Ritual (12:20)

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FDA (12:46)

Not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Ritual (12:50)

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FDA (13:44)

Have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Narrator (13:54)

Back when I was about 16 years old, because of my living situation, at least twice a month I'd have to make a two hour drive from a city back to my parents house in a rural area. I'd say about 1.5 hours of that drive was just country road with nothing but valley corn or some other crop on either side, with the occasional farmhouse or something that you think people might go in and out of willingly along the way. Because of how used to this drive I'd already been beforehand, I didn't think much of driving that long stretch of no cell phone service, no booth area. Nothing had happened yet, so surely nothing would happen ever, right? Wrong. In the middle of one of those drives back, while the night was slowly taking over, as I was driving, I saw a flash of light. Huh. That was weird. Maybe just a momentary anemic moment, but then there was another flash. Well, maybe someone coming this way has their high beams wonky or something. Another flash. Alright, something's wrong. I slowed down a bit so as to not get blinded periodically and swerve off the road and try and figure out what was ahead. Further in the distance, I think I see a person actually multiple. My eyesight's well and good at this time in my life, so I was putting two and two together, getting close enough to realize that there were four people on this crappy country road. They were lined up across it as if to make a roadblock to prevent any cars from passing through. Another note to this is that I didn't see any car around them that they could have come in. I don't remember any farmhouses or sheds nearby either. The rest of this encounter felt like it took place in the span of an hour because of my anxiety, but it was likely no more than five minutes. In hindsight, I'm driving maybe 10 miles per hour now as I'm getting closer and realizing that I'm definitely without a doubt approaching a line of four grown people with huge bright white masks on staring in my direction. Two of them definitely have bats, and one person's holding something that the flashes are coming from. I've seen enough horror movies and heard enough stories about crimes on roads like this to think that in that moment I only have two slow down and hope they eventually part way around my car, running the risk that they could very well get the jump on me in my dinky car or pick up the pace and disregard whether or not they'll have the chance to move out of the way when I potentially accelerate through them. I decided on the latter. I had no means to protect myself with other than a bat in the trunk of my own car, and at the time I was a young teen who could easily get knocked down with a solid slap because of my build and my car was crap enough to where if I stopped I wouldn't doubt someone could break in with just easy force. Now, hearing gravel and dirt kick up from under my tires, I was more freaked out at the potential I could drive myself off the road along with taking out some strangers who I am now certain are carrying bats. As I accelerate towards them, I'm properly freaking out, but I've accepted that this was the decision I made from the adrenaline of fear of any situation. I accelerated more and thankfully the two that were directly in my way lunged out of the way just in time not to get hit. I stop accelerating to catch my breath and see them in my rearview mirror. The other two for some reason are trying to haul ass towards my car as if they could catch up, and it became so real in that moment that there were people who were intentionally trying to get the jump on me in the middle of freaking nowhere. Probably not just crab kids trying to get the kicks and giggles out of freaking someone out, but real adults trying to harm someone that came that way. I just focused on driving out of there as fast as I could. I focused on going forward, didn't turn back on the radio to distract me, and I felt totally shook by the experience in general. The most messed up part, honestly, was getting home and realizing that part of what I was driving on wasn't gravel, it was nails that were now embedded into my tires. I praise God for me somehow having those sturdy tires. I didn't tell my parents the full story about what happened and they just assumed I was being reckless and someone was playing a prank on me with just scattering some nails randomly on the road. I told this story to some of my friends and they told me that I probably wasn't in any serious situation and that they were just trying to scare me, especially since being in a car was a pretty big advantage in this situation, which I can't deny. Still, though it creeped the absolute hell out of me and I remember it every single time I drive down a road that looks any type of similar. This is something that I add onto the end of the story after having told it to friends beforehand, but this actually happened before the Purge movie ever came out. Otherwise I would definitely have felt more comfortable saying it wasn't creepy and just annoying and bothersome. I still wonder where they came from since I very clearly remember there