As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Vol 51 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

Today we have 15 More true scary stories with a late night ambience. Scary Stories For Dark Dreams is a collection of older stories, remastered and put together in a long form episode. This Collection includes the following stories; Coffee Shop & Retail stories from Nov. 2023 & Stalker Stories from Oct. 2022. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your own supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube TIMESTAMPS One Ad After the First Story, No ads after that Story 1: 0:25 Story 2: 12:37 Story 3: 23:09 Story 4: 31:03 Story 5: 38:27 Story 6: 51:16 Story 7: 57:53 Story 8: 1:05:52 Story 9: 1:16:05 Story 10: 1:27:39 Story 11: 1:41:11 Story 12: 1:46:54 Story 13: 1:54:40 Story 14: 2:00:10 Story 15: 2:05:51 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there, friends. Today's episode is a Dark Dreams episode. For those that are unaware, Dark Dreams episodes are older episodes, remastered into larger collections, with some nice and calming rain sounds in the background to help you just kind of relax. So, sit back, close your eyes if you can, and just take in the scariness that is our existence. And hopefully, you sleep well. I used to work at a fairly popular coffee chain in my early 20. It wasn't like the Green Mermaid Coffee Place popular, but it was a pretty big one in my state, nonetheless. I only worked there for a few years, though, because the back end of it was not nearly as fun and enjoyable as their coffee.

If I may, don't get a job at a place that you love paying a customer at. It may ruin your opinion of the place. Anyways, the job started out of it. great. The benefits were pretty good considering the job, same with the pay. Some of the policies were a bit strange, maybe even unnecessary, but they were manageable. I even had some normal customers that I enjoyed seeing, and then there were some that you hoped that you would just never see again. One of those customers was this guy that we only knew as Willie. That's what he introduced himself as, and what he always had written on his cup. He was in his 50s. I know this

because he liked to make comments, like, I've seen and heard a lot of things in my 50 years, and other similar things. He also made comments to a lot of our younger staff, including me, that he was old enough to be our dads. So, like I said, Willie was always friendly with us all, and while some of his comments started as just being cringy or cliche, he didn't initially seem like a bad guy. But then he started to get too comfortable with us. He would make jokes with the male baristas and thank them for his order, but when it came to the female employees, he took it a step further,

attempting to be flirtatious. It was never overtly explicit, just uncomfortably tame. conveniently, always leaving management with no grounds to intervene. Their stance was always clear. Unless he crossed a line, made threats, or engaged in truly inappropriate behavior, they couldn't, or more like wouldn't, take action. So, we all dealt with it. We were put in a grin and barrett kind of situation,

and most days that's what we did. and sometimes some of us girls that he seemed to favor would hide in the back until he left, but that wasn't always an option. He would sometimes come in in the middle of a rush leaving us trapped. We would stand at the register as he very obviously stared at our chests. I don't know if he didn't care or if he really thought he was being sneaky, but we all noticed. He made me rethink how we dressed under our aprons. The uniform was pretty laxed, blacker tan pants, and a single plain colored shirt.

Our apron had the store names on them, colors, and our first name on it, so they just told us to keep it simple. I started wearing bag-eared clothing and even sweaters under my apron. His looks alone chipped away at our comfort. He even made comments to some of the male baristas about us. One of those times was about me, but I was on the other end of the bar helping another customer, so I didn't hear him at the time. Apparently what he had said was undeniably inappropriate, and left the barista visibly uncomfortable.

When I happened to look in their direction, I could see how red his face was, and the obviously fake smile he had plastered on his face. He later confirmed to me that Willie did make him. a comment about me, but that he didn't want to repeat it. That told me all that I needed to know. I once again told one of the managers, and they said that they would look into it, but the barista said he was never approached about it either.

It was obvious that this guy didn't care how he made other people feel, and that he was pretty much getting away with it. Then came the day that it all boiled over. I was out on the floor at the self-served drink station, refilling the creamer cariff and the sugar packets. It was right after the lunch rush, so I wanted to take the chance to clean up the lobby before our last evening rush came in.

I was slightly leaning over a small table to grab the straw container in the back when I felt someone's arm wrap around my waist and quickly make their way up. I didn't know who it was at first, until they spoke, once again making a disgusting comment. It all happened so fast. My heart raced and my reflexes kicked in,

causing me to swing my arms back in defense, making Willie let go. When I turned around, there he was, giggling like a child and smiling like he had just played some harmless prank. My anger surged, and I yelled at him, What the hell is wrong with you? What makes you think that is okay? But instead of remorse, he laughed and commented, Oh, come on, everyone needs a hug now and then, right?

I felt embarrassed, violated, and I was seething with anger that it was ever able to even get this far. I took off towards the back to get the manager, still spouting things off to him as I walked. Gene was behind the counter at the time, but in my soured mood, I didn't even notice him at first. By the time I'd gotten back behind the counter, the manager had already come to the front and asked what was going on. I explained everything to him as Willie continued to give his order to Gene, who looked like he didn't know if he should continue with taking it. We both looked over at Gene when I mentioned him seeing everything, and he confirmed that he did.

Willie again threw his hands in the air, claiming that he didn't mean anything by it and laughing. His laugh used to just annoy me, but that day it pissed me off. He really thought that what he did was okay, and not once did he ever apologize. But what made it worse was when the manager, Carol, looked at me, annoyed,

like I was the problem, like I was being dramatic. So I told her that if she didn't do something about him now, I was leaving. She looked at him and asked if he got his drink yet, telling me all that I needed to know. I grabbed my stuff from the back and walked out at the store. I couldn't afford to quit, but I wasn't going to stay in a place where I wasn't respected. So I left. When I got home, I assured the whole ordeal.

with my boyfriend who was equally as livid as I was. Together, we came up with the plan. I called Jean, who was more than willing to make a statement. My boyfriend drove me back to the shop the next day, because, yes, they called me to ask if I would be in the next day, and I worked the day as normal. Surprisingly, Willie never showed up, well, that day at least. But he did the next day.

and when the manager wouldn't make him leave, then I would. I would drop everything that I was doing and just walk out. To be honest, I'm surprised they didn't fire me, but I guess that tells me that they were hurting for people more. I went through this for about a week, maybe a little less, and I ended up leaving early four times in that week. Then my restraining order papers went through,

and I was told that he was served the papers too. I was hoping that it would just be all over there, but to my surprise, he showed up at my work. At that point, I had more control, though. I called the police immediately, and I was surprised how quickly they showed up. He was reminded of the restraining order and was told to leave, and for the first time I saw the other side of Willie.

His face became red and he started yelling. He yelled at the cops. He yelled at the customers about how much of a liar I was. He yelled at me for leading him on. The officer finally got him out of the building where his shouting continued. I tried to ignore it and help the customer in front of me, but the customers sitting at the table near the window were now standing and looking out the windows, talking, and pulling out their phones.

By then, most of the people in the shop were starting to look outside and trying to see what was happening. Once things started settling down, my boyfriend, who had showed up after I called the cops, came in and told me what he saw, which aligned with the things I heard from a few customers. He arrived after the cops and saw them both walking out. Willie was yelling at the cop and mentioned something about a gun. The cop had his hand on his belt. and watched to make sure that he got in his car to leave. However, Willie instead grabbed something that my boyfriend couldn't see,

but when he started raising his arm, the cop tased him and he dropped him immediately. Willie did indeed have a gun in his truck, so when all he had to do was leave the shop, he was now sitting in a cruiser after threatening a police officer. I never saw Willie again, but that's probably, I'm not sure what, if anything, he was charged with, but I guess it must have either finally clicked in his head, or he was behind bars because I never saw him again. I only worked there for about another month, though, as I could not deal with management. While they never said it, I feel like they, or at least Carol, thought that it was my fault.

She was very dismissive with me, or would tiptoe around everything, like she was worried that I would report her or something. I wasn't going to tolerate Willie's actions, so I wasn't going to tolerate retaliation. I'm much happier with where I am now, and management takes that kind of stuff very seriously, and I'm grateful for that. I just wanted to share my experience because it did start out pretty tame. While still inappropriate, that's what it was. And I probably could have just dealt with the comments. But when it got physical, I knew that I needed to put my foot down. And yet, it escalated to possible violence.

The fact that he was willing to do that to a cop honestly scares me, because what would he have done if he caught me as I was, was leaving or coming in. So just a reminder, set your own boundaries and don't let anyone bend them. Oh, and don't be afraid to call someone out and get help. Lasagne sur-joled, puissance-moyane for 15 minutes. We're like it's their dojo. Pre-to-joo?

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Via Rae, La Voa Kone Em? I wanted to share a story that happened to me back in 2019. I used to work in a large toy store located at our mall. I actually loved the place. It wasn't your typical children's store with barbies and stuffed animals. It had anything you could think of related to toys or hobbies, including puzzles, craft supplies, games, and much more that I can't think of. I had shopped there on many occasions because it was closer than some of the other local retail stores and had better variety.

I started working there when I was 18 shortly before I graduated. The perks were pretty well worth it, even having to deal with the hungry moms. But the mall also attracted some odd people, which is why I'm telling you this story. So the mall I'm at is pretty long, but it has two floors, and my store was on the bottom floor and close to the middle. We also tend to see and hear a lot of the activity outside of the store, because we're close to the carousel that's in there as well, right by the ice cream kiosk.

So there's typically a lot of activity around us. And while we did have the occasional mean customer walking through the door, We didn't often get people that were so disruptive that we would have to kick them out. But then walks in a man that I will call happy. I was at the front picking up some toys that had toppled over. When this guy walked in, stopped at the entrance and shouted into the store, It's a wonderful day in the USA! At first I thought the guy was pretty eccentric, so I looked over at him and chuckled and said,

and good afternoon to you. He seemed to appreciate my acknowledgement and walked over to me. When he got closer, I could tell that he was definitely drunk. I could smell the alcohol wafting from him, and I could only assume what the stain on his shirt was from. His eyes looked heavy and his speech was slurred. Yet he was the happiest drunk that I'd ever encountered. I just hoped that he didn't drive there.

like that. So, he approached me and asked, How are you doing, love? But again, it wasn't in a creepy way, and it was just friendly, so I didn't take offense to it. I told him that I was fine and asked if he was okay, given the circumstances, and he said that he'd never been better.

