11x16: The Squirrel Man

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:40] This happened during college. I became friends with this girl who I'll call Sarah. We hit it off right away. My fiancé and I began hanging out with Sarah and her boyfriend John, and the four

[00:00:52] of us became good friends. Something Sarah was very passionate about was weddings. She had a stack of bridal magazines in her dorm room, and we would often look at engagement rings online.

[00:01:05] She even had a big vision board on her wall. It was complete with color palettes, table setting ideas, centerpiece ideas, a list of reception songs, and a picture of models in bridal gowns.

[00:01:17] In the center of her board was the picture of the dress that she had dubbed her dream dress, complete with a picture of Sarah's face cut out and pasted on the shoulders.

[00:01:27] At the time, I didn't think too much of it. I just thought that Sarah really liked weddings and was imagining the idea of having her own someday. Sarah's boyfriend John, on the other hand, felt differently. Although he and Sarah had been

[00:01:42] together for a few years, John had no interest in getting married. He would get frustrated with Sarah and say that he felt pressured which caused a lot of tension between the two.

[00:01:53] While I was newly engaged, I didn't have the desire to have a huge wedding. And as an introvert to the core, I preferred eloping or having small gatherings of close friends and immediate family.

[00:02:06] My fiancé and I just started planning our wedding and were in the let's look at our options phase. We knew that we wanted to get married sometime within the next year after we both graduated

[00:02:17] from college. One day, Sarah offered to take me to look at wedding dresses at this boutique in town. The boutique was advertised to have all sorts of dresses. They had everything from elegant ball gowns to vintage to more low-key and simple dresses. On the way to the boutique,

[00:02:37] Sarah gushed about how excited she was for me and my fiancé. She said that she had looked forward to the day John would propose to her and commented about wanting to bring me along

[00:02:48] to help her look at dresses when the time came. She was very kind and sincere with her words. I thanked her and told her that I'd be happy to help her look at dresses when it was her time.

[00:02:59] As we walked into the boutique, I noticed Sarah quietly slipping a ring that she normally wore on her right hand over to the ring finger on her left hand, the engagement ring finger.

[00:03:11] I had barely registered this when a salesgirl popped up, welcomed us to the store, and asked which one of us was the bride-to-be. Me, Sarah replied loudly. I'm getting married. Flabbergasted, I couldn't speak. I just stood there watching Sarah show her ring to the salesgirl. She said

[00:03:31] that her actual engagement ring was currently being resized and her fiancé had given her this one as a placeholder. I cleared my throat and said, uh, I'm also getting married. I just got

[00:03:43] engaged. At that, Sarah added, we're both getting married, as the salesgirl led us to the racks of dresses. As we tried on dresses, I couldn't wrap my head around what had just happened. Sure,

[00:03:56] it's one thing to be excited about weddings and marriage, but it's another thing to lie about being engaged and planning a wedding. As I overheard Sarah continue to share her engagement

[00:04:07] story with the salesgirl and a few other shoppers in the area, I felt sick to my stomach. At the time, however, I wasn't very assertive and I felt uncomfortable about conflict, so I kept my mouth

[00:04:20] shut. Sarah offered to take pictures of me in the dresses that I liked and asked me to do the same. It felt awkward and weird, but I just tried to grin and bear it while we were there. Sarah went

[00:04:33] on about the beautiful dresses and told me I was going to make such a beautiful bride. As she spoke, I just smiled, nodded, and tried to put my focus elsewhere. I think I was still in shock about

[00:04:45] Sarah flipping the switch like that, going from being a supportive friend of the bride to the bride-to-be and then back to supportive friend. I felt unsettled and wanted nothing more than to just go home. I didn't tell my fiancé about what happened at first.

[00:05:02] I think I was still trying to make sense of it, and I didn't even know where to begin. Plus, the whole thing frightened me in a way that I hadn't felt frightened before.

[00:05:11] I felt uneasy around Sarah after that day, but I felt that I couldn't bring myself to talk to her about it. As I stated earlier, I was passive, quiet. I didn't feel comfortable with any kind of

[00:05:23] confrontation back then. After that, things went from weird to worse. Sarah and John began frequently showing up unannounced at our off-campus apartment. This would always happen on days when I told Sarah that my fiancé and I were going out to dinner or to a movie. Then, like clockwork,

[00:05:43] right before my fiancé and I were about to leave, they'd show up and invite themselves along. They were into different things than what my fiancé and I were, so they always complained if

[00:05:53] the restaurant where we were going to or the movie that we were going to see wasn't their preference. For example, both Sarah and John were big into sports and loved going to sports bars, while my fiancé and I preferred a quieter place since we didn't care for sports.

