Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 6x16: Debbie - Let's Not Meet

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Stories in this episode:  -Untitled - Helen (0:57).  -Untitled - Helen (13:19).  -Stepmonster - Avery (24:21).   Extended Patreon Content:  -Holiday Heightened Stalker -  Mari Gracia.  -Untitled - Arry.  -From An Online Chat Room To My Workplace - Your Brush Awaits.   All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. To submit your story to the show, send it to [e-mail].  Get access to extended, ad-free episodes of Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast with bonus stories every week along with a bunch of other great exclusive material and merch at patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast. This podcast would not be possible to continue at this rate without the help of the support of the legendary LNM Patrons. Come join the family! To try Shudder free for 30 days, go to shudder.com and use promo code meet.  Try EveryPlate for just $1.99 per meal by going to EveryPlate.com and entering code meet199.  Bombas is a comfort focused sock and apparel brand with a mission to help those in need. One purchased = one donated, always and forever. I love these guys! Go to Bombas.com/meet today, and get 20% off your first order.  - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/  - Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast  - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com  - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast  - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/  - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/andrewtatelive  

You know it, your wife knows it, your friends know it. Yep, there's no getting away from the fact that there's an outdoor kitchen shaped hole in your life. And it's time to put things right. Thankfully, bull outdoor products are ready with everything you need to create a world-class outdoor cooking space. Bull outdoor kitchens and accessories add value to your property and extra fun to your world. If you're gonna do it, do it right. Turn a bull loosen your backyard. BullBBQ.com to If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. My name is Andrew Tate in the Seasons 6 episode 16 of Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This story took place three years ago on my 16th birthday. It was a cool autumn evening.

The leaves had begun to fall from the trees, leaving them empty and somewhat haunting. I was at home preparing for my birthday slumber party. I had never really had a slumber party before, and wasn't quite sure what the night would bring. I knew we'd probably watch a movie, eat some popcorn, and of course some late night adventuring. I arranged the blankets and pillows in the basement, made sure that the TV worked, grabbed a few snacks, and organized them on the little table before going up to my room to wait for my friends to arrive. It was around 7pm when the girls started arriving.

First was my best friend, Caitlin. Next was Sanya. And finally, Amy. One of my friends, Hannah, hadn't made it to the house yet. Her mom wouldn't drive her so she decided to walk. We waited for Hannah at the house for about an hour or so just playing little party games chatting it up with my parents about school and things like that before we decided to text Hannah to meet us at a burger joint downtown. It was only a 20 minute walk from

my house to the downtown area, so we weren't too worried about any kind of potential danger. This was a time before any of us had data on our phones, so we had no way of calling anyone. The way that we were communicating with Hannah was their text message. You know, the green message bubbles that work without Wi-Fi? We arrived at the Burger joint. It was dark outside, and the downtown area was mostly empty apart from the local pubs and bars. We ordered some burgers and onion rings and eat them while we waited for Hannah. Finally, after what felt like hours she arrived.

She was clearly upset, holding back tears. When we asked why she was upset, she explained that she was just sad that she missed all the fun. And was also a bit scared when she was walking in the dark alone. We managed to calm her down and grab her some Pepsi. We explained that the fun was only just about to begin. Though in the back of my mind, I couldn't seem to understand why walking alone in the dark would scare her so much. I mean, we lived in a very safe neighborhood. I would walk home from my job at McDonald's every single night, no big deal. After our burgers, we decided to go for a walk through the city.

It was 11.30 at night. Our city had a curfew for minors. No minors could be out after 11, and since two of the girls were still 15, we were scared that the police would stop us and find us. A bit of an irrational fear, as I hadn't been aware, there was a curfew until my friend had told me on that night. Because of this, we decided to walk a block away from the main streets in case anyone asked us what our age was. Looking back on it now, no one would have ever asked us our ages. I mean, I don't even know if the curfew was real, but nonetheless, we decided to do the safe thing and walk on the unlit streets.

We were goofing around and making quite a bit of noise when we walked past a dark street scattered with some parked cars and closed down convenience store. We saw an old lady shuffling down the middle of the road. She had a cane and was hunched over. She looked at us and started calling. Help me, please help me, come here and help me. Now, of course, my first instinct was to go up to her and see what she needed. I've always been one to help the elderly in picking things up or crossing the road, so I started walking towards her. My friends had all frozen in place, probably from the creepy vibes that this lady was giving out.

