15x10: The Smile That Haunts Me

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We're taking Let's Not Meet on the Road again this year.

Phoenix, Arizona, I'll be at Rebel Lounge on November 17th.

St.

Paul, Minnesota at Turf Club on November 19th, and Chicago, Illinois at Beat Kitchen on November 20th.

Get your tickets at let's not meetpodcast.com/slash Tor or follow the link in the show notes.

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This podcast contains adult language and content.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not MeetStories at gmail.com.

Enjoy the show.

This is a story from around the time I was in eighth grade.

I've never told anyone this story, not even my family or friends.

I wanted to let it out somewhere, though.

Up until high school, I usually went home with my friend.

I would always walk when she cycled beside me on her bike.

Our route home from school was in a relatively safe area, surrounded by other schools, supermarkets, churches, and little houses.

So I never felt unsafe during that ten-minute walk.

I didn't even feel unsafe on this particular day when my friend had to ride ahead of me, leaving me to walk by myself.

About halfway through my usual walk, I suddenly had this unsettling feeling.

I felt like somebody was watching me.

I turned my head toward the street next to me and saw a car driving noticeably slower than it should have.

I was freaked out by this, so I quickly looked it up on Google Maps and found out that the speed limit was exactly 30 kilometers per hour.

This car was moving much slower than that.

It looked like it was floating.

It was like it was trying to match my pace.

At first, I didn't think anything of this.

After all, as I mentioned, there were other schools and even a kindergarten school in my area.

I just assumed whoever was driving this car was a parent looking for a parking spot to pick up their kid.

But things started to feel creepy when the driver's window rolled down and the man behind the wheel looked directly at me.

My memory of that moment has grown a bit fuzzy over time, but what I do remember clearly is that the man had short dark hair and an unsettlingly wide smile,

and that smile has been stuck in my memory.

It didn't fade for a second.

The situation was bizarre and I couldn't fully process what was happening, so I just turned my head and looked forward.

But to my shock, he kept sticking by me, staring at me with that same horrifying, twisted smile stretched across his face.

He continued creeping along next to me, matching my pace.

Having him next to me felt like an eternity.

I didn't know what to do.

Everything about the situation just felt surreal.

I looked around to see if maybe he was looking at someone else or if anyone else noticed how creepy this was.

But I remember people just walking by, as they ordinarily would, as if nothing strange was happening.

My only comfort was that people were all around,

because, by that point, I was getting genuinely scared and still struggling to register what was happening.

I even thought about calling out to some guy walking in front of me, but I was too shy to say anything.

Out of curiosity and fear, I started walking even slower.

Once I did this, I could have sworn I saw a flicker of disappointment on his face before he finally drove away.

It all kind of felt like a nightmare, but I felt relieved for it to be seemingly over as I watched the car disappear down the road.

But as I reached the crossroad that led to the street where I lived, he appeared again.

Much to my dismay, he was back, and he was driving just as slowly, still with the window down and still with that same grotesque, unnatural smile stretched across his face.

At that point, I was so stunned that I just froze for a moment and looked directly at him.

I was trying to convince myself this was really happening and not something I was making up.

I remember thinking, maybe he's someone I know, a friend of my parents, an old teacher trying to say hello.

But I was coming up short.

I couldn't place him at all, so I knew that I didn't know him.

This man was then practically twisting his entire upper body to look at me through the car window.

His smile was still unbearably creepy, and I had no idea what he really wanted.

Even worse, I realized something.

From From the direction he was now coming from, he must have driven in a circle around the block just to appear again on the street where I lived.

My home was only a minute away.

He was still driving well below thirty,

still saying nothing, still staring.

As I stood there trying to comprehend how real and dangerous this was, I felt a wave of fear wash over me.

This creep could be trying to figure out where I lived.

The street was lined with houses, but there wasn't a single other person around.

It was just him and me.

All I wanted was for this nightmare to end.

It was unsettling how he wasn't saying anything,

and the way that he was looking at me was scaring the hell out of me.

Thankfully, he never stopped the car completely, so he just kept creeping along excruciatingly slow.

Eventually, he drove far enough enough so that I could finally cross the street.

At that point I didn't even care about anything else.

I told myself that if he came near me again I would scream.

And then I ran straight home.

Even while running, he was still twisting his body to keep his eyes on me, and he was still flashing his awful smile as we parted ways.

I was genuinely terrified after that.

This incident traumatized me.

I was so scared that he would figure out where I lived, so I refused to go to school or leave the house for days.

I remained on edge for weeks, always half expecting him to show up again.

I've thought about this moment so many times.

Did he know me?

If he did, why didn't he say anything?

Why did he just smile like that?

Honestly, the answers to these questions don't even matter, because no matter what, the whole situation was just terrifying.

I'm now an adult, still living with my parents in the same place.

I haven't seen the man since, and I've never experienced anything as creepy or strange as that day, but his creepy smile has been haunting me ever since.