[00:06:08] So then they would accompany us to the restaurant where we were having our date. If there was no sports game on in the background, they would complain all night. When we tried to set boundaries with them, such as letting them know that we were heading out to

[00:06:21] spend time together one-on-one, Sarah wouldn't take no for an answer and insisted that they join us. On one occasion, we made it a point to withhold telling them our plans for the night and we still wound up running into them at the movie theater that we went to.

[00:06:36] We were seeing a horror movie, and horror is a genre that both Sarah and John hated. To this day, neither my fiancé nor I have any idea why they were there or how they knew how

[00:06:49] to find us. Sarah continued to pressure John into proposing to her, but he kept refusing, saying he wasn't ready. She relented and started asking my fiancé to try and persuade John by taking him ring shopping. My fiancé refused to do this, saying he didn't feel comfortable.

[00:07:07] But Sarah was persistent in pressuring John. They started getting into fights and even screaming matches, resulting in John storming off and Sarah being in tears. Several of these fights would happen while they were over at our apartment complex and our property management began getting complaints from our neighbors.

[00:07:26] My fiancé and I decided to sit down with Sarah and John to talk to them about this. We told them that although they were our friends and we knew they were having some difficulties, they couldn't

[00:07:37] continue to have these fights at our apartment. We expressed concern for them and let them know that we were here for them. Imagine our shock when they both looked at us with blank expressions as

[00:07:47] Sarah replied, I don't know what you're talking about. We aren't having difficulties. We never fight. Before either of us could respond, she laughed off our concerns and thanked us for having them over. John just sat there staring at us as though we had just told them something bizarre.

[00:08:09] She stood, saying that she had to go and quickly walked out with John following behind her. At that moment I broke down and told my fiancé everything about what had happened

[00:08:20] while going to the boutique with Sarah to look at wedding dresses. I told him I didn't know if she was jealous, upset, or unhappy with her own relationship but I felt shaken by the whole thing.

[00:08:30] Then I felt even more shaken up after she told us that she and John never fought while acting as though we were making the whole thing up. While I was not one to abruptly end friendships,

[00:08:41] I told my fiancé that I didn't trust Sarah after the recent events but at the same time I didn't know if I wanted to end the friendship entirely. I needed time and space from them to clear my head

[00:08:53] and my fiancé agreed, saying distance could help us get our bearings. He was very supportive and thanked me for letting him know what had happened and how I felt. We decided to distance

[00:09:04] ourselves from them. We stopped talking to them and would actively avoid them on campus. At the time I was working maintenance in the dorms where I would clean the bathrooms and take out the

[00:09:14] garbage. On the way out to the garbage, John approached me and demanded to know when we were planning to hang out with him again. He loomed over me which made me register his body language

[00:09:26] as threatening. I'm a short woman standing at about 5'2 so I felt scared by his aggression. I managed to reply that my fiancé and I were dealing with some stuff and we needed some time.

[00:09:38] He didn't like this answer but luckily he walked away. Later that day, John and Sarah both stopped by our apartment and asked if we could hang out with them. My fiancé was on campus finishing up

[00:09:50] an exam for the semester so I was home alone. I repeated what I had told John earlier that we were dealing with stuff and needed to take time away from socializing. Both of them stormed off

[00:10:03] without a word leaving me feeling unsettled. One evening, as we were eating dinner, we saw Sarah and John drive up. We quickly grabbed our plates and went into our bedroom. We waited for a few minutes anticipating to hear them knock but we didn't hear anything.

[00:10:20] My fiancé peered out the window and whispered, crap. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, they're out there sitting in Sarah's car. They're just sitting there. They were sitting out there for almost three hours until they finally left.

[00:10:35] Disturbed, we decided right then and there that we had to cut them loose. We thought that the best way to do this would be to write them a letter outlining all of our reasons for ending

[00:10:45] the friendship. We knew that we didn't necessarily need to include these reasons but we thought that it would be best to be as direct and clear as possible. At the time I also struggled with

[00:10:56] setting boundaries and not wanting to upset people so writing this out in a letter was a safer option. We sat down and drafted a message to Sarah and John on Facebook. In this message, we flat out

[00:11:08] let them know that we no longer wished to be friends with them and included our reasons for making this decision. We ended the message by asking them to please respect our wishes and leave us alone. A short time later, Sarah responded to the message. She immediately disputed everything

[00:11:25] we said including changing the history of some of the events. She even went as far as saying that she never tried on wedding dresses with me. She said that she and John went to look at dresses

[00:11:38] and not me. That alone chilled me to my core. We followed up quickly by blocking them on all of our accounts. The next few weeks went by without any incident. Our anxiety about the whole ordeal

[00:11:51] started cooling down and we started feeling back to normal. School ended for the year so most of my energy was put into my job cleaning the dorms. One day while I was at work, I was hauling a load

[00:12:04] of trash out and I tossed it in the bin. I saw some stray garbage bags and other various trash such as old posters and rugs sitting by the edge so I began tossing these in the bin as well.