As I walked up to her, she began to smile and said, thank you. I mean you know harm. The way she said this was gut-wrenching. Immediately I stopped walking towards her. My friend Hannah called to me. Don't go up to her. This upset the lady. She began saying, please I need help. At this moment I was kind of worried that maybe she was having some kind of heart attack

or something serious. I didn't want to leave a sick old lady in a dark street, so I asked her, what's wrong? Are you okay? Her response was again, I mean you no harm. This was when I realized that someone who needed help would not tell me that they meant me no harm. The lady was almost in front of me now, shuffling her feet slowly as she moved towards me. I started to back away from her, as I was clearly scared and confused.

My friend Hannah came up behind me and grabbed my arm. Let's go. Don't try and help her." She said while pulling on my arm. I don't know whether Hannah was right or not, considering she was always scared of bad things happening any day and any time. But the way this old lady spoke and shuffled as she was hunched over, clutching her cane, it just gave us all the frights. and shuffled as she was hunched over, clutching her cane, it just gave us all the frights.

The old woman frowned as she realized we were not going to help her, and she turned around at something behind her only to turn back and face us again. As we all backed away, still not certain. We weren't leaving some old lady that really needed our help. We looked behind her to where she had looked. We saw a big black van creeping towards us, one of those creepy vans that you hear about in kidnapping stories. We hadn't even noticed the van. It had just appeared to be parked on the street. As soon as we saw the van behind her, she stopped hunching over, then lunged towards us. We took off running back to the other two girls who had been standing watching the whole thing. In real time, it was probably just a matter of minutes, but looking back on it, it felt

a lot longer than that. All four of us ran as fast as we could along the empty sidewalks until we reached the downtown Tim Hortons, the only place open past 11 aside from the bars. We pulled out my phone and attempted to text my parents, but the texts would not go through. No one else wanted to text their parents because of the amount of trouble that they would be in if their parents knew the four of us, 15 and 16 year old girls had snuck out and gone adventuring downtown during the night. We waited for a good 20 minutes before deciding that it might be safe to leave the

Tim Hortons. We hadn't seen the van anywhere near and decided that we'd make a break from my house. We walked or more so skipped and jogged as fast as we could. We took the most populated areas on our way home to make sure that there would be people in case we saw the van. Thankfully the van did not follow us home, and we all arrived safely. We got home, locked all of the doors, turned off the lights and went downstairs to watch our movie just as we planned. We never turned on the TV though. We just ate popcorn and talked about our adventure.

At the time, we really didn't take into consideration how bad that could have gone. Imagine if it had only been one girl walking alone. If I had been alone, I definitely would have gone up to the woman and I bet that van would not have hesitated to come right up to me and pull me in. I was lucky to have my friends with me. At the time, as I said, I was working at McDonald's and would often walk home alone at night. After this incident, I started ubering too and from work,

wasting my money, yes, but at least I wasn't late to work. Anyways, fast forward, two weeks after the incident. I'm scrolling through Facebook when I stumble across a post called the Witch Lady of Insert Our City Name. It was a picture of the same hunched over came bearing old lady. I clicked on the profile that it was posted on and saw an entire page created to warn people about this woman. There were stories of incidents exactly like mine. She would constantly ask for help and say, I mean you no harm.

Everyone writing the stories had turned her down and kept walking. But what if there were people who hadn't said no and did stop to help her. What if she and that black van had been responsible for missing children or creepy happenings in the city? I lost the page after that it had been disabled and I began to forget anything had even happened. I don't know if she had ever stopped or anything else came of her. But to the hunched over old shuffling lady, let's not meet again. Amplify your career through training and development solutions specifically designed for federal government professionals, from courses to help you attain or retain certification to individualize coaching services, to programs that hone your leadership skills and business acumen.

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pay even less. That's right, we save you money off our amazing washes plus you also get to skip the line and use our Express Lane service. When you're ready to shine, skip the line and save time and money with your online wash code. Find your nearest location at zipscarwash.com. Then drive and shine today. This story took place when I was 18. To give you some context, at this time I lived at home with my

family. I would drive an old car that my Nana had given me to drive to and from school every day. I was often losing things like my wallet so I decided to keep my license in a secret compartment of the car. I would try to always lock the car after using it, but would sometimes forget. It was an old beat up car so I didn't expect anyone to steal it, or the old socks that I kept in the glove compartment. I had a dog and would take her outside at night to go pee. I often would hear things in the backyard, or catch a sense of someone's presence. My dog would occasionally have a growling fit, and how at the air, just barking like crazy.

