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- [00:00]
Ryan
How do you feel when you switch to GEICO and save on your car insurance? It's like going to work on one Thursday morning and thinking to yourself, just one more day until Friday. But then somebody in the elevator says Happy Friyay. Then you check your phone quickly and discover today is actually Friday. So yes, Happy Friday. Random stranger in the elevator. Happy Friday indeed. Yep, switching and saving with GEICO feels just like that. Get more with geico.
- [00:34]
James
I was 18 when this happened and this happened on the night of my high school reunion. I was outside in my high school with some of my fellow graduates wearing our caps and gowns. Then out of nowhere, there was a random guy who looked to be in his late 30s who approached me. Keep in mind then, I've seen the same guy around a couple other times, so I recognized him. I'm a guy by the way. I said to him, hey man, what's up? He said he just wanted to watch the ceremony and wanted to congratulate us. I thanked him and he walked away. After he walked a few yards, he looked at me again and waved at me. Then he gave me this creepy grin. I didn't think too much of it at first, so I just shrugged it off. Then we went inside and were hanging out by the gym where the ceremony was going to take place. About 45 minutes later, we all began lining up alphabetically by last name. My friend James was telling me something about he heard about this guy in his late 20s who would stalk people. He then described him to be the exact same guy who approached me outside. I was shocked. I didn't think I'd ever come across someone like that. James was going to sit next to me in the same row I was sitting in so he could tell me more about it. Once we got to our seats, we then walked down the aisle to our seats at the band playing Pomp and Circumstance and after we all finally got to sit down, James began telling me more about the guy. He said that the guy would also try to do unspeakable things to people that I'll explain later on. It felt like my blood ran cold on what the guy would do to people, but I kept a poker face and just focused on the ceremony and then told James, we can talk about it more after the ceremony. After all, 190 of us got our diplomas. I told James that we should tell our other friend about the guy so that they're also aware and that the guy straight up told me he'd be in the gym tonight. He agreed. Then we Turned our tassels from right to left, and after our class was presented, we tossed our hats, collected them, and left the gym to go take more photos with our friends. James and I then warned all of our friends about the guy and his intentions. And they were all becoming well aware of the guy. Then we actually saw the guy approach us. He congratulated us for finishing high school. So with straight faces, we thanked him and he just walked away staring at us very creepily. We decided to tell a cop who was there at the time all about this strange guy. And we pointed him out to the guy and he said, apparently there have been several reports about him harassing other people in more ways than one. He then went up to the guy and explained everything to him and then eventually arrested him. As he was being escorted out, he looked at us with an angry look on his face, like as if he was going to get revenge on us or something. We were all very relieved and we never saw him again after that. My friends and I are just really glad that nothing else happened aside from him just being a creep. Always be careful with who you talk to and be extra cautious of who you choose to trust. When I was a freshman in high school, Alyssa was my role model. Alyssa was a senior. She was so gorgeous, confident, smart, and effortlessly stylish. And always owning the room. Back then, I was too shy to talk to her. Seniors are already pretty intimidating to freshmen, but Alyssa was next level intimidating because she was such a queen. I didn't expect anyone to see me the way I saw Alyssa. But I was pleasantly surprised in my senior year. In my senior year, I had started finding cute little notes in my locker. I wasn't expecting that at all, but I was really flattered. The first one said, you were really beautiful in that dress on Friday, with a heart. The handwriting was neat and simple with a cute little heart at the end. More notes kept coming, and always in fourth period, I got a note every week or two. I know they came during fourth period because I checked my locker before and after every class. They were all really sweet. They said things like, your smile lights up the hallway. You shine brighter than any star. Your homecoming photos are straight out of a magazine cover. So stunning. There are more notes that I don't remember. They weren't romantic or flirty. They looked like things that I might have said to Alyssa if we'd ever actually spoken. I thought maybe they were from a shy underclassmen girl. I had my suspicions. I didn't tell anyone about the notes. I really didn't want my friends turning this into an investigation and embarrassing whoever was leaving them. Whoever was leaving these messages. I really thought they meant well. Then in the second semester, my schedule changed. My last class of the day was upstairs near my friend's locker. My friend's last class was near my locker. We swapped lockers. I forgot all about the notes until my 18th birthday. That morning, my friend handed me a note that she found in her current but my old locker. It said Happy Birthday Princess. At first she thought the notes were meant for her since any of those compliments could fit her too. But when she realized that the birthday didn't match up, she put two and two together. Come to think of it, I don't think any of the notes ever even said my name. I admitted that the notes had been happening all year and explained that I didn't want to make a big deal about it. Then my friends launched their investigation that I had been worried about. All the girls in our friend group became detectives trying to solve this mystery. One friend who didn't have a fourth period class stationed herself by the lockers to survey that area. It worked. The notes weren't from a shy freshman or even from a boy. They were from a janitor, an older woman none of us knew. We all recognized her, but I don't think any of us had ever talked to her. She had been leaving these notes for several months, watching me closely enough to comment on my outfits, field hockey games, and even what I posted on Facebook. I saw her at the last field hockey game of the season. She sat quietly in the stands. That was the only time I had noticed