[00:12:18] When I went to pick up one of the discarded posters, I flipped it over and froze in my tracks. It was the wedding dream board Sarah had made and her color swatches and pictures. Only now all of

[00:12:31] the pictures on the board were pictures that she took of me while trying on the wedding dresses. She pasted her head in place of mine in these pictures. Sickened, I threw the board away

[00:12:45] and finished my work. So Sarah and John, I hope you either got help or worked on your relationship or broke up entirely. Either way, let's not meet again.

[00:13:16] A few years ago I was living in a house about an hour away from my parents all alone. I didn't have any other close friends nearby. I am a smaller girl and at the time I was only about 19 years

[00:13:29] old. I live in a state that has major problems with alcoholism and drug abuse. Our state slogan at one point literally was, meth we're on it. Which was done on purpose to heighten awareness

[00:13:44] but it went on to be widely mocked on the internet. Guns are also prevalent in this state and nearly everybody owns at least one, responsibly of course, but plenty of sketchy people also have them for various sketchy reasons. The house that I was living in was

[00:14:01] just one street away from some seedy bars. The grocery store and liquor stores that were just a few yards away from my front door had been robbed more than once since I had moved in

[00:14:13] and this was only after a year. Now on to the story. I have an older model Volkswagen bus that I adore. This ties in later, I promise. I had it parked far back in my driveway up against

[00:14:27] the house. The wall that it was parked against is the wall that my couch is against on the inside so basically when I was on my couch my Volkswagen bus sat directly behind me on the outer side of

[00:14:40] the wall. I have a strongly ingrained habit of locking my vehicles and house both when I'm in them and when I'm not so I know all of the doors were locked on my bus. Even though this was a

[00:14:54] solid habit of mine, I was even in the habit of checking the doors every time that I walked by. One day I came home from school and I noticed one of the front doors was ajar. It was shocking to

[00:15:07] see that it was actually open. I knew I would never leave it unlocked much less leave it open but anyone who knows these vehicles well enough knows that there are a few possible ways to unlock

[00:15:20] the doors and get inside without needing a key. My mom drilled the fear of people into my head from such a young age so I was instantly worried. I checked to see if the other front door was still

[00:15:33] locked and it was. Afterward, I checked every square inch of my house to put my mind at ease though I knew it was unlikely that anybody would be in there. Thankfully nobody was. My dog was

[00:15:46] home but she didn't seem upset but I still told my parents about finding the front door of my Volkswagen bus slightly open just so that they knew and I didn't feel crazy. A few days later,

[00:15:59] I was sitting on my couch with my dog sleeping next to me. She's an extremely mellow dog. Nothing phases her. She's very quiet and shy other than the whining she does due to separation anxiety.

[00:16:14] It was dark outside and I had the curtains closed. I actually like to leave the curtains closed no matter the time of day so this was pretty standard. I was watching TV when all of a sudden

[00:16:25] my dog shot up from her deep sleep and stood facing the window. She hunched her back and she growled this low nasty growl as her hairs on her back stood on end. Any dog owner likely knows this

[00:16:39] scenario well. It was alarming as I had never heard her growl like that in the nine years that I had her. It chilled me to the bone. It was more than just weird. It was completely out of character

[00:16:52] and out of nowhere. She was genuinely pissed. I sat there for what felt like forever but it was probably just a couple of minutes. I was just listening to see if I could hear anything going

[00:17:04] on outside but I didn't. I kept a shotgun in my room just in case since a young girl living alone can't be too careful. So I slowly got up and crept to my bedroom so as not to make any noise in case

[00:17:19] somebody was outside listening. The house I was living in was an older house so it's hard to move around discreetly. Sounds from movements inside the house could easily be heard from outside. My dog was still growling and getting louder. I grabbed my shotgun and loaded it. Although I

[00:17:41] didn't have the best view from there, I peeked out my bedroom window and looked for any sign indicating that someone was out there but I didn't see anybody. I could still hear my dog reacting

[00:17:54] to something so I crept back into the living room and slowly pulled aside part of the curtain but again I saw no one. After a bit my dog had calmed down a little but I was still visibly upset.