She would run around the yard sniffing the ground like crazy until I managed to pull her inside. I trusted her word for it and would always be careful to keep my phone on me during our little backyard bathroom breaks. For the dog, obviously not for me. Every so often we would wake up in the mornings and realize that things had been stolen from our garage or our backyard.

This would happen once or twice every couple of months. We would report the stolen things at first, but the police never actually did anything about it, so we stopped calling in our stolen things. I always told my dad that we should put up cameras, but he claimed that cameras wouldn't do anything as the police couldn't do anything about the robberies anyways. Our cars had never been broken into at this point, just the garage and our backyard, so I thought it was fine to leave my license in that small compartment of the car.

It sounds stupid now, that I think about it, but at the time I really just didn't care. One day I woke up and got ready for school. After eating breakfast, I went out to my car. The insides of the glove compartment had been strewn all over the seats. I went inside and told my dad and sure enough the other cars had been broken into as well. My dad said it must have been with a crowbar or something in order to open the locks. I went to check my car and realized that my license had been stolen along with my spare change that I kept in the glove compartment. I was bombed about the license. I didn't care much about

the change, though. I drove my car to school and figured I could just tell any officer that my license had been stolen that night if they happened to pull me over. That week, I went and got a new license. I didn't tell the person at the counter that it had been stolen when he asked me the reason. I just said I had lost it. I don't know why, but sometimes in situations I just get anxious. I panic and use the wrong words or say the wrong things. I had also been listening to the people going in front of me and most of the people just said that they had lost their license and that was it. I didn't really think it would be important to clarify the fact that mine had been stolen

and not just misplaced. I mean, what's the big deal? I can always get any license. Why would it matter how it had gone missing? I had to pay a fee for losing it and was given a temporary paper stating that I did in fact have a license before the hard copy would be mailed to me. I had been using the new license for some time. Everything was fine and I had forgotten that I had even lost it in the first place.

There had been no new robberies since the last one and everything was just peachy in life. I had just come back from my rugby tournament and was about to take a shower when my mom called me to come downstairs. She yelled that it was urgent so I put on a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt thinking that she needed help picking something up or something like that. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was a man and a woman standing at the front door. My mom motioned for me to address them so I turned and said hello. He asked if my name was insert my full name.

And I said, yes, that's correct. Then he pulled a police badge from his pocket held at his arm, just like they do in the movies and put the badge in my face. He told me he was a detective. They asked if they could come in and my mom and I agreed. They walked into my dining room and asked me to sit at the table. I sat on one end and they sat on the other. I was so confused why would a detective be here to talk to me? I couldn't possibly think of any reason that they would be at my house looking for me specifically and calling me

by name. The woman looked at me and asked if she could record the conversation for future investigations. I agreed and she pulled out a little stick and pushed a button. They started asking me questions about how old I was, what I did for work, about my spots and things like that. They then started asking me about my license and why I hadn't reported it being stolen. I told them I had gotten a new one and didn't think that it was important. They lectured me about reporting things to the police when they're stolen and the importance especially for something as important as an identification. They then asked me, does this name mean anything to you?

The name that they gave me, I had never heard of before. So I said, no, I don't think so. I think they believed me. They then told me that my license had been stolen and used in a homicide case. At the time, I didn't even know what a homicide was. For some reason, I thought it was some kind of burglary. That's all the information I got from the police

and they thanked me for my time. I asked my mom what a homicide was and she explained to me that it was a murder case. My license had been used in a murder. I should have known what homicide was because I was obsessed with watching true crime and serial killer documentaries on YouTube. But I got very anxious and my brain just got confused.

To be honest, I was scared that the amount of documentaries I watched would make the police think that I had something to do with it. I mean, they can trace your computer history, right? I was very curious to find out more about this murder case, but the police never contacted me again. I guess I really didn't fit the mold of murderer or accomplice.