her watching me. But I have no idea how I didn't notice her watching me. None of us brought this up to her. I mean, she hadn't done anything wrong, but it felt unsettling in a way that's hard to explain. During my sophomore year, I had a few crazy and scary events happen at my school. One of these incidents was a lockdown a few weeks before summer break. The lockdown started early in the morning, around 8:30 ish, with me and several other students waiting for class to start to say what happens next. You'll need some background info. Our school has these electronic boards that can display messages. Because our intercoms rarely work, the screen for the board will freeze until the situation is over. Along with the boards, each room had a light that would start flashing a specific color depending on the situation, going from red, blue to green. When we started noticing the message on the screen, we thought it was just another Practice lockdown drill and we were asking if the lockdown was real or not. It wasn't until someone barged into our class and exclaimed that a fight broke out near the cafeteria. After that moment, it was as if everyone knew what each other was thinking and panic started to set in. Everyone moved to the back of the room and had lights turned off along with the window and the door covered. The room went completely silent as people began typing to their friends and family about the situation. As most of the class began to move out of sight from the door, our teachers decided to tell the class something concerning. He told the class the door could not lock, and he had a look on his face that seemed stoic, as if this was a daily event. We couldn't block or jam the doors, since you had to pull the doors when entering a classroom. While everyone was texting their friends and families, someone announced that during the fight, someone who was in the fight got stabbed while waiting for the lockdown to end. In the distance, everyone heard several police sirens surrounding the school along with a helicopter. A moment later, I heard three distinct knocks on the door, then someone yelling police. As the door swung open, the town sheriff and a police officer, along with an administrator who is now our principal, came walking into our class with the officer and sheriff with their hands on their holsters. When I saw the looks on their faces, they looked terrifying. The administrator asked if everyone was okay and that the police were investigating the school and the surrounding neighborhoods, so they needed everyone to wait patiently as the school started to move students to the new gym. We saw police cars used as barricades along with K9 units and a few helicopters surrounding the area. The amount of cops around with their dogs made me feel scared with how serious the situation must have been. The school all wanted kids in one area for better security and due to the new gym having giant solid doors that are difficult to enter. After around two hours, the lockdown was finally over and people were allowed to leave. As I was arriving home, I saw several helicopters leaving the direction of the school. It was both terrifying and extraordinary to see so much activity going on. A few days later, I discovered the attacker had everything planned as he had stabbed the other guy. He ran away to an awaiting vehicle with two people waiting for him. It turns out the reason for the fight in the first place was all because of a girl. She had been dating them both and chose to keep it a secret. And when one of the guys found out, well, instead of breaking up with her, he decided to find the other guy. And then fight him for her love. A couple of years later, a friend brought it up during a topic of crazy things that happened at the school and mentioned trying to get to class when the fight actually started. When I overheard him say a few things, I was a bit shocked. He stated, yeah, when I was walking to class, I felt someone leaning against me and I thought it was a friend just goofing around. When I looked down, I saw some random kid leaning against me, clutching his abdomen and only seeing blood. I didn't want to see what happened next. I just ran to class and started texting friends about what happened. A girl next to me chimed in and said I was heading to the cafeteria when a student ran past me. I then heard teachers yelling at students to get to class due to a lockdown. I was behind a pregnant teacher who was slowly walking and had a bad attitude. She tripped and dragged me down with her, but I got up and left her behind because I was so scared. In case you're wondering, the teacher was okay and only startled and the student who got stabbed did survive. He was immediately transported to a hospital and recovered A few questions that I still think about are why somebody would stab someone else over a girl, what happened to the weapon, and what happened to the people who were involved? The police said they never found the object used in the stabbing, but they knew it was just some sharp object. If you're wondering about the suspects, one turned themselves in and told the police about the other two. I learned that the getaway driver was a newly graduated senior helping out a friend and he knew all about the plan and still agreed to it. Before I end this post, I just want to say that I'm glad that the suspects decided to turn themselves in and that the victim survived the attack. I have a few other school stories as well, in case anyone wishes to hear about a gas leak, a severe storm, and two other lockdowns. I hope that the kids who are still attending the school, the kids who are about to start high school, and the teachers I've gotten to know don't have to deal with a situation so absurd and if you have problems with somebody, please try to resolve your conflicts without the need for violence.
- [12:42]
Ryan
How do you feel when you switch to GEICO and save on your car insurance? It's like going to work on one Thursday morning and thinking to yourself, just one more day until Friday. But then somebody in the elevator says Happy Friday. Then you check your phone quickly and discover today is actually Friday. So yes, Happy Friday. Random stranger in the elevator. Happy Friday. Indeed Yep, switching and saving with Geico feels just like that. Get more with Geico it is Ryan.
- [13:12]
Mary
Here and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like are you a fist pumper?
- [13:18]
James
A woohooer?
- [13:19]
Mary
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- [13:37]
James
No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law.
- [13:40]
Mary
18 plus terms and conditions apply.