[00:18:08] I thought back to the other day and how I found the door open on the VW bus. I instantly thought that somebody could be out there snooping around. I assumed someone would be snooping to either vandalize or maybe they thought that

[00:18:21] they had found a good place to crash for the night. I went back to my room and grabbed my pistol. Again, can't be too careful. I had never before been in this position of possibly needing

[00:18:32] to aim a gun at another human so I was trying to stay calm. I slowly opened the front door which in hindsight may not have been the smartest move but at the time I wasn't really sure of what

[00:18:45] else to do. I wasn't even sure that anyone was out there. I looked around and again nobody. I couldn't see my car in front of my door so I slowly walked around the corner, pistol in hand,

[00:19:00] to see if someone was inside but there was nobody. I looked under the VW bus and around it, nobody, and at this point I remember thinking if there was somebody out there I had no clue where they

[00:19:11] were and I didn't really want to know where they were just as long as they left me in my stuff alone so I hurried back inside and I locked the door behind me. That night I didn't get much

[00:19:21] sleep since I was still feeling uneasy even long after my dog had fallen asleep. Fast forward to about a week later. It was about 1 in the morning. Now I'm a night owl with horrible sleep patterns

[00:19:35] so it's normal for me to be up watching TV at that hour which was exactly what I was doing and also per usual my dog was asleep next to me. Then suddenly the same thing happened. My dog

[00:19:47] startled awake from her deep sleep. She promptly stood at attention facing the window with her hair standing on end. She was growling with that same deep upset growl again. This time she really

[00:19:59] anchored down almost as if she were ready to fight which scared me even more. This time my shotgun was in the living room. I had kept it there every night since that first incident. I didn't reach

[00:20:12] for it right away because I'd rather avoid bringing a weapon into the mix unless I absolutely needed to. Instead I stayed as quiet as possible and listened intently for anything going on outside. I was starting to wonder if maybe my dog was just hearing things because

[00:20:30] she was kind of getting up there in age but then I heard it right behind me. The slam of a car door. It wasn't just any car, it was my car door. These 1970 buses make very distinct sounds so I'd

[00:20:46] recognize it anywhere. I shut up while my dog was still growling. She was standing her ground. I grabbed my shotgun and I sat on the couch facing the window and door. Then I called my parents.

[00:21:00] I was crying at this point because I knew that somebody was out there. Whoever was outside was only inches away from me but we were, thankfully, separated by a thin wall. I was worried about

[00:21:12] what their next move would be though. I knew that if they broke in I would have to face the reality of hurting another person or worse possibly ending their life to save mine. That was one of the most

[00:21:24] unsettling feelings I've ever felt in my life. The tension of this situation was so thick that I could almost feel whoever was outside right next to me. Keep in mind it's now past one in the morning

[00:21:37] on a weeknight and I was calling my parents crying about somebody breaking into my car and doing who knows what. My dad was telling me to hang up and call the police but I'm extremely shy.

[00:21:49] I was panicking so I told him I didn't want to. I had never needed to call the police before and my social anxiety is crippling. So my parents got into their truck and they drove to my house.

[00:22:01] They stayed on the phone with me for the hour that it took to get to me. I just remember asking them every couple of minutes where they were even though I was familiar with the route between

[00:22:13] our place and theirs. I knew almost exactly how close they were each time I asked. When they finally pulled in I was so relieved. I ran to the door and I opened it as my parents were getting

[00:22:24] out of their truck. My dad walked around the bus with his own pistol and flashlight in hand and of course he saw nothing. There was nobody in it. There was no damage, nothing. I felt so stupid but

[00:22:37] I was just glad that I hadn't called the cops. My parents hugged me and said that they were just happy I was okay and then they let me know that I could call them anytime for any reason especially

[00:22:48] if I think I'm in danger. They offered to drive me back to their house and stay the night but I insisted that I would be okay since I wanted to stay home. They left to go back home and I went

[00:22:59] back inside to calm down. I couldn't stop thinking about how sure I was that I had heard that door slam. I know that sound. It couldn't have been anything else and it was right behind me. I just

[00:23:10] kept telling myself I know that sound. A few minutes later I got up again and I went back outside one more time. I guess I was just trying to prove to myself that it was nothing or maybe

[00:23:22] I was trying to prove that I wasn't crazy. I don't know which would be worse feeling crazy about the whole thing or if somebody had actually been out there. I then noticed one of the wing windows

[00:23:32] was unlocked. I hadn't noticed it earlier because I hadn't pushed on it. I did on occasion leave one unlocked just in case I lost my keys or something like that and the door was unlocked again and not

[00:23:47] properly shut all the way. I knew that I locked it and I shut it properly after checking it out before. Needless to say I moved the bus back into storage miles away the next day and it hasn't been back at

[00:24:00] my house since. I know there was someone there that night messing with my car and they got lucky but I guess I did too. So to whoever was messing with me, my dog, and my VW bus, please let's not meet.

