r/LetsNotMeet

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All right, let's get into these reddit stories starting with little kids love to talk.

As a child, think kindergarten age. I love to talk. If anyone had a question for me, I would gleefully give them way too much information.

Most people found it endearing and would praise me for being so smart, which encouraged me a lot.

My mom and I normally shopped at the market just a few minutes away from my house.

My mom had been shopping there for 20 some years at that point and was friends with most of the workers.

So I was friendly with them too and was always happy to talk with them.

Whenever my mom got distracted talking to someone, I with the attention span of a six year old would wander around the aisle.

My mom would keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't get too far, but if she was distracted, one of the employees would usually be around,

and gently got me back over.

One day though, we went to a different market that I couldn't remember having been to before, and we didn't go back to for nearly a decade.

We were walking around the aisles when my mom ran into her friend. They started talking, and I, not realizing that I no longer had a store full of adults keeping an eye on me, started wandering around the aisle.

My eyes caught some colorful display. I think flowers or balloons or something, and went over to look.

Once I was satisfied with my inspection, I turned back around to the aisle only to find my mother wasn't there. Huh.

That had never happened before.

I looked around a little, though not moving from my spot near the colorful displays.

Since it was right near the registers, there was a decent amount of people nearby, which I'm thankful for now.

As I was looking around, an employee came up to me. He was older than my sister. She was 12 or 13 at the time, and younger than my dad, in his mid-40s, which was about the only way I could gauge age.

Now, I would say he was probably in his early to mid-20s if I remember right.

Hi there, he said sweetly, and that tone you normally speak to kids in. I cheerfully said hello, actually stepping a little closer.

Are you looking for your mommy? I say yes, happily explaining that I had last seen her talking to her friend, and that I could normally find her easily when I wandered away, so I wasn't sure where she could have gone.

Does she leave you alone often? Not really. My older sister was normally with me if my mom wasn't.

She was 12 or 13, and she was super mature, so if my mom had to leave for a little bit, she knew I'd be okay.

And she never left us alone in public, just at home if she needed to run somewhere.

Never for very long, just the length of time of a Pokemon episode or something, and my dad was at work a lot, and did it come back until late usually.

Just if you were wondering. Where do you live? Well, wouldn't you know it? I just learned my address. We just learned how to mail a letter in school, even took a little class trip to the mailbox on our school corner to send them out.

I knew how to write my address now, and I knew how to say it. One a year? Of course you do.

I know kids are naive, but I was downright dumb.

I was diagnosed with duidel color blindness two years later, otherwise known as red-green color blindness. Make sense as I was totally blind to all the red flags.

Where do you go to school who picks you up? Well, I go to the local elementary school. I don't know the address, though. Sorry.

But I know what street it's on because I wait on the sidewalk for my mom or daycare center, depending on the day.

So I see the street sign a lot since I'm usually waiting for a while to be grabbed.

Do you like animals like puppies? Dogs scare me, cats scare me, pigeons scare me, fish scare me, flies scare me.

You know what doesn't scare me? Turtles. I have five turtles. No dogs that might bark or bite if someone drops by the house, like our neighbor does.

Those dogs are always behind the gate, though, so they don't scare me a lot.

It had only been a few minutes since I last saw my mom. Even with how much information I was dumping, I was a very fast-talker.

But I was starting to get a little antsy, not because I was uncomfortable talking to a stranger, but because I had skipped lunch that day specifically.

Who caught my mom into letting me get a bagel from the store next door, which was why we were at the market in the first place.

My mom was holding on to the bagel to make sure I didn't try to eat it too fast and choke, which I had done several times in the past.

I wanted my bagel. And while I liked talking to this grown man who made me feel smart and was also interested in my life, I liked bagels more.

Plus, if I caught my mom when we were near the bakery section, I might be able to use my charm and cuteness to get a cookie.

So I got to find my mom now.

Well, oh, well, I'll walk around with you and help you find her.

You want to lead me through the market, you work out where you can easily bring me to the back room, meat locker, or any number of places? Yeah, sounds good.

Well, Aussie.

I look around to see my mom. I were leaves look on her face, slowly changing into something more anxious.

I smile happily and wave her over.

She immediately grabs my hand and I can tell she probably wants to chide me.

Probably for leaving the aisle, but she seems more occupied on the man in front of me.

Before I can even open my mouth to introduce him or remember that I never even got his name.

