[00:00:00] My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 7 episode 17 of Let's Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. This story happened the first COVID summer of 2020 when I was working as a door to door salesman for reasons I can't really explain.
[00:00:49] At the time that this happened, I was working in a pretty low income suburb of Oklahoma City. On a day to day basis the job was already pretty miserable as the expectations were to work minimum 13 hour days, 6 days a week on commission.
[00:01:08] So if you weren't much of a salesman, you weren't making much. I realized this actually was a pyramid scheme but that's a story for another time. I usually got 1-3 sales per day on a good day. I'm naturally stressed about money.
[00:01:29] This particular morning I was breaking new territory and starting on foot in a new neighborhood at about 8am. Usually mornings were pretty slow as people are still asleep and have already left for work.
[00:01:46] So I was going along knocking when I was surprised that one man actually answered the door. I introduced myself and started the spiel and he seemed pretty receptive so we ended up talking and it seemed that he was interested in buying.
[00:02:05] This was great for me as it was so early in the day and it gave me a bit of an ego boost. The nature of my sales pitch script included some questions about the customers lives and
[00:02:17] we were advised to get to know the people a bit so this guy and I got sidetracked talking about life when he invited me inside to see his motorcycles. We ended up chatting for a while and I complained about my job to him so he bought some products
[00:02:36] for his son. The conversation up to this point had been comfortable and even though I knew it was naive to go inside the house alone with this man, I never really felt like I was in danger. After the sale, I went back outside and he followed me out.
[00:02:56] At this point he says he really wants to help me. Just wait right there, he said. He ducked back in the house. He came out and handed me a roll of 20s.
[00:03:08] I told him I couldn't possibly accept it but he said that this was his good deed and he wanted to be able to help a younger person in need. I just instinctively went in for a hug which in hindsight I know I crossed the line when I did.
[00:03:25] He immediately held me far too close and then his hands wandered down to grab my butt and then grazed my chest when I pulled away. He told me how beautiful I was but I excused myself pretty quickly as things had obviously gone way too far.
[00:03:44] I drove a ways up and around the corner out of sight I stopped again to count the money. He had given me $200. As a broke college kid, this made a huge difference for me.
[00:03:58] However, I was so put off and triggered by this interaction, I didn't work for the rest of the day. Later that day I got the first text message, internally kicking myself for even sharing it with this creep.
[00:04:13] It read something along the lines of how nice it was to meet me and again how beautiful he thought that I was. Despite the groping, this guy gave me a lot of money so I decided to respond but only to
[00:04:26] mention the business aspect and told him I hoped his son enjoyed the gift. He continued to send me messages throughout the day about wanting to see me again, to which I said I could only go back if he wanted to place another order.
[00:04:43] He played this off as a joke and I just stopped responding as I didn't see any benefit. The next day I went out to a different area and was having bad luck with zero sales.
[00:04:55] Near the end of the day I saw that I had more messages from the guy and was feeling bold so again I said that I would come over if he bought more. Surprisingly he did agree, so against my better judgment I went over to this guy's place again
[00:05:12] at about 9.30pm but this time I made a point to stay outside while he filled his order form out. He ended up gifting me another $200 in cash. I avoided all physical contact and personal nature of conversation, then got out of there
[00:05:33] as quickly and politely as I could despite the continuous flirting and compliments. I mean I was only there so that I didn't have to report zero sales for the day. As soon as I left he texted me again about how attractive he found me and this time he
[00:05:50] said how much he wanted me sexually. I did not respond and informed my direct supervisor who was also an abusive asshole, so I had no support. I decided to leave it alone and just ignore him.
[00:06:07] The next day I didn't check my phone while I was working and at the end of the day I had a whole slew of texts from this creep outlining in graphic detail the sexual things that he wanted to do with me. I obviously refused to respond again.
[00:06:23] Things went on like this for several days, with increasing detail from him that I'll spare you as not to disturb you but yes it was that disgusting. When he realized this wasn't getting my attention he tried to call me, at first once
[00:06:41] or twice and then several times a day. I still don't know why I didn't block him probably because my business did personal deliveries and I thought I might have to see him again later on.
[00:06:54] Then one day he sent me a message saying that his father was in the hospital and he needed all of the money that he had given me back so that he could visit him before he died.