[00:24:27] I've been debating on sharing these stories but I feel that they can shed some light on personal safety and how you should always be aware of your surroundings. It's ironic that my best friend

[00:24:39] introduced me to this podcast because my first story involves her as well. I'm not sure if she would be okay with me using her real name so we'll call her Dorothea. This story took place a few years

[00:24:52] ago during the summer of 2017. My friend and I look back on this summer fondly as we practically live together. There was rarely a night that we didn't have a sleepover. Now one thing you should

[00:25:05] know about where we live is that there isn't much to do. This doesn't bother us too much as our nights were typically spent watching scary movies or just being idiots together. At this time I was 16 and

[00:25:19] Dorothea was 15. The one thing a lot of teenagers tend to do in our town is go to a local gas station chain that serves food. That was the cool thing to do, to hang out. Dorothea and I usually didn't

[00:25:33] stick around after we got whatever food that we wanted because we would rather be at home instead of being surrounded by people. Now this specific station has multiple locations in our area. The

[00:25:44] one closest to where we lived was nice enough. It's definitely one of the older ones in the area but it's not horrible. My dad had given me specific instructions to not go to this specific station

[00:25:57] after dark just as a safety precaution since I was 16 and female. On this specific night, Dorothea and I were staying at her grandparents' house. We really wanted ice cream but there wasn't anything at the house. Dorothea's grandma suggested that we run to the gas station to get some.

[00:26:17] I figured that even though it was nighttime it would be fine since I wouldn't be alone. We headed down to the gas station and went inside to order our ice cream. While we were ordering,

[00:26:29] I noticed an older guy followed us up to the counter and he was watching us. I didn't think too much of it and figured maybe he was waiting to order or maybe he was trying to see what we

[00:26:41] were ordering to see if anything sounded good to him. After we placed our order, we decided we wanted to wander around the aisles as we waited but I noticed that the guy continued to follow us.

[00:26:53] I made Dorothea aware of this as we were both big into true crime and scary things. I told her that I might just be paranoid but he was just creeping me out. I told her that

[00:27:05] we should go to the bathroom and see if he would still be around when we came out. We walked into the bathroom and we stood there awkwardly for a few minutes to make it believable.

[00:27:14] We decided that if he was still out there, we would just wait until he left before heading out. And wouldn't you know, he was just waiting and watching the bathroom doors when we walked out. I made direct eye contact with him multiple times to let him know that

[00:27:30] I was aware of him. I told Dorothea that we should get in line to pay and see if he was still following us. And of course he followed. After I saw someone get in line behind him, I turned to Dorothea and said,

[00:27:44] I forgot I want a drink. Will you come with me to get one? We exited the line and he watched us. You could tell that he was angry now. He paid for his item and I watched him walk out to his truck.

[00:27:59] He reversed out of his parking space so I thought that we were safe. But all he did was move his truck and park directly next to our vehicle. I panicked as I realized he must have been watching us for a while.

[00:28:14] He must have been watching us since we arrived. He knew what car we drove. After we paid and got our ice cream, I asked the cashier if he could walk us out to the car. I explained the situation and the cashier was very sweet and agreed.

[00:28:30] He made sure that we got into our car safely before he went back into the station. We pulled out of that gas station and onto the highway hoping that that was the end of it. But then the guy immediately pulled out and followed us onto the highway.

[00:28:44] He swerved into the left lane and sped up until he was right next to us. He flipped this off and he was saying something but we couldn't hear him since our windows were up and we were blasting music. Thankfully, we got away from him eventually.

[00:28:59] I'm 22 now and Dorothea is 21. We still talk about this and we agree that we did the best thing at the time. My second story happened more recently. This happened after I moved into a new apartment.

[00:29:13] It was just me and my cat. Her name is Allie. We were living in an apartment and my boyfriend stayed over on occasion. I was still adjusting to living on my own as this was my first time.

[00:29:24] Prior to this, I had been living with my parents and three siblings so it was a big adjustment. The apartment was very nice. The building was actually a large house split into apartment units.

[00:29:37] There were tenants who lived in the lower level of the house while I had the upper level with its own entrance so there was no way for them to get into my apartment or vice versa.

[00:29:48] I hadn't met my downstairs neighbors yet as our schedules seemed to be opposites. It wasn't like we were trying to avoid each other intentionally, it just happened naturally. I think we were both too awkward to go out of our way to introduce ourselves. The night that this

[00:30:03] happened was a Saturday night. My neighbors were gone for the weekend so I was the only one in the building. I was lying on my couch after a long day at work. I was watching my favorite TV show while

[00:30:15] zoning out and chilling. My boyfriend was still working and all my friends were away at college. This is important. I wasn't expecting anybody to come over. As I was lying on the couch, all of a

[00:30:27] sudden there was a knock at my door. The door leads into my living room and has a giant window in it. I have a curtain covering the window but if someone really wanted to look inside they could

[00:30:38] peek through the small gaps on the sides of the curtain. I was confused. There shouldn't be somebody at my door so I paused the TV to see what was happening. There was a man standing at my door

[00:30:51] wearing a baseball cap. I instantly got a bad feeling. It might seem silly that I felt this way but I knew that he had no reason to be at my door. He knocked again even harder and louder.

