Scary stories

This is a Facebook story in a round about way. It's going to take a bit to get there though, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.

I discovered when I was in my early teen years that I am not exactly the person you want to have with you in a scary situation. I think I have told this story before so if you are familiar with it you can skip ahead to the next section. Anyway...my best friend and I were around 12 or 13 and were watching Halloween at her house while her mother was out on a date. We were discussing just how stupid the people in scary movies were. How they would just stand and scream as the bad guy closed in on them and how we would NEVER just stand there. We would run, or fight, or beat the bad guy with a bat, something...because we were just that tough...and then Chrystal started to scream. I looked over to where she was staring and there was a face in the window next to the front door and the door handle was turning! So I, of course, leaped into action, dialing 911 with one hand while preparing to beat the bad guy with a bat with the other....it was either that or I started screaming as well. Finally Chrystal was able to move but unfortunately it was only enough to tip the chair she was sitting in backwards so she was lying on the ground screaming while I was stuck in my chair screaming. That's when her mother and her mother's date came in the house laughing their asses off at us...yeah....not so tough after all.

So I filed that away in my brain and knew that if I was ever in a situation like that again I needed to MOVE not just sit and scream. Somewhere in the back of my head I am still afraid that if I was presented with what I could only assume was a butcher knife wielding crazed murderer I would do nothing more than sit and scream. But at least I wouldn't tip over in my chair...

Fast forward to me at 16. A girlfriend and I had gone to grab dinner out at Fat Humphrey's, a wonderful sub shop in Albuquerque at the time. We were sitting at a table in front of a window that faced the parking lot. It was Fall or Winter because it was dark outside already while we ate. So anyway, while we were eating someone pulled into the space that was facing our table and after a few minutes turned their brights on. Now this meant they could see us and bug us but the light was too bright for us to be able to see who was in the truck. Being the sweet and lovely young thing I was at 16 I raised my left hand and let them know I needed one more minute to finish my sub. I am sure that's why I raised my middle finger anyway....so the lights go on and off a few times. Basically as soon as our eyes would adjust again from them being off they would flip on again. If my memory serves me correctly at one point after a few rounds of lights on lights off I turn to the window and clearly enunciated "Please stop that" though you know how tricky lip reading could be and it might have looked like "Fuck off" to the people in the truck.

Amy and I decided to just turn our backs to the window and finish our dinner. The truck people eventually got bored of getting no reaction and pulled out and left. We sat for a bit longer talking and finishing up and then headed out ourselves. As I opened the door to my lovely Vega station wagon and was getting in from the far corner of the parking lot we heard an engine turn over and the lights on a big truck turned on. Uh oh...okay, so maybe they didn't give up and go away. At 16 I was not one to show fear or back down but there was a definite moment of "oh shit" that happened right then. But we decided that maybe it wasn't that big of a deal until we pulled out of the parking lot and the truck followed us. 

We did a little random turning and the truck stayed on our tail so we knew at that point we were being followed and we were probably in trouble. Amy, bless her heart, had every faith in me to figure out how to get us out of this mess. Being at least some what intelligent I knew better than to drive to my house or hers, if we were being followed we didn't want them to know where we lived. So I ended up just driving. I drove to my parent's best friend's neighborhood. They had lived there since I was very young and I knew it as well as anyplace in Albuquerque. I got far enough ahead of the truck that I was able to duck into the back  parking lot of the catholic church and get my lights off before they pulled around the corner. It was at this point that we discovered they had installed a fence at one end of what used to be a pull through lot so now if the truck came in behind us we were stuck. Behind the church, in the dark, with no lights or houses.  

Years later watching an episode of Oprah (before the great Oprah renouncing of 06) I saw a safety expert who talked about what to do if you thought you were being followed. First rule, don't go home. Yay! I was a genius! Second rule, go to a police station. Oh...well that would have made sense but I didn't know where one was so I was off the hook. Third rule, if you don't know where a police station is go to someplace with crowds, a movie theater, a supermarket, a gas station. What ever you do, do not go someplace you would be alone. Oh well...okay. Yeah, NOW you tell me! Of course I had figured out the alone part while Amy and I sat in the dark in the car holding our breath every time we saw the truck drive past the church. Just waiting for who ever was driving to realize we must have ducked in back....

But they never did and eventually they gave up and left. Amy and I went to her house and broke down in nervous giggles and relived the whole thing again with what each of us was thinking during the whole thing. Mostly a lot of oh craps....It was seriously one of the scariest moments of my life. I had thought that my smart mouth and bad choice had put Amy and I in serious danger. Seeing that fence blocking what I knew was my only way out of that parking lot almost made me physically ill. 

A few weeks later I ran into a friend of mine in the hallway at school. He asked me if I had been chased by a big truck lately. Turns out it was a mutual friend of ours in that truck. He had recognized me in the window and was just messing with me.

Now you are asking yourself what does this have to do with Facebook? Well the guy that was driving the truck in the story sent me a friend request a few weeks ago. I accepted though I literally have not spoken to him since even before the truck incident. I was trying to decide if I tell him he gave me the scariest night of my teen life, which is saying a lot considering some of the shenanigans we got up to in those days, or if I should just let it go. So I did what I usually do and wrote about it. Now you can share in the bravery that was my teen life...or stupidity. Definitely one of those two....