not being a car anywhere close by, nor were there any buildings around, but I guess I could have been wrong. I made a note of it every time I drove in the daylight. I know that this was mostly in a car, but because of the proximity and near intimate relation between my car and an external human's body, it definitely felt like a personal creepy encounter and I'll stand by that at least. Also, given the potential of direct one on one human interaction, should I have slown down enough? I had to tell this to someone other than my friends since they've mostly heard the story and I only just had a nightmare about it again just a day ago and I still don't know if I'm overreacting about the situation. All I know for sure is that those were definitely people and I was definitely afraid. Just for some clarity on the Purge movie mention, I've had separate folks that I've told this story to mention that there had been some incidents they'd known of shortly after that movie came out of people scaring the absolute crap out of others using similar masks as well as being generally menacing, capitalizing off people being scared because they were reminded by that movie that some people would kill for fun given the opportunity. The folks that mentioned it would say that would be another reason to believe it was just a real mean spirited trick or prank or whatever to play on a stranger. I'm not sure if I agree, but I guess it's a possibility. This is a long story, so bear with me. It's all true and I'm very happy I'm still alive. It was the summer of 1997 and I was a grad student in Northern California from abroad. I wasn't an immigrant, just a foreigner getting a degree and planning to go back to the old country afterwards. At the time my girlfriend was still back home abroad since we both expected me to return to Europe after graduation and maybe, though unspoken at the time, possibly get married after. So she came over for a summer vacation. Let's take the coastal highway down to South Carolina, see Santa Barbara, Monterey, Louisiana, Venice Beach, San Diego. Hell even drive down into Baja. The whole tourist enchilada for 20 somethings visiting oh so cool California. My then girlfriend, in this description of her physical features is entirely serving as a preparation for what was to come that day. She had perfectly shaped thin legs and curved body, long hair, and was, generally speaking, quite attractive. She was also borderline paranoid, which I knew then already, and she had already given me plenty of headaches when she dragged me into conflict situations where she demanded that I defend her like a man when the situation had actually been completely provoked by her and deteriorated due to her unstable, let's say, mental tendencies. Hence my tendency to not immediately jump on the thought of getting married. Frankly, I wasn't really sure about the marriage part, but I knew that then and I went along with her demands and plans as usual that day. We were nonetheless in love and all that, but me perhaps a little less than her. So we did drive down to South California from the Bay Area and eventually my old rusty but beloved clunky Zedes convertible I had cheaply acquired as an almost wreck in the Bay Area took us along a beach road to a motel in San Diego. Let's pick a motel near the beach, she said, so we can step out and swim in the morning. Let's check in, get dinner somewhere, and drive around town to get the feel. Okay, whatever she wants goes. She pointed at a motel along the coastal road. There was one after another, but she knew what she wanted so she chose. This is the one, she said. Let's park and see. The vacancy sign was lit. The parking spots in the motel courtyard were all but empty. I drove in and parked. I had driven the whole day and she could see I was tired. I'll drive later, she said sweetly. I was grateful. She goes to the motel counter while I unload our suitcases, coming with the suitcases to the reception. She's talking to a youngish, tall, dark blonde guy behind the counter. Not bad looking at all. He's looking her up and down with small eyes clearly checking her out. He looks at me, then turns around, grabs a key from the board and says, I've got the perfect room for you. And he leads us up the outside stairs. The motel built like just a chain of rooms lined up front, all looking out towards the ocean doors, towards the motel parking lot courtyard. He takes us to a room right smack in the middle of the long building's second floor. The entire motel seems empty. I'm tired. But why this room? I wondered, schlepping the luggage. Why not downstairs? Or at least at one of the inns. The view is the same everywhere. I was thinking to myself. As we enter, I notice one smaller door next to our motel room door which says service personnel only. Our room is right next to it. It was Bill Nero, but it was a big bed and bathroom and on the left wall, just across from the big bed, a giant mirror. It was on the wall of that service room. The guy nods and leaves us to it. As soon as we're alone in the room and he's left, I turn to the girlfriend and say, don't you think this is weird? To which she replies, what? I point at the mirror and take a closer look. Yep, it's built fixed into the wall, not actually hanging on the wall. I find this extra creepy. Don't be so paranoid, she says. Okay, maybe I was. I