He quickly says that he's glad I found my mom and he needs to get back to work and practically runs to the back of the store.

My mom puts her hands at my shoulders and looks me in the eye. Her expression a lot more worried now.

Well, what was he talking to you about? She asked. Her voice more serious than I'd ever heard her.

And I have my bagel.

My mom opens her mouth, pauses, and goes into her purse to hand me my bagel.

Between bites, I happily tell her about the conversation and everything I remembered.

My age and grade pick up schedule, likes and dislikes, my literal address.

My mom gradually becomes paler.

Then became a red with anger. She brought me over to the manager and I don't remember much about the conversation.

I grow to cookie. I remember that pretty well. It was shaped like a watermelon, which was apparently far more important to me than paying attention to what was being said.

The police weren't cold.

We went home and my mom told me I wasn't allowed to walk around the store anymore.

No more talking to any stranger, even if they worked at the store we were at, unless she was with me.

If I ever saw that man ever again, I was to run away, find someone I know and ask for help.

If all else fails, scream at the top of my lungs, just like when a fly lands on me.

God, insects are creepy.

I agree, pleasantly, not really fazed by anything she's saying.

I know that some people are bad, but bad people look bad, right?

They talk mean and look scary and try to grab you.

This guy didn't, so he wasn't bad, was he?

But if my mom was saying it, then I'd listen.

And I better enjoy that cookie because we weren't going back to that store ever again.

Here's incoming.

In exchange, I can get a donut once a month from our usual store. Here's cancelled.

When I was around 12, our school had a safety assembly and was talking about the shady things adults do to get close to kids.

And a very, very watered-down version of what they most likely wanted.

And I'm sitting there, listening and suddenly realize, oh, if my mom hadn't found me something bad might have happened.

If not in this store, then in front of my school.

And if not in front of my school, then my house.

A little over a decade later, I'm 18 now, and I've never seen that guy again.

Let's keep it that way.

Next story.

Hold over by weird cop.

So this was back right after 9-11 happened.

I, female 24 years old, was driving by myself across the country to get to my son who was with my ex.

I had been out of state taking care of a sick family member.

It was the middle of the night in New Mexico, and I saw police lights behind me.

I was exhausted and annoyed because I hadn't been speeding or anything.

There were not really any other cars on the road at the time, and I was close to the exit for the hotel.

I had planned to stop at for the night.

I pulled over and the cop came over to the driver's side window, which in itself was weird,

because usually they come to the passenger's side window on busy roads, and this was a highway.

So I give him all my stuff, and he just stared at me for the longest time.

He walked to his car and then returned almost immediately. He told me to step outside the car.

Okay, so I was worried at this point because I had gotten tickets before, but being asked to step outside the car was not the norm.

I did, as he said, and he asked if I had been drinking.

I said I hadn't, and then I asked why he pulled me over.

He said I was driving erotic, which was not true.

He then asked me if I was a terrorist, which was absurd.

I was a young American white woman just driving.

There was really no reason for this question.

It's weird, and I was a veteran with an ID also.

He gave me a walk-the-line drunk driving test, which I passed, and then said he needed to search my car to see if I had any drugs.

I thought about this for a minute because I knew my rights and all, but it was solely and I was just so tired.

I just didn't want to deal with all the BS of refusing, so I gave him the okay.

I knew I didn't have anything in my car.

So when he got to my truck, he opened up a small suitcase I had that was my dancers, my stripper stuff.

He asked me about it, and I told him I was a stripper.

This really set him off, and he started screaming at me about being a trash person.

This pissed me off, and I started looking around at my situation.

I was alone for the most part with this weird guy.

And every once in a while, a car would pass by, but for the most part the roads were empty.

It was the middle of the night, and I didn't have anything on myself to protect myself, and he had a gun.

He told me then that I needed to walk back into the tree line, that was next to the road.

I stared at him and said no. I demanded he call for backup and other officers to come.

He was thrown off by this.

I said I wanted a female officer, and I would no longer comply with anything he said.

And then I started trying to wave down cars when they did pass by.

He told me to calm down, rode out a speeding ticket, and let me go.

I never paid the ticket, and never heard a word about it. This was 20 years ago.

At the time, I was really shaken.

And I just forgot about it, but looking back, I don't think he was a real cop.

Next story.

And after school night in New York, that changed my life.

I've been browsing this thread for the past few days, contemplating whether or not to post my story.

I'll be honest.

I don't think my encounter is as extreme as many of the stories I've read here.