That I'm very glad of. Wow. About a year later, I was telling the story to a friend. I told him the name of the detective, and he looked at me, dead in the eye, when I mentioned that name. He told me that he had been reading the local news and had just seen a closed case with that name. He pulled up the case, and sure enough, it was the same name as the detective that had

asked me about the license. The man had shot someone in the chest and sat him inside of a car. He had put alcohol bottles in the car to make it seem as though there was some kind of drunken accident, then set the car on fire and pushed it off the road to make it look as though he crashed. It had later been stated by the police as a homicide, not just a crash due to inconsistencies in the murder murderer's plan. My license was found inside of the burning car. The police would have opened up the car,

found the murder scene, a dead man, and somehow my license. The murderer would have been lurking around my house, stealing things from my car. He would have been able to look at my license and get all of my information to think of what could have happened, to think that I never reported it being stolen, to think that the police could have potentially thought that I had something to do with this murder. There are so many possibilities, so many things that could have happened from my lack of reporting my stolen license. Thankfully, the murderer is now locked away in prison. I've never looked up the case since. I now keep a close eye on my belongings, though, at least for the most part. Okay, maybe not, but I urge you to report things when they're stolen even if you don't

think that they matter. To the man who was a thief, or for that matter, a murderer, let's not meet, ever. 18T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment You're wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have 18T Fiber.

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Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too. Ugh, this one, I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months.

Live like a Gagillionaire with AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit AT&T.com slash Hypergate for details. Our final story of this episode does contain some depictions of non-sexual child abuse. However, I found it to be a very moving and important story to share on the podcast. Listener discretion is advised.

For starters, my parents have been divorced almost my entire life, so I have no memory of them actually being together. I have an older brother and an older sister. We moved around a lot when I was young, between my mom and dad and different homes. My mom struggled with drugs and was arrested and sent to rehab when I was only maybe four or five, so we were sent to live full-time with my dad. I remember him dating as often as he could between multiple jobs and taking

care of us. We spent a lot of time with babysitters when we weren't in school. I remember only meeting two of the women he dated, one of them being a pretty petite blonde, and the other being Debbie. Debbie was kind and funny, and had this infectious smile. I liked her instantly. I was happy when my dad said that they were getting married. My sister was not. I always thought it was because she had some hope that someday our mom and dad

would get back together, which is normal for children of divorce, but maybe she saw something early on that no one else could. I don't remember the very first time she ever hit me, as my dad would use spanking as a form of punishment, only when we really messed up, though. So that's probably how she started out. I do remember knowing that her forms of punishment just weren't normal. She overreacted about things that made no sense to me. She once bought a new makeup compact, and when switching it with her old one accidentally through the wrong one away.

Instead of just laughing it off like most normal adults, she told our dad that one of us had thrown it away on purpose, because we didn't like her. So my dad grounded us and told us that we weren't allowed out of our rooms until someone fessed up. After a few days of being grounded, my brother snuck across the hall to mine in my sister's room where we would have our sibling meetings. We all knew that none of us had done it, and we didn't know why she was doing this to us. We agreed that someone was going to have to take one for the team, and being the youngest,

I got the short end of the stick. I confessed while my dad was home, making sure I would get the least severe punishment. I got yelled at and spanked and was sent to my room to finish out my being grounded while my brother and sister were granted their freedom. The next day while my dad was at work, Debbie came home early. She came into my room and was oddly calm. In a monotone voice, she asked, Why did you throw away my new makeup? Is it because you hated me?

Because I'm not going anywhere? I'm here to stay. Now I couldn't believe this. She had actually convinced herself that we were responsible. As she spoke to me, she got more worked up and began gesturing largely. The entire time I didn't say a word. I had never seen an adult act this way. She did not like that I sat silent. She hit me hard enough to leave a black eye. And then she just walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. I don't even think I registered any pain until she walked out. I was in shock. I registered any pain until she walked out. I was in shock. What just happened?

My dad got home not long after, but didn't come to my room. I was called downstairs for dinner, and when I got down, my dad saw my eye and asked me what happened. I saw my sister straighten up and open her mouth, ready to expose Debbie. But before she could get a word out, Debbie quickly replied. She ran into the door, and rolled her eyes, and shook her head. My siblings and I looked at each other in disbelief. We didn't say anything. The following day, Debbie let me out of my room, and asked me if I wanted to sit and watch a movie with everyone else. She had gone from the wicked witch of the West to Glinda the Good Witch. I soon learned that this was just the beginning. This type of behavior went on for months, us doing

something minor or accidental, and her overreacting, and hitting either myself or my brother for some reason she never touched my other sister. Then doing something nice and acting as though nothing even happened. My dad would spend most weekends away, either working one of his many jobs or hunting or something of that nature, which left us with Debbie. She didn't care about us though. We were a chore for her. She would feed us at dinner,

