12x08: Don't Pick Up Hitchhikers

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content.

[00:00:02] Listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:04] If you have a story to share, send it to let'snotmeetstoriesatgmail.com.

[00:00:09] Enjoy the show. for a few hours before I invited him over to meet my husband. Things went very, very well, and they seemed to get along, so Jez and I started dating. This guy completely swept me off my feet. Jez was sweet and caring. He enthusiastically listened to every little thing on my mind and validated me.

[00:01:43] Over and over again he revered to take this journey with me. Now we continued dating, and it was just as wonderful. We spent long nights awake talking, sharing, laughing, and planning. Then, in our deepest, most intimate moment, when we would just sit in silence, he would grip his hand to my face, in astonishment, asking where I've been

[00:03:03] all this time. Our time together was effortless, we fit together like puzzle pieces.

[00:04:03] Nothing like the person that I had met. Hanging out with friends became a burden, if not impossible, because he would blow up

[00:04:08] my phone and guilt me about leaving him alone or not involving him in some way.

[00:04:15] In December of 2018, we attended my work Christmas party.

[00:04:20] I had given him the option to go out, so she was intimately familiar with what I had gone through with my ex-husband. I am so happy that she has you, she said.

[00:05:43] You have been absolutely transformative for her. as though I was encroaching on his time and attention. Before I knew it, he was snapping at me over every little thing. If I asked how his day was or attempted to talk about my day, I was aggressively shut down. Why do you always ask me that? I don't wanna talk shop at home. I don't care about your work, it's work.

[00:07:04] I couldn't even bring him breakfast without being snapped at. Originally, he would tell me that he would never have dated me back in the day. He even said that I was lucky that he lowered his standards. I never really knew what to say to this. I would just laugh at it, make a note of it, and shove it in my back pocket. And when he wasn't comparing my looks to his exes, he accused me of catfishing him.

[00:08:24] I was feeling stressed and isolated in this started to interrogate me about my relationship with this guy, asking when I had even talked to this friend. Upon discovering that it had been a while since I talked to him, Jazz said, you don't even know this guy anymore, who cares? Shortly after that I broke up with him for the first time after he called me at work

[00:09:42] raging.

[00:09:44] I was so busy that I had nowhere to go. My manager and her husband ended up following me home that evening since she was concerned for my safety. She also offered to let me stay with her for a few days.

[00:11:01] I'll never forget the scene that I walked he needed to change. So I took him back. Not long after, my car ended up breaking down at a gas station close to home. There was a very nice couple in the vehicle next to me that came to my rescue and checked things out under my hood. The gentleman turned out to be a mechanic for a living, so he had a pretty good theory

[00:12:22] about what could be going wrong. You don't have to answer, but if you need anything." He trailed off as I looked down at his number on the paper in my hand and nodded to it. And with that he got into the driver's seat of his car and drove away. I have thought about that couple countless times since that night. After that, everything went right back to the way that it was before, as though the

[00:13:42] initial breakup never even louder. I felt like I was in some kind of horror movie. I started to cry. I was begging him, please.

[00:15:01] Which made him mock me.

[00:15:03] Oh, well, the poor baby is crying.

[00:15:07] That's your card, isn't it? powerless, trapped, and afraid. As my thoughts continued to race, he continued to mock my panicked state. Most of our argument from that night was a blur, but it ended abruptly once he threatened to put my social security number on the dark web. At this point, all that was left in me was fight.

[00:16:21] I blacked out, went ballistic, I knew I would rather get a daily apology video than have to deal with him on my doorstep, so they persisted. For a while. He followed the same formula as before, love bombing and making promises. He was grasping at straws trying to find a weak spot that would let him back in, but I ignored it all.

[00:17:44] He eventually bowed out, stating boldly your significant other, or anyone.

[00:19:03] Therapy has changed the way that I look at my relationships with both those around me

[00:19:07] and with myself. For context, I live in a pretty rural area. I live with my family on the outskirts of our town, which is small compared to the populations of other towns in California. We're about 15 minutes from the closest small town and 40 minutes away from the biggest city.

[00:20:21] We live down a dirt road with some neighbors.

[00:20:24] In front and behind the house, there are only fields and dirt roads. cooling down outside, but was still light. Just in case it got dark, we would bring a flashlight. This area was notorious for having stray dogs running around, so we would carry pepper spray and a mini baton just in case any of them became vicious. I'm only mentioning this, since a dog will play into my story.

[00:21:41] One day my mom and I decided to go on a car pulling up at our fence. They quickly backed up and shot down the road to the side of our house. Nobody ever goes down this road except for this one old man that we know, but he didn't drive a white car.

[00:23:00] Anyone else who drives down that road is usually scoping out my dad's tools to steal. me to start running. So we took off. We started running through the field until we reached this intersection near our yard. The car ended up coming back again and they tried to cut us off. We were panicking at this point. We had no idea who this was let alone why they were acting like this. The car circled again and my mom dragged me further into the field and told me that we

[00:24:24] were going to get down the side road. I ran into the house and tried to catch my breath as I saw the car drive down the road. I couldn't see my mom, so I was panicking.