[00:07:06] I decided to text back this time and inform him that I would not be returning the money as it was a gift. He sent me a lot of angry messages calling me a selfish bitch and saying that I was keeping
[00:07:19] him from his dying father, which I didn't believe but then he said something that really scared me. He threatened that he was in a motorcycle gang and that he was going to hunt me down and cut my throat when he found me.
[00:07:37] He knew my car and he knew my personal information. In hindsight this was probably all an elaborate ruse to get my attention but for the rest of the summer every time I heard a motorcycle a shiver went down my spine and I constantly look over my shoulder.
[00:08:00] So to the creepy guy that groped, harassed, and threatened to stalk and murder me, let's not meet. This happened 15 years ago. I was 17 years old. I live in a large city where you get used to a lot of different types of characters and strange encounters.
[00:08:29] I unfortunately had no shortage of weird encounters and getting approached by strangers wasn't anything new to me but I was still pretty shy and avoided all conflict. At the time, I didn't have access to a car so I had to take public transit to get everywhere.
[00:08:49] As I'm sure most people are aware, there are particularly a lot of weirdos on public transit. My boyfriend at the time was a year older than me and we had moved out and found an
[00:09:01] apartment in the downtown area so I had to take the bus for 50 minutes to go visit him. One evening I had made plans with my boyfriend to meet up near the city center to go to dinner and a movie.
[00:09:16] I got on the bus at the transit center where it began its entire bus route. I went to the back of the bus where the benches had two seats. I sat on the inner seat and put my bag on the outer seat.
[00:09:32] I put my headphones in and looked out the window while waiting for the bus to start moving. Before leaving the transit center, an old man got on the bus. He walked straight over to me and sat on top of my bag beside me. He yelled over my headphones,
[00:09:52] Hey beautiful lady! I was immediately on edge as the bus was not even a quarter of the way full and this man sat next to me instead of any other vacant seat. He even sat on top of my bag.
[00:10:09] I made a motion to indicate that I was wearing headphones and I did not want to talk. I motioned that I needed my bag from underneath where he was sitting. This unfortunately did not deter him. He again shouted, Hello beautiful lady!
[00:10:27] I felt trapped as he was seated beside me so I couldn't get out into the aisle to move seats without getting past him. I was feeling very anxious and definitely skeeved. The bus started moving.
[00:10:43] After two attempts to speak over my headphones had failed, he pinched the skin on the top of my hand to get my attention. I was immediately alarmed and ripped my headphones out of my ears and asked him what he wanted.
[00:10:59] He began talking to me casually as if there were nothing weird about the interaction. He told me how beautiful I was, asked me how my day was and began talking about his life, explaining his religious affiliations, showing me a gold pendant that he was wearing and
[00:11:16] otherwise not shutting up despite me trying desperately to ignore him. He was easily 40 years older than me, had a strong accent and was behaving rather strangely. As a 17 year old with very little life experience I was terrified.
[00:11:35] As the bus drove along and slowly started filling up I noticed everyone staring at him and me because he was so loud and erratic. At one point I tried putting my headphones back in and he pulled the cord so the earbud
[00:11:51] popped out of my ear and continued speaking. At one point without warning he grabbed my head with both hands and kissed my cheek with great force. I wanted to cry, I was scared.
[00:12:06] I didn't know what to do so I started making intense eye contact with anyone who I caught staring at me. After a grueling 25 minutes of fear a woman in her early 20s called out to me with a random name and said,
[00:12:21] I didn't see you before, come sit next to me we have so much to catch up on. I looked at the man and I asked him to move out of my way so that I could sit with my friend and grabbed my bag hastily.
[00:12:34] When I sat next to the woman I started to sob, I told her that I was scared. She said she was sorry that she didn't intervene sooner. The man continued to speak loudly to anyone around him and stared at me through the bus ride.
[00:12:52] I pulled out my clunky flip phone to call my boyfriend and tell him what was happening on the bus and that I was feeling very scared. He understood immediately and told me that he would meet me at the bus stop and advised
[00:13:06] me to fake getting off at the stop before to see what would happen and play a little game of chicken if it came down to it. At the bus stop before my regular stop I rang the bell and approached the front door of the bus.
[00:13:22] I noticed the creepy old man rose and went to the back door still watching me very closely. When the bus stopped I took a step off of the bus and I saw the man also exit. I jumped back onto the bus as the door closed.
[00:13:39] The bus drove away and I felt this huge sigh of relief. I have no doubt that that man intended to follow me and do god knows what. I was able to meet my boyfriend at the next stop.