but that was it. We weren't allowed to make too much noise in the house, so we spent most of our time in the backyard or at our neighbor's house across the street, since they had a daughter around my sister's age. There was one weekend where we had applesauce with our dinner. I was an extremely picky eater, but there were some things that I genuinely just couldn't choke down, applesauce being one of them. I was off in the last one at the table, same in this situation. She got annoyed and yelled something at me. Almost immediately after she spoke, I threw up on my plate. She stormed over to me and yanked my hair back. She screamed that I had done this on purpose. She was pulling so hard on my hair that my eyes began to water. She picked up my spoon,

handed it to me and told me to eat it. I stared at her. She wanted me to eat my own vomit. No, that couldn't be right. She repeated for me to eat it, eat everything on the plate and the table. I cried as I followed her instructions. Trying not to throw up again. I somehow was able to keep it down, though. And as soon as I finished, she dragged me by my shirt to pull me up out of the chair and shove me towards the kitchen telling me to finish my chores and then get outside with my siblings.

Another weekend, I'm not sure what I did to make her angry, but we were in the basement and she was yelling at me. She threw the back of her hand across my cheek, then shook me and shoved me into a brick wall. I felt my head hit the wall, and then a metal bar from a futon. I was dazed and felt like I was having some kind of out-of-body experience. She was still yelling, but it sounded echoey. I vaguely remember her grabbing my arm and the next thing,

I was in a dark room with the lights off laying in bed. One day at school, I got nauseous and almost passed out. So I was sent to the nurse's office. When I walked in, my brother was also there. We must have had the same bug. The nurse called my dad, but he was unable to leave work early that day. So she then called Debbie. As soon as she told us that Debbie was coming to take us home, my brother jumped up, saying he felt better and would go back to class. The nurse gave him this apprehensive look, as he was still very pale and sick-looking,

but let him go. I inwardly screamed at the nurse to recognize this, to see that he was scared and wonder why. I wanted so badly to cry and just tell someone what was happening. My first grade teacher was one of the nicest people I had ever met. She gave me my first chapter book. I had dreams of her adopting me, like the scene from Matilda. I think she knew something was wrong at home, but there wasn't much she could do without evidence. By this time in my life, my mom had been released from jail and concluded rehab.

She lived in a halfway house and had her own apartment. We would go stay with her every other weekend. She would see the bruises and the scratches that came from nails, but not just kids being kids. She got angry. She tried many times over the next few days to gain custody of us, but as she had priors and my dad and Debbie had secure jobs and a stable home, she always lost. It broke her heart. She was watching her kids be hurt by somebody who was supposed to be

taking care of them, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it. What made it worse was that my own dad wasn't doing anything to stop it. He either genuinely had no idea what was going on or he was purposefully ignoring it. I hoped it was the former. When I was in second grade, we moved to a new town. This was my third school and my brother and sisters' fourth. My dad told us that this was it. We weren't moving again. He was right, although we didn't believe him. The physical abuse, however, slowed quickly with the move. It eventually stopped all together. Instead, she would say mean things. Tell us we looked stupid, or that we weren't good kids. But I knew this wasn't true, at least for me and my sister.

My brother was another story entirely. Teachers loved me and so did my friends' parents and my aunts and uncles. They had never met such a well-behaved child. So respectful and polite, they had no idea that we were scared into this behavior. I excelled in school and began reading books almost obsessively. It was my escape. When I was in third grade, we got headlice, most likely from someone at school, but Debbie

was convinced that it was because my mom made us sleep on a barn floor, as she said. She would talk shit about my mom all the time, saying that she was a drug addict, and nothing more, and that she would go back to jail soon. She was sure of it. My mom went on to stay sober for almost 15 years before she had a drink. And that was at her wedding. To this day, she hardly ever has a drink and when she does, it's in moderation. We would tell my mom that Debbie was saying these things and she would respond with, wow,

she must be in love with me if she talks about me that much. When I got into high school, I started to realize that Debbie's mood swings were a sign of someone mentally unhealthy. They were extreme from being exuberant and motivated, wanting to go outside and do things and socialize to being so depressed that she wouldn't even get out of bed. I would only see her come out of her bedroom to go to the bathroom. Her eyes would be red and swollen from crying. If my dad was working late or gone hunting for the weekend, eyes would be red and swollen from crying. If my dad was working late or gone hunting for the weekend, she would get drunk and sit on the couch crying about