[00:25:41] I ran towards the sliding glass door

[00:25:44] and my mom quickly appeared.

[00:25:46] She opened it and raniana, my 5 year old, who I had with my

[00:27:01] husband.

[00:27:02] I'm very distraught because I've been seeing this woman almost everywhere I go. reflexes were faster than hers. My adrenaline was high as I screamed at her to get lost, but she just stood there, seemingly enraged as I held my son. She started muttering but she was speaking so low that I couldn't hear or understand her and she stomped away. After that, the other child's father and I talked for a bit.

[00:28:23] He seemed alarmed by what had just happened. immediately by signing my kids out for the rest of the day. I called the school the next day and I was informed that she did not show up to volunteer which freaked me out even more. Fast forward another month, July 2022. It was Tiana's birthday and we decided to host a party at a park in my

[00:29:40] in-laws hometown. Everything went well, although I was paranoid. And then somewhere around 9pm,

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[00:31:02] Because I've learned so much from using Grammarly's tools. It's like by car to an out of town job assignment. I had stopped at a popular gas station and travel stop, some of you may be familiar with, called Bucky's. This was perfect, since I needed to fill up my car, stretch my legs, use a bathroom, and grab a snack.

[00:32:21] While I was there, I was approached by a disabled woman figured this would be better for her, and she would be within walking distance if it came to that. This was agreeable with her, so we set off. Right away, I noticed this van following us.

[00:33:42] I tried to lose the van, but it kept pace.

[00:33:45] Meanwhile, my passenger wanted to play with my phone. She then yelled at me. No, you have to take me home. I replied. I told you I can't do that. I'm not going there. It's in the opposite direction of where I need to go and I'm expected at work soon. We'll call your boyfriend from the parking lot. As she became more upset and frustrated, I noticed that the van was getting even closer.

[00:35:03] Then I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. the boyfriend. Oh look, it's my friends. She then pointed at the van before walking towards it. The deputy and I shared a look and he said, give me your contact info. I can delay them for about 20 minutes while I check their license and registration. Go ahead and get out of here.

[00:36:20] I'll check on you before my shift is over.

[00:36:22] Oh, and don't pick up any more hitchhikers.

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[00:39:02] This story from my past happened about 32 years people went after that. My dad was always a blowhard. He was always exaggerating or straight up lying, so my brothers and I blew this off and didn't think too much of his claim.

[00:40:20] That is until something strange happened.

[00:40:22] My dad disappeared.

[00:40:25] It was 1988, and I was 22 years old. My brother said that these men didn't say who they were, but seemed satisfied with his response so they left. My brother was checking to see if these men had called to ask us where my dad was. They had not, but we also hadn't heard from my dad in months. The following day the men returned to my brother's work again.

[00:41:42] This time they flashed badges and claimed to be FBI agents. book was missing from the breakfast nook, as well as a teddy bear that he recently bought for his son, and a photo of his son was missing from the bedroom. My brother, my mom, and I were beside ourselves with anger, fear, and paranoia. We went to the local FBI office to file a complaint about what the FBI had done.

[00:43:02] We told them once and for all that my brother did not know where my brother was the one being harassed but not me or our mother. That's when I recalled an odd vent that happened to me about two to three weeks prior. Since I worked overnight, I was often wide awake in the middle of the night on my days off with nothing to do. One night, I went to the local cable TV company where my friend worked as a system operator.

[00:44:25] I wanted to hang out with him for on, and he got behind me. Since there was no traffic at all, when the light changed, I zoomed across the intersection. I streaked across all the lanes of traffic until I was in the lane to the far right. I proceeded through the intersection trying to lose him, but he followed, which made it

[00:45:41] absolutely clear he was following me. I could calm down. I told her what happened, and I stayed with her for about two hours. She also felt like it was probably just some punks, and that calmed me down. When I got home over two hours since this car harassed me, the damn tan-colored car was at my house. As I was coming down the street to my apartment complex,

[00:47:02] I was about to turn right when I saw that car

[00:47:05] pull out of my dad disappeared because he owed his employers more than $50,000 in gambling

[00:48:20] debts.

[00:48:22] The detective confirmed that my dad did work for some unsavory characters, but he said

[00:48:26] they weren't an organized crime ring per se. contact information was in it. He said that the teddy bear and the pictures were stolen just to scare my brother, which worked. My dad eventually returned to town. When he did, he acted like nothing even happened. He never spoke about the incident, and we never brought it back up.

[00:49:40] I guess he somehow paid back the money that he owed, but I don't know for sure.

[00:49:45] And I'll probably never know. episode of Let's Not Meet You have heard, that time I accidentally dated a sociopath by Abby Amuck, chased down by a car while walking with my mom by It's Just Dally. I feel like I'm about to lose my mind by Drama Affectionate 381, Don't Pick Up Hitchhikers by Chrissy510, and finally,