He asked me if I had plans for the holiday, and I said that I did, to which he seemed very pleased with this, and began digging in his coat pocket. He then literally pulled out a wad of bills. There was no rhyme or reason to them, and, in fact, a few fell to the floor, and he didn't even seem to notice.

I picked up the bills that fell all while he continued talking to me, and when I tried to hand them back, he held out a $100 bill to me, saying, Take this and have a Merry Christmas, love. I smiled at the same. slight chuckle, but shook my head telling him that I couldn't accept it. He made an exaggerated, Oh, man, I just wanted to do something nice.

I told him that I appreciated the thought, and that it was nice, but that I just couldn't accept it per my job. He understood, grabbed the bills from me, and stuffed it all back into his pocket. He then went in for a hug, which I accepted. Once again, not getting any real weird vibes from him, and he happily walked off down one of the aisles, with a bit of a skip in his step even. However, he still let his presence be known. He practically narrated out loud everything that he was looking at.

Oh, this little guy walks, and roars. Nice, it dances. He wasn't really hurting anything, just being a little louder than the rest of us. My manager started getting annoyed because he would knock stuff down, because he obviously wasn't walking straight. But if he noticed it, he would turn and immediately pick it back up. After a few aisles, my manager had enough of it, while the rest of us thought he was just having a good time and not hurting anybody. She went and confronted the guy and said that he was causing too much chaos and that if he didn't, make a purchase in the next five minutes, then he needed to leave.

He turned to her with an exaggerated frown, and from what I could see, tried to offer her some cash, too, which she refused. He then made his way back up to the front, waved to all of us, and left. So, we just continued about our day and picked up the items he had dropped and left behind. Everything seemed to go back to normal for probably about half an hour tops, when I started to notice a small crowd forming outside of the store. I didn't think anything of it at first, especially being in a mall. People stop randomly for a break, to organize bags. Sometimes they'd even start talking to someone they were with or ran into. But it wasn't until I saw them looking up and pointing that I became curious.

When I got the chance to step away, I walked out to the front of the store and looked at where everyone's attention seemed to be, and I figured it out. Happy was on the top level, looking down to the bottom. He was saying or singing something that I couldn't quite make out. But what I could understand were the bills that he seemed to be slowly dropping to the bottom, on purpose. People were standing around trying to grab them as they slowly fell, or playfully fighting as they picked them up off the floor. While everyone seemed to be having a good time with it, including happy, something was giving me a bad feeling.

I was going to head back in and ask my manager if there was something that we should do, but the screaming from the people were becoming louder, making me think something was happening. I turned back to the crowd and saw that Happy was now crawling onto the railing and sitting on it, with his feet now dangling over the edge. I immediately became nervous about this, knowing that it was not going to end well. What if people got out of control down by us because of the money? What if someone above noticed this and started fighting with Happy, causing him to fall? I yield back into my store and told someone to call security, but quickly went back outside to watch what would happen. I tried to get people to keep walking and not huddle, saying that it was a safety issue to block a store's entrance, which wasn't entirely false, but no one would budge.

They all stood where they were waiting for more money to drop. Not long after, I saw two security guards approaching. I pointed to Happy and tried to quickly explain, but one guard was already running towards the stairs while the other one stood nearby, ordering people to leave, which finally worked. But then the feeling of dread that was approaching finally hit its climax. As Happy yelled something about love, I couldn't quite tell what he said, held his arms out wide, closed his eyes and leaned forward until he fell off the railing. It all seemed to go in slow motion, yet I was frozen in fear, not knowing what to do.

I watched him fall to the ground as he hit a bench directly below. The sickening thud echoed through the mall, and he flopped off the bench onto the ground, motionless. I stood there as I took in everything around me. Some people still nearby were screaming, trying to snap photos, and looking for more loose build. The security guards were calling for an ambulance as they were trying to care for happy, who was now unresponsive, and lying in a pool of blood around his head. More people from my store and the one across the way came out, and were watching too. I was terrified, nearly holding my breath just thinking that I watched this man fall to his death,

and that I was no better than the rest of the people that stood by to watch. Thankfully, the EMTs showed up, and as they put him in the head and neck brace, he groaned, at least telling me he was still alive. The aftermath became kind of a blur. One of the janitors came by to clean up the blood, which was a decent amount. People slowly dispersed, and we were told to continue working, with that image now burned into my head. I was thinking about it the rest of the night.

Where did Happy come from since he was so obviously intoxicated? Why did he have so much cash on him? And why was he so willing to just give it out? Most importantly, why did he fall? It was obviously intentional, but none of it made sense. I never saw the guy again, so I also don't know what happened. but it's still fresh in my mind, especially around this time of year. I just hope that he turned out all right, and that I never have to experience something like that, ever again.

Back when I was younger, I used to be kind of stupid, specifically when it came to talking to people online. This happened back when I was around 14. I'm 28 now, so that would have been back in 2008. I had some issues with myself at the time. I was overweight and struggling with it. I didn't have many real friends, and I didn't really feel like my parents cared about me back then, being the youngest of four kids.

I know that may sound like a pity story, but it's where my mind was at the time. And at the time, my parents had a desktop computer that they let me use. They didn't really do much to watch or limit what I did, so I kind of used it to fill that void in my life. There was a certain website that I used to visit that had an entire section for local chat rooms,

and it was typically full of people that were younger, or at least claimed to be younger. I loved chatting in the local rooms, because the people there were really nice, and it was almost as if I had a group of friends that lived near me, even though they were only as local as the same state. The site had a whole bio-system, where you could put information about yourself.

I had put that I was 18 and that my name was Cheryl, which it is. For the most part, everyone was pretty chill when we spoke, and a few of them were really friendly with me as we spoke about what we liked to do. One day, I went into the chat rooms and did my normal chat introductions as I always did. I immediately got a direct message request from a guy that had the username Mike D. It was a bit odd, but at the same time, I figured it wouldn't do any harm to message him back.

I said hi, and he immediately went into the conversation talking about how he was looking to chat with girls his age, because he was feeling lonely. Obviously, this was fine by me. I didn't have any luck with guys, and it kind of felt nice to be singled out like this. So, we chatted for a while about things that he liked to do, his hobbies, and who he was. Then he started asking me about who I was. I wasn't really sure what to say at first, but I did tell him about him about. some of my hobbies.

At one point I slipped up and mentioned that I was still in school, and he asked if I was in college. That was when it occurred to me that my account said that I was 18. For some dumb reason, I asked him if it was okay with him if I was actually younger than I said that I was, and he asked how young I was. I told him that I was 14, and he said that that was fine because he was a good. actually 16. I was relieved because I didn't know how he would take it, and for him to only be two years older than me, it was nice to have a friend that I could talk to. He and I ended up talking for a while about everything, and over a couple of weeks we became pretty close friends.

I felt like I was telling him a lot about myself over the time that we spoke, and I even mentioned that I wanted to know more about him. He told me that he was pretty boring, and that he wanted to know as much as possible, and then said that he wanted to confess that he had a crush on me. I was obviously over the moon. This was a boy that liked me for me. After we talked through that for a little bit,

he asked me if I wanted to meet up with him at some point so we could make things official. I agreed, and we ended up saying that we would, would meet at the local mall that weekend. We agreed to meet at the food court outside of a very specific restaurant. Obviously, I was super excited, and I asked my mom if I could go to the mall on that day. She wasn't okay with me going alone, so I had to go with my older sister, who was 16 at the time, and one of her friends.

I was totally okay with this, because I was going to meet this guy. that liked me for me, and I was so happy about that. On the day of, when we got to the mall, I actually told my sister that I was supposed to be meeting a boy there, and she was excited for me. We got to the food court at the time that was promised, and, well, let's just say that I was nothing shy of disgusted and disappointed. At the table that we agreed to was a man,

but it was not a 16-year-old boy. He was a much older and much more overweight man that was very clearly looking around for somebody. When I saw the man, I knew what had happened. This creep was pretending to be a teenage boy to pick up teenage girls and do God knows what with them. I managed to tell my sister that I thought

that the creep at the table was the person that asked to meet me, and she kind of laughed at me. She asked me his name, and then said that she would go find out. She went over to the table, and audibly asked if his name was Mike. He excitedly looked at her and asked if she was Cheryl, and she said no, but then said that he was a creep and that he shouldn't be trying to meet up with young girls on the internet, and that the girl that he was trying to get alone at the mall was a minor. She said this incredibly loud, basically shouting it at him,

which my guess was that this was to try to expose him and make sure he didn't try anything. After shouting at him like that, he stood up and started walking away as quickly as he could. The whole time my sister was shouting at him and calling him a purve and a creep. After that was all over, she walked back over to me and basically gave me a lecture about, how I shouldn't speak to people on the internet, because things like this were going to happen. Obviously, I was very upset with the whole thing, but also thankful that she was with me,

as she was most likely the reason that nothing bad happened. Her being willing to make a scene like that was enough to scare him off, but my mind always wanders to the possibilities. What was he planning to do if we had met alone? What was his long-term goal with all this? My guess, he was considering kidnapping me when we met, which scares the hell out of me.

Of course, my sister told me that we needed to talk to my parents about all this when we got home, and they weren't exactly happy with me. I was banned from using the computer after that for a couple of years, which was probably for the best. It was a lesson learned. Don't trust random people on the internet. Use your best judgment when it comes to things like this. And if you're an adult, meeting with another adult, never go alone.