- [13:45]
James
I'm a female and the story took place when I was 15. I was in high school and there was an older guy who really had it out for me. For some reason he accused me of sticking my middle finger up at him when I was actually just flipping my hair. I genuinely did not give him the finger and I don't know if he really believed I did that or was just using it as an excuse to be weird towards me. He would glare at me if we saw each other in the hallway and overall he just made me feel really uncomfortable. I'll call him Jake. One afternoon I was attending one of my classes about 20 minutes late because I had a meeting with the headmaster. I'm sorry if this is annoying, but I need to describe the surroundings because if I don't, the story might not make complete sense. Our school building had been remodeled just a few years ago and the school bathrooms were open. Plan this basically meant that as you walked down one of the hallways, the toilets took up a huge section of the hallway to the side. The bathrooms were gender segregated but had no doors. The sinks were in the shape of a huge fountain in the middle and each stall was gapless so nobody would ever be able to peek at you as you did your business. I had a woodworking class and I had to walk past that corridor with the bathrooms before turning into where the woodworking classes were. I was walking to class when I suddenly heard a gruff voice behind me shouting hey you. I turned and then saw Jake dashing towards me. I felt scared because the corridors were seemingly deserted as we were on the ground floor and our high school had most of its classes on the upper floors and all the classrooms down here had their doors shut. I turned so that my body faced him fully and began backing away. I don't think I said anything to him, but the look in his eyes was deranged. He looked really angry and twisted. I backed into the girl's bathroom and Jake followed me again. It's all open so he could do that easily. I felt this horrible feeling of dread. I really thought that he was going to beat me up when suddenly I heard a clattering from behind him and a voice calling, hey, is everything okay? Jake came to a halt and then spun around aggressively. He turned to look at me, shook his head and then just gave me a sinister stare before literally sprinting back the way he came and just disappearing. I stayed where I was and I heard footsteps approaching before seeing the female janitor. She was the only female janitor we had and she was always kind to the students, so I knew her well. She looked concerned and she asked me if everything was alright and I remember nodding my head before I forced myself to just walk on. I realized in that moment that my arms were trembling and I had them crossed over my chest as I walked. Once I rounded the corner, I leaned against the wall and took some deep breaths. I know this story may not sound that very scary to some of you, but it's something that still bothers me to this day. It's been almost 10 years since and I still wonder what exactly Jake was planning to do to me. I'm convinced he was going to do something bad. He looked so angry and his eyes, that look. It's hard to describe the look that they contained. He just looked so angry and sinister. If the janitor hadn't come over and sensed what was going on, I really don't know what he would have done. It fills me with dread to think what he could have done to me. I felt very vulnerable and I hated it. From that day on, I avoided walking anywhere alone. We never had another encounter and I just did my best to avoid him even more after this incident. He graduated school before me since he was older and I really don't know what he ended up doing with his life. I just can't help but feel like that janitor was really my guardian angel that day. I really believe something bad would have happened if she wasn't there. And I wish I'd thanked her properly for helping me stay safe. Everyone. In seventh grade, I had this really weird physics teacher. I didn't like him from the very beginning. It wasn't suited for the job at all since he had a terribly short temper and a confusing way of explaining things. But other than him being a genuinely bad teacher, he was just really fishy. He would always compliment the pretty and popular Girls saying how nice their hair looked and how great a certain color looked on them. Sometimes he would even make comments about how short some girls shorts were. I know that this is nothing too bizarre, but given the fact that he was in his mid-50s when he teached in our school and though we were all around 12 to 13 years old, well, I find it a bit weird. It was also the way that he said it. It wasn't in a nice tone, it just made everyone feel really uncomfortable. I remember that one day he went behind the squirrel in the middle of class and had started stroking and sniffing her hair, all while saying stuff like you have really beautiful thick hair, you must take really good care of it. It's so soft. He did this a couple of times, always with the same girl. Except for once he doesn't teach in my school anymore. Thank God. This is kinda uneventful, but it's that lingering question of what if? That's creepy. My freshman year of high school wasn't very easy for me. After recently coming out about being sexually abused as a child, I was really struggling with some internal issues attached to that and I was being bullied pretty badly. This led to a suicide attempt on November 4, 2010 where I took two handfuls of pills. Long story short, I was in the hospital for a week and then placed back into school. I hoped the problems with the other kids would go away, but I was wrong. Of course I kept it myself due to the constant bullying and just always kept it moving. I had biology with this one girl, Sarah. Screw you Sarah. She would always sit way in the back of class and just say all these horrible things about me to her friends. I know it seems cliche, but Sarah was a typical mean girl. After a while, my biology teacher takes notice of this. He was always quirky, sweet, and a really good teacher. So one day he held Sarah after class and I don't know what he said to her, but I had heard my name mixed into their conversation as I was leaving the door. From then on out, she kind of just left me alone. Dirty looks still