at the floor.

This happened several times by the time I reached the front of the line. The pharmacist told me she wanted to talk to me about my medication in the consultation room. I thought this was weird, because we both knew I had been on this medication for years and would be for life. Nothing new. I get back to the room and close the door, and she comes in from the pharmacy.

She told me that the man behind me had been stepping forward, sticking his nose in my hair, and smelling it before stepping back and looking at the floor. This shook me pretty badly as this is such weird behavior, especially in my little town. The pharmacy staff insisted on having me wait there until the guy was distracted by another pharmacy employee.

They then had a security guard walk me to my car and watch me drive off, to make sure I was gone before Hair Sniffer came out and saw what car I was driving or what direction I was going in. I still use this pharmacy and some of the same people still work there. I will always be grateful that they took the initiative to make sure I was safe that day.

Cygnus875

Wet And Wild

When my mother was young, she went swimming with her friends. While there, she had to watch helplessly as her friend was sucked into a whirlpool at the bottom of a drainage lake. They didn’t find his body for days. That’s why I never learned to swim.

Squaragus_Asparagus

Incognito Infiltration

I was a director of my college’s student government. There was this dude who was always willing to take on projects, so I assigned him a lot of work. I remember thinking he was pretty charismatic and well dressed, and he'd always done good work for me. So when he told me he owned a start-up clothing company, I bought some things from his website.

The next year I saw an article with his face on it. I found out that he was not what he seemed. He had been taking extracurricular classes as an excuse to stay on campus, even though he'd been kicked out of all his classes for a horrible reason. He'd been forcing himself on women at the university. His father was a wealthy professor and covered it up every time it happened. He seemed so normal.

HomelessSock

No Strings Attached

A co-worker's dad went into the nursery to check on his newborn baby only to find a horrific sight. The baby had reached for the blinds strap, somehow tangled his neck up, and began choking. The baby was already blue, and all of the veins in his face were popping up. Grandpa frantically called for emergency. Thankfully, EMS arrived in minutes and had the baby breathing again, but as a mother, I can't imagine anything scarier.

Offthepoint

The Phantom Of The Highway

I was driving one night in a really foul mood and speeding. Like when I say “speeding,” I mean at least 25 over the limit. Anyway, this car gets behind me and for some reason I can just tell it wasn’t an officer. It was a full-tinted Chevy truck with weird lights on it. Once it got behind me, I got a really eerie feeling I can’t explain. My body just knew something was wrong.

I figured if it was an officer, they would light me up for speeding, but for some reason they just kept pace with me, also speeding themselves. At this point I’m getting a little weirded out, so I turn off the freeway…and they follow me. I turn into a gas station and get out. If I’m going to get jumped, at least the cameras will pick it up and give my family some closure.

Something just didn’t sit right with me. I knew something was up. As I’m getting out of my car, the truck rolls its windows down. And what I saw still haunts me to this day. It was a heavily disfigured guy who just has this soulless stare. He starts to motion me with his finger, like telling me to come closer. I don’t care if he was going to give me the winning Powerball numbers, there was no way in heck I was going to approach his car.

I bolt inside the gas station, and at this point my whole body is shaking. I try to tell the clerk what’s going on as they stare at me, as my story doesn’t make any sense. Then, when I go to look outside, the truck is gone. I still have nightmares to this day.

Apprehensive_Art9012

Fortress Of Solitude

This story is 100% true. I experienced it myself in the summer of 1991. When I was about 10 years old, I lived on Woodway Drive in the Fox Harbor Apartments in Paducah, Kentucky. If you look up the address, you will see some woods just to the north of the apartment complex. My friends and I played in those woods every day after school and all day on the weekends.

During the few years I lived there, we cleared a small area in the woods and created a fort from various things we got out of dumpsters. It was our own place that no one else knew about, and it was awesome. One day, as we were walking to our fort, off in the distance we saw a man walking through the woods. He was walking parallel to us, but in the opposite direction.

We stopped talking and halted in our tracks when we saw him. We never saw anyone in the woods, especially not adults. When we stopped moving, he did too. He turned towards us and looked right at us. As I stared at him and was able to make out the details of what he looked like, I felt my heart stop in my chest. Not only was he was wearing what looked like a Halloween mask, he was also carrying an ax in his hands.

We stood there in silence and motionless for what was probably about 10 seconds, him looking at us and us looking at him. Then, he started sprinting straight at us. We did the only thing we thought to do, run straight to our fort. We were probably about 50 yards from the entrance to the fort and, in those 50 yards, he gained a lot of ground on us.

When we finally made it, he was upon us. All of my friends scurried up a tree and were screaming, but I was the last in line. By the time I could try and climb the tree, he was standing right there by us. He was screaming like a lunatic and waving the ax in the air. I was scared, had no idea what was going on, and my mind was blank on what I should do.