My mom has told me an alarmingly high number of creepy stories from her younger days, but this one in particular is the reason I triple check my windows and doors before bed every night. This started when she, 23, female, first moved out of her parents' house into a garden-floor apartment back in the early 80s. She grew up in Palatine, Illinois, northern suburb of Chicago, and was working as a bank teller. She was five-foot, maybe weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She was this cute girl excited to start this next chapter in her life. and, admittedly, a little naive. Like any job, she became familiar with her co-workers,

her regular customers, and other workers who worked in the area that she would often see. She told me about a cute guy who would walk by the bank that she saw almost every shift. Her and the other bank girls would always chatter about how gorgeous he was, and, one day, to my mom's delight, He came into the bank and asked her to dinner. Let's call him Tom.

Tom offers to pick her up. She gives her address, and they agree to 7 p.m. for that upcoming Saturday. The date went fine. She described him as awkward and nervous with the lack of anything to talk about. He dropped her off a few hours later. She told him thanks, but when he asked her out for a second date, she politely declined.

and said that she saw them more as friends. She went to work on Monday, gossiped with the girls a bit on the topic. They stopped seeing Tom walk by the bank. Hence, my mom thought that that would be the end of it. Sadly, it was just the beginning. After that, they stopped seeing Tom walk by the bank. My mom forgot about him,

and she met my dad at a local dive bar a few weeks later. House, bar, and bank, all within walking distance from each other. Two months go by since her date with Tom, and one night she gets home from work to find that her apartment had been broken into. Front door is wide open, but all that was taken were some of her panties. Nothing else was touched aside from her underwear drawer. Weird, but she thinks this happens. It was a crummy lock, so her dad comes over the next door. next day and puts a deadbolt on the front and back door.

The back door is a garden unit, mind you. This door is actually attached to the laundry room of the building, and that laundry room is directly accessible from the backyard without a key. A week goes by, and one morning she sees her upstairs neighbor, Janet, who is a bartender, 50-ish, female. She sees her in the main hallway. Janet tells my mom that the night before when she came home from work, she saw a man at my mom's front door messing with the handle.

Janet heard the fumbling and actually had my mom's spare key, which was the only reason she even walked down the stairs to the garden area, was because she thought my mom may have been locked out. Obviously, this wasn't the case. She asked the man what he was doing, and he just ran up the stairs and darted, out of the building. Mom, luckily, slept at my dad's that night.

Nothing happened for another month. My mom tells me stories of how that month she always had a gut feeling that someone was watching her, but she never saw anything, so she chocked it up to her being paranoid, given what had happened. Then, one stormy Friday night, my mom went to bed early because she had the morning shift at the bank. Lights were out by 10 p.m., and her fan was on full blast. She fell asleep right away. She wakes up around 2 a.m. to the faint sound of drilling. She thought it was odd, but it only lasted a couple of minutes, so she'd shrugged it off, thinking maybe the neighbor was making a late-night snack.

She tries falling back asleep, but all of a sudden her fan turns off, and she was, she was realizes the power is out. She gets out of bed and sees that the house is across the street still all had their porch lights on. Odd that only her building was out. She is now getting really bad vibes and is standing in her living room where both the front and back door are. Standing in the complete dark.

She starts hearing banging coming from the shared laundry room area. My mom described being literally frozen, just so. staring at the door, when she suddenly sees the doorknob turn and a hand come in trying to undo the safety chain. She screams, and she bolts out the front door and up to Janet's door, bangs on the door, and Janet lets her in. My mom was hysterical, and Janet was comforting her while her husband, Ray, goes to check everything out and ask a neighbor to call the police since they didn't have the power to do so. The police checked the perimeter, see nothing, and say that they'll come back in the morning once they can see what's going on in the daylight.

My mom then sleeps at Janitz. The next morning, they come to find that someone had drilled a hole in the back door in order to bypass the dead bolt. They had cut the phone lines and the power to the building. Sawdust was literally sitting in piles in the laundry room, along with two peepholes that see directly into her living room and bedroom. Someone had been watching her, and they thought the night of the storm was the night to make the move.

Just creepy. She moves back home, and they have zero leads on the case, until Tom pops back up at the bank, asking if my mom was around. She was actually away on a road trip with my dad for two weeks after the incident. The only reason he was caught was because he asked the other bank girls if my mom had quit and moved after her break-in. Nothing was ever posted in the newspapers, so there was zero way he would have known that even occurred. The police go to interrogate him, and they find my mom's panties along with a necklace that she didn't even realize was made.

missing. This guy has been in and out of prison. We're just happy that he didn't get to her that night, because who knows what would have happened. I have a story about when I used to manage a local coffee shop that, for me, was the most terrifying and downright unsettling thing that I have ever gone through. I didn't work for Starbucks or Tim Hortons or anything. It was a tiny little local coffee shop called Corner Cup Cafe. And when I say it was a tiny coffee shop, I mean tiny. We had three tables in the whole shop, and barely enough room to set up the shop's shelving and the merchandise. I've been working there since the shop had opened, mostly because my mom was really good friends with the owner, Shelly.

Shelly was a lovely lady. God rest her soul. who knew how to run a cafe. She knew how to make people love her product, and she had charisma like you would not believe. I had actually helped set up the sitting area, as small as it was, and she was more than pleased with it, so she hired me on full time.

I was also one of the only people willing to work the closing shift for the store, and there were a number of nights where I would be the only person that would be there, the end of the night. She would schedule a couple of people, but usually I would go ahead and send them home about an hour before close to cut the labor costs, because we would always be dead by the end of the night.

That's all important to know, as what happened was after the other person had been sent home. So it was somewhere between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. It was a pretty normal midweek night. We weren't busy, obviously, and there hadn't been a customer for about an hour or so, so. I was just there chilling and cleaning up the line behind the counter, getting ready to clean up the front of the store, so that I could finish up the closing checklist. To top it all off, it was a really dark night.

It was storming out, and when I wasn't looking forward to the drive home in it, I was enjoying the rain pattering on the building while the coffee shop piano music played over the speakers. It was actually kind of mesmerizing and very calming. As I'm finishing up the sweeping, the doorbell chimes and in comes a man that, to be honest, was a bit odd from the jump. I don't mean that he was wearing like a clown suit or anything, just that he was a bit off.

He walked up to the register. didn't say a word, just pointed to the coffee dispenser behind me that held the house roast. I asked him what size he wanted, and he just kind of stared at me with this solemn look and didn't say a word. It was a bit awkward, but looking at this man, he looked like he was incredibly sad, like he had just been to a funeral and was still reeling in the pain of his loss. When this clicked in my head, I started to feel bad for him, so I just said, Hey, how about this? Since we're about to close, I'll go ahead and give you a large on the house. You just have to promise to come back another time if you enjoy it, okay?

Trying to be friendly and inviting as I could. Trying to give him a bit of a reason to smile if possible. But he didn't. He just sort of nodded and it actually made me feel worse. I poured the coffee and placed it on the counter in front of him and told him that I hoped that he had a lovely night, and then also mentioned that he should try to stay dry out there. He just nodded again, grabbed his coffee, and walked away.

But, instead of leaving, he sat at one of the tables and was just facing the window and watching the storm. him sitting in the lobby wasn't something that I wanted. I was about to finish out closing, but I also didn't feel right kicking him out into the storm if we were going to be open for about another 20 to 30 minutes. I just accepted it, and I went back to cleaning up behind the line. I then also did some prep for the next morning's crew.

After I finish up literally every cleaning thing that I can do, I glanced down at my watch and see that it's about ten minutes after 9 p.m., meaning that we had been officially closed for about ten minutes. I felt bad about telling him to leave, but I had to count down the register, which I couldn't do until he left. Store policy was to never count down the cash in the drawer until the lobby was empty and the door was locked. Thief prevention for the most part.

I looked up and politely said, I'm sorry, sir, but I do have to ask that you finish up your coffee and head out. We closed at nine, and I have to wrap up so that I can head home. He didn't look over at me at all. He didn't say anything. He just continued to sit there and stare out the window. I'd mentioned that I would give him a few more minutes to finish his coffee, but that I would have to ask him to leave pretty soon,

so that I could lock up. I went to the back and did what I needed to there, and I walked up to the front and then pretended to count out the tips in the tip jar. Twice. The whole time, he just stayed there and did not leave. At that point, I figured that I needed to go ahead and be a little less polite. I walked over to the table where he was sitting and stood in front of him just off to the side a bit and said,

I'm really sorry, sir, but I have to ask you to leave. I need to lock the door and get out of here, so I really need you to go ahead and go. We open at 7 a.m. if you want to come back, but I have to get the store locked up and leave. When I said this, he glanced up at me and just sort of nodded. Then he stood up and slowly made his way to go. to the door. As he gets to the door, he looks back at me and actually gave me a slight smile before lifting his coffee at me, kind of like saying thanks without saying anything, and then he walked out into

the night. I felt pretty bad, but it was what it was. I went ahead and locked the door as he exited, went back to the register and counted it down. By the time I left, it was almost ten. 10 p.m. And I knew that Shelly was going to be a bit upset that I was so late finishing up, but I knew that she would understand with the customer being in there. Customer satisfaction was important for her, and I was sure that she would get it.

If not, I would just take the talking to and move on. Odds are, she really wouldn't care that much. She would just tell me to be a bit more assertive. but when I got there the next day for my shift, the situation was not quite what I was expecting. She called me into her office, as I expected, and she asked me what happened last night with closing. I told her that there was a last-minute customer, mentioned the guy that I had given the coffee to,

and how he sat in the lobby late, and then told her that he looked like he'd had a really rough day and that, as much as I wanted to tell him to leave, I just couldn't bring myself to. He really looked like he needed a few minutes to himself. She stared at me with a confused look the entire time, and then asked me when the customer came in. I told her that it was around 8.30, 835-ish. She then asked me if I was feeling okay, which was a really weird thing to ask.