continued, but the crab talking went down to a minimum. My bio teacher held me after class one day and was just asking how I was feeling. All of my teachers were notified of me being in the hospital when I attempted to commit suicide, so it wasn't uncommon for some of them to pull me aside and ask how I was doing. I was always quiet, polite and did my work. I was a model student, not to brag, so we're just talking about life in general but there was just an odd feeling that I got from him. Something wasn't right, but I just brushed it off. Because he was my teacher, he wouldn't cause me any harm, right? Fast forward to after graduation in 2014. I'm working at a local coffee place and he comes in one night. I'm happy to see one of my well liked teachers. So we start talking. He asked how old I was again and I told him that I just turned 18. To which he then replies, what a shame. You could have come to the bar with us if you were older. He had this really creepy smile on his face that actually gave me the goosebumps. I kinda just awkwardly laughed it off and just wished him a good night on his way out. Why did I send this story, you may ask? Not long after, a news article was shared by one of my friends that he was arrested for sending money out to the Philippines to buy kitty porn from someone and he was apparently busted during a federal child porn operation. I always wonder, what if I let him get too close to me? Would he have tried something? But now I know why he creeped me out so much. So, Mr. Saller, I really hope that I never see you again, even though you're probably in prison. I'll have an article in the description. I also found out that he actually flew out to the Philippines on more than one occasion to actually meet with kids. And yeah, you get what I'm saying. So it wasn't just child porn that he was involved in. What a sicko. I hope he's locked away in prison for the rest of his life. One day during my freshman year in college, I got a random Facebook friend request from this girl. I tried seeing who she was, but everything was blocked. But from her profile pic in the thumbnail, it looked like a girl that I had just met in college. And I didn't remember the girl's name that I just met. I'm just really horrible with names. But anyways, I accepted her friend request, I kid you not. Literally five seconds after I pressed accept, she had started private messaging me, saying things like, hi, do you remember me? And thinking it's the other girl from college. I respond, yeah, we met yesterday, right? Our mutual friends. And she goes, no, from high school. I then look through her pictures and realize, oh crap, that's not the girl I met yesterday. Who the hell's this? Well, she kept sending me message after message of how she would always see me in high school, walking the halls with these specific friends and how I always parked in this particular spot during senior year. She even mentioned the first few classes I had. She wasn't even in those classes at all by the way. This got me a little weirded out because, well, she was right about all of those details. I didn't even remember this girl at all. She started getting a bit defensive in her messages, saying things like, and I waved at you, but you know, you never saw me. And that really upset me. And also, yeah, I saw you walk into class and I looked at you for a long time, but I guess you never saw me. Well, I tried being as polite as I could and I just told her that I really didn't remember her at all. My high school had like 4,000 students and I told her I was sorry. She then asked me out. This is still only 10 minutes after I accepted her friend request. I declined politely and she was trying every move to ask me out over and over to see if I would give in. I finally just turned off my computer and started doing homework or something. Flash forward a year later and I find out a friend of mine from elementary school is actually dating her now. I found that strange, but didn't think anything of it and it actually calmed me down a bit knowing that she might get off my case. One day while I was sleeping at my house, I woke up to the doorbell. It's about 10:30am and I walk out of my bedroom to make sure it's not anybody I know because I look like crap. But as my mom opens the door, there she is, standing right there with my friend. I gave my mom that look, but my mom, being polite and hospitable, invited them in. I'm thinking, great, now she knows where I live. They stay for a good two hours and she just keeps talking to my mom and I while my friend is just sitting quietly on his phone. When they left, I finally explained to my mom who that was and she did actually feel bad. My mom thought she was kind of off anyway. But then my mom sees a friend request from this girl on Facebook, which I thought was extremely weird. A few months later I found out that she broke up with my friend and she starts talking to me again about the whole breakup and I didn't really care. What was weird is that she got my number somehow and started texting me. I talked to a friend about this and he told me that this girl had started talking to him too and would always ask about me and also ask him if I wanted to date her. It was just really weird. I finally told her no yet again and she actually went off about how her three therapists aren't going to be happy about this because I'm making a big mistake rejecting such a really great girl. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she hasn't stalked me in a while now. I mean, I haven't heard from her since I've had friend requests on Facebook from her again, but that's about it.
- [26:38]
Ryan
How do you feel when you switch to GEICO and save on your car insurance? It's like going to work on one Thursday morning and thinking to yourself, just one more day until Friday. But then somebody in the elevator says Happy Friday. Then you check your phone quickly and discover today is actually Friday. So yes, Happy Friday. Random stranger in the elevator. Happy Friday indeed. Yep, switching and saving with GEICO feels just like that. Get more with geico.
- [27:07]
Mary
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- [27:33]
James
No purchase necessary.
- [27:34]
Mary
VGW Group Void.
- [27:35]
James
We're prohibited by law.
- [27:36]
Mary
18/Terms and conditions apply.