I never told my friends or my parents about this, especially not my mom.

She's always been very overprotective, and I knew that if I told her, she'd probably insist on walking me to school like some kind of kindergartener.

Now that I've finally gotten this off of my chest, I'd like to say to the creepy guy eerily smiling at me from his car, I'm glad I never saw you again, and I hope it stays that way.

I genuinely hope that you never did this or anything worse to any other kid.

I'm a 20-year-old female, and I have a stalker.

Everything started about three months ago.

I work at an art store where I do a little bit of everything, greeting customers, helping them out, stalking the shelves, cleaning the store, and performing other various duties.

One day, this guy came into the store asking for some help as he had never really taken up art before, and he was interested in trying.

I wound up helping that guy.

We talked for a bit, and I asked him what he was interested in learning.

I asked him to specify which medium he wanted to use, so that I could guide him in the right direction.

He said he was into sketching, but he wanted to expand his horizons.

I then started giving him some suggestions, and in doing so, I brought up that I was also an artist, and he perked up and got very excited.

He then asked me if I could help him out with his art.

This caught me off guard, but I let him know that I wasn't a professional and I wasn't interested in teaching art.

He seemed to take it well, and eventually left the store.

Now I didn't think too much of this, but then he returned the following week and specifically asked for me.

He said that he brought his sketchbook, and I found this very odd since I didn't remember agreeing to look at his work or help him out.

As he flipped through the pages to show me his sketches, I noticed he only drew K-pop singers.

I noticed that one of them was a member of BTS.

I don't listen to them, but I do know the singer's face, so I pointed it out.

He then started raving about BTS and K-pop in general, since this was an apparent sweet spot for him.

He wound up mistaking my casual mention of this as a mutual interest, So he then started coming in every few days.

He was coming in so frequently that he caught on to my work schedule.

He also found out a bunch of personal information about me.

He found out my name, my age, my birthday, and all kinds of other things.

One day right after I clocked into work, I saw him waiting at the stairs outside for me.

I knew that he was there because he was aware of my work schedule, but he acted as if he were surprised to see me.

When he saw me, he said, Whoa, I didn't know you were coming in so early.

I could tell that he was lying when he said this.

He was somewhat stammering while speaking, and he couldn't really look me in the face.

He was also sweating a lot.

This really creeped me out.

The day before my birthday, he arrived at the store at the exact time I was supposed to start my shift and made a beeline for me.

He then gave me a gift.

He drew me a member of a band that I like and gave me a birthday card.

He told me he thought that it would be better for him to bring me something the day before my birthday, since he knew I would probably be off the day of.

This creeped me out.

I never told him when my birthday was, or if I would be working or not.

So I knew that he had to have overheard me talking about it with a co-worker or something.

The situation was starting to give me an insane amount of anxiety, so it took a lot for me to muster up the courage to act like I didn't find any of this completely off-putting.

I waited until after he walked away to look at the birthday card that he gave me.

I looked at the note that he wrote me inside and it said, Happy twentieth birthday.

Keep making people happy and keep being kind.

PS I'm not a paper thief, so you can have this back.

I was confused at first, but then I realized the paper that the note was written on was a piece of garbage that I had thrown away months ago.

For some reason, he decided to retrieve this from the trash and return it to me.

This was unsettling.

It made my blood run cold.

The next time he came into the store, he asked for help as usual, as he needed to find some crafting supplies for kids.

I asked him, Oh, how old old are your kids?

Since I needed to know their age, so that I'd give him age-appropriate supplies.

He freaked out and said, I'm not buying anything for my kids.

I don't have kids.

I'm not even married.

Are you married?

I told him that I wasn't, but said that I had been in a committed relationship for over five years.

This was a lie.

but he was very disappointed by this, so he just walked away.

He didn't come in for two weeks after that, so I thought it was the end of it.

But then he finally came back into the store.

He walked right up to me while I was busy doing something and asked for help.

He also asked where I had been the past few weeks.

This disturbed me deeply and confused me.

I couldn't even think of a response, so I told my coworker to take over for me while I went to the back.

She agreed and kept him busy until he finally left.

After he left, she called me out of the back.

I asked, Did he say anything about me?

The co-worker replied, Yeah, he asked why you were so busy and when you'd be out of the back room.

I said I wasn't sure, so then he asked if you were working tomorrow.

This gave me so much anxiety.

I was feeling more and more anxious about having to see him at work.

I had already gone to my manager and the co-owner after he creeped me out and made me feel unsafe around my birthday.

My manager said, It's legitimate for a guy to go after a girl he likes.

That's what men would do back in the day.

You should feel flattered.

The co-owner said, this kind of attention is happening because women just wear very little clothes nowadays, and it's making men act up.

To confirm, I haven't even shown as much as a shoulder with the way that I dress at work.

I told my parents and my friends all about this as well, and they're on my side.

They think that this guy is a complete weirdo.