I told her I was fine and asked her why. She turned to her computer and asked me to watch something. I watched as she opened up the footage for the camera and turned it back to a round when I mentioned. I watched as I turned to the door and waved, and then leaned over the counter and looked like I was asking what I could get for someone. But there was no one there. I watched as I turned to fill a paper cup with coffee,

placed it on the counter, and just stared at it. into the lobby for a few blank seconds. She fast forwarded a bit, and I watched myself talk to nobody. Then, watched as I walked over to an empty table, and once again started talking to no one.

There was nobody in the lobby the entire time that he was supposed to be there. I was walking around and talking to no one like an absolute lunatic on camera. Worse yet, after I closed up and turned off the light, the coffee cup was still sitting on the counter, and it was there when she had opened that morning.

I stood there with my mouth open, trying to figure out what the hell I was watching. She mentioned that, from the camera's perspective, I was standing there and doing nothing for almost an hour. I shook my head and told her that there was a man there, that the man had walked into the store, and that he wanted coffee. I described him to a tea. I told her about how awkward it was, how he wouldn't speak and just pointed to the coffee, how he just sat there and he wouldn't acknowledge me when I spoke. I nearly broke down into tears,

because this video was making me look like an absolute maniac. I was stammering and pleading with her to believe me that there was a man that walked in, and that I wouldn't have put a coffee cup on the counter and wasted time, or went to talk to an empty chair like that unless there was someone there. Thankfully, Shelly was a very understanding person, and she once again asked me if I was feeling okay, if I'd had any issues with anything lately,

or how I was feeling that night before. I told her that I was fine, that there was nothing wrong, and that I did not hallucinate him. She nodded and agreed with me, saying that she believed me, not sure that she fully did, but to be honest, I wouldn't either. She just told me to be a bit more assertive with asking people to leave from then on, and to go see a doctor if I started to feel that anything was off. or, if anything like this happened again. I told her that I would,

and she told me that she had covered my shift for that night, so I needed to go ahead and go home and relax, and come in tomorrow and that we would just move on from there. This was seriously scary for me, because I know 100% that I did not hallucinate that man. I did not hallucinate this guy coming in, in drinking his coffee, but yet the video footage showed otherwise. Thankfully, it never happened again, and Shelly did not bring it up after that,

because I would have hated for it to become a constant thing, or to be reminded of it. I worked at that shop until Shelly passed away, about five years ago, from cancer, and when she passed away, the store closed for good. So, really, I'm not sure if this was all in my head, but I don't think it was. I also don't know if it was some kind of spirit or something, but it was real for me. Way too real to have all just been a figment of my imagination. I used to work at a certain, cheap little jewelry store in a decent-sized shopping mall here in my hometown. You can all probably guess the name of the store.

I'm not going to put it out there because they didn't have anything to do with what happened, so I don't want to drag their name or anything. It was a pretty mundane job, with the usual challenges, nothing too crazy, really. I think the hardest things that I had to do were watch out for teen girls, who would try to pocket random earrings. It really wasn't hard to tell when they were going to try and steal something. And if you stood over them, they would usually abandon their plans and just leave. There was one year, though, where things got weird and creepy.

It actually involved the mall's Santa Claus, which was a huge attraction for our mall near Christmas time. I've never really liked mall Santa's. When I was a little kid, I would always burst into tears when my first. mom would take me to see them, and as an adult, they just kind of creeped me out. In this specific year, the mall had hired a new Santa because the one that had done the job the previous decade had, sadly, been diagnosed with cancer, and he wasn't able to do the job anymore. The new Santa was, to put it kindly, a bit different. He wasn't quite large enough to fill the role, and he didn't have a jolly look in his eyes.

He looked rather cold and distant every time I saw him. The kids didn't seem to mind, and I think the parents were just happy to keep the tradition going, so it was what it was. One night I was working the closing shift at my store, just stocking, sorting, and cleaning up like always. I was finishing up something in the back room of the store when I heard the front door chime go off. We were closed, so I initially thought that it was just my co-worker coming back from getting food before the Chinese place closed. But when I walked up to the front, I froze. Standing in the middle of the store was none other than Santa Claus. Something about him was off.

He looked a bit... haggard, kind of wired and wily, like he couldn't quite focus on anything in particular. Worse yet, his beard was half undone and just sort of hanging there. Can I help you? I managed to stammer out, thinking that he had to have a reason to be there, right? At first he didn't respond. He just stood there staring at me wide-eyed like he didn't expect me to actually see. speak to him. Then, in a raspy and almost desperate voice, he said,

You know, they're not real. They're not real. None of this is real. I wasn't really sure what to say to that. Was this some kind of joke or something? His eyes told me that it wasn't. He looked genuinely disturbed, haunted even. I just sort of nodded at him and said, Sir, I think you should go ahead and leave. Instead of leaving, he took a huge step forward, causing me to quickly step back and behind the counter. He then continued on with,

You don't get it. They're watching us all the time. Watching! At this point, I was genuinely scared. I grabbed the phone and hit the button for security. But the second that I did, Santa turned tail and ran out of the store. I mean full-on sprinted out of the store. I quickly walked over to the door and pulled it shut and locked it,

while it was also explaining to the security guard what had happened. The guard showed up and asked me a few more questions, then mentioned that my store wasn't actually the only one that this guy had been acting strange at. Apparently he'd actually gone off on the cashier at Spencer's, like verbally assaulted him, about the same things that he was saying to me. The next day, the Santa station was closed, and he was seemingly gone. There were some rumors about how Santa had a breakdown, how he was on drugs,

and there were even talks about the possibility of him having been a mentally ill-homel. homeless man that somehow landed the job. I have no idea. I never learned the truth about him, and based on the conversation we'd had, it could have been any of it. Worse yet, about a week or two later, I actually saw the man again. It was well after close. I was walking out to my car, and I saw him standing in the parking garage still wearing the Santa outfit. two weeks later.

He was just walking around the parking garage aimlessly, kind of stumbling about and mumbling to himself. I did end up calling the security guard whose cell phone number I had, and he said that he would check it out, but I never got a follow-up. In the end, this was just more ammo for me to dislike mall Santas, for me to be afraid of them, honestly. I didn't see him again after that. The mall hired another person to fill in, and life went back to normal, thankfully.

I'm not really sure how to end this story after that. I guess I'll just say that it was obviously creepy, and I'm kind of glad that he took off, because he kind of looked like he was going to do something much more violent. I have a story about an ex of mine. that turned out to be a genuine creep, and caused a lot of problems from me and my family. Some obviously needed context. I'm currently in my late 20s, but when this happened, I was 18, and my ex, who were going to refer to as Shane, was 20.

He and I met because he worked at a local Starbucks, and because he was working there and I had gone there a few times. We'd spoken several times, and after a while, he ended up asking me for my number. From there, we went on a few dates, and I thought that we had a good thing going for about four months. At the four-month mark, I found out that Shane had actually been hooking up with another girl behind my back, and I really wasn't about that, so I ended it. To say that Shane was distraught is either a... an understatement, or a misstatement about him in this scenario.

When we broke up, he started acting hysterical. We'd met up at the Starbucks where he worked, and I told him that I knew about his other girlfriend, and that I was done with the relationship since he obviously wasn't serious about it. He exploded. He literally started screaming and crying at me, telling me that I was the only one he needed in his life. and of course saying that he would have to end his life if he couldn't be with me forever.

I basically told him that I was done. His cheating was enough for me and I didn't want to do this anymore. He seriously then got on his knees and pulled a ring that he had on his hand off of his finger and screamed at me that I needed to marry him because that would prove that we were a forever thing. It was incredibly awkward And the fact that he was screaming and bawling in public Something I would have never expected him to ever do Based on the four months that we were together

He seemed like a decent guy And he seemed mentally stable So this man was not the shame that I had fallen for the few months prior Anyways, to wrap that part up I told him no and that I really hoped he had a great life, and that that was the end of it for me. I walked out of the Starbucks, and I just kind of left him there, which, yes, I did feel bad for him, even though I really shouldn't have. Obviously, this was not the end of it. This was just what set up the part where things went south really hard.

About two days later, I was at a bit of it. work all day and when I got home no one else was there. It was a bit weird. Usually my younger sister was home. She was 15 at the time and she was on summer break. Normally my mother would tell me if she went out with a friend or something but I assumed that she had just forgotten and moved on. Then a couple of hours later, my mom got home and when she asked me where my sister was, I told her that I had no idea, and I told her that she wasn't home when I got home from work. There was a moment of panic, obviously, but then I paused and thought logically. I should just call her.

I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the button to dial her number, and she answers. I immediately asked her where she was, and what she said, made my blood run cold. She told me that Shane had showed up in the... middle of the day looking for me, and when she told him that I wasn't home, he asked if she wanted to go to the mall. She was with my ex, at the mall. This 20-year-old guy had showed up, and more or less kidnapped my 15-year-old sister. Yes, I'm using kidnapped in a loose way, but that's pretty much what it was. A 20-year-old man has no business talking to a 15-year-old girl, that he is not family with, much less taking her away from her home and going anywhere with her.

He had more or less violated the trust that she had in him, because she knew that he and I were dating, and we had only broken up a couple of days before this, so it wasn't like I was telling everyone that we weren't together anymore. I asked her to put him on the phone, and she did. I laid into him right away about how he needed to get her home immediately and how messed up it was that he would take her anywhere at all. He seriously laughed at me when I said this. He then told me that he wanted me to know how serious he was about us and that he wanted to spend time with my family.

I asked him where they were and told him that I would come to get her right then and that if he left or did anything, I would be showing up with the cops. At this point, I was screaming at him, and I was seriously holding back tears. He told me that they were just up the street at the Dairy Queen having ice cream, and that they weren't going to go anywhere. I don't think I have ever driven that fast in my entire life,

and I'm glad that there weren't any speed traps in the few blocks between my house and there. I pulled up and they were standing outside. I practically jumped out of the car and shouted at my sister to get in the car right then. She was pretty clearly confused, but she did what I asked. I went up to Shane and I was so very close to hitting him, but I ended up just telling him that if he ever tried anything like this again, they wouldn't have anything left to bury.