gotta get something out of the car anyway. So I step outside only to see Mr. Motelman just stepping out of the service room, locking it behind himself and heading downstairs. Once I was back up, I took a big textile blanket and hung it over the mirror. Maybe I'm paranoid, or maybe not. If he was a peeping Tom, he didn't get anything. We take a nap and later, as we head out for some food and checking out the town, night is drawing near. The motel parking lot is now two thirds full. We were early. Good, girlfriend says. I feel foolish and swear to God to myself to be less paranoid. She usually is paranoid enough for the two of us. That mirror, though, well, never mind. So we spend the evening having dinner, driving around until we finally decide that it's time to get back to the motel. It's dark and this was way before gps, so I consulted the city map we had. I sit in the passenger seat, glad that she's driving all while I try to read the map of San Diego in the light of a feeble tiny keychain light. We're driving roughly back in the right direction of the motel, somewhat parallel to the Beach Blvd. That we need to be on. But I realize that we might have gone too far. As I stare at the map in that dim light, she looks in the rearview mirror and then suddenly says, that van there is following us. I look up. Surely now she's the one being paranoid. What? Behind us, one lane to the right, is an old silvery blue van, a bit run down with darkened windows. I swear he's been behind us for three blocks at least, and he took the same turns and he's not passing us. Even when I drive slowly, I look around. There's Hardly any traffic in this direction as we roll on. I seriously doubt her, my rational mind telling me the victims rarely ever get picked randomly. I try to calm her down and look at the map again and get an idea. Look, I said, we actually have to take a U turn left around to get down into the lane that takes us back towards the Beach Blvd with the motel. So I said, looking down at the road at the next traffic light a block away. There's no cop here. Take an illegal U turn at the next light, then we'll see. She nods. I know she's a way better driver than me. She has three more years driving experience with stick shift in narrow European streets. Well, I just learned driving in California. As we approach the next traffic light and crossing, a clear no U turn sign is hanging next to the light. And with that eerie blue van behind us to the right, the light turns red. GFG driver puts the pedal all the way down, motor howling, and shoots over the red light in an illegal U turn around to get to the opposite direction. And the van, I kid you not, it sped up, shot into our lane behind us and did the same thing, wheels screeching on the pavement. Then it accelerates full throttle to catch up, being barely an arm's length behind our bumper, its lights glaring into our rearview mirror, blinding like hail. Hit it, hit it. I mumbled, now panicking myself and my girlfriend accelerates, the van behind us staying on our tail. What now? We shoot down three blocks, the van right upon us. More cars join in our direction though behind us the traffic gets denser and the lanes merge into one. Now the van is still speeding behind us, but close behind the creepy van are four more other cars, all speeding, all pretty close to each other. We can see their lights. We're back on the boulevard where our motel is a one lane road. Many fairly closely parked cars to our right with just the occasional gap or entries to other parking lots. A concrete barrier on the left, no room to go but forward. We're moving Fairly fast, easily 60 miles per hour for sure. Way past the speed limit here, but so is everybody else. How do we shake this van? Surely we shouldn't lead them straight to the motel, right? Girlfriend's super driver suddenly hits the brakes and veers to the right. The van has no choice. It can brake or it will get hit by the cars behind it. And it passes by us on the left, immediately followed by 3, 4, 5 more spinning cars tailing it all fast in one lane while my girlfriend swoops the car perfectly into what feels like a tiny pigeonhole of a parking spot. We can't stay here, I muttered after we came to a stop and catching my breath, totally stunned by her skills. I know, she says, and then hits the pedal again, shooting out into the traffic. But now we're behind the van, safely, at least eight or nine cars behind it. They can't possibly know. Just 200 yards further down came our motel. She took a swing into the parking lot, we parked, and then we rushed into our motel room, the one with the creepy mirror. I looked back the whole time whether anybody had seen us, but nothing. Just a pleasant summer evening wind, the sound of traffic going by, and cicadas. I didn't sleep much that night and neither did she. Just another tourist summer night in San Diego today. I think the thing that triggered the creep in the van was this. I had a run down car with a Northern California license plate and they must have just seen my girlfriend driving. They might not have even seen me, or if they did, just a silhouette. So they might have just assumed that it was just one or two women lost far from home driving around at night. I hear that San Diego is wonderful, and I'm sure it is, but that entire day felt like an intro to a slasher movie.