[00:13:51] I cried pretty hard and ended up taking a cab ride home that night. I still took the bus regularly after that for about a year but I wouldn't take the bus after dark and only sat on the outside seat so no one could sit beside me if the
[00:14:07] bus wasn't crowded or I would stand if I had to. A few months after that scary incident I was riding the bus along the same route when the bus driver announced that they had to make a stop outside the city center to pick up
[00:14:22] passengers from a bus that was no longer in service and that everyone needed to make room. As the bus pulled up to the crowd waiting I noticed there were several police cars surrounding
[00:14:35] the bus and the same creepy old man was bent over the hood of a police cruiser being handcuffed. I'll never know why but I was grateful that he was in custody. As I've gotten older I pay close attention not to only my surroundings but also to young
[00:14:58] girls in public to ensure that they are safe. I found myself intervening when someone is being creepy to them by pretending to know them and calling them over to me the way that that bus angel did for me so many years before.
[00:15:14] If you see someone looking scared or uncomfortable please intervene because you could potentially save a life and to the creepy old man on the bus who harassed a teen you had better hope we never meet again.
[00:15:41] I've been listening to the podcast for the last couple of months which I find a great way to spend my time whilst doing other activities as well as listening to other stories and
[00:15:50] learning how to notice danger so I want to thank you for sharing these stories it means a lot. However, listening to all of these stories about creeps and strange people I couldn't
[00:16:01] help but be reminded of someone that I met in high school that I would say was a strange person to say the least. I live in a small town around 20,000 in New Zealand. It's probably about 3 hours or so from the city in either direction and it's a farming
[00:16:22] community thanks to all of the dairy farms around the area and regions that practice farming they've done this for over 100 years. Despite this both the country and town teens catch the buses and go to either one of three high schools in town.
[00:16:40] Two are single sex schools one male one female with the third high school a Catholic co-ed school. This story took place at the co-ed school which I ended up attending for two years until I moved to an all girls high which I'm currently attending.
[00:17:00] I'm 16 now and female for context this story took place just a year between the ages of 14 and 15. After spending about a year or so at the co-ed school I was already sick of it.
[00:17:15] My friends and myself at the time were what you would call in a stereotypical Hollywood movie the rejects and we often stuck together because we had nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to because of our already gained reputation.
[00:17:30] It also meant that a number of the kids who were lonely at the time would come to us for comfort until they got back on their feet and found new friends. None of us minded this because we were at least grateful that we were meeting new people.
[00:17:44] However there was this one boy that came to sit down with us for a while I'll name them Tyler. Tyler seemed like your average socially awkward kid at first he had short blonde hair and
[00:17:59] blue eyes and strange enough was quite strong for 15 because he took part in the local army training group for teens who were interested in joining the army. We were welcoming to him when he first joined us because he seemed like he was just an ordinary
[00:18:18] kid who needed some help landing back on his feet and we were happy to give him that sort of help and support. Looking back I can now tell that I was incredibly stupid for doing so but young hormonal me
[00:18:35] whom had never really flirted with guys before would flirt with him occasionally. I can't even remember why exactly I did this I think it was just because I was a bit bored at the time.
[00:18:46] It's crappy of me I know but I've since learned from this experience and have reflected on it greatly. Young hormonal him seemed to take my flirting as a sign of interest and began talking to me more and more.
[00:19:04] During this period he began to tell us more about himself. He said that he and his family were from South Africa with their ancestors moving down hundreds of years ago to Africa but his family suddenly immigrated to New Zealand a few years ago.
[00:19:23] I always asked him about South Africa and he would always tell me about the bush and the weather that they used to experience and how much he missed it just normal stuff. Of course I was sympathetic because of course who wouldn't miss the country that they grew
[00:19:40] up in. However, the closer he got the longer he stayed and the more confident he became. He started telling us more and more stuff that slowly progressed into red flags. Once we were all sitting outside of a classroom during lunch as we were talking I noticed
[00:20:01] a little spider crawling on the ground between my feet. I personally don't mind spiders as long as they weren't as big as baseballs and as I was slowly watching this little guy skitter across the ground Tyler raised his foot and stomped on it.
[00:20:17] I looked at him and I swear to God he seemed to take pleasure in my horror because he was smiling. I looked at him and said what the hell dude why did you do that?
[00:20:31] He just looked at me and the spider's squished body and said without wincing or anything because it was happy. At this point I was confused at his comment. I jokingly said what so you take pleasure in hurting other animals?