However, it was an experience that completely changed my life.

And I'd like to get it off my chest in hopes of helping other young women be more aware and cautious in life.

I was a teenager at the time, about 15, 16 years old, living in New York City.

I grew up in the Bronx, and one of the really bad neighborhoods.

But never had a creepy encounter or experience.

Until my mom decided to move into a new apartment,

I was a couple of train stops away from where I was raised.

In high school, I was a very active teenager involved in a lot of extracurricular activities.

On an average day, I would leave school around 6 or 7 pm.

My commute home was about an hour and a half on the bus and train.

On this particular day, I left school maybe around 7 pm.

I wore a uniform, so I had on a school skirt with a button down.

And my school sweater.

In the most humble way possible, I am going to acknowledge that I am a beautiful woman.

I've always been beautiful and took very good care of my appearance.

Even as a little girl and especially as a teenager.

I was used to men sometimes way older than me, cat calling me.

And I always simply ignored them, or made it clear that I didn't want to be bothered.

So on this day, I'm walking home from the train station,

which is a short maybe 2 minute walk.

When my best friend calls me on my cell phone.

While my walk home is short, I pass a bunch of shops, which are usually closed by 7 pm.

And my building itself is the only building on a dead end street.

Around this time, it starts to get dark out.

And there's not too many people walking around in the area.

So it could get pretty dangerous.

However, I've never been worried walking home.

And I'm on the phone with my best friend.

So I wasn't afraid or anything.

Besides, I walk pretty fast.

So as I'm walking, I hear two men behind me.

I'm not paying attention to their conversations since I'm having my own.

And didn't really think much of it.

As I'm approaching the dead end, I stopped to grab something from my bag.

And I remember hearing the men stop behind me.

It was then that it hit me that I was possibly being followed.

I took a couple more steps, continuing the conversation on the phone.

So I wouldn't be obvious.

And then I stopped again and noticed they did the same.

This time, they were closer to me, because I could feel the negative energy on my back.

My heart started racing, and I didn't know what to do.

My building was on a dead end.

And even if I made it to my building in time,

I would have had to ring the buzzer and wait for my mom to let me in.

I wouldn't leave enough room for anything to happen to me.

In that time, the men could not me, stab me, or anything.

The men continued to follow me, and by this point, they stopped talking.

I continued to act as if everything was normal with my friend on the phone.

By this time, my friend is ready to get off the phone, so she says,

talk to you later, in which I respond, all right, talk to you later.

And then I came up with my plan.

There's a corner store before you walk through the dead end.

So after my friend hung up on the phone, I acted as if I was still talking to her,

and set a loud, oh damn!

I forgot to get something from the store for my mom.

I'm going to pick it up really quick.

The men stopped.

Across the street to a corner store, and as soon as I got inside,

I turned around to see if they had followed me.

And there they were, standing outside of the store,

watching as if they were waiting for me to come out and follow me home.

They had hoodies on, and it was really hard to see their faces.

I felt this rush of fear, and it's weird.

But I felt as if a guardian angel or something was watching over me,

and telling me to trust my gut.

So I called my mom.

I knew she would freak out, but I said,

Mom, I think these two men are following me.

I'm in the corner store.

They're waiting outside.

Please come get me. I'm scared.

And so I waited until my mom showed up with this really big man,

who was apparently our neighbor, and a metal baseball bat.

When the men saw them going to the store, they scurried away.

I will never forget that day.

I know that if I allowed myself to be completely distracted by my phone,

something could have happened to me.

I am currently in my 20s, and no walk from home to work, or anywhere,

has ever been the same for me.

I am always on alert, and aware of my surroundings,

especially when on the phone.

So ladies, please be careful.

Do not let your guards down when on the phone.

Be aware of your surroundings, and encourage your children to do the same.

I don't know what those men intended for me,

but for all I know, it was a matter of life or death for me.

Thanks for reading and providing me an outlet to share this story.

Thanks in advance for your compassion and understanding.

Next story.

My larp, chainmail, saved my life.

This story happened just a few years back when I was visiting an old friend in Cologne,

while at the same time taking advantage of him as a free stay,

we're meeting with my larp group.

For those who don't know what larp is,

it's basically real-life role-playing.

Imagine a D&D game, but instead of people sitting around a table with dice,

you have people actually dressed up as their characters,

actually role-playing, IRL.