Ritual (30:42)

A lot of products say they're clean, but what does that mean? Ritual has high standards for what clean means, like their Essential Prenatal Multivitamin, which is heavy metal, tested, clean label project certified and GMO free. It features key mom to baby nutrients like folate, choline and omega 3. Clean isn't clean enough, especially during pregnancy. Get 25% off@ritual.com prenatal these statements have.

FDA (31:07)

Not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Narrator (31:16)

This happened around two years ago. I was around 15 to 16 years old. My family was on the way to Mexico. The main point of going was for my grandfather to meet my little brother, who was about 7 at the time. Some background for those who don't know the roads in Mexico. Once you cross the border in Laredo, Texas, you either take the freeway or the toll road. The freeway is a fast pass to getting thrown off the road and off a mountain, quite literally. The road isn't wide. Big trucks hardly fit in their own lane, as if they respect the yellow line in the middle. Toll roads are supposed to be the safer alternative. You pay a certain fee depending on your vehicle at different spots, and they're supposed to be federal policemen along the way anyways. About four hours before we get to my dad's hometown, we approach a bridge with a lot of traffic, which was odd since the rest of the road hadn't been so clustered. Being from the US we found it odd that some vehicles were driving over the white line on the right side of each lane in the shoulder. My dad, the driver, assumed it was to give access to passing. Keep in mind, we had never driven to Mexico alone and it had been over eight years since we were last there. So there was an 18 wheeler, or should I say 26 wheeler in front of us. It was like those FedEx trucks that pull two short trailers at once, but this one was pulling three normal sized ones. It was moving so slow being the cause of traffic in the right lane. Since he was driving on the shoulder, my dad had decided to pass him. Still able to do it without crossing the yellow line into other oncoming traffic. We noticed that the other cars weren't doing the same, but didn't think much about it. After a while I looked back out the window trying to take a picture of the sunset. When I did this, I saw the same truck coming at us with full speed. I froze in fear as I saw the gigantic thing coming at our truck. My younger brother, 13 at the time, yelled at my dad that he needed to move as if things couldn't get worse. There was a traffic jam in the oncoming lane, so there was no way of passing the vehicle in front of us. My mom began to panic her then undiagnosed anxiety was getting to her and she was constantly turning in her seat yelling to my dad that the truck didn't seem to be slowing down. My dad managed to calm her down and we refused to look back to build onto the anxiety. About three minutes later, my seven year old brother looked back and he said the truck was tailgating us. The truck was flashing its brights at us and the driver's arm was out the window, shooting us the middle finger and motioning us to pull over. As if a miracle, traffic was clearing out at an exit and my dad managed to leave the truck behind. Around 30, 40 minutes later, the same truck came flying past us, passing us as we were going uphill. He blared his horn and pulled into the correct lane again as a tiny white car came over the steep hill. To this day, I still get chills thinking about what could have happened if my dad had pulled over. Mexico is not a safe place if you plan on traveling there. Please be careful and always look at your surroundings. This is a true story. God is my witness, I'm not making it up. I'm 57 years old now. This is a memory that never goes away, never fades. In 1986, I stopped in Topeka, Kansas on my way back from working in the Yellowstone national park for the summer. My friend had also just graduated from high school a few years before and had moved to Topeka with his parents. I stayed about a week. His parents invited me to stay an extra day for their family reunion before I headed back home. We drove way out into the country for their family reunion in his old beater car and spent all day with his extended family. In the late afternoon we had made our way back to Topeka in his older beater car with the broken gas gauge. We ran out of gas. He said that we were probably six to seven miles from the nearest gas station. This was pre cell phone, by the way. We were trying to figure out what to do when suddenly a van with no windows pulled over and asked if we needed help. When you're young, you think these things just miraculously happen for you. When you're older, you know better. We told him we ran out of gas. A friendly enough man offers to take us to the nearest gas station. We get in the van to discover there are a total of three men in the vehicle. There are no seats in the back. We're just sitting on the floor of what appears to be a worktie beat up older model Y van when we clearly hear the men discussing doing us harm. The driver says that he knows a good place to go. The other man in the passenger seat, eyeing me agrees he's in and he nods his approval. Only one man sitting near us says that he's not in and that he doesn't want to be involved in this at all. That he's got a baby now and he's not cool with this. That he doesn't want any part of it. The driver and the passenger seat rider said something under their breaths that I couldn't hear. There was an angry silence while the driver thought this over. In my mind. I prayed one help. My mind felt like I was stuttering thoughts. Part of me was in denial. Another part was in shock. Fear hadn't even set in yet. Just like a jolt of the system of an unreal horror happening to someone else. Because an hour ago I was completely safe, without a care in the world. And now the absurd idea of someone raping me. Yes, I was acutely aware of raping and murdering us both is what they were about to do as well as leaving us somewhere nobody would find us. Those things were flipping through my mind. Have you ever been to Kansas? Lots of lonely, godforsaken, desolate roads to nowhere. If at this point the third guy changed his mind or simply just said let him out first, I wouldn't be sharing this with you right now. They stopped talking to each other. They had never spoken to us at all. From the moment we entered the van, my friend and I didn't speak to each other. We barely looked at each other. We were afraid. I could hear the clanging, rattletrap van's noises and the tires on the road. I saw my friend flexing as if to warn that he would fight to defend himself while they were discussing where they would take us. Everything felt surreal. But the guy in the back, the guy that said no. And just like that, the driver pulled over and the guy in the back opened the side door and let us out. And it was over. The air smelled somehow fragile and tainted. The ground looked different, like I couldn't quite trust it. My friend looked as shaken as I felt. We had survived a close encounter with shark like predators, the blackest, darkest evil. I looked at the gas station in the late afternoon waning sunset. Just before dark. That gas station had transformed itself into a beacon of shining light, a safe haven of shelter and safety, and I knew once we got into that gas station, there was no way I would walk back to the car. The white van with no windows pulling away from us felt so surreal, like looking at it might give it the power to suck us up in its vacuum of villain tint. Today I can still see that van pulling away, a sort of mirage from a nightmare that had crossed over into my waking reality. I'm so glad they changed their minds.