how he was never going to come back. But I still couldn't feel bad for her. Knowing how terrible she really was, she had always been very convincing in her, I'm so nice and fun act in front of other people, but she was beginning to slip. We would be at a family event and someone would ask her a simple question to which she would snap back with some snide answer. Soon she stopped coming to family events altogether. We did host a few holidays, our family rotates, who hosts, and at Christmas one year, she spent the entire day in the main living room, while we were in the basement with the family. My dad had remodeled the basement after my sister moved away to college into a NASCAR-themed

man cave, complete with a card table, entertainment center, full bar, darts, and a pool table. One side of the pool table was close enough to the wall that my dad had modified a normal pool queue into a small one so people could shoot from that side. My cousin was shooting and pulled back too far, cracking the glass in a picture frame behind him. We all went silent. We waited for Debbie to yell. She was upstairs, so my dad quickly pulled it down from the wall and hid it in the closet saying, we just won't say anything and laughed it off. At this point,

my sister could not be in the same room with Debbie, without them getting into a heated argument. My sister had spent her entire life watching her abuse my brother and I, and not being able to do anything about it. She had had enough. While staying with us one summer, she and Debbie got into their most heated fight yet. My dad was gone for the weekend, doesn't hunting. Debbie got so angry she packed a bag and went to stay with her oldest daughter.

I should have mentioned earlier that Debbie has four kids of her own from a previous marriage. They lived with their dad so we didn't see them often. Although her oldest daughter, Carly, had taken the blame and saved my ass on more than one occasion, including slapping Debbie across

the face and telling her the next time that she saw a bruise on one of us she was calling DHS. I was in a twilight zone, though. I had always dreamed that she would leave, or one day just be gone. Could this be it? No such luck. She came home the next day and pretended as though nothing had even happened. Her behaviors became increasingly more erratic, but my brother and I were never home, as we tried to fill all of our time with extra curriculars or work. My brother worked close to 40 hours a week alongside being a senior in high school. I joined every club that I could as well as having a part-time job. We did anything we could to avoid spending time at home with her. I've known since I was seven years old that I wanted to work with food.

My obsession started with watching the original Iron Chef on late night TV. Debbie told me constantly that working with food was a hobby not a career. You should choose something more reliable like becoming a lawyer or an engineer. I ignored her, and my senior year began applying to schools that specialized in culinary arts. Weeks after submitting them, I realized I hadn't heard back from any. No acceptance letters, no denial letters, nothing. One day I came home from school to grab something before soccer practice. I grabbed the mail from the mailbox and went inside. I went to throw away some junk mail, and when I opened the trash, something caught my eye. My name, on an envelope, under some coffee grounds

and some other trash. My heart jumped. I dug through the gross trash and didn't find just one envelope, but four. Four envelopes with my name on all of them. They were all acceptance letters. One included a scholarship offered from one of the other schools.

I was irate. What the fuck? She knew what schools I had applied to intercepted the mail and when she received them all, she threw them away. But don't worry, she had opened them first. I didn't even know how to react. I went to soccer and when I came home, I told my dad that I was going to stay

at a friend's house for a few days. We got into an argument, and he ended up sitting on me so that I couldn't leave. I told him he could stop me tonight, but he had to go to work in the morning, and I had to go to school, and I wouldn't be coming home. He started to cry. What am I doing wrong, he asked?

Now, my dad was not an emotional guy. Getting a hug from him was like pulling teeth, let alone getting him to say I love you. So this shocked me. I just looked at him and said, it's not you. He got the hint. So I stayed at a friend's house for the rest of the week, and when I came home, Debbie didn't say a word. 18T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment

You're wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gigillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too.

Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Gigillionaire with AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit AT&T.com slash Hypergig for details. AT&T Fiber presents a straightforward moment.

Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too.

Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Giga-Gillionaire with AT&T fiber. Limited availability in select areas. Visit att.com slash Hypergate for details. The rest of the year went on in a combination of uncomfortable silences and forced small talk in passing.

As soon as I graduated, I moved into my own apartment. Unfortunately, no culinary school for me, as I couldn't find the financial aid that I needed. But I was happy to be free. My cousin got married a couple of years later, so I went to my dad's house so that I could ride with them to the wedding. Plus my dad was going to work on my car. The entire weekend was extremely strained and uncomfortable, with Debbie saying no more than maybe five words to our entire family.