[00:31:03] He began yelling that he had something for me. I was frozen on the couch. I was also confused. Then someone said, she's not answering. Are you sure she's home? I can see the TV is on inside.

[00:31:17] Her car is outside. While he was on the phone, he turned his back to my door so I rolled off the couch and snuck into the next room over which had a window with a view of my door.

[00:31:30] The man was holding a pizza box but he wasn't wearing any kind of identifying markers indicating which pizza place he would be delivering from. No hat, no jacket, not even a logo stuck on the top

[00:31:41] of his car like dominoes or any other chain. Even stranger, here is a fun fact about me, I can't eat pizza. I can't eat gluten and as I get older dairy seems to disagree with me so I

[00:31:56] actively avoid it. This means pizza is my guts worst nightmare. I haven't had pizza that wasn't gluten-free since 12. I thought that maybe my neighbor had ordered the pizza and the delivery

[00:32:08] guy went to the wrong door but then I remembered that they weren't home. The delivery guy banged on my door again. They said something else to whoever was on the phone, then hung up and walked down the

[00:32:20] stairs and back to their car. He threw the pizza box in the back of his car, slammed his car door and drove off quickly. He peeled out without going to any other houses in the area. He just drove off.

[00:32:34] The whole situation was bizarre. This man never announced that he was delivering a pizza. Had he done so I probably would have opened the door to let him know that he had the wrong place.

[00:32:44] On the off chance that this was a genuine pizza order, I sincerely hope whoever ordered that pizza eventually received it. But the fact that there was no branding and hearing him on the phone

[00:32:56] with someone trying to get me to the door was very sketchy. I hope we never meet if he ever develops a better ruse than delivering pizza. When I was younger, my mom and dad were more like my

[00:33:23] friends than my parents. They didn't care if my sister and I had boys over and they even let us have our boyfriends spend the night. My sister and I always referred to our home as the party house.

[00:33:35] I met Ron because he was one of my grandma's friend's grandsons. We didn't really get along at first since we didn't have much in common. He had some deeply rooted southern values and I didn't.

[00:33:49] But somehow we did end up dating. I was about 15 at the time so we were young and as a young couple, dating for a couple of months felt like a lifetime. After only dating for a couple of months,

[00:34:03] he practically moved in with me. I'm not very clingy, which worked out well for Ron since he liked being gone all of the time, hunting and fishing. This wound up getting to me

[00:34:14] eventually though. Not because I was upset about him being gone, I just hated the things that he was doing so I broke up with him. As I said before, we were a party house so it wasn't long

[00:34:25] before I was dating somebody else. One day when my new boyfriend and I were walking, we heard a car speeding up behind us. The car was swerving onto the sidewalk so we quickly walked

[00:34:37] onto the grass to avoid being hit by this car. We assumed this wasn't intentional until we noticed that the car was accelerating towards the grass that we were standing on. The car wanted to hit

[00:34:49] us. It was Ron in his mother's car. So we took off running. About a month later, I was asleep in my bed. It was very late. I'm a very heavy sleeper and I essentially sleep like the dead. My sister

[00:35:06] ran into my room, yelling about there being somebody outside flashing lights into my room. For a little context, we lived across the street from a gas station. This gas station wasn't 24-7

[00:35:18] and they closed fairly early so nobody would be there from 7pm to 7am. It was currently 12 in the morning so I couldn't blame the flashing lights on the gas station. My sister was freaking

[00:35:30] out so we peeked out of the window. And it was Ron. He was driving his mother's car again. He got out of the car and started to walk towards my window so we made sure that it was locked. He never knocked

[00:35:43] on my window but I felt his presence there. Somehow, I fell back to sleep. A few months later, Ron's mother came to our house asking for help. I didn't go outside but my mom and dad did.

[00:35:58] A few minutes later, after talking to Ron's mom, my mom rushed inside where I was and told me that we needed to go to Ron's house. Against my better judgment, I got dressed and went with my parents.

[00:36:11] We went to Ron's house where his mom met us outside and warned me about what I was going to see. Ron was inside saying that if I didn't talk to him, he was going to harm himself.

[00:36:23] I was scared out of my mind. I went inside and he was slamming his head on the wall, practically busting through it. I calmed him down the best that I could

[00:36:34] and he kept saying that he would only stop if we were together again. But I refused. I told his mother to get him some professional help and asked not to be called to de-escalate situations

[00:36:46] like this in the future. I was 15 and not equipped to help Ron out the way that he needed. Shortly after this, my family moved out of that house and away from that town into a new trailer

[00:36:58] a few towns away. I turned 16 and then 17 without having any run-ins with Ron. At 17, I became pregnant with my daughter from a boy that I didn't know too well. I hadn't talked to Ron since the

[00:37:13] time that I went over to his house, but I found out he was going around telling people that my daughter was his. He was telling everyone that I wasn't letting him see her. Some of my own family

[00:37:25] members believed what Ron was saying and didn't want to have anything to do with me because of it. My mother ended up dying when I was 18. I was stunned when Ron showed up at her funeral.