- [27:41]
James
When I was a student teacher, I was 21 and I was 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 then inform me that other teachers had overheard some of the students telling each other what they wanted to do to me. While disturbing, many of my friends and colleagues insisted that that's just a part of being a young teacher working with high schoolers. Well, the next day I had a few girls in my class approach me and then inform me that three specific boys were not longer just talking about what they wanted to do to me, but they were graphically describing what they were planning on doing to me in the coming weeks after school in the parking lot. Far more details than I'd like to share. I went to the school 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 crap out of me, however, is not even a week later, one of those boys was arrested and pulled out of school. I didn't find out right away, but I eventually learned that he was being held for the alleged sexual assault of his younger sister. It makes me sick thinking about it. Even to this day. I genuinely hope to never be in the same room with him ever again. It's really terrifying to think of what could have happened had I not had some wonderful staff and students looking out for me. I think this qualifies, if only because it spanned over 10 years and some of the ridiculous length things escalated. Too creepy? Maybe not, but definitely disturbing in some parts. For brevity's sake, I'm actually going to exclude a lot. These are just the parts I have to include for the whole thing to actually make sense. When I was in kindergarten, I met this woman who I'll call Mary. Apparently I actually knew her for a while before my first memories of her because she helped out in my Sunday school class. I don't actually remember that, it's just what was told to me by her and my mother. The first time I remember meeting Mary was when I was walking through the hall of our church. I knew a lot of the adults there and generally felt safe. I was walking down a hallway when this woman stuck her head out of a supply closet and started talking to me, asking me to come over and started giving me the whole you're a good kid, why don't you help me with some sort of spiel? And she knew my name without me telling her. I was about five or had just turned six and particularly aware of stranger danger, but couldn't decide if I should be creeped out or not. There was this strange lady seemingly hiding in a closet and asking me to come over to her. How is that not sketchy? But this was church, and I mean, church was supposed to be safe. She somehow managed to coax me over to the closet. It turned out that she was trying to fill in the birthdays of the kids in my class so they could be given little gifts when it was their birthday, and she assumed that I would know all their birthdays for some reason. Once she found out I didn't, she settled for asking me when my birthday was. I got kind of cagey because I knew better than to give out information about myself, and that was one of the specific things that my mother had told me not to ever divulge to strangers. But then she claimed to already know that my birthday was in April. Wrong. In fact, that's about six months off. I told her she was wrong, but didn't feel right about telling her the truth, partly because I felt her false guests and offers of future birthday gifts with some kind of ploy. But when I wouldn't divulge my real birthday, she called me a liar. And then she threatened to tell all my teachers what a liar I was if I didn't tell her what my real birthday was. That was the point when I ran to go find my mom and explain to her that there was this strange woman in the supply closet who was asking me for personal information and threatening to get me in trouble if I didn't tell her. She then came to confront this weirdo, only to realize that they already knew each other. The woman Mary was someone who helped around the church, and basically everyone knew her. Mary laughed off my claims and assured my mom that I was exaggerating. And of course she would never threaten a kid with something like that, and my mother believed her. My mom explained the fact that my birthday was indeed not in April, but came away from the conversation with the idea that I was paranoid and just overreacting to someone asking for my birth month, either right before that or right after. I had another incident with this woman, and I didn't realize at the time that she was the same person similar to before, only not in a closet. This woman Mary, came up and struck up a conversation with me, saying that she knew how much I loved to help out my teachers and wouldn't I like to be able to help out even more. The obvious answer was yes. Long story short, she was organizing some kind of teachers conference in this cabin way out in the woods. They weren't allowed to have a lit sign, but she was worried that a normal cardboard sign wouldn't be visible at night. So she had decided that the best solution would be to take one of the little kids from the church, dress them up in an angel costume, and have them stand next to the sign for hours, using a small switch to turn a lit sign on when cars approached and then turn it off again so that it wasn't by definition a continuously lit sign. This woman should have worked in sales. I did not see anything wrong with this scenario and excitedly went to go tell my mother about this fantastic opportunity that I had just been given to help someone. She was much less enthused, pointing out that this would be outside in October, when the average temperature at night is under 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I would be standing outside alone, freezing my butt off and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes just to flip a switch so that she could bend the rules about not having an electrical sign. There would apparently be no one there to make sure I was safe from wild animals or any human predator who happened to drive along and spot a random kid out by themselves in the middle of the night. My mom tracked down Mary and gave her a pretty thorough overview of her opinion about the whole thing. Mary said something like, well, fine, I guess I can just go get some other kid to do it then. Which prompted my mom to go to the pastor and tell him what this lady was trying to do. He was a nice guy with three girls of his own, and he put a stop to the whole plan immediately. I could tell that Mary was upset with me afterward for having supposedly told on her and putting an end to this weird scheme of hers, but since I didn't really know her, I didn't care. Of course, after those two incidents, all my teachers became a lot more chilly toward me, and one especially tactless woman flat out told me that she had been warned about me. Come to find out that Mary had gotten revenge on me for effectively embarrassing her twice by making good on her thread to tell everyone I was a troublemaker and a liar too, even though by that point my mother had already told her that I'd been telling her the truth about my birthday not being in April. What a witch. I'd like to say it ended there, but of course it didn't. My family stayed in the area and she continued helping with various social functions, so