Larping was my hobby since I was 14,

and after I got a job that paid pretty well,

I started to go a bit more all out when it came to stuff for my hobby.

One of those things I spent a solid amount of money on was my character's armor,

important for this story.

The chainmail I wear under my outer armor.

After the meeting of my group, I got mostly out of my larp outfit

because I really didn't want to walk through Cologne,

Mollheim, which is one of the more dangerous places in the city as a medieval knight.

But since I couldn't fit all on my back,

I kept my chainmail on as well as my tunic and pants.

On my bus ride home, I noticed some guys seemed to have an eye on me,

but I guess it was because I still looked very out of place.

When he got out on the same station as me,

I didn't really pay him much attention.

I was almost at my friend's place and decided to call him,

asking if we should meet and get a donor,

which he agreed to before I even ended my question.

I arrived at our meeting spot first and waited.

Then I noticed that guy from the bus again, who now walked straight towards me.

I got closer to the wall to make space,

but he didn't pass me.

He stopped before me and pulled a knife on me,

demanding my bag, wallet, and phone.

I was willing to give him my wallet, but tried to explain that the bag only had some armor

and foam weapons.

But it seems that even just talking was enough to set this guy off,

and suddenly I felt too fast, stinging punches in my stomach.

It hurt like hell and I dropped down and the guy grabbed my bag.

Honestly, the next things are not really in my mind.

I was barely able to notice anything other than the voice in my head screaming,

you got stabbed.

So the next thing I noticed was my friend shaking me.

My bag was open and my stuff all over the place,

and he was holding my helmet with blood on it.

As he said it, he saw the guy throwing my stuff around after the bag was most likely too heavy,

and big for him.

So my friend, seeing me on the floor, managed to grab the first thing he could,

which was my helmet, and bashed the guy with it until he ran away.

We later checked my stomach, and even though I had two giant deep blue bruises,

which hurt like hell, I only had small cuts,

since the chainmail stopped the knife.

Until this day I get sick in the stomach when I think back on that day.

I remember that if I had not worn a piece of my lark clothing that day,

I would be dead.

Literally killed over a bag full of costumes.

150 euros in my wallet and a ten-year-old phone.

This world is fucked up.

Next story.

An abandoned dog saved my ass.

Hopefully I tagged this correctly.

Long time lurker first time posting on mobile.

Errors and such, etc.

This incident happened in the summer of 2015.

I lived by myself in a nice house inside a small town.

Low crime, but still the occasional shady fucker.

Anyway, at work that day on a smoke break, I watched a dog get thrown from a moving vehicle.

Orlean city traffic during the start of rush hour.

I ran right out there, scooped his little ass up, and booked it back to my workplace.

He was not injured amazingly.

As a bleeding heart animal lover, I decided to take him home with me,

until I could figure out what to do with him.

I have a large amount of cats and always have.

This was my first experience of the dog that I was solely responsible for.

This guy was very shy.

Head hung, tail tucked, jumpy.

Just looking at me like I was about to beat him.

I was clueless on the subject of dog personalities and tendencies.

I just knew they needed to be taken out frequently.

This first night with me, we had been out about 15 times,

as I did not want him shitting in my house.

I was having my final cigarette of the day on my porch around 10.30pm.

The dog was on a weed, chilling under my chairs I smoked and poked about on Reddit.

I see a man walking on the sidewalk that runs by my house.

He kept glancing up at me before passing.

Shortly after he passed my house, he stopped,

turned on his heel and approached.

Well, hey, can you tell me where 302 Church Street is?

Yes.

I told him I would search the address on my phone,

which of course was taking a minute to pull up.

He explained he didn't have a phone of his own and was attempting to get to a friend's house.

Taking small steps toward me the whole time.

Finally, the address I summoned came up.

It's exactly two blocks north of here,

right on the southwest corner of the cross street I told him.

Pointing in the direction.

He kept his eyes locked on me, continuing to slowly move closer.

The doggo starts growling very softly at this point.

I have forgotten he was even there until now.

Well, mind if I take a look at the map?

He grinned sheepishly.

I'm bad with directions.

I rose from my seat pointing again.

It's truly just two blocks up this road.

Just follow the road.

Two blocks. A house will be on your left.

Making it very clear that I wasn't going to just hand him my phone.

Well, can I call them?

I need to let them know that I'm coming.

He said, still creeping closer, extending his hand.

No, I currently replied.

How about text them, pushing forward still?

Dude, no, I started toward my door.