I grabbed a large stick and took a nice big baseball-style swing and cracked him on the face with it. He stumbled back a bit, moaned, and took the mask off. The craziest part? I recognized the face. It was the landlord and manager of the apartment complex. A man who was probably about FIFTY years old. He wanted to play a joke on us and thought this was the most appropriate thing to do. He was insane.

Brettuss

Window Shopping

When I used to walk home from the bus stop, I used to walk past a house where a man, maybe in his 40s, lived. If he was out in front when I walked past, we would say hello to each other. Perfectly normal. But sometimes, he would be inside at the window just looking out at me. He didn't wave or show any sign that he saw me.

My friend happened to be with me once when he did this, and she told me that it almost seemed as though he thought we couldn't see him. This behavior didn't happen all the time. Don't get the wrong idea, he wasn't a weird stalker or anything. Just sometimes, maybe about 10 to 12 times in total. Nothing ever came of it.

I eventually stopped bussing and started driving. He moved away from the area a few years ago, and then I moved away too even more recently. But I never forgot the creepy feeling of seeing him behind that window. I just remember that horrible feeling whenever I saw him watching, because I had no way of knowing what he was thinking.

smiles_at_strangers

Mother Goose’s Creepy Uncle

Today, I was standing outside of my dentist's office waiting for my wife. I was minding my own business and having a smoke when this old guy walked up to me from out of nowhere. With seemingly no emotion in his eyes, he looked straight at me and asked me “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

I was about to start laughing it off when I started to realize that he was being fully serious and didn’t mean this as any kind of a joke. I awkwardly said that a woodchuck could chuck as much as it felt like. He just stared at me silently for a few seconds, then turned around and walked away. I just stood there watching him go and thought the whole thing was downright creepy.

Permalink

A Voice From Beyond

Driving through an abandoned section of Baltimore at 3:00 in the morning, my CB radio turned itself on and crackled for a bit. Out of nowhere, some voice over the radio said in a deep Southern drawl, “I ain’t got no panties on". I could see up and down the interstate for miles, and saw not one set of headlights around me for hours...

THREEkoalas

Grin And Bare It

A few years ago, I was living alone in a little house. It had a heavy back door that would swell up after it rained. This always made it get really tough to open, and it would make a lot of noise. Late one night, I had passed out on my sofa in the living room on the opposite side of the house. But I suddenly woke up to a strange sound. Netflix was still blaring away on my laptop, but I guess I had felt a vibration or movement.

As I slowly squinted my eyes open, I realized the outline of someone was standing still in the hallway looking down at me. They were not very large or tall based on how much space they took up in the door frame. Being completely disoriented in my not-quite-awake-yet state, my mind assumed that it must be my girlfriend.

I was unclothed at the time, so I pulled back my blanket with my legs sprawled apart and called to her in my best deep voice "C'mere baby!" I guess once they realized I was a 200-pound man without clothes on, beckoning to them with my downstairs, the person immediately turned on their heels and booked it for the back door. By the time I stumbled up to the door, all I could hear was them taking off into the darkness at a full sprint.

Arnold_Schrodinger

A Devoted Follower

I was 13 years old and on vacation with my parents in Turkey. We were at an all-inclusive hotel and enjoying the holiday. The hotel was full of tourists from different countries. There was this one guy, around 20 years old, who was staring at me for some time. I felt uncomfortable and asked him how he was doing. Wrong choice.

The next few days, everywhere I went, he also suddenly appeared. Not flirting, just lurking for hours and watching me. He had a really strange vibe around him and I felt I shouldn't be alone with him. Now, I was still young and my parents didn't want to leave me alone in a foreign country. So he couldn’t really bother me at any point.

But one night, there was entertainment in the hotel, which became boring to me after some time. I told my parents I wanted to go up to our hotel room and that I would see them in the morning. I left and walked to the elevator. I didn’t know it, but I was making a dire mistake. The guy who had been watching me for days saw me leaving, and he had followed me.

When I saw him also coming into the elevator, I was shaking with fear. He looked at me silently with a sinister smile. "This is it". I thought. Who knows what horrible plans he had for me. And just before the doors of the elevator were closing, someone stuck his boot between in order to prevent the doors from closing. I am not kidding, all I could see was a boot.

The doors opened and it was my dad. He saw that the creepy guy was leaving at the exact time I had left and didn't trust it. He looked the guy in the eye and said hello. My dad took me to my hotel room. To this day, I am so glad for the rescue because I don't want to know what would've happened if he didn't.

dees94

Home Sweet Home

When I was 13 years old, my family moved from a village to a city. This city had a fairly high homelessness rate, so of course, there were always a lot of people looking for somewhere to stay. An old family friend of mine is a letting agent, so he often lets me use some of the unoccupied houses as a sort of recording studio for music that I create in my spare time.