Unfortunately for now, this remains ongoing and I'm scared I'll encounter him again.

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What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I think it helped me sort of like get grounded.

I think I unlocked some like childhood dream.

Turn my stress into excitement.

Take that gratitude from those experiences into your daily life.

That's why Jimma Speg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s, sat down with Dr.

Henry Ting, Delta's chief health and wellness officer, an instrumental voice behind this travel experiment.

I love that the dream trip versus, you know, the around the corner trip both have very similar mental and social perks and benefits.

Oh yeah, very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of the Psychology of Your 20s presented by Delta.

Fly and live better.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Not all group chats are the same, just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for example, uses WhatsApp to plan his grandma's birthday using video calls, polls to choose a gift, and HD photos to document a family moment to remember, all in one group chat.

Makes grandma's birthday her best one yet.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp.

And so the photo invite came through so blurry, he never even knew about the party.

And grandma still won't talk to me.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

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Before I get to the story, I want to say that I am aware of how naive it was for me to do something like this.

About half a year ago, I had the scariest experience of my life.

For context, I'm a male and I'm in my teens.

I sneak out now and then just to walk around at night.

I find something very peaceful about walking around after dark.

But my parents have never let me stay out past sunset.

So, for about a year, whenever school gets hard or when life in general gets stressful, I've been sneaking out and just walking around.

I'll do this for about two hours or so.

On this night in particular, it began with me deciding to go out for another walk, as it had become my 2 a.m.

ritual, so I grabbed my sweatshirt, put on my shoes, once I was outside, and hopped the fence to freedom.

After I had safely made it out of the neighborhood, I took one of my usual routes, which included cutting through another neighborhood and walking on to a long winding road.

I would then walk down this winding road for a while before heading towards a circle of shops and fast food restaurants.

I was in the circle of shops for a solid chunk of my time that night.

I was just walking in the loop until I ended up sitting on a bench.

At some point, I picked up a plastic spoon from the ground and I started to grind it against the pavement until the spoon was half gone.

I was only doing this out of boredom, but this will be important for later.

I was hanging out there for a bit before I decided to walk around a bit more.

I eventually ended up at a park about ten minutes away from my neighborhood.

This was where I usually ended my nighttime strolls.

I like to stop at this park and stare off into the sky.

The park itself creeps me out at night, sometimes, because there's a huge ring of trees surrounding all sides.

Every time I find myself here, I can't help but think about how someone could be watching me from the woods, and they could be anywhere since the woods completely surrounded the park.

Anyway, shit started to get real as I was staring up into the sky.

I was feeling like a philosopher while I was lying down on one of the picnic tables when I heard this old man whistling.

I probably shot up because I had never had any human interaction on these walks, so it was jarring to see this old man, dimly illuminated by a street light, standing by the entrance to the park.

I had seen him around before.

He was this tall, skinny guy with a fair complexion.

He walks around town all day.

I had an interaction with him once.

This was about a year ago.

I was walking home in broad daylight when I passed him while he was sitting on a bench.

He just looked at me and said, Jesus loves you, with this weird little smirk on his face.

I awkwardly responded, I know.

I'm an atheist, but I don't really think much of it.

Anyway, I was still at the picnic table, and I just stared at him as he continued standing by the park entrance.

I was probably staring at him way longer than I should have been, because he was already creeping the hell out of me.

We had been staring at each other for quite some time when he started walking towards me slowly.

I was frozen as he stepped in my direction since I had no idea what this old guy was up to at 3 a.m.

I was especially creeped out since he was heading right for me in the middle of an empty park.

As he continued approaching, I stood up.

When he got close to me, he gave me this cheeky grin like you knew something that I didn't know just yet.

I was still frozen, just gawking at him like some kind of buffoon.

Have you ever scoffed at a book or a movie when the main character is just frozen in fear?

I definitely have, but I'll never do that again, since a response like this is completely involuntary.

At that moment, I was more frozen than I had ever been in my life.

Time seemed to slow down, but if I had to guess, we were probably only standing there for a couple of seconds.

He then half pat and half grabbed my shoulder as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic spoon.

It was the same plastic spoon that I was scraping against the pavement at the shop plaza just an hour ago.

He tucked it in my front sweatshirt pocket, and that finally made my mind snap out of my frozen state, and I immediately booked it into the public bathroom and locked myself inside.

So I was now in this dimly lit bathroom at well past three in the morning.

I assumed that he would leave once he noticed I was in a state of panic, but I knew that he was still out there.

I ended up taking a closer look at the plastic spoon and I noticed that it had been altered.

There was a word carved into the plastic spoon, but I couldn't really read it or identify any of the letters.

I sat in that locked bathroom for over half an hour, just contemplating every single decision I had made in the past year.

It's like I was trying to figure out what led up to this moment.

Now I didn't have my phone with me, so I had no way of contacting anyone.

I couldn't bring my phone because my parents installed Life 360 on it, so