[00:20:50] Tyler stared at me still smiling and he told me in graphic detail some of the things he liked to do when he went hunting with his dad but I'll spare you the details. Something flashed past his eyes as he said this still smiling and not a cheeky school
[00:21:10] boy smile mind you some psychotic one and the look in his eyes told me that he wasn't kidding around. All of my friends completely laughed it off saying that he was just kidding around and not taking it seriously whilst I sat there trying to comprehend the moment.
[00:21:32] Another time Tyler sat down with us during another lunchtime period and he must have been pissed about something because he began to spit off angry remarks about school saying frightening things about how he was going to shoot up the school and kill everyone in sight.
[00:21:47] Again my friends started joking around and one said oh yeah you got a plan? Well he smiled. He began pouring into details about how he would take a gun from his dad's cabinet and
[00:22:01] sneak into the school and there he would take specific routes and kill as many people as he could. And if that wasn't sickening enough he started with names, names of certain people who have wronged him and how they would pay.
[00:22:18] My friends were shocked he was dead serious we could tell just from the energy that he was putting off. It's not like shootings are common in New Zealand so there was no way that he would be joking.
[00:22:32] Once the bell rang and he went into class my friends and I were pretty spooked. We were all looking collectively at one another like what the hell was that and what the hell do we do?
[00:22:46] I told them that I would go to a trusted teacher and report his behavior and I begged them not to tell him it was me. They promised and I did just as I told them.
[00:22:57] I found a teacher in private and confided in him asking to stay anonymous and he agreed saying that he would speak to him and thank me. I didn't think anything would arise out of the situation. There was absolutely no way he would have known it was me right?
[00:23:15] Well I shared music class with him a couple of times a week and over the last couple of days I'd been trying to avoid him thanks to all of the red flags and his outburst.
[00:23:27] However as I entered the classroom and looked over to my desk he had shifted. He shifted desks right over the classroom from his original spot so that his seat was right next to mine.
[00:23:39] What's worse is that he was sitting in that god damn seat and staring at me with this stone cold look. What the fuck? I turned around as I gradually began to sit down next to him. He continued to stare at me throughout the lesson.
[00:23:56] He tried to start conversations with me once or twice asking why I was ignoring him and if something was wrong. I looked into his eyes and by just his face I could tell that he already knew and for
[00:24:08] the first time in my life I felt truly terrified to be in a room with someone else. I didn't know what to do. He could potentially hurt me if I made a wrong move or said the wrong thing.
[00:24:22] So all I did was play along saying that nothing was wrong and I was just busy with schoolwork. He seemed happy with this answer and we continued hanging out. Nothing came of the situation but I regretted every single day that I hung out with him after that.
[00:24:39] I felt like pure evil was bubbling up inside of him every moment. Something that only I seemed to see within him. But I couldn't do anything. I was never really great at speaking my mind and saying no to people so I remained friends
[00:24:56] with him for a number of weeks. Over time his rants would grow worse and worse within our circle of friends. He would cover a range of topics from saying he hated people of color because they were
[00:25:08] all cheats and criminals to how women were always the same and should be put in their place. He continued to spew homophobic racist bigoted language towards us thinking that we would reprobate the same stuff that he thought. We did not.
[00:25:25] By this point we were sick of him and his rants. He hurt us greatly because most of us were people of color and part of the LGBT community. My feminist queer ass was sick of his shit and over a couple of days we completely ignored him.
[00:25:45] He didn't fight back he instead let us be to find new friends. Almost a year later I'm in a different school and have finally found a great circle of friends who support each other and don't take others' bullshit.
[00:25:59] I've completely cut off Tyler since last year but I still wonder where is he now? I've tried looking to see if he has any social media accounts but nothing's ever popped up. I've asked some friends that I still keep in contact with from my old school whether
[00:26:16] or not he's still an ass and I've been told that he and his family packed up their stuff and moved all the way back to South Africa. No explanation or anything. He was just at school one day and then gone the next and thank God for that.
[00:26:33] I hope that people aren't dragged into whatever is bubbling up within him and that he never has to scare or hurt anyone else again like the way he scared me and my friends.
[00:26:46] So to the kid who took pleasure in hurting animals and threatened to shoot up our school, let's not meet ever. I live in a nicer part of town on a dead end street. We don't usually have any problems on the street.