He is totally fine with me using the houses for this purpose as long as I keep them clean and clear out for a while whenever there are viewings. This arrangement works fine for me. One night, after recording at one of the houses, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet there. So, I cycled back, got my wallet, and decided to check the rooms since the door hadn’t been locked properly.

I go upstairs and open the door to one of the bedrooms. Lo and behold, there was a man in his mid-30s lying on the bed like it was his own home. Both of us just looked at each other, completely startled. Neither of us said anything. I guess we came to some sort of non-verbal agreement, and I showed him out. Definitely a creepy experience…

Metal_Warrior_69

Personal Emergency

There was a fatal car accident. The first officer on the scene had recognized that the victim was the daughter of an emergency dispatcher. The same emergency dispatcher who had been relaying all of the information about the crash to emergency services. This was before cell phones, meaning the officer had no easy way to tell her what had happened. He just had to keep that horrible information to himself.

ChipLady

Going Somewhere?

When I was nine, I was playing at the school down the street from my house. It was the middle of summer, and my friend and I were watching some local boys play street hockey. One of the boys called my name and said a man in the parking lot was looking for me. The parking lot was mostly obscured by a nearby building, but I could see an old 70s style van that hadn't been there earlier.

I was walking over to the van when the mother of one of the other kids showed up looking for her son. When she saw me, she said hi and asked me where I was going. When I told her, she took my hand and started to quickly walk away with me. At that exact moment, the van pulled out and sped off.

My friend's mom walked me all the way home, and I wasn't allowed out of my yard without my parents for the rest of the summer. I was so upset and didn't understand why I was being punished. It was only years later that I had understood that I was likely being targeted by some opportunistic loser for I don’t even want to know what.

Im_vegan_btw__

Anybody There?

I once interviewed a woman who told me a horror story about something that happened to her as a girl. When she was ten, she had trouble sleeping. She thought that the Boogeyman was standing in her closet and staring at her whenever she tried to sleep. Every night, she would go downstairs and tell her parents about how scared she felt. And every night, her father would tell her the Boogeyman didn't exist and then send her back to bed.

This happened over several nights, and the father got tired of it. That night, he walked her back up to her bedroom, turned on the light, and said, "I'll show you there's no Boogeyman". As he went to open the closet door, something on the other side held it shut. The dad immediately sent his daughter out of the room and forced the door open to find that a man was in there.

He'd been sneaking into their house every night to stand in the girl's closet and watch her.

JamesRenner

A Midnight Visitor

When I was young, my parents and I relocated across the country to Maine. We lived in a very small town and our house was old, beat up, and on many acres deep in the forest. It had two stories, with the top storey being the main level and the bottom story being the bedroom level. My bedroom had several large windows that looked out into the forest.

I don’t remember having curtains or blinds but I’m sure I must have, because my mother never forgot details like that when decorating my bedrooms as a child, but I must have left them open one night. I remember waking up in darkness, with a faint glowing orb of light hovering just outside my window. I watched it in utter terror as it went slowly across one window, and then the next.

Then it paused, flashing briefly into my bedroom, before shifting into the third and final window and disappearing altogether. I was so upset by the ordeal that I went and woke my parents up, and my stepfather stormed the backyard. There was nothing and no sign of the strange orb. My eyes are watering as I write this. Deep down, as an adult looking back, I realize that orb was anything but magic. It was something much worse.

It was someone’s flashlight. It never happened again, but I’m still afraid of having window blinds open at night.

KindlyAggravating

God’s Plan

When I was in my 20s, I had a car accident that kept me in the hospital for about a year. It was a Catholic hospital and most of the nursing staff were nuns, and besides the normal checks they regularly just stopped in to chat and see how I was doing. Early one morning, there was a knock and this nun came in who I hadn’t seen before.

She introduced herself as Sister Greta, a member of the nursing staff. She sat on the side of the bed and we spoke for a few minutes, then she asked if she could say a prayer for me. She held my hand and said a prayer then wished me well and left. About five minutes later, there was another knock and one of the regular sisters came in to say hi.

I remarked it was going to be a good day because I’d already had one visit from Sister Greta and now I was getting another one. Her face went oddly blank. She said there wasn’t a “Sister Greta” on the staff and there were only two sisters around right now, it being so early. I pointed to the bed, which clearly showed where she had been sitting.

I described her and the habit she had been wearing, now getting a bit unnerved. The sister basically shrugged and bustled off. She came back about half an hour later with a book about the hospital’s history and showed me a picture of some nuns from the 50s. Their habits were exactly the same as Sister Greta’s that I’d described.

Turns out that patients regularly mentioned talking to nuns in old garb that definitely weren’t part of the current staff. I never saw her again or anything similar while I was there...I’m not religious by any stretch. Could the nuns have been pranking me? Absolutely. Despite perceptions they are a funny bunch, enjoy a good laugh, read comics and watch Star Wars. Only, there was never a “Ha, we got you!”

sadzanenyama