Just let me see your phone.

He was visibly becoming pissed off,

clearly trying to contain it and getting way too close to my porch.

As a last-ditch effort of getting this dude to fuck off,

I say, you need to get the fuck out of my yard.

My dog is protective. You will fuck you up.

Well, I didn't know the first thing about this dog,

let alone whether he had the capacity to fuck someone up.

I just hoped saying so would intimidate pushy phone guy.

Like I had said, the magic words,

pepper springs into action.

And like the wolf creature from the never-ending story,

he emerges like a fucking bullet from under the chair,

growling, snarling, barking his little ass off.

He jerks me down near off the porch trying to get at this guy.

He sounded enacted like a 80-pound attack dog,

not a 40-pound timid beagle mix.

I was afraid.

I didn't know if the pup would turn on me.

I stated previously at this time I knew absolutely jack shit about dogs.

He backed his hindquarters into my legs,

almost nudging me to the door, still carrying on.

Eyes locked on phone dude and bearing his teeth.

Phone dude holds up his hands and backs off.

Stammer something like, uh, two blocks north, yeah?

And begins walking that way.

I go inside, go off my lights and peek out the window at him.

He glances at my house, assured I'm inside.

Turns and begins walking the completely opposite direction

that I had pointed him in.

I sing on the cake.

He pulls a phone from his pocket and raises it to his ear to make a call.

Doggo secured his place as a member of my family that night.

He is incredibly protective of me and has frightened away

another creep since the incident.

He is attached at my hip and has made it known that he is grateful

to be in a safe, loving home.

Wherein he will never again become a projectile

from a moving vehicle.

His name is Hank.

And I truly believe that night would have been did very poorly for me,

but he not been there.

And here is a photo of Hank, the hero dog.

Next story.

My dad almost sacrificed himself for me.

And this is apparently verified.

This memory of mine begins about three years ago

when I graduated high school.

I had grown up with my grandparents, but decided to move to a different

and much larger city to live with my dad for the first time in 12 years.

I somewhat knew the city already because I spent my summers with him.

But this would be the first time I would have the freedom of an adult.

To come and go as I pleased, drive my car anywhere,

smoke cigarettes whenever I wanted.

I was excited, so sad to leave all my friends.

As soon as I was settled in with my dad and stepmom,

they sat me down to discuss the few rules they had

and what I needed to know about the complex.

Basic things like go wherever you want,

but let us know when you leave slash when you're coming back,

even if it's 2 a.m.

Oh, and you'll have to park on the street

because the apartment complex has limited parking.

One more thing.

Here's the neighborhood creep.

This guy, George, was well known to all the women in the complex,

as well as the police that patrolled the area.

He was tall and fairly huge, very intimidating looking.

My parents were pretty certain that he would leave me alone for one reason.

My dad.

Though George had a habit of stalking other women in the complex,

he would stop and find a new target if they had a man make a show of being in their place.

A brother, a lover, or a father.

It didn't matter what he was to the woman or what he looked like.

George would back off immediately.

Since I lived with my dad, who was also quite tall and rather big,

read and intimidating,

I felt also confident that I would be all right

and I was for a time.

It started about six months after I moved in.

My stepmom and dad were fighting a lot more until she got up and left him.

One night, I was sitting on my porch having a cigarette and browsing Facebook or whatever.

I wish I could say that I felt like I was being watched.

But I probably just looked up because I felt a bug or something.

George was standing about 15 feet away,

a little bit behind a tree,

staring intently at me.

I nearly dropped my cigarette.

Jacob Lee, I stopped it out and went inside.

I was home alone, so I made sure to lock all my doors.

And then played a video game in my room.

I told myself that I was probably just paranoid.

The next morning, I got up for my morning cigarette and coffee.

Low and behold, minutes after, I got into my porch.

George came ambling out of his apartment to look my way.

I sucked down my cigarette and went back inside.

This pattern continued for a couple weeks.

It was like George stood at his sliding glass door peaking out,

waiting to see when I would pop out.

I told my dad about it and he tried to sit with me whenever I went to smoke.

If he came with me, George wouldn't even peep ahead out of his door.

Of course, the other women in the complex have already tried to call police about George.

But he lives in the complex and staring isn't a crime.

So there wasn't much they could do.

I didn't know how far George had taken it with other women before.

With that info in my mind, I knew calling wouldn't be much use.

Things slowly escalated.

Once my step-mom left, I had access to her parking spot.