[00:27:12] So at about 1am on a weeknight I was surprised when I heard a car start in the driveway. I thought perhaps one of my family members was moving the car around to make their morning a little easier to get out of the driveway.
[00:27:28] A couple of seconds go by when I hear my usually calm uncle screaming at the top of his lungs, someone is stealing the fucking car. I rush down the stairs to see my brand new car being whipped around our backyard through
[00:27:45] the grass and rocks down a steep slope of our front yard and over a small stream into the street. The whole thing happened so fast no one really knew how to react. My uncle tried to follow the person stealing the car but they got away too fast.
[00:28:04] My aunt and I clumsily called 911 and the town police showed up very quickly. They found my car parked at the top of the street. When they asked the woman who stole the car to get out, she tried to run but the car got stuck between drive and reverse.
[00:28:23] No one understands what happened but are thankful that it did. Anyway they had to break the passenger side window and pull her out through it. When they got her out, they found many strange items on her. Some of which being a collection of these bejeweled daggers.
[00:28:45] They also found out that in order to find my keys, she was searching through my uncle's and dad's cars. While she was there, she also grabbed my dad's car registration, a styrofoam cup and some Christmas clothes that he had gotten as presents.
[00:29:02] Apparently, she pulled off into some wooded area, took off all of her clothes and put on his Christmas clothes. The whole situation was very freaky. The next morning she was released from the town police station and while they were processing
[00:29:20] her, she put her shoes on the wrong feet and tried to flee the station. The woman was clearly disturbed. We thought that we did the right thing by not pressing charges with the hopes that she might be able to find help.
[00:29:34] Little did we know, she had done this to someone else just the week before. Her raid on our neighborhood was far from over. A week or so later, I was babysitting for our neighbor who lived up the street and told them about the whole situation.
[00:29:53] They were also very clearly stunned that something like that had happened in our neighborhood so they asked for her name. When I said it, their faces got very serious. They said that they heard just last week one of their friends who also lives on our road
[00:30:11] had an incident the week before. She had tucked her child into bed and went about her night. A short while later she heard him yelling, Mommy, Mommy something is scratching in my closet. Knowing how little kids have overreactive minds, at night, she told him it's probably
[00:30:33] just some critter crawling through the walls or on the roof. He yelled, No Mommy it's not. Now this must have freaked her out because she went into the closet to find the same woman who took the car.
[00:30:51] She was sitting in the little boy's closet with her bejeweled dagger scratching at his closet door. Being a psych nurse, she could handle this and she didn't call the cops. Instead she took the woman to the police station herself. A hell of a ride that must have been.
[00:31:09] The weirdest part of this whole story is that she lives in an apartment complex that's through the woods at the end of my cul-de-sac. She could easily walk to my house at any point. She could be disguised in the thick woods that surround my backyard watching, waiting
[00:31:26] for the car to be conveniently unlocked again. But creepy carjacking, closet hiding woman, let's never meet again. For some background, at the time I had just moved from Alaska to Vancouver, Washington. I was around 5 or 6.
[00:31:59] It was just me and my mom as my dad had left for California that year. My parents were separated. So with my mom just becoming a single mother, we chose to leave Alaska and move in with her friend and another family who was also a single mother family.
[00:32:14] They had a teen daughter and a preteen son. We had moved into a somewhat renovated house. It was 4 and a half bedrooms, 3 bedrooms upstairs, and this weird connected bedroom that had a door in between downstairs.
[00:32:30] I believe due to trauma I kind of blocked a lot of this out. My mom, her friend, and the other mom had left the house. I was in my room alone when the boy, whom I would say was anywhere from 11 to 13, came into my room.
[00:32:48] Being a child, casually I asked this kid that I barely knew because we never really interacted beforehand, do you want to play with me? The boy said yes, then pulled something out of his pocket. It was a knife.
[00:33:05] Now thank God for fight or flight instincts because my body said no, it's time to run. Little old me jumped onto the bed and scurried into the far corner as he was staring at me, assessing how close he could get to me.
[00:33:23] I came up with an escape plan. When he went to grab me, I jumped down and ran towards the door separating mine and my mom's room. I closed it, then ran out towards the living room. He followed chasing me. I then ran upstairs to the teen daughter's room.
[00:33:42] She was supposed to be watching me. I was crying and telling her what happened. She ran downstairs now realizing how terrified I was. She went to talk to her brother but they began fighting and throwing things. He ran out of the house.