He seriously ignored what I said. He then got down on his knee and pulled a ring out asking me to marry him again. I slapped him hard, and I told him to screw himself. Then I got back in my car and took off. I then had to have a very awkward conversation with my sister as to why I rejected his proposal and why I smacked him. And I had to tell her that he had kidnapped her, and that Shane and I broke up a few days ago.

I'm pretty sure that I soured her day tremendously because while I was explaining it, she went pale. I'm thankful that he hadn't done anything to her, but the fact that he had gone this far scared the living hell out of me. I should have told her that we had broken up, but I'd been working and we hadn't really spoken too much about anything these past couple days. Maybe I should have,

called the cops about this, but the other part of my brain was telling me that he didn't technically do anything illegal. She went willingly. She knew who he was, and he didn't coerce or forcibly take her. I, of course,

explained this all to my mom and dad, and let me tell you that my dad was ready to follow through on the threat that I had made to Shane. I haven't seen Shane since this all happened, and I'm hopeful that he never did anything like this with anybody else. Okay, so this happened to me back in September,

and since I was able to finally piece some things together, I can't stop talking about it, so I want to share it with you too. Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the cooler air. I love pulling out all of my sweaters, boots, and scarves. I love decorating with various leaves, garland and gourds. Yes, I am that girl. and I'm okay with it because it puts me in an incredible mood.

And to add to such a lovely time of year, I love the pumpkin spice and preling coffees that come out of hiding. I had an extra day off during the week as a required PTO day, and for once, I had nothing to do. I was caught up with chores, no appointments or meetings, so I told myself that I deserved a little. an actual mental health day. I slept in a little, and after a shower,

I decided that I would enjoy one of my favorite coffees at my favorite little cafe. When I arrived, I talked to one of the baristas there. She was still in college and always tells me how she's doing in it. After chatting for a bit, I found myself a seat in one of their big armchairs that I wish I could fit into my apartment. I pulled out my Kindle and earbuds,

and got myself settled in to read for a few hours, something I hadn't been able to do in a few months. I was pretty lost in my book, completely unaware of my surroundings for a few hours, until I started getting this weird, unsettling feeling. It started as an inexplicable sensation that somebody was watching me, but I just brushed it off as me being paranoid, or the book.

The book that I was reading, reading was a thriller about someone being stalked, so it would make sense. However, I stopped reading to respond to a text that I had received, which resulted in me checking social media, which then made me realize that same feeling was still lingering. So I did what anyone else would do, and looked up to see if the feeling was warranted. Unfortunately, it was. I scanned the lobby until I locked on to the line of of people waiting to place their order. There was a man standing in line, but he was standing slightly askew from the others,

and was staring right at me. His face looked relaxed. He didn't look upset, overly unhappy, or even focusing on me, like he was trying to recognize me. But when we made eye contact, he smiled at me and softly nodded. I didn't recognize him, so I just smiled back and looked at him. looked down at my phone, hoping maybe it was just an awkward moment. Afterwards, I went back to my Kindle hoping to finish my book before I left.

I tried not to make it obvious, but when the feeling persisted, I wanted to check if he was still looking at me. I would take a sip of my coffee and look back over towards the line, and would see him looking over his shoulder at me. Finally, he would stop staring long enough to actually place his order, so, I went back to my book, hoping that he would soon leave, and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I was in a good chapter of the book, so I held on to that, hoping I could just get lost in it again, and not even notice when he left. But that wasn't his plan, I guess.

As I read, the light above me seemed to darken, and I looked up to see the same man sit in the armchair next to me. I didn't know at the time what his intentions were. Was he going to try to talk to me? Did he recognize me from somewhere? Or was he just one of those weird people that feel the need to sit near somebody who obviously wants to be left alone? Regardless of which one it was, I wasn't interested. So, with my plans being interrupted, I took out my earbuds and started putting everything in my bag so that I could leave. But as soon as I took my earbuds out, this man waved at me.

like he was trying to get my attention. I look over at him, and I raise my eyebrows in a, can I help you, kind of way. I know you, he said softly but confidently. I didn't know how to respond to that. Sure, some people may recognize you or think they do, but they may also follow up with how they may know you. Like, oh, did you go to X school, or did you

ever work at X? Things like that. But instead, he made that comment and just waited for me to respond. And the look on his face and that smile, it really didn't seem friendly. It seemed more like a, I know something you don't know kind of smile. And I did not like it, nor the feeling that it was giving me. I'm sorry, I don't recognize you at all. Do I know you from somewhere?

Before I could think of a more detailed question to ascertain how he knew me, he broke the silence. And in that same consistent calm and quiet tone, he said, I found you. While his smile turned into something a bit more sinister. I didn't know what to say to that. We again sat there silently, but this time the man stood up and left. He even left behind his coffee.

Now that I was confused and kind of spooked, I went ahead and left, looking all around as I walked to my car and got in, locking the doors immediately. Who was that guy, and how the hell did he know me? And what did he mean by Found You? It seemed so random but cryptic, and definitely cemented that feeling of paranoia. I went home and told my friends about it, and even wrote about it in my daily journal. I still had no explanation for his weird comment, though. My friend said that he was probably just being a jerk and wanted to play a prank on someone, and since I paid attention, he chose me. Or maybe he was caught staring at me and he needed to think of a reason.

These both seemed reasonable, and were definitely more innocent than what it first appeared. to be, so I agreed and just let it go. I still even stopped by the cafe and plenty of occasions to get my caffeine fix, and I never saw the guy again. In fact, it wasn't until last month that had finally came back around. I'd been having a bit of a recurring nightmare for several months that seemed to start after I had oral surgery. In this nightmare, I was constantly running through a dark, ominous,

forest. I remember I was always barefoot, and had on a thin dress, or maybe a nightgown. I just remembered that I never had bottoms on, and recall feeling the cold air rushed through my dress, and touched my bare skin. I was always freezing. Whether I had this dream in the summer, or around now in the autumn, I was always freezing. I also know that I was terrified, looking around as I ran. It was like I was running from something or someone. Then the dream would always end the same way. I would feel someone grab my arm and hear them say, found you. Then the feeling of being grabbed would always wake me up. I had this nightmare a few times a month, and I hadn't had it for about a week at the time of my day off, so I didn't even think about it. But then,

I had this nightmare again, and the next morning, while I made my coffee at home, I remembered the guy from the cafe and nearly had a panic attack. Could they possibly be related? Was it just a coincidence that the guy said this to me, knowing that it would be relevance to this dream that I kept having? Or was there something more to it? I never talked to anyone about my dream in an online forum. I told one of my close friends about it, my mom, and my therapist.

And that was it. It was personal, and I'd been through some things, so I was cautious of who I opened up to. There's no way that I could possibly think of that this man had any knowledge of my dream. But the question still lingers in my mind rent-free. Why would he say that? and why would he say it to me? Was there something he knew that I didn't? Or was it truly just a coincidence in a dumb prank?

I even sat up at the cafe one day over the weekend, thinking I might catch this guy again, but I have yet to see him again, two months later. I wish there was a way that I could find this guy and ask him about it because it really does bother me. I told my therapist about it too who has also helped me work through it, but in the meantime, it's still an unanswered question, and it's one that I will probably always have. I used to work at a local coffee shop.

It wasn't a big chain, just a small little spot in a strip mall right at the start of town. It was owned by an older couple that was always very kind. We didn't see them too often, as they had stepped back a bit and gave most control over to their son, who was also okay for the most part. I just didn't think that he quite had the leadership skills to run it on his own, but, alas, that's why we had our shift leads. We also had our fair share of regulars, between the younger group of people that went to the nearby community college, as well as an older group of people. ladies that I believe were friends of the owner. Again, very nice ladies, but they could also get loud. Louder than the college students even. However, you have to take the good with the bad, and we also had a few of those. This story is about one of those people. I'll call her Sandra,

because, well, that was her real name, and quite frankly, I don't care about her privacy anyways. Sandra was always one of our regulars, unfortunately, and she even became a running joke between not only us baristas, but to some of the customers. You could see them making eye contact with us when she would walk in, or whispered to the person they were with who would then look over at her. It was as if a dark cloud would settle over the place every time she entered. She always ordered the same thing, and while the order itself was pretty simple, She always made it worse than it needed to be, and would find the smallest thing to complain about. She ordered two drinks, a hot one that had to be a specific temperature or higher, and a cold one. The cold one, she always wanted two pumps of the fruit syrup and four pumps of the cane sugar.

Then she wanted us to shake it, as we normally did with our cold drinks, but she never wanted us to put the ice in the cup. if she caught even a single sliver of ice when we handed her her drink, she would lose her mind. She claimed that the cold drink was for later, so if we added ice, it would get watered down. A single ice cube isn't going to make a difference in all that sugar, but it was never worth arguing with her. Then, she also ordered the same food item. She never stayed and tried anything else, but the problem was never stayed. the problem with that is that it's one of our more popular items. Because it's a small local business, a lot of the food, especially the pastries, are made from

scratch in the small kitchen in the back. We have to be there a few hours before opening to make them all, and because we closed at six, we never went back to make more. We even made extra of those compared to everything else because they are so popular, but they still sell out almost every single day. Once we were out, we were out for the day, and that was it. Most people understood this, but Sandra never did. The time that she came in wasn't consistent. She might come in close to opening one day, but then not come in until noon the next day. And when she came in at noon, chances are we were out of the lavender scones that she always got.

So, the bigger problem with Sandra's order was her reaction when something would go awry. She would become unglued and complain until one of our leads would come out, and she would demand a refund, or something for free, or a certificate. We didn't have gift cards, but we did do certs. Sandra made off with a lot of free items and certs, too. I still wonder if her whole game was to just get free stuff, and she had no humility, or if she truly was just that miserable of a person. Because I always think, if we did such a horrible job and so consistently, why would you keep going there?