inevitably we ran into each other several more times. One of the most outrageous things she ever did. I was 12 and my mother had decided to enroll me in some kind of VBS summer school sort of thing. Surprise, surprise. Mary was the main coordinator. This place was so screwed up. Not perverted or anything, but just the sheer magnitude of poor planning was incredible. Lunches were provided, but it was always weird stuff like gogurt and slimy pears that had a texture like raw fish. Basically, all the kids hated everything they served us. On one occasion I was served SpaghettiOs and I tried to make the best of it because at least it was better than the pears, only to find out that Mary had slipped gummy worms in before microwaving them and they had actually melted into the SpaghettiOs. When she found out that I hadn't liked her prank, she ridiculed me for not being able to take a joke and insisted that I eat it anyways. At some point it had also been decided that the schedule could not be flexible to any degree. All age groups were expected to get something like half an hour outside every day. Bear in mind that the state where this took place has unpredictable, sometimes extreme weather. So this included days when it was pouring rain out and our breath was fogging up in front of our faces. They'd pitch one of those little within canopy tents and force us to sit outside under it in little plastic chairs until our half hour of outdoor play was up. Even this one girl whose father had told the teachers beforehand not to make her go outside because she had a fever. Naturally she got worse. They called him to pick her up and he chewed the teachers out before taking her home. It also included days where the temperature exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We'd be forced to line up alongside the building so that we could stand in the shade of the eaves of the roof because it was physically too hot to be in the sun and none of us had access to water or sunscreen. I really wish I was joking about this. We had three kids drop from heatstroke in the same day and have to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. The sheriff personally came out and gave the teachers a massive tongue lashing, threatening to shut the place down if any other kids came into the hospital from there. Of course, then they decided it was okay to bend their rules and keep everyone indoors instead of forcing them outside. There is a point to me mentioning all of this, and that is so that you understand the context behind what happened next. My mother was working overtime and Mary had volunteered to drive me to the summer camp since she was there every day. On this day she had her niece and nephews in the backseat with me. Where this place was, it was out near the edge of town and mostly surrounded by crop fields which weren't in use. The area had a decent amount of traffic, but there weren't many buildings close by. On the left hand side of the building, there were nothing but fields for maybe 2, 3 acres. On the right hand side, a tiny farmhouse, and beyond that a pawn shop and then a gas station. So I was in the back of Mary's van with these other kids and we happened to look out as we're passing the pawnshop, which hasn't opened yet, there's this scraggly bearded man stalking around outside with a rifle or shotgun in his hands. Not like, gee, I wonder if it's open so I can sell my gun. But like, he was either an owner and thought an intruder had broken in, or he was the intruder and was in the process of breaking in himself. We all started telling her in a panic about this guy, and she just tells us to be quiet. And then tells me that she knows I put them up to it and that when we get there she's going to tell all the teachers not to listen to me that day, inexplicably, the schedule that was never changed unless the sheriff threatened the teachers was randomly changed so that my class was sent outside immediately instead of later in the afternoon, and the doors to the building were locked so that we couldn't go back inside even to use the restroom. I spent like an hour fearing for my life because I knew if that guy robbed the pawn shop and tried to escape on foot, there was nowhere for him to run to that had cover except our building. I even begged to call my mom and Mary refused to let me anywhere near the phone, saying that my mom had better things to do than be bothered by my stories. So yeah, basically the coordinator of the summer school changed the whole schedule for the day and locked a bunch of kids outside just to get back at me for reporting seeing a creepy man with a gun nearby and also forbid me from contacting my parents, which she was never supposed to do. My mom was ticked when she picked me up and learned that I'd been forbidden from calling her when I felt I needed to, although she didn't realize the full context of the situation until later when I had a chance to explain it better. It doesn't even end there, although I wish it did, because the last part was the worst series of the events that has ever happened to me. I guess it was kind of a perfect storm. From 6 to 10 years old, I had been best friends with this boy whom I'll call Michael. Not boyfriend, girlfriend, but real true best friends. I don't think we ever really argued about anything, except maybe his father, who seemed nice but always tried to spin whatever I said into some kind of innuendo that he could complain about me to my parents. Like getting on my case about having mentioned the term pussy willow once, or claiming the word pooter was grossly offensive when he knew that that was the alternative that my own parents made me use instead of fart. I got some weird vibes from him, but not enough to warrant his own post. Michael and I were inseparable up until his family decided to move three states away, after which they only occasionally dropped in to visit every couple of years. When I was 14, they dropped in to visit again, and so on Saturday I was invited to stay over at the home where they were staying at while they were in town to catch up with them. I had also been friends with a girl I'll Call Julie, who is my age. And Michael had been friends with Julie's younger brother Nate, who was his age. So Julie and Nate and their parents were also there visiting with Michael and his family. I had grown apart from Julie to other reasons, but having everyone back together was fantastic. I was on cloud nine all day. Julie's younger brother had been a bit of a handful when he was little. He had temper tantrums, kicked small animals, randomly, screamed at me a couple of times, and would sometimes cry for no reason while claiming that somebody else had hurt him. In my opinion, he was severely bullied by his own sister. So I never took any of it personally or really considered it his fault since I hadn't seen much of him or his sister in years. By this point, I had no idea how he was getting along, but because he was so much more grown up, I assumed that he had just grown out of it. Four plus years had passed at this point. That afternoon we all played tag in the front yard, which was sort of a U shape and surrounded by hedges. At some point I had lost sight of the others. I guess they had gone inside or something. I was at the end of