[00:33:59] While this was happening, I was hiding on the second step of the stairs still able to see into the kitchen but well hidden behind a wall. She called our moms and the friend.
[00:34:11] My mom came home to stay with me while the other two went to look for the boy. After that, we moved out a couple of days later with another family who had their own problems but nothing like that.
[00:34:24] I asked my mom multiple times about that incident but she always told me that he was joking. I'm 19 and I still don't believe that he was joking. I think he just had some issues and really hated me. Maybe he was attempting to take out his anger on me.
[00:34:43] But to the kid who tried to kill me, please let's never meet and please never joke like that again. So, I am from the central Florida area. I grew up maybe 10-15 minutes away from Disney. A lot of people are like, I'd love to live there.
[00:35:14] It would be wonderful. It's kind of overrated to be honest with you. But anyways, because of that we get a lot of people that just are from all over the place. All out of state, you know, from different countries. Just everything which is usually great.
[00:35:28] It's nice to grow up and see different cultures and everything like that. This would have been when I was about 15-14 years old and I'm 33 now so almost 20 years ago. It was maybe a week before Christmas, a week of Christmas.
[00:35:52] I remember that pretty clearly because of the contents. So anyways, my father who was an avid motorcycle rider at the time decided to sell his motorcycle and instead of putting it on Cycle Trader or something like that, he put it at the end
[00:36:08] of the driveway with a big sign on it that said for sale. Well at the time, so I must have been 16 I guess because at the time I drove home alone. And I was at home just playing video games.
[00:36:22] I think I played an MMO called Star Wars Galaxies at the time and I was obsessed with it. This was right around the time that World of Warcraft came out and I was still kind of bouncing between the two of them. That kind of leads into this.
[00:36:39] Basically I was so incredibly busy playing that I didn't see somebody drive down our driveway. And it was a very long driveway. It was, I don't know, maybe 100 foot if not more. It's very long and winding. And this was back before ring doorbells or any of that stuff.
[00:36:56] So our doorbell rings and I look through and there's a guy much bigger than me, maybe 6'2", 300 pounds, kind of chubby but stocky standing at that door. And I can see through because when I come downstairs there's a big window up top and I can see him.
[00:37:17] And then when I got up to the door there was glass there and I was like, oh well, oh shit. It was this guy. So I kind of cracked the door open because I'm from Florida and I'm not super trustworthy of people.
[00:37:30] But I cracked the door open and I'm like, how can I help you? He's like, yeah, I'm here for the motorcycle for sale. And I'm like, oh, you know, my dad, which in retrospect I shouldn't have done it but
[00:37:42] I was like, oh, my dad should be home any minute now. Well, my dad and I had gone to breakfast and my dad had gone to Home Depot to get boards or something for some project he's always working on. And I was like, yeah, I'll just go home.
[00:37:57] It's fine. Well, I didn't know when my dad was going to be home. I'm like, oh, my dad will be home shortly. And the guy's like, well, I really got to use the bathroom. Can I use your bathroom? And I was like, uh, nah, not right now.
[00:38:10] You can't use it. Sorry. You know, kind of like that awkward teenage thing where you're trying to tell him like fuck off. And he's like, well, I really got to use the bathroom. And he just pushes the door open and walks in and starts looking around.
[00:38:23] He's like, where's your bathroom? At that point, I'm like, what do I do? I'm like half this guy's size. And I'm like, you know, it's over here. So I kind of lead him around the long way, hoping that I'll kill time and my dad will magically show up.
[00:38:41] And I show him to the bathroom. It's a little powder bathroom. There's no shower, no tub or anything like that. And he goes in there. And I'm like, what the fuck do I do? So I start trying to call my dad.
[00:38:53] And this is when cell phones are not iPhones and all this crazy shit. So I can't really text. I just start spam calling. Well, my parents have a habit of never answering the phone ever. So I call my dad like 20 times. Nothing.
[00:39:07] He's probably eating a hot dog outside of Home Depot or something. And I'm like, what the fuck do I do? So I start listening. This guy's in the bathroom. He's making a shit ton of noise.
[00:39:17] And I just hear him going like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, like muttering like these kind of violent words underneath his breath. And he finally comes out. And he starts just walking around my house. And I'm like, so what's your name? What are you doing?
[00:39:34] He's like, oh, I'm really interested in this motorcycle down there. My name is Jeff, Jeff Silva, which come to find out was obviously a fake name later on. So he keeps walking around looking at shit. Now I'm sitting here thinking, what the fuck do I do?