So I had three ways to get from my car to my apartment depending on how I parked.

One of the ways it went just past George's apartment, about five feet from his door.

Since I got off work late most nights, I avoided that route as much as possible.

Slowly but surely, like he memorized my schedule,

you would be on one of the paths when I was coming home.

Not directly on the concrete, but a few feet away on the grass, behind a tree.

It was like he thought I couldn't see him.

Picture a child hiding very terribly behind a tree.

You can see 90% of their body and you know that they are there.

That's how he would do it.

I would rush past him, avoid eye contact, but prepare to scream if I heard him come after me.

I started to carry my keys between my fingertips.

I bought a pocket knife and I would walk from my car with that halfway open already,

even though I've never been in any kind of fight in my life.

Around this time, I believe my mom was trying to find me free self-defense classes,

since I couldn't afford anything on my type budget.

I was steadily getting more and more pissed off as George edged closer and closer

who escalating as the days went by.

It went from November to May.

If my dad wasn't home, I would walk my bedroom door and keep my knife under my pillow.

I would Skype all night with my boyfriend,

just so someone could call 911 for me if need be.

I put a bunch of flower pots in front of my bedroom door,

so no one could get in silently.

LOL.

I started sitting on the floor in my porch below the wall out of sight to smoke,

but angled so I could see him if you walked up to it.

Nightmares of being kidnapped or raped or murdered started to invade my sleep every night.

Then one day my neighbor, Shell, was gossiping to me.

Did you hear about George?

No. He got arrested last night.

In the complex parking lot, there's a big sort of electrical power box.

It stands about waist height, and it's perhaps two or three feet wide.

About ten minutes before I was supposed to come home,

then park right in front of it.

Some lady with her kid walking by saw George sitting on the box masturbating.

Was he waiting there for me, jerking off to the thought of me seeing him?

The thought makes me want to puke and scares me all at the same time.

I was relieved for a few days of my stress,

but it was only a few days that he was gone.

Then he was back and he went right back to the same old routine.

One night he got far braver.

He was maybe seven p.m. when I went out for a cigarette with my dad.

A neighbor walked up to chat with my dad and George came outside and stood out in the open, staring me down.

He was asking to get his fucking ass kicked.

My dad said under his breath.

Then he chatted to the neighbor some more.

I rolled my eyes when inside and played some more video games.

I was healing in a world of warcraft dungeon when I heard shell shouting, where are you?

But I was healing a pretty important job, and I figured he was talking to someone else.

Until she burst into my room in a panic, her eyes huge.

She hopped from a foot to foot frantically like she was doing the potty dance.

He's bleeding.

Ooh, I asked in bewilderment.

Your dad, come quick.

I made some teenager huffing sound and left my computer.

Certainly pissing off the rest of the group.

I grabbed our little first aid kit filled with band-aids.

I thought in my mind that my dad was doing something stupid like tossing up his pocket knife and trying to catch it.

But when I stepped outside, I found myself face to face with a real horror.

About six people surrounded my dad including shell.

And my neighbor Caleb held a shirt to my dad's side.

He was facing away from me and his entire back was just covered in blood.

It looked like he had been mulled by a bear.

This was seriously my first thought.

I didn't know we had bears in this city.

Caleb's hold on the shirt slipped and blood sprayed.

I feel queasy riding this down.

I have never in my life been the person people turned to in an emergency.

Blood makes me white-headed and I have anxiety attacks over not being able to find a specific bookmark.

But all of the adults, people around 30 to 40, while I was just 18, around me were panicked aside from Caleb.

I needed to be the first person that people turned to.

I threw the first aid kit onto the porch and told Shell where we keep our towels.

She rushed to go grab one.

As anyone called 911, I shouted.

Five pairs of eyes turned to look at me like they'd never heard of 911 before.

No, my dad said, I can't afford an ambulance.

Shut up, I said, what happened?

That fucker stabbed me.

So I dial 911 and relate our address and reason for emergency.

Operator told us to keep applying pressure to the wound on my father's lower back.

My dad is a true champ.

Even though the sidewalk was just one big puddle of blood, gross.

He stayed on his feet until someone thought to run and get him a chair.

I ran back and forth along the walkways to get the police and show them the house that George lived in.

And then I ran back and forth to get the paramedics.

They were so cold and so, so agonizingly slow.

They walked calmly and I wanted to scream at them to run.

My dad could be bleeding out, don't you care?