At the end of the weekend, my car wasn't done, so my dad was driving me back to my house. The ride was quiet, which was normal. We weren't particularly close, so we didn't talk much. Finally, he broke the silence. He said, When I get home tonight, I'm asking Debbie for a divorce. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

I couldn't help but smile. Dad, I'm sorry, I don't mean to smile, but I've been dreaming of this moment my entire life. It came out with a sort of hysterical chuckle. I literally pinched myself to make sure that it was real. He just nodded and said, I need you to be quiet about this for now. You can't tell your brother or sister. I want Debbie to come to terms with it before we tell the kids. Not only was my dad opening up to me, he was confiding

in me. It felt like I had been given the season finale of Game of Thrones for the season had even aired. I couldn't tell anyone. I was excited. I could barely keep from laughing out loud. When we got to my house, he gave me a tight hug and halfway jokingly said, well, if you don't hear from me in a few hours, I'll probably be dead. I looked him in the eye and told him that if I didn't hear from him by 9pm, I was calling the cops. He nodded and drove away. I received a text from him shortly after, saying he was alive and that he would call me tomorrow. It was another few weeks before they told everyone, Debbie told all of her kids that they were

divorcing because my dad had been unfaithful. They all told us they knew that wasn't true, and that my dad would never do that. My dad decided he wanted to keep the house, but that he would let Debbie stay there as long as she needed until she found a place of her own. That was the wrong choice. She begged my dad to go to couples counseling with her. He agreed, and assured me that it was to help her get closure, and that he had already spoken to a lawyer and officially filed for the divorce. I was scared that she would convince him to stay with her. Luckily, he did stand as ground.

The counselor referred Debbie to her own therapist, where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and clinical depression. This explained a lot, her crazy mood swings, her overreactions to simple things, etc. After her diagnosis, she decided to self-medicate, with alcohol. She was going through two or three, sometimes even four handles of vodka a week. She would hide the empty bottles and the guest bedroom closet. She began obsessively calling my dad when he was at work. She would skip work to follow him around, sure that he had some other girlfriend, which he didn't.

Some days she would come home and she would be packing boxes full of her stuff, completely calm. Other days she would be sobbing and begging him not to do this, telling him that she would kill herself if he went through with it, That she would kill him and then herself. On more than one occasion, he would wake up in the middle of the night, feeling like he was being watched. He wouldn't open his eyes all the way, and he didn't move. But he would see her, silhouetteed, in the doorway. Just watching him sleep.

There were a few times when he saw her holding a knife. He even found that same knife under his pillow one night when he went to bed. I was terrified. Dad, you need to get the fuck out of that house or kick her out. Her daughter helped her find a condo in a neighboring city, and my dad helped her move, and even paid the mortgage on the condo. It was part of the alimony. She decided to adopt a dog and name it Tink. Now Tink had been her nickname for me,

as I could eat a ridiculous amount of food, mostly because I didn't know where my next meal was coming from. I got a text from one of her kids. Mom named her dog after you. She only lived in that condo for a few months before moving back to my hometown. Again, my dad paying for everything. She would call him all the time and ask him to come do simple household fixes, changing a light bulb or an air filter, fixing the garage door because it wouldn't close.

Now this happened a lot. He would always ask if there was something blocking the sensor before he went over. She would insist there was nothing in front of the sensor, but low and behold, there was always something there when he got there. I asked him why he hadn't blocked her yet, and he said he felt bad and she needed to be eased into living alone, especially after 14 years of marriage. I told him he needed to block her. Eventually, I convinced him to do so. After about seven or eight months, my dad started dating again.

One woman was from Wisconsin. He was infatuated with her. He would tell me about her all the time and how excited he was to go visit her. After they had been dating for a couple of months, he decided he wanted her to be his date to my step-sister's wedding. All of my step-siblings have kept in close contact with my dad ever since the divorce, their kids even calling him Papa. At this time, I was living in Colorado, but I flew back for the wedding. I got to meet my dad's new girlfriend, now wife, whom I absolutely love, who couldn't be

more different from Debbie. While dad and his girlfriend were out of the house one day, I was at the house by myself. There was a knock at the front door, which was odd. We lived in a small town, and my dad had an open door policy, so everyone we knew would come into the door without knocking. I figured it was a solicitor or some Jehovah's Witness, as they had a church across from the house, but rarely knocked on the door. As I walked to the front door, I saw a face peeking through the window. It was her. My stomach dropped and I felt myself freeze momentarily. She waved at me enthusiastically. I didn't know what to do. She had already seen me,

and there was no knowing what she would do if I didn't open the door. So I did. I stepped outside, not giving her a chance to come inside. I didn't even have time to take in her appearance before she wrapped her arms around me. I recoiled, but she held on tight. Just like she was about to lose me, my heart started to pump and I became scared. Why was she here? She finally let go and stepped back. She was gone. Her face almost skeletal.