[00:39:51] So he goes back in the bathroom again. And I hear him doing something. I'm not sure what he's doing. So at this point, I'm like preparing and I go out like our garage doors right there in front of that bathroom.
[00:40:05] So I sneak out and grab this fucking steel bar. I'm getting ready to cave this guy's head in or die trying because I don't know what the fuck to do at this point. He won't leave.
[00:40:15] And he's not been like outwardly violent towards me or shown any malicious intent. But there's just something about him. And I can still see him to this day, almost 20 years later, what he looked like. And finally, I hear him getting prepared to leave the bathroom.
[00:40:29] So I set the metal bat down and it's not a bat. It's like a metal stick or something. I set it down and he walks out of the bathroom and he just makes his way back to the front door. And I'm like, this is really fucking weird.
[00:40:45] And he's just standing there by the front door. And all of a sudden I see my dad's truck turned down the driveway. And I'm like, oh, there's my dad. And I open the door and the guy like scurries out.
[00:40:55] And I fucking lock the door real quick and go back to the bathroom. And there's like no toilet paper in there anymore. There's no towel. And I'm like, what the fuck? So my dad, my dad like intercepts him in the driveway.
[00:41:12] My dad must have known something was weird with him because he saw him walking out of our house. So my dad is sitting there talking to him. And I run upstairs and look out the, there's like a window that overlooks our driveway.
[00:41:23] I ran, I run and look at it. And he opens up the hatch of his, he's like a hatchback Volvo or Subaru or something. He opens it up and he's showing my dad stuff. And my dad's like, no, no, no. I can kind of see him motioning that.
[00:41:37] And my dad's like pointing at the end of the road. Like, let's go look at the motorcycle. Let's go look at the motorcycle. So I drive down there and the guy looks at it for like one minute. He's like, oh, can I ride it? Can I ride it?
[00:41:48] My dad's like, no, no. And the guy finally gets aggressive and leaves. So my dad can just decide he's like, call 911, call the cops. And I'm like, what happened? Well, turns out when the guy opened up his hatch, he had like hundreds of unwrapped gifts.
[00:42:07] Like gifts that had been under a tree somewhere ripped open. And he had like several bottles of champagne that still had like moisture on it from being cold. He had like a basket of like puppies and there was a shotgun leaning like right there against the glass.
[00:42:25] And we called the cops and it turned and I gave him the name. I was like, yeah, I said his name was Jeff Silva. You know, he was 6'2", 300 pounds, black hair. Kind of sounded like he was from the north.
[00:42:37] And turns out that that obviously wasn't him because they gave him the tag and the tag went to a stolen vehicle. And there were a ton of break-ins that day. And actually the preceding week of people getting their Christmas gifts stolen.
[00:42:50] And what he would do is, the guy that was doing it to other people's houses, they didn't know if it was the same guy.
[00:42:56] What he would do is like go to the bathroom and take stuff and like shove it in the back of the toilet to cause it to flood. And while it was flooding, he would go get his shotgun and basically rob the homeowners at gunpoint.
[00:43:10] And we looked in the back of our toilet and all those towels and toilet paper and everything were just jammed in the back there. But yeah, that is how I almost got home invaded. Actually, I did get home invaded.
[00:43:24] So to Jeff Silva, if you're out there, let's not meet again. If we do, fuck you. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.
[00:43:51] And don't forget your weekly dose of the true paranormal on a brand new episode of my other podcast Odd Trails released every week alongside this show. Check it out at OddTrails.com or wherever you get your podcasts today. And don't miss next week's episode of Let's Not Meet.
[00:44:09] We will be doing a special holiday edition of The Lost Stories. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. This week, you have heard my Southwestern summer internship by Ellie. Public transit creep by a listener that asked to remain anonymous.
[00:44:26] My high school friend threatened to shoot up our school by an anonymous listener. The woman by Olivia. The boy who chased me with a knife by Sierra. And finally, a voice message sent in by Ryan.
[00:44:41] All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.
[00:44:51] As always, if you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. And if you're a patron, don't forget to stick around after the music for your ad-free extended version of this week's episode.
[00:45:02] If you'd like to get access, head over to patreon.com forward slash Let's Not Meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. I'll see you all next week. Stay safe. When I was a senior in high school, I was obsessed with all things horror.