I later learned that they don't run because if they let adrenaline kick in, mistakes can happen.

Whoa, is that true? I've never heard that.

That's interesting.

They shoved Caleb out of the way because he refused to let go of my dad's wound and got him packed into the ambulance.

I was about to jump on when police stopped me and told me that I had to stay so I could give my statement.

My dad shouted at me to call his boss and I remembered all his allergies and whatnot for the paramedics.

God, three years later and all those details have been burned into my brain.

I gave my statement to the police.

Then they made me sit outside the complex on the sidewalk for two to three hours.

They kept me updated on my dad.

Once I had called his boss, my boss, and answered my stepmom's message.

That's when I allowed myself to break down.

It felt like I cried for forever.

One of the cops was nice enough to go into my house and grab my cigarettes and a bottle of water for me.

He stayed with me the entire time to make sure I didn't run off or something, but he was very nice.

He offered to let me sit in his cruiser a few times to get away from the cold.

George was sitting in his apartment when they came.

When they took him out to where I was and there were 14 cop cars, 14, he still kept trying to stare at me.

I stared right back and felt such hatred that I had never felt in my life.

I wanted to go over there and murder him.

My baby sitting cop looked over and saw that George was staring, so he used his flashlight to keep George from being able to look at me.

Once it was all over, I was allowed to go back to my house where I waited for information about my dad.

I gathered the story from neighbors while he was in the hospital for nine days.

He had shouted at George to leave his daughter alone.

And George had shouted back at him while I was in the house, totally unaware.

George said something along the lines of,

Come, tell me that to my face like a man.

So my dad hopped over the porch and walled stuffed him.

The creep had been waiting with a 12-inch blade held to the side of his leg.

He struck out with his empty hand and then got my dad in the back with the knife.

It missed his kidney very, very narrowly.

Traveled up and punctured his lung and damaged his diaphragm.

My dad didn't realize he had been stabbed at first.

He got George into a headlock and pummeled the shit out of him.

Thinking the dude had just punched him in the kidney.

George dropped the knife, rolled into the grass and picked up another knife he had been hiding and stabbed my dad again.

This time in the upper back.

This wound was much more shallow but still requires stitches later.

At this point, Shell came outside and screamed to my dad that he was bleeding.

He took off his shirt, got pissed and threw it at George.

At that point, the neighborhood stalker put his hands up and went into his apartment.

The blood stayed on the pavement until about noon the next day.

When my neighbor was kindly washed it off for me.

I still have pictures of my email of it, as well as my dad's injuries.

My dad spent more time in the hospital and critical condition than George spent being held in jail.

I feel like it was my fault.

I've been addressing that in therapy, but I still feel awful about it.

Like my dad had to fight my own battle for me.

Throughout the week while I was on my porch or just outside, I had so many women come up to me.

They all told me to thank my dad for them.

They had all been terrorized by George at some point and now they were certain he would be away for good.

Several poor women had George stalked them up to their apartment door and pulled his pants down demanding sex.

I can't believe the cops couldn't do anything.

One of those days one of my neighbors came up to me to tell me that the police and neighbors had searched the complex and found that George had stashed many knives all over the place.

They were eating gardens, stocked behind trees, under his dormat.

I shudder to think he might have planned to one day grab one of his targets and do something far more sinister than stare.

George was declared guilty for battery with a deadly weapon, but the attempted murder charge was dropped.

He was out of prison by Christmas on good behavior or whatever.

But my dad and I have a lifelong restraining order against him.

He has never tried to come after me, so I can only hope that he's terrified of my dad.

I wish I could tell you guys that I took self-defense classes and learned to fight the way my dad can.

But I'm still a pussy who can't even slap a spider, so there's that.

My dad is doing all right now.

He's just had his third surgery on Tuesday trying to repair the damage done to him internally.

For hoping that this will be his last and his quality of life will vastly improve.

I probably owe my life to my dad.

If he hadn't fought George for me, maybe I would have been the first victim, George, stop.

I apologize for any spelling or grammatical mistakes.

I reread it over once to check, but I'm not perfect.

George, let's not meet again.

Edit. Wow, gold. Thank you so much.

And I'm super thankful to all the support and positive comments from everyone.

My dad doesn't know what red it is, but I'll try to explain to him tomorrow and read him the comments.

Thank you so much for listening and shout out to Libby for joining the accomplices over on Patreon.

I hope you all have a good day, evening or night. Goodbye.