[00:37:37] When he saw me, he started to come towards me, but I walked away. He kept trying to get me to talk to him, but I just couldn't. The story seemingly ended there since nothing happened

[00:37:49] with Ron for 12 years, but then about a year ago, my grandpa passed away. My husband and I went to his funeral and who did we see? Ron. I just couldn't believe it. We sat away from him

[00:38:06] for the funeral service and we left as soon as it was over. A few days after that, my husband and I were out having breakfast while the kids were at school. As we were eating, I received a text

[00:38:17] from an unknown number that said, you look really nice today. Enjoy your breakfast. It had to be Ron and it was. I let my husband know about the text. I told him the whole story from the beginning.

[00:38:31] We wound up going to the police. It's been a year since that happened and I haven't heard anything from the police or Ron since, but I can't help but feel like he's going to pop up

[00:38:40] again. So to the boy who has stalked me for half of my life, from when I was 15 to 30, please Ron, let's never meet again. When I was around nine years old, I experienced the very exciting event

[00:39:04] of moving away from my very small town in Blairsville, Georgia. I was excited about new opportunities that I never had growing up in the literal mountains. I was also excited to

[00:39:16] leave my dad who going forward, I'll refer to as Tim. Tim was not a good guy. So my excitement about this separation was valid, but he wasn't so excited about it. Seemingly out of nowhere,

[00:39:31] he wanted to spend more time with me. So he would come to my school and he would eat lunch with me every day. It was a little embarrassing as I was the only kid there that had a parent coming to

[00:39:41] school to eat lunch with them. The faculty thought that it was a bit too much as well. So they told my mom, prompting her to have a conversation with Tim. My mom told him that it was a bit weird.

[00:39:55] So he stopped, but that didn't stop him from obsessively taking me to the park after school on days that he had me since my parents were divorced. I hated going to the park with him

[00:40:06] because for one, he wasn't very nice. And two, it was boring. Tim wouldn't let me play or do anything. He would just make me sit on a park bench with him and talk as I watched all the others play.

[00:40:20] One day as we were doing this, I was waiting and begging for it to be time to go home when an older mountain town man spotted us and began to talk. He was a tall burly man who wore

[00:40:33] head to tail camouflage. He had a long white Santa beard and a soft vaguely Southern voice. Getting approached by somebody like this may be disorienting to some, but in the South, everyone is seemingly nice and talks to everybody that they meet.

[00:40:51] So this wasn't out of the ordinary. He was telling us how he noticed that we came to the park a lot and sat on the benches. He thought that it would be nice to show me something. Excited that I was

[00:41:02] finally presented with something other than sitting, he gave me a bunch of nuts and taught me how to feed the squirrels. Instead of running away like a city squirrel, the squirrels in the park

[00:41:15] would come right up to me and eat directly out of my hand. I was shocked and asked how it was possible since the squirrels are notoriously skittish even in our small mountain town.

[00:41:26] The man said, well, I'm the squirrel man. He explained how he feeds them all the time and he also told me that he lived in a cabin nearby on the mountain and that's why he's always

[00:41:39] at the park. Little did I know, many people who frequented the park knew about the squirrel man. As strange as he looked, it wasn't unusual for the area because that's just how people who lived in

[00:41:53] the mountains looked. So Tim and I thought of him as a good person. After meeting the squirrel man, I was so sad when it was time for Tim and I to leave the park for the first time ever. I really

[00:42:05] enjoyed my time with squirrel man. After that, I started telling Tim that I wanted to go to the park with him constantly and he would take me. But who I really wanted to see was the squirrel man.

[00:42:17] Tim started bringing one of his handheld football simulator games to play while sitting on the bench while I looked around for the squirrel man. It was impossible for me to locate the squirrel man in

[00:42:28] the vast mountainous park but he would always somehow find me first as if he were looking for me. This should have been a red flag for Tim but it seemed like he gave up on whatever he wanted to do

[00:42:41] with me at the park and let the squirrel man take me wherever. Just as long as the squirrel man brought me back to the bench where he was seated. This went on for about a month. Whenever Tim and

[00:42:54] I went to the park, I immediately would wander off to go and spend time with the squirrel man who was always very kind to me. He showed me new things and taught me about nature

[00:43:05] every single time I saw him. Not only would I feed the squirrels but he taught me how to get the birds like cardinals to land on my hand and eat their feed directly out of my hand

[00:43:17] just like the squirrels. I loved it. He even gave me a pair of binoculars that were professional grade and came in their own case for bird watching. I took those binoculars everywhere that I went.