the U that was near the garage door playing fetch with Michael's dog and the big walking stick when I heard Julie's mom call my name from the other end of the U, which was near the house's front door. I took the stick because I thought leaving it lying around would be rude and started running around the U on. Apparently when Julie's mom had opened the door and called my name, Nate had darted out the door and came running around the U to come find me. Only he didn't say anything and I didn't know he was there. We were both closer to the side of the bend and when we reached the middle, there was no chance to stop. We ran straight into each other. He landed flat on his back and I nearly fell over too. His chin hit me hard in the collar though. We just stared at each other in shock for a second. Finally, I reached a hand forward to help him up and ask if he was okay. Immediately his eyes filled with tears. He started screaming, seemingly in pain and in absolute terror, turned around and bolted back the way he'd come. I knew that he had to be bruised at least as badly as I was, but was also totally confused. The way he was crying. I was afraid that he might have broken an arm or leg or something. But if he was hurt that bad, then how could he run so fast? Or if he was afraid, what was he Afraid of. I ran after him, feeling like there was an axe murderer behind me or something. I reached the door, but nobody was there and it was closed and locked. I knocked and Michael's mother answered it. She saw me still holding the walking stick and looked confused, but let me inside. I could hear Nate screaming and crying in the kitchen. His mother had him up on the counter and was looking him over, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. She seemed just as confused and scared about the whole thing as I was. And then he saw me and immediately pointed and screamed. She beat me with a stick. He just screamed the same thing over and over. I didn't know what to do, but seeing me seemed to make him hysterical. So I left him with his mother in the kitchen. I wanted to go find Michael and the others, but Michael's mom refused to let me go downstairs where he and the others were. So I just stood by myself in the foyer next to the door and just tried not to panic. Maybe Nate hadn't grown out of crying wolf about other people hurting him, but this was way different from what he'd been like when he did that as a little kid. This time he seemed hysterical and he seemed like he legitimately believed what he was saying. I had been holding the stick when we ran into each other, even though I certainly didn't hit him with it. Maybe he didn't understand what had really happened. I tried to go back into the kitchen, thinking I should try to explain to his mom what had really happened, but Michael's father stopped me. I don't even know where he came from. I must have been really freaked out because from my perspective it seemed like he just appeared in my way. He told me not to go in the kitchen. I tried to explain that I needed to talk to Nate's mother and explained very shakily that Nate was telling her that I attacked him. So Michael's father then asked me, well, did you? I told him no, of course not. He pointed out that I didn't seem to be hurt at all, which I refuted, telling him that I'd gotten my own bruises from running into Nate. He asked for me to show him. I said no and he asked why. I pointed out unnecessarily, I think, that I was a 14 year old girl so I couldn't just take off my shirt the same way a 12 year old boy could. He asked me why again and persisted in stating that I needed to show him and that if I didn't, he couldn't help me because I refused to give him any reason to think that I was innocent. This miserable SOB who had known me growing up and had allegedly been a close friend of my family for years and knew that I had never hit another kid in my life, was essentially trying to blackmail me into undressing in front of him. I still feel angry just thinking about it, because the entire time my family had known him, he had always come off as his perfect, kind and caring father. And he had always found things to nitpick in whatever I said. Even as a first grader who didn't even know what sex was, somehow I was allegedly spouting all kinds of innuendo all the time. And now this. I've learned as an adult that people who talk excessively about a topic generally do so because it occupies their own mind way too frequently. And it really makes me wonder if maybe this wasn't his problem all along. If not, I don't know how to explain anything. All I know is that night it was like everyone I knew had gone insane at the same time. But I did say no to him and then went into the kitchen more to get away from him than anything else. Nate's mother was still frazzled, but was starting to seem more exasperated than anything else. Somehow he still hadn't stopped crying. I asked her to please call my mom to pick me up. That hadn't been the plan. The plan was that I was to stay until after dinner, but I couldn't handle the situation anymore. She could see that I was shaking and agreed. I asked Michael's mother if I could say goodbye to any of the others, but she didn't want me anywhere near them. My mom was tense and quiet all the way home, and I was really afraid of what she might have been told over the phone. She asked me once if there was anything I wanted to tell her. I panicked and said no. The next day was Sunday. I habitually stayed with the adults instead of going to the teens class because, well, the teacher, who was coincidentally Mary's husband, picked on me sometimes. In retrospect, I should have spoken up about that, but I was an insecure teen. I thought I might be oversensitive, and I wasn't really sure how much of what he said could be considered harmless ribbing. The end result was that I didn't see Julie, so I had no idea how the situation with Nate had resolved until after church was over. The phrase news spreads like wildfire doesn't even begin to fit the bill. It was like everyone had developed telepathy. I overheard part of the story from Nate's mother while she was telling it to Mary. Nate had continued to insist, even after I left, that I had savagely attacked and beat him for no reason. He had some pretty nice green bruises that seemed to back up his claims. I did, too. Right on my collarbone and shaped exactly like his chin. Nate's mother was completely unnerved by how sincere he seemed and was torn between believing him because he was so grown up now, because there were those bruises because he had been legitimately too scared to come to church in case he saw me again, or not believing him because I had been so scared, too, because she actually had the decency to remember what kind of kid I'd been growing up. While I hadn't been there, Julia told all the girls in my class that I attacked her brother. Michael told me that he didn't know if he believed that I had done it or not, but his parents refused to let him stay in contact with me because they were both certain that I was guilty. Julie and Nate's parents had wanted to talk to my mother to try and resolve whatever had happened because they were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. But they couldn't find my mom, and they didn't