But it's neither here nor there, I suppose. So, now that I've introduced you to Sandra, let me tell you why she is relevance to this story. One day I was working, it was around 2 p.m., and I was doing my normal wipe-down of the counters and tables when who else but Sandra would show up. I shuddered as I walked back behind the counter because I knew today was going to be a bad day, because we were out at the scones. I put in her drink order as she mumbled it out to me, and when she mentioned the scone, I had to be the one to tell her that we were out. Cue the tantrum. Before I could say anything passed, we're actually already out of those for the day. She was already demanding a manager.

There was no point in trying to say anything else, so I went straight to the back to get Jamie. He came out and already exasperated. He asked Sandra what the problem was. As she complained about the lack of food choices, Jamie cut her off, laying out her choices. Sandra, we go through this weekly with you. You know we run out of those around noon. Nothing you've ordered so far has been wrong because we haven't even made it yet. You just didn't get an item you wanted because it's sold out.

Not because there's something wrong with it. You can choose something else or just be happy with your drinks, but you're not getting a refund for something you didn't even get. It may not have been verbatim of what he said, but it was pretty much that. and to be honest, it was satisfying to hear. Sandra, on the other hand, was not happy. Her face was showing it as she turned more and more red. She just ordered her drinks and walked to the end of the counter to wait.

Kelsey was on the espresso machine at the time, and Jamie told her to go ahead and take her break and that he would take care of her orders, so she happily let him take over. Another customer had come in, so I rang them up as I made quick glances over at Sandra, angrily watching him like a hawk. Shortly after, I just stood back organizing and picking up the back counter, as I listened for any more complaints for Sandra. I didn't have to wait long. He made her ice drink as the espresso was pouring, so she got that first with no complaints. But as she took the hot drink, she pulled.

the lid off, stuck her finger in it, and then complained that it wasn't hot enough. He took it from her and remade it. Not once, not even twice, but three times. By the third time, she did the same thing, as she made a face ready to complain again, but Jamie stopped her. He mentioned how he was not going to continue to remake it for her, as it could be dangerous with how hot it was, and that she was just being wasteful. But he didn't get to finish his sentence before Sandra splashed the hot beverage right on Jamie's face and hitting part of my arm.

The small spot that hit me made me jump because of how hot it was, but Jamie's screams told me that I caught lucky. I ran over to him immediately with a towel and looked over as Sandra grabbed a straw, smiling, and slowly walked out of the store. I tried to ask Jamie if he was okay or what I should do, but his screams were awful. His screams as he collapsed on the floor were piercing, and I just didn't know what to do. I yelled for Kelsey to call an ambulance as she was already back in the lobby, presumably because she heard his screams too. One of our regular customers was there, and while I hate that they had to witness it, I'm thankful that it was her of all people.

She was an old retired nurse, and she helped me with Jamie. The ambulance and the police arrived, and as they were loading Jamie up on the stretcher, I could see the giant waltz on his face already forming. All of us, including our customer that stayed to help, told the police everything we witnessed. Of course, the police wanted any and all information that we could give them on Sandra, such as a physical description, but unfortunately for her, we had one better.

We had a reward system and the owners were stuck in their old-fashioned ways of snail mail. This meant that we sent out physical local coffee shop letters as well as occasional coupons. We had Sandra's full name and full physical address on record, and we happily called up the owners and got access to provide it to them. Jamie came back after taking a few days off, but when he did return, he still had some scarring and discoloration from the burns. He even had a bit of a scare because he was having trouble seeing, and he was worried that it messed up his eyesight. But luckily, it all came back perfectly fine. He just had to use some special eyedrops for a while.

He also informed us that the police talked to him, too, and he was given the choice. choice to press charges, which he very much did. This also meant that she would be banned from the store. It was pretty annoying that all of this had to happen just to get her banned, but at the same time, I understand that we can't just ban someone for being a jerk. It's not how things work, but she did decide to take it too far. The thing is, Jamie explained to us that he not only wanted to make her drinks so he knew they were right, but because he was actually on edge, and worried that she might try something

since he stood his ground, and he was happy that it happened to him and not one of us. I was thankful that he was always so willing to look out for us. He'd always been a very protective manager of all the baristas, and is still one of my favorite managers, but those screams he let out that day were absolute nightmare fuel. I had never heard a grown man scream like that in pain, and I had no idea what to do. But he did recover with no scarring. Sandra was charged with assaults, I believe,

and the owners actually agreed to put up a sign warning people that if they're abusive to the staff, they will be told to leave. So, I guess that's an improvement. I just hope that Sandra's not out there bullying someone else over a simple cup of coffee. It's that wonderful time of year again, so I want to share a story of something that happened to me several years ago. I try to share this frequently as a warning to not only women,

but anyone that could be vulnerable in this situation. Some may take this story as entertainment, and I'm okay with that too. But I just hope that that means that they will remember it and be able to avoid something like this. So, here it goes. This was back in the winter of 2017, the end of November. I'm a very social and outgoing person, so when the holidays roll around, I'm always planning parties for my family, both sides, a party that my boyfriend and I would host for some of his family,

as well as some parties with friends. I also love the gifting side of it. I love seeing people's reactions when they open a gift that I got them. So, every year, I try to make or get the perfect gift for everyone. This year I knew specifically what I wanted to get my sister, but, unfortunately, it was a bit pricey. So I'd been going to a few different places looking for the best price. I had even braved the Black Friday sales, but had had.

no luck. So, late one night, I wound up at a department store to pick up a gift for someone else, as well as some more wrapping paper. I also tried to get my shopping done and prepped as early as possible, so that I'm not running around last minute. It was late one night, and with no work the next day, I started by just casually roaming the aisles to see if there was anything else I wanted. I was looking at shoes when I saw an associate at the end of the aisle. I could tell that he worked there, because while he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he had his name badge hanging out of his pocket. So, my thought was, he was probably AP.

That's asset protection for those of you who don't know. I understand the purpose of the job, especially with the holiday season, but sometimes, the associates take it too far. or they think they're so good at it that they're terrible at it, if that makes sense. And so, anyways, I spotted him, looking at something on the end cap, and continued doing what I was doing. But when I started trying on a pair of shoes, I texted my sister-in-law to get her shoe size thinking that she would like the ones I was looking at. While waiting for her response, I felt that familiar sensation of being watched. and looked up at this guy, and, of course, he went from looking at me

to quickly looking back down at the fuzzy socks. So I rolled my eyes with a soft laugh, grabbed the shoes, and walked away. I walked around the store a little longer, but, of course, Mr. AP was there every step of the way. I kept finding him at the end of the aisles, seemingly busy, but obviously watching me. It was late,

I was tired and was already kind of annoyed with being followed, so I just decided to go and grab the item I came for so I could leave. However, as I made my way to my destination in that store, I was shocked to see the item I had been looking at for my sister, and it seemed to be about $15 cheaper. Even crazier in my opinion were that there were no sales tags on it. It was like this was the normal price, so... I knew that I had to get it. The only thing preventing me from taking it up to the checkout counter was the anti-theft mechanism holding it on the shelf. So, I had to find someone to help. I walked over to a nearby aisle, but didn't see anybody, but I also didn't want to go far, calling dibs on the item on the shelf.

Finally, I did spot an associate, but it was the AP guy. So, why not ask him for help, I guess, as well as get the satisfaction of calling him out to say, Hey, yes, I see you and you're not sneaky. However, I called out to him saying, Excuse me, sir, you work here, right? He did a double take at me, but then, without saying anything, he walked away with his head down. Now, I was no longer annoyed. I was pretty angry.

I understand that AP is supposed to look. undercover in a sense, but he obviously was not doing a good job. So, why not ask for help? He could have at least said, I'll go get someone for you or something like that. Instead, he just ignored me. I finally just gave up and started heading to the front of the store to leave, but I still wanted to share my experience with someone. So, once I got there, I told the cashier that I needed help with an item, and that the one associate that I saw ignored me and also mentioned that I was pretty sure it was their AP guy, too. The cashier looked at me curiously and said that they would let management know, and even called

for someone to get the item for me. Once I got my item, I paid for it all and started heading to the door, receipt in hand preparing to be stopped one last time. To my surprise, though, I didn't see him at the door. but then my relief was quickly stomped out when I saw him standing by the bench outside the doors. Now, I was pretty pissed off. I waved my receipt in the air in his direction and said in an annoyed tone, It's all paid for, you can leave me alone now.

But he then answered that with an obvious smile in his voice and said, You sure about that? At that point, I instantly went from annoyed to... scared. It was something about the way he said that instantly creeped me out. I continued walking to my car, but now backwards, not wanting to turn my back to this guy. I had my keys in my right hand, but I was now adjusting them to go in between my knuckles as I walked. When I got to my car, there was a truck in front of me, so once I got to the door, I wouldn't be able to see him.

I quickly jumped in, holding my two bags and my purse, trying to quickly move them out of the way so that I could lock my doors. Once locked, I looked around to see if the guy followed me, but he was nowhere in sight. After I calmed down, I told myself that I needed to report this to the store because this was never acceptable. If he really thought I was stealing something, he should have stopped me at the door, not followed me to my car. So, I called the store and I asked for a manager. As I explained to them what I had experienced, the woman asked me if I was still there, and I said that I was in my car. She asked if I would come back into the store to give them an official statement that they

could file and ask me a few more questions. I told her that I would be willing to, but that I also was not willing to get out of my car alone. So, she actually walked out to my car, and as we both walked in together, we looked around and did not see this guy. I went into the manager's office with her, and there was another male manager already in there. She had explained further about what all happened. I left the bags in the car, but had my purse, keys, receipt, and phone with me. She didn't even seem remotely concerned that I was stealing and asked me for a description of the guy. After I described him, she looked over at the other manager who made a face and shrugged.

