Wednesday One-Shot: The College Recruiter

[00:00:01] Welcome to Wednesday One-Shots, the series where we share an extra story with you to help you get through the week. This time around, we have a story titled The College Recruiter by a listener named Madison. This happened when I was about 15 years old.

[00:00:26] It was a beautiful fall night and it was around my birthday at this time. My birthday falls towards the end of October. I live in the country and have about two acres of land at my parents' house.

[00:00:39] This property is now owned only by my mom after my parents divorced. Four of my best friends would come over frequently. My place was always the designated spot for our hangouts since my mom would buy us pizza and pop. It was heaven to us young teenagers.

[00:00:56] One day, I was home alone and my parents were at work. I was sitting in my living room watching whatever I could find on my TV when I heard my dogs violently barking.

[00:01:08] I figured that it was the garbage man, the mailman, or one of the cats causing all of the commotion. The dogs are country-raised dogs so they act like wild animals when they see people or hear any noises.

[00:01:21] This was great since I knew that they would deter intruders but it was not so great for my sanity. I yelled for them to stop barking as it was usually nothing to worry about.

[00:01:32] Then I looked out my living room window since I could see to the end of the driveway. There was nobody there. But the dogs were carrying on with their barking. I heard that my husky slash border collie mix was starting to growl.

[00:01:47] So I got a little nervous but still thought that it was probably nothing. I got off of the couch, walked through the living room, and rounded the corner to my kitchen.

[00:01:56] From there I had a clear shot of my front door which has windows so I was able to see outside. I still didn't see anybody so I walked toward my dogs and yelled at them to calm down. They jumped up at the door as I approached them.

[00:02:12] I was still trying to get them to calm down when I saw a Prius in my driveway. I didn't recognize this car and my eyes traveled down to my wooden gate where I saw a man just standing there with papers in his hands.

[00:02:26] His eyes met mine and he smiled so I was like, crap, now I have to talk to him. My parents and I have quite a few sales people come out so this wasn't super odd.

[00:02:39] I opened the door and prepared to say I'm not interested but he launched right into his whole script. Hey, I'm with the college and I was wondering if your parents are home, the man said. Oh, we're not interested, thank you, though I declined. Are your parents home?

[00:02:56] I want to share some information with them, he insisted. I know this is probably the last thing I should have said but I said no, they're not home. It's okay though because we're definitely not interested. What's their schedule? He asked. We're not interested, I said.

[00:03:13] Okay, well I'll come back when they are here, he concluded as he headed back to his car. I rushed back inside, locked the door and thought great, now he's going to come back and talk to my parents and I'm going to get in so much trouble.

[00:03:27] I remember thinking this because I wasn't supposed to open the door for anyone when I was home by myself. I was always instructed to keep the door shut and locked. A couple of weeks later, I had my friends over to hang out one night.

[00:03:40] I totally forgot about the weird guy who said that he worked out of college since weeks had passed and he hadn't returned. My friends and I were hanging out and decided that we should go outside and get in the hot tub.

[00:03:53] All of my friends were excited about getting in so we started getting ready. We were doing this very slowly as we kept laughing and distracting each other. My parents decided to go out to dinner at this Mexican restaurant so it was just me and my

[00:04:08] friends alone at the house. My house was in the middle of nowhere so everything was at least 20 minutes away from us. It wasn't weird or uncommon for my parents to leave me and my friends alone at home since they trusted us as we were responsible enough.

[00:04:23] We were good kids. The worst we would do is laugh too loud or maybe curse occasionally. We were excited that they were going out to dinner since this meant that we could be as loud as we wanted. They said bye and headed out in my mom's car.

[00:04:39] One of my friends brought a speaker so that we could blast our music. We grabbed our snacks, pizza, pop, towels, and the speaker then headed to my front door. Then I heard one of my friends yell, uh there's someone here.

[00:04:54] I went to the front door thinking that it was my parents coming back to grab their wallet or phone or something else that they had forgotten. My friend said that she couldn't see their car because it was dark.

[00:05:04] As I got to my front door to check it out, I stopped in my tracks as I saw the same guy from a few weeks ago had just pulled into my driveway. He was bending over as he was getting stuff out of his back seat.

[00:05:16] It looked like a poster of some sort. Oh hi, I wanted to show you something, he said. I yelled, you need to get off the property, he replied. I just want to show you this, it'll only take a second.

[00:05:29] I sternly said no, you need to get off the property before I grab a gun. Truth be told, I really didn't know how to shoot any of my parents' guns but I figured he didn't know that.

[00:05:40] He quickly threw his stuff back into his car and said okay, okay, then got in and drove off. I called my parents right away and they came home. I was forced to tell them the whole story and they yelled at me but they were glad that

[00:05:50] everybody was okay. Looking back now, as an almost 23 year old, it still scares me as much as it did back then. Why didn't he just leave me alone after I said I wasn't interested?

[00:06:01] Was he watching us that night waiting for my parents to leave so that he could come over? What would have happened if we were already in the hot tub with our speaker blaring? Would he have come up to us or waited inside my home?

[00:06:12] Why was a college recruiter coming out at 9pm? Yes, it was 9pm. I ended up asking our neighbors if a college recruiter stopped by their home and they said no. It seems like he only targeted us. I still get strange feelings about it all.

[00:06:30] To the man who came to my house at 9pm saying he was a college recruiter, let's not meet again. Otherwise, I will use a gun this time. Thank you to Madison for sharing that story. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:06:45] We'll see you all next week for a new episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Everyone stay safe.