Ritual (39:07)

A lot of products say they're clean, but what does that mean? Ritual has high standards for what clean means, like their Essential Prenatal Multivitamin, which is heavy metal tested, clean label project certified and GMO free. It features key mom to baby nutrients like folate, choline and omega 3. Clean isn't clean enough, especially during pregnancy. Get 25% off@ritual.com prenatal these statements have.

FDA (39:33)

Not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Narrator (39:40)

To give some background information I'm a female and I was doing the driving. My friend, who was a male, was in the front seat and my roommate, who was also a female, was sitting in the back. This happened about a week ago. I went on a road trip to take a friend of mine home to Colorado. He wanted to fly back, but I really wanted to go on a road trip. I live in Ohio, so we had to go through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. It was a 22 hour road trip to get there, not including the rest stops. I'd never traveled this far before in a car. I've flown to Florida once or twice and I didn't see myself getting an opportunity like this in the future. Anyways, I drove most of the way because, well, I love to drive and no one seemed too concerned with it. The person I was taking home, Travis, said if we needed to switch, it wouldn't be a big deal at this point. I've been behind the wheels for nearly 12 hours and maybe it was because I was tired, but the creepiest thing ever then happened. I needed gas and the station was closed, so it was dark. Aside from the lights from the pump and the streetlight that was at the gas station, I was creeped out. But I also wasn't concerned because I hadn't had any problems beforehand. So I do my business with no issues now. This gas station was different from what I'm used to. To get gas, you do the usual select the type of gas you want, but as soon as you pull the nozzle from the pump and into your car, you then have to pull a lever up and then start to pump the gas. It took me a while of fidgeting in order to realize this. I'd seen it in a movie, but right as I realized this, I had heard a voice call out from beside the closed building of the gas station. I don't remember exactly what it said, but if I had to guess, it was a hey. Or psst. Over here. Definitely male. But when I set the pump to where I don't have to hold the trigger, I looked up and I saw nothing there. Again, though, I was tired so I didn't pay any attention to it. This was a deserted gas station. But about halfway through, I heard it again. Another male voice called out to me. Maybe he thought I was alone because my roommate was sleeping in the back and Travis had laid the front seat down. Stupid me. Didn't feel like stopping again, so I ignored it and just kept bumping while looking at my phone. The next thing I heard was a man whistling for me like I was a dog or something. And the absolute worst feeling came over me. Something that I've genuinely never felt before, but it was a mix of fear and oh crap. I literally felt my stomach dropped. I looked up and sure enough, there was a man right there. He was dressed in a brown coat with the hood up and he had red shorts. I don't even know how I remembered that. But after I looked up, he let out a yell. Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you. It was so loud that my roommate, lying in the backseat shot up. Then she rolled down her window. You good? At this point, the man was now speed walking towards me. But it was like as soon as she made herself known, he turned himself around and then he booked it back to the back of the building. I heard a car start and gravel fly as he got out of there. I didn't look at his car or van or whatever he drove because I was admittedly stuck in my place. And I think my roommate knew it too. I know a lot of people try to plan for this type of stuff, especially women like myself. They have a fully thought out idea as to how to handle it. What they're gonna say, where they're gonna run, maybe even who to call. Even I did. But when it actually happens, we're clueless, stuck in fear. And I was stuck. I'm glad my roommate let her presence known when she did. I'm glad I wasn't alone. After I filled up the car, she took over for me. I don't know what that man wanted or why he was yelling at me or even walking towards me, but I don't ever want to experience something like that ever again.