She then turned back to me and said that she was concerned, because they didn't have anyone AP or otherwise working that night that matched the description. Yeah, cue me really panicking now. She even had their guy in AP come out, and I confirmed that it was not. him. He'd actually been in the security room watching the cameras while I was there. Thankfully, they had the same idea that I did. They had me review a portion of the camera footage to point the guy out, and suggested that we file a police report because of what he was doing. It was my choice, since all they could really report was a suspicious person. But if they were willing

to, then so was I. We waited for the police to show up. and once more explained what happened. Their real AP couldn't find him anywhere in the store, and couldn't find him outside, so they all assumed that he'd probably left, or at least walked to somewhere where the cameras couldn't find him. I, of course, was not feeling too good about going home alone now, so one of the officers was kind enough to walk me to my car and followed me home. He then said that they would drive around the area a few times before leaving.

Thankfully, this all made me feel better about the situation, and that maybe this guy was just a creep whose plans were foiled. Or maybe he was even just screwing around and playing a very unfunny prank. Either way, I was glad it was over. Or, at least, I thought it was over. I went to bed just fine. after calling my boyfriend and telling him what happened and even the next morning, I had pretty much put it in the back of my mind.

But later that morning, after I had breakfast in a shower, I had to run some errands. I went out to my car and I was unlocking it, and I noticed a shape on my window. After looking at it from different angles because of the glare, I was able to confirm what I was seeing. There was an obvious cup-pumped palm print on the glass, like somebody was looking into my car. I know that it wasn't there the previous day. It was pretty obvious as the handprint seemed to be oily or something, and it left a residue, which is why I noticed it and would have if it was there the day prior. All the bad feelings from the day prior came rushing back, and I ran inside and called my boyfriend.

He told me to make a report with the police, which I did. Unfortunately, because I couldn't prove that it was related to the incident, or that I even knew who this person was, they couldn't really do much. So, I was left feeling vulnerable, helpless, and, not to mention, possibly watched or stalked. I ended up staying home that day, ordered cameras online and waited till my boyfriend got off work, to take me to the places I needed to go. I can report that I have not seen that guy since, thankfully, nor have I experienced anything similar to it.

I don't know what his intentions were, but I do hope that he was just screwing around, and that I can call him a jerk. But it really did freak me out, and I was kind of afraid to go places alone for at least a few months. I've seen posts and horror stories about women being full, followed, and things being done to their cars to try and trick or distract them, and that caused quite a bit of fear in me.

What if that was his goal? What if the print was a distraction? Or maybe just him making sure that he had the right car? It still freaks me out, but I try to put it to rest by instead thinking of all the right things that I did. I'm proud of myself for calling the store. I am proud of myself filing the police report for them, and even calling the cops the following morning, even if they said they couldn't do anything. And I'm proud that I didn't just ignore it, and that I kept myself safe.

Today, I carry pepper spray and continue to keep an eye out for people around me. So, I guess, bottom line, don't ever think you're paranoid if you experience something unsettling. or something or someone makes you feel unsafe. Report it. Worst case scenario is that it's nothing, and you can put your fears to rest. Stay safe out there, folks. This is an experience that I had when I was 16,

during the summer of 1995. I was a junior in high school, and I was a theater nerd and hung out with my two besties, Stella and Chris a lot. Chris was short for Chrissy. At night, we usually picked up a few friends, bought beer and smokes at the local liquor store with one of our fake IDs,

and then headed up to the reservoir, or a local park, to enjoy our illicitly obtained goods. This particular Friday night, I was driving my dad's 1976 Mercedes 450SL. I was buying it from him with payments over time. It was in decent shape and it ran strong, but it was 19 years old. So it had a few minor issues. One was that the passenger's side door could only be rarely locked automatically using the lock from the driver's side.

Relevant later. I picked up Stella, Chrissy and Ted around 8 p.m. We were feeling good and extra happy because it was. Friday. Ted had to sit in the front seat because he was 6-1, and the back seat would barely allow two small people, Stella and Chris, to sit there. We drove to our favorite liquor store, just down the road from the reservoir, and Ted and Stella got out to get siggies and beer while Chris and I stayed in the car chatting. About a minute after our friends walked into the liquor store, an old Chevy van pulled up right behind me, blocking me in.

At first I thought it was just a drunk townie being dumb. Then, a thin, pale woman with shoulder-length brown hair came around to my passenger's side window and tried to start up a conversation with me and Chris. The woman's eyes were dilated, and she said something about how she and her friends were amateur movie makers, and she was looking to cast us in their next gig. Chris and I exchanged a look, and we were both on the same page of, what the hell is this woman talking about? I had a bad feeling at a very strong sense that this woman was going to try to get in my car,

so I suddenly started hitting the lock button hoping that it would take. The woman was just babbling at this point, and she put her hand on my past passenger side door handle, but literally the second before she tried opening the door, my sweet little Mercedes freaking finally obeyed my frantic tapping, and locked the door with a loud click. The woman looked confused for a second. She tried the handle again, but my car was locked. Now I was scared, and pissed. I knew the curb weight of a 76-450 SL was about 4-10. The Chevy van behind me may have been blocking me and had a curb weight up on me, but he was top-heavy.

I'd bet that I could do a lot of damage to it if I slammed into it with my foot on the floor, especially if I did so repeatedly. So, I very loudly said, Lady, take your hands off my effing car. Step the hell away. You go tell your friends they need to move their van now because I'm going to fly. floor in reverse and tear into your crap van like it's a piece of tinfoil. I turned my key, and I revved my engine.

It purred like the sweet little gas-sucking powerhouse it was, and my car swayed back and forth with each rev. I was not bluffing, and I think the woman saw it. The woman's eyes got wide, and she ran back to the van, screaming, Go, go, move! As she was running back to the van, I saw a thin dude with long stringy hair running out of the liquor store towards the van too. He jumped in the back and the van peeled out, leaving a shower of gravel and gray exhaust in its wake.

About ten seconds later, my friends Ted and Stella came walking out of the liquor store. My adrenaline was super flowing and I was relieved to see them. Chris and I told them what happened and they shared their experience. They said the guy who went into the liquor store had just walked up past them and started rambling about some random weird Jesus and Bible stuff to the clerk. He also said something to my friends about them looking open-minded and gave Stella major creeps when he looked her over. The guy at the counter had just listened for a few minutes

while my friends waited patiently to buy smokes. Then the guy heard the revving and screaming and bolted out the dead. door. The clerk asked my friend if the man was with them and they said heck no. He said he thought they were all together or he would have told the guy to leave because he sounded crazy. So my friends bought the beer and smokes and walked out. We all thought that was pretty weird. To this day, I am so grateful that my door locked. Whatever that woman and her friends wanted, it wasn't good. Back when I was young, I used to live in a small suburb outside of a decent-sized town. That was pretty quiet.

For the most part, I don't recall anything about it being creepy, or my parents ever telling me to avoid any people that lived there or anything like that. They taught me all about stranger danger and such, but very rarely did I ever feel uncomfortable about the people that we were around. The event that this story is about was probably the only time anything ever happened that made me scared of people and that's probably why it's so burned into my brain. At the time this happened, I was around 10 years old.

The walk from my house to the school took me somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes every morning, but it was a fairly straight shot. I would take my road to the end, go left, and then take the road the rest of the way to the actual school. Like I mentioned, the suburb was incredibly quiet, so my parents never really had a problem with me walking, and along the way I would typically run into a friend or two, and we would just walk the rest of the way.

On this particular morning, for whatever reason, there didn't seem to be anyone else out on my morning route, which was unfortunate, but not something that was incredibly unusual. I was about ten minutes into my walk when I noticed a truck that had been pulling up behind me slowly. At first I thought it might have been our neighbor because it was the same kind of truck that they drove,

so I turned to wave hello and be polite. But when I looked, it wasn't him. I had no earthly idea who this guy was. As soon as I realized it wasn't my neighbor, I took a slight step back, but then the guy leaned over to the passenger side and started talking to me. I remember he asked me if I had seen a dog running around that street. I responded and told him that I hadn't. He then asked me if I was sure,

and he was really pushy and adamant that the dog was around there. I once again told him that I hadn't seen any dogs on my walk at all, He then reached his hand over and pushed the door open and smiled. Then he asked me if I would come and help him find his dog. I told him that I had to go to school and that I was sorry. I wasn't really sorry. There were definitely alarm bells going off in my head at this point, even being ten. I then said that I had to go and told him good luck on finding his dog.

As soon as I said this and turned to keep walking, the man pulled up more to match my pace and looked over at me with a much angrier look and then said, I need your help finding him, please. He's my best friend, and I really need to find him. I really think that you could help me find him. Please, Michael, get in the truck and I'll take you to school afterwards. At this point, I was really confused because, I had no idea who this guy was, but he somehow knew my name.

It could have been a guess, sure, but it was a lucky guess if so. Part of me actually thought about getting in the car because he knew my name, but, thankfully, I paused and thought about it for an extra second, and I think my instincts were telling me the truth about the situation. Basically, my brain was saying, do not get in that truck. I just told him again that I needed to get to school and that I hoped he found his dog.

And as soon as I said that, I started running towards the school. I heard him yell something aggressive toward me, but I kept going. After a few moments, I got to school, and when I got in, I was pretty clearly out of breath, having run most of the way.

One of the teachers asked me if I was okay, and I ended up telling her about the guy in the truck. But she basically told me that I probably misunderstood the situation and that it wasn't that big of a deal. After that, I kind of forgot about it, mostly because I was a kid and had to deal with class, so it wasn't really on my mind for most of the day. When school got out and I went to walk home,

I noticed that the truck from that morning was parked in the lot out of front. As soon as I saw it, I immediately went back into the school and asked the office if I could call my parents because I needed to ask them to come get me. At first, she didn't seem like she wanted to let me, but then I started talking about feeling sick. I told her that I thought I was going to throw up, and she pretty quickly changed her tune. I ended up calling my mom and asked her if she could come pick me up. She ended up coming to get me, and on the way home, she asked if I was okay, because this was very unlike me. I ended up explaining the whole situation to her. I told her about what happened that morning with the truck, that the man kept telling me he needed my help, and that he knew my name.