want to take the time looking for her because they had left Nate home alone and were eager to get back to him. So instead, they told the whole story about what had happened to Mary, trusting that she would convey the whole situation to my mother. Well, that's not what happened. Mary changed the story. Now it was Nate's parents, herself, and Michael's parents who all knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was guilty, with the added insinuation that it might not have been just an assault, because apparently that wasn't good enough for her. Yeah, she decided to play that card just for the sheer fun of it. By the time I just started to realize that the issue with Nate was still an issue, Half the people in the church had already been told about what an awful, despicable person I was. The head of the youth ministry personally sat me down to tell me how unacceptable my behavior was. I had former teachers I hadn't seen since first grade coming out of the woodwork to tell me how disappointed they were in me. Everyone flat out refused to hear my side of the story. They already knew everything they said. Nothing I said can make up for what I did. Mary had already told them that I was a rebellious, lying kid, a troubled child, and had stuck to that story over the years, including during the pawnshop incident. So it seemed like there was precedence. She had been building off the same claims about me for eight years by this point. Why would anyone believe a lying, rebellious, troubled teenager over a charismatic adult who was always doing her part to help the community? Mary was so disgusted with me that she refused to speak to me. Her words. She specifically told her yarn to everyone but my mother. Having learned early that my mom was not going to stand for baseless rumors and accusations about me, Mary was of the opinion that my mom was in denial about what an awful kid I really was. Mary's husband, my current youth teacher, somehow snowed me into thinking that my mom knew about everything and that I shouldn't try to talk to her about it because she was so angry with me that she would basically explode on me. I spent the next two and a half years despised by almost everyone I knew. All of the adults I knew were against me, except for the pastor and my mother. As the pastor refused to take sides, Mary's husband continued to make snide remarks and insinuations whenever he thought they were vague enough that other adults wouldn't know what he was talking about. All of the kids I knew who were in my age range shunned me. Even when new kids came in who didn't know any better, they were quickly told to stay away from me, ruining any chance I had of making new friends to replace the ones I'd lost. Even random strangers in the grocery store would stare daggers at me, sneer at me, or just watch me with creepy disapproval. The shyness I'd always had became full fledged social anxiety, complete with what I suspect was selective mutism, because I was afraid of virtually all the adults I knew. Afraid of the little jabs that make at me. Afraid because I didn't know if my mom knew or not and was afraid to find out if she knew if it was true, that she was so indifferent in reality that even though I knew she loved me for some reason she still let everyone pick on me. It now seemed so stupid that I was afraid of talking to her about it. If there were any one thing in my life I would choose to change, I would have told her immediately. But that isn't what happened. So I lived with it by myself. There were some mornings where I would just spend an hour in the shower crying my eyes out because I didn't want to have to go out and deal with it all over again. I don't know if you'll know what I mean when I say that having other people expect you to feel Guilty is oppressive in and of itself when you laugh or smile or just feel normal. But they believe you should be ashamed of something and don't like it that you aren't. For a while, I really tried not remembering what had happened. It is possible to make yourself forget something, but don't ever do that to yourself. Once you have a memory, you really can destroy it. The best you can do is just bury it. Part of your mind will always know it's there. I still got all the same judgmental looks and hurtful remarks. I just no longer understood why people were acting that way. And I had all kinds of awful nightmares until I finally dug those memories back up and faced them again. I got over it, but slowly. So many people who had known me the entire time I was growing up had immediately assumed the worst just because some gossip had told them to. I never knew who had been told and who hadn't. Every time I thought people had forgotten, Mary's husband would make some new cutting remark or someone else would, and then I'd lose whatever sense of security I'd started to scrape together. It was only in my early 20s, a few years after we moved out of state, that I finally found the courage to bring up the subject with my mother. Which really led to some interesting revelations. It turned out that Nate's mother hadn't divulged anything about what had happened over the phone. My mom had been tense on the drive home because of something totally unrelated to me and asked if I wanted to talk. Not because she thought I was guilty of anything, but because she could tell I was under stress of some kind. Mary's husband had lied through his teeth about her knowing what was going on or being angry about it. She had never known. That was why Mary's husband had always tiptoed around the subject in her presence. Because he knew she didn't know and wanted to keep it that way. It was practically a conspiracy. My mom, the one person who actually had a right to know what had happened, had been denied the opportunity to try and make things right because everyone else was just so busy judging me for themselves and Nate's parents, the two people who actually had a semi balanced view of that night, had no idea how bad things had gotten after they left that day because they didn't live in our area anymore and they weren't there to see it. If they had, I'd like to think they would have put a stop to it. They were good people. That's the end, I guess. I don't have nightmares anymore. And I feel more or less indifferent to the situation now. It's over a decade behind me at this point, but Mary and her husband. Holy crap. I never want to meet either one of them ever again for as long as I live. All of the stress and fear and heartache I've mentioned here, and that's still not even mentioning how much they badmouthed my mom behind her back, gushed over her cancer scare because it gave them something to gossip over, and generally treated us both like dirt. I never want to meet Michael's father again, either because whether he's a pervert or just too dense to realize how wildly inappropriate he was being doesn't really matter at this point. Either way, it was still beyond creepy and wrong. Never meeting Michael again is still kind of painful to think about, but I guess it can't really be helped. I even tried contacting him on Facebook a few years ago, but to no avail. I already know that Julie and Nate never want to meet me again, and that's fine to me how do you.
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