Her arms so skinny, I could wrap my thumb and pinky around them. Her belly was distended from the alcohol abuse. She looked like a cartoon character. I saw you were home this weekend. I thought I'd stop by. I miss you, sweetie. Now, I had been back for less than 24 hours, having arrived the night before. I drove with my sister and my newborn nephew, and we had gone straight to my dad's house, which means she had been watching the house. Where's your sister and my grandson? I told her they weren't there, and my dad would be home later so she should leave.

Her smile disappeared. Oh, she said. We stood in silence for what felt like forever, me avoiding eye contact and her eyes drilling into me. Well, I guess I better get going. See you at the wedding. And she left. I found out that weekend that since I had moved to Colorado, she had lost her license,

her job, and was on the verge of losing her house. Her kids basically took turns taking care of her, but not for long. Her oldest daughter had asked her to watch her daughters for a couple of hours while she and her husband both worked late. Now, as a side note, my dad is not the kind of guy to sit still. He finds anything he can to stay busy. After she had moved out, she picked up a couple of side jobs just to keep busy for fun. One of these jobs was being at a local bar where everyone knows everyone, small

town stuff. Anyway, so her daughter's husband arrives home and as soon as he opens the door, he is assaulted with the smell of shit. He thought the dog had gone into the house, so he went into the basement where the dog stays, but he couldn't locate the smell. He went back upstairs into the kitchen, where Debbie was sitting at the counter. He wrinkled his nose and asked what the smell was. She said that she didn't know and just shrugged nonchalantly. He went to the sink, and the smell got stronger, and one side was backed up, and

had stuff inside of the drain. Did you use the garbage disposal? He asked her. She knew the garbage disposal was broken, as they had left a note on the counter. She shook her head, not looking up from her phone. He said it smelled like a porta-pony, like human feces. Suddenly, she jumped up from the stool, and half ran to the fridge. She reached in and pulled out a sandwich bag full of what looked like chocolate. Well, it sure as hell was not. It was literally a bag of feces. She held it out to him. Does this look like there's poison in it? She asked. As if this were totally normal, he was

bewildered. What the fuck? He said. She told him that she had gone to the local bar that night before and gotten pizza and thought my dad had poisoned it as he was working that night. He immediately asked her to leave the house and take the bag with her. He later figured out that she had shit in either her hand or the toilet or even the sink itself dug through it with her hands. There had been brown stuff under her fingernails, which she thought were just dirty. Then put some in a bag and put it into their fridge. Then she tried to wash it down with the broken garbage disposal. After that, all of her kids went in together and

got her committed for 72 hours without her consent. I have heard from the kids that she's lost so much weight that she had to be hospitalized at one point and had open sores all over her body. She wasn't eating, just drinking. Last I knew, she was sober, had joined a church, and was living in an apartment on her own. Only one of her four kids talked to her anymore. The rest of blocked her. I currently live in the same city as her, and I still have this fear that she's going to find out where I live, or where I work, and just show up. about where I live or where I work and just show up. Debbie, you psycho bitch step monster? Let's not meet ever again. Don't forget if you're a Patreon subscriber supporting the show, stick around after the

music for your extended version of this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard two stories by Helen. And finally, Step Monster by Avery. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's not meet a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.

If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Over the last couple of weeks, I've actually been recording my episodes online. I've been live streaming that recording process over at twitch.tv forward slash Andrew Tate Live on Friday evenings. Now I don't know if I'm going to do this every single week, but when I can, I will hop on to Twitch and you'll get to experience that recording process, see how everything works, and witness all of my mistakes. And we also get to chat about the stories. Check it out, that link will be in the show notes. Thank you everyone for listening.

I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Stay safe. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 I was living in the downtown area of Silicon Valley. AT&T Fiber presents A Straight Forward Moment. You're wine. Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a gigillionaire? Yeah pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire?

Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Gagillionaire with AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas,

visit AT&T.com slash Hypergate for details. AT&T Fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber.

The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward. Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Gigaigillionaire with AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas, visit ATT.com slash Hypergig for details.