I will always remember the look on my mom's face when I told her about this. She mentioned that I did the right thing by not trust. the man, and she told me that no adult would ever ask a child for help like that. They would always ask another adult, and that this man probably had bad intentions. She also told me that she was upset that I didn't call her when I got to the school to tell her, and I mentioned that I had told the lady at the school, but she just told me that I had misunderstood the situation. After this all happened, I wasn't allowed to walk to school alone anymore. and my mom worked with the few other parents in our neighborhood

to create a group of kids that walked together every day. She also went in and spoke with the principal and told him about the whole thing, and they took things like this a lot more serious. Not that there were many more events that were reported, but any time something was reported, letters were sent home with the description of the person, vehicle, and any other pertinent information.

Honestly, I know that there wasn't much that happened in this story, but I'm glad that it actually got the process for the school to change. And I was pretty proud when my mom told me that I did the right thing. I don't recall ever seeing that truck again, nor that man, and I kept an eye out for it every morning that we all walked to school. This might not be scary to other people, but to me, like I said, it was terrifying. and I think a good lesson to take from this for everyone out there make sure your kids know what is and isn't normal for an adult to do when speaking to them and always be on alert when they're out in public especially when they're alone

when I was a kid I met a boy that was the same age as me we became friends but he was always very quiet and shy over time he confessed that he had a crush on me, although I never reciprocated his feelings. I was never interested in boys my age because they were so immature and childish, and he was a great example of a guy who didn't have maturity and control of his actions. When I said that I didn't feel the same way about him, he accused me of deluding him. I used to be nice and kind to him, so he thought that I was in love with him, which was

obviously wrong. After that time, we drifted apart for years. We had recently started talking again. I was 18 and he was 19. I'd been going through hard times for a few months, and I needed a friend. That's when I decided to give our friendship another chance, hoping he would be more mature and capable to keep a friendship without taking it to the romantic side. He delivered a huge bouquet of roses and flowers to my house, with an anonymous note. Soon after he confessed it was him. He lives in another city. It's an hour away from where I live, so my parents and I invited him to come and spend a weekend in our city.

Maybe get out of the house and have some company with me, and it would be good. After all, I'm an only child, and I constantly do feel alone, and since I moved to this new city, it's been difficult for me to meet other people. In the end, we decided that he would stay at our house, but from the day he arrived, he started acting strange. He was no longer the same boy that I knew years ago. It changed a lot. At times, he would start talking to himself.

He would whisper softly and laugh. I would try to talk to him about some topic, and he would just say, What does it matter? In a mocking tone. As if he was making fun of me. He would constantly push or slap me for no reason. There was this moment when I was drinking a glass of juice, and he just slapped me on the head.

He almost made me choke on the juice. I was getting annoyed. Sometimes he would just try to touch me and caress me, and I would walk away. He would notice my discomfort. and get angry. Before you ask, my parents were with us the entire time, and they were as uncomfortable with him as I was. But he was far from his house, so we would have to wait until the next day to be able to take him to his house.

We all sat on the couch watching a movie. The main character was a woman, and I was forced to hear him talking the whole movie about how women were useless, stupid, how they deserve to die. Obviously these comments bothered everyone present there, and he didn't stop. He kept talking about his sense of who should live and who should die. He constantly treated my mother with disrespect, and it made me very angry, to the point where I just started to ignore his presence. When he realized my contempt for him, he would start his self-pity and say that the whole world hated him, and people treated him badly for nothing.

At night, he went to sleep in my room with the door closed, and I went to sleep with my mother in the other room. My father works night shifts as a doorman for a company, so my mother and I were alone with that boy. My mother and I talked for a few minutes about his aggressive behavior and how much he had changed. What was once a quiet and polite boy was now a completely different person.

Then, she confessed that she was scared and that she feared for our safety. I ended up falling asleep because I was very tired, but my mother was awake most of the night just lying down and trying to sleep. The events that took place that night were only told to me days later, and soon you'll understand why. My mother told me that, that night, she saw him standing at our door looking in my direction, and that as soon as she made a slight movement,

he pulled away and quickly left. She was startled and paralyzed. The next morning, we took him to his house, and he constantly sent me messages disturbing me and my mother. Just a few days after that, my mom decided to tell me what she saw. I've been considering the possibility that he may have some psychological,

disorder, or he's just a big obsessive a-hole. I ended up deleting him from all of my social media, and I decided to get away from him for good. Hello, I work for Gloria Jeans. It's a coffee place here in Australia that sounds a lot like Starbucks. That being said, I've never actually been to a Starbucks. Anyway, the chain is fairly popular around Australia. I've worked here for about two years, and I started when I went to university studying women's studies. I'm still working at Gloria Jeans because the cost of living in Australia is so damn expensive,

so I need it as a side job. Basically, I really need this job to help me stay afloat. I was serving in the morning rush of people who were waiting with varying degrees of patience for their morning coffee. when I noticed a woman that I hadn't seen before. I asked her for her order, and, to be honest, I don't remember what it was, nor her name. It's hard to remember it at all. The morning rush was over, and she was still there.

There was nothing that weird about her, and she didn't give us any trouble like our Karen or Darren characters would. I asked her if she was okay, and she asked me how I was there. doing. I said that I was okay. Just the morning rush can be intense. She asked if she could ask me a few more questions, and since it was quiet and management likes when we have a good rapport with the customers, I agreed. She asked me if I had a partner, and I said no, not at the moment, and I swear that her face lit up. So far, nothing was super weird, but I, I apologized to her and told her that I wasn't looking.

She really didn't look phased. Every day after that, she showed up and she wanted to speak with me. It was getting annoying. She would wait there all day and follow me when I had my time off work. I told her that I was on break and needed some space to eat and to rest. She would sit at the table across from me staring and eating her food. She hadn't done anything violent. violent, just really weird.

I asked her to be left alone, and she sulked and got up and left. But she was back again the next day. I talked to my manager about it, and he really did not take it seriously. I had to take my car into the repair shop to get fixed, so I had to catch the bus instead. I hate taking public transport, but it was either that or an Uber. I wanted to save some cash, so. Anyways, she was on the same bus and got off at my stop. I had to sneak through different apartment blocks to hide from her so that she wouldn't know where I lived.

I told my manager all about what had happened that day, and finally, he asked her to leave the store. I tried ignoring her. One day I had to work late, and I was walking out to where I had parked my car, and when I got out there, she was sitting on my car and was waiting for me. I said, Hey, what the hell are you doing?

And she said that she had been waiting for me all day in that she'd missed me. I told her to leave me alone and drove home. This was where I made a big mistake. I didn't realize that she had put an air tag on my car and found out my address. Over the next couple of months, I was sure that someone was looking through my windows. One of my plants was stolen.

I'm not sure if it was her or not, but yeah. And I noticed strange little bottles on my front step. It was incredibly weird. I didn't see her at my house until I realized I forgot to take the bins out, so I did that, came back inside, and closed and locked the door. Then I got back inside and saw her sitting in my living room. I let out a scream when I saw her, and a maniacal grin spread across her face. She told me that she'd been waiting so long for this.

I ran to my phone, and I called the cops while she was trying to take the phone from me, screaming at the top of her lungs that she loved me and that I was hers. I was backed up into the kitchen when she grabbed one of the knives, and started to threaten me with it. I punched her to get her away from me. Then the crazy woman started slicing into her own arm. It was the most insane thing I have ever seen. My neighbors heard the screaming,

and the police and an ambulance came to take her away. She lost a lot of blood, and surprisingly, the cops were able to get her to drop the knife. I don't know what I would, have done if they were forced to use lethal force in my home. She was arrested, and I think that she was sent to a mental health facility. I do hope that she is okay. I'm just happy to be done with it.

I, 15 female, was camping with the family friend, 58 female, for a little over a week. One day we ran out of clean clothes, so we went dry. to look for a laundromat. We couldn't find it, so I ended up having to get out of the truck and ask someone for directions. This is where I made the mistake of asking Toby. He looked around my age and looked harmless, so I went up to Toby and asked for directions. He happily pointed out where it was, and I thanked him and made my way back towards the truck. But it felt like he was staring.

at me. As I was stepping into the truck, he was standing and facing towards me just staring. So, as a teenage girl, I'm obviously a little creeped out by him, but I gave him a smile and a wave as we drove off. Fast forward to the laundromat. I got bored while me and the family friend were waiting on the clothes, so I decided to walk around. While I walked, I passed by Toby and his two little brothers who were running around. I decided to walk back to the laundromat to check on the clothes, and while walking back, I passed around four to six recycling bins. This is important.

I get back and the clothes still have around ten minutes left, so I sit outside waiting. I was enjoying the piece until Toby approached me out of nowhere with a pop can. He asked if there were any recycling bins around. acting like he didn't just walk by five of them, I offered to take it and throw it away for him, which he allowed. I thought that would be it, but he just continued talking to me, trying to keep conversation. Keep in mind I'm five nine and he's six too,

so I can't easily tell him off without being scared. While I'm talking to Toby, he asks how old I am, which I respond with 15. His eyes went wide and he looked me up and down in disbelief, which is when I asked him for his age. He said that he was 18, turning 19, but still proceeded on talking to me saying how I looked 18 at least, which I really don't, and then saying how I was so mature. I just nodded my head, hoping he would go away and take a hint, but no. And finally, the clothes were done, and I began head.

back into the truck before he yells at me for my Snapchat. Now, in that moment, I was still oblivious to his creepiness, so I gave it to him, and we shook hands. I get back to the camper at around 10 p.m., and he adds me, which is when I accepted. The first thing he told me to do, yes, told me, not asked, was turn on my location, which, hell no. I made up some BS excuse and he then wanted to try to convince me to go out with him alone somewhere. Like I was about to do that. I ended up blocking him and that was that.