[00:43:30] I felt special being the only person other than squirrel man who knew how to do these things. I would sometimes get jealous when he would try to teach other kids to do the same thing.

[00:43:42] Being only nine, this was frustrating to me but I would show the other kids how to do it as well. I guess squirrel man noticed my frustration because he sat me down and told me,

[00:43:53] don't worry girl you're my favorite. At the time this made me feel special but this also turned out to be another red flag. After weeks of spending time with the squirrel man I was nearing my time

[00:44:06] to move to a different city and out of nowhere Tim started getting jealous of me spending time with the squirrel man so he started making me sit on the bench with him at the park again.

[00:44:17] So I was back to sitting with Tim and talking about nothing. I was so upset because he wouldn't let me see the squirrel man. Tim even found new places for us to sit and talk to ensure that the squirrel

[00:44:30] man wouldn't find us and tempt me to go along with him but no matter where Tim and I would sit the squirrel man would always and I mean always find us and ask me if I wanted to hang out.

[00:44:41] Tim got so upset about me preferring to hang out with squirrel man that he stopped taking me to the park altogether. After a couple of weeks of not going to the park I was upset about not getting

[00:44:51] to say goodbye to squirrel man before I had to move. I had been staying at home mostly to prepare for the move but I also caught a pretty nasty stomach bug that had me in bed for about a week.

[00:45:02] One day while I was in bed I heard my mom in the living room speaking angrily to somebody on the phone. Naturally I thought that she was speaking with Tim but I heard her hang up and then she

[00:45:13] called Tim and said, are you crazy? Why would you do that? I didn't know what was going on but it sounded pretty serious so I stayed in my room until my mom called me into the living room.

[00:45:26] I walked in to see my mom, my nana and my protective big brother looking equally concerned. I asked what happened and they told me to sit down. My mom told me that she got a call from

[00:45:37] somebody asking about how I was feeling. My mom thought that it was maybe somebody from church because those were the only people who knew that I had been sick. She told whoever was calling that

[00:45:48] I was doing fine and asked who it was. The man on the phone replied, I am the squirrel man. I haven't seen your daughter in the park for a while. You should take her because her dad

[00:46:00] hasn't been bringing her by. After my mom told me this I was too young to really understand how creepy it was. I asked her why she was mad at me. That's when she told me that there was a

[00:46:13] reason he lived in the mountains and only went to the park, never into town. The squirrel man was a registered offender living off the grid. He had been a predator the whole time. I was shocked

[00:46:26] as I thought about how he would have happened to find me and how he would tell me that I was his favorite. I also thought about how he lured various children deep into the park with him.

[00:46:37] I became scared and wondered how the squirrel man got our phone number and I also wondered how he even knew that I was sick. Well it turns out that Tim, dad of the year, went to the park and ran into

[00:46:49] the squirrel man. When the squirrel man asked where I was Tim told him I was sick and in the process of moving away so I wouldn't be coming back to the park. Tim gave the squirrel man our number since he

[00:47:02] was continuously pestering him. That's why my mom was so livid with Tim. So was I. He broke down and gave all that information to a predatory man simply because he was annoyed into doing so.

[00:47:16] So to this day I still have my binoculars and I still hand feed cardinals but I can't help but wonder whatever happened to the squirrel man. In any case, to the squirrel man, let's not meet.

[00:47:47] Thank you all for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Make sure you stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended ad-free version

[00:47:56] of this week's episode. I apologize if things are a bit late. I've been sick for the past week or so and being sick when you're a podcaster, especially with a cold or any type of respiratory thing,

[00:48:09] it's kind of like a painter having no paint. I literally didn't have any fuel in the car to record with so it was a really tough week to get through but I was able to finally get everything

[00:48:20] recorded last minute, mostly today. You could probably hear it in my voice. So I do apologize to anybody that's sensitive to that kind of thing. In any case, thank you all for being patient and

[00:48:31] waiting around just a bit longer for your episode this week. This week you have heard, Running Into Her Discarded Dream Board Was a Nightmare by Lyrical Lotus, I Know That Sound by Natalie, A Sketchy Ice Cream Run, followed by A Sketchy Pizza Delivery by Maya, Boyfriend Turned Stalker

[00:48:49] by Christy, and finally The Squirrel Man by Banana Milk Bubbles. 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

[00:49:02] boards online. Make sure you send your stories in to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com and if you'd like to get access to that extended ad-free version of this week's episode and a bunch of other

[00:49:12] bonus content every single week, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. Finally don't forget to check out the new episodes of my

[00:49:21] podcasts Odd Trails, my True Paranormal Podcast, Welcome to Paradise That Sucks, and the Old Time Radiocast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week. Everyone stay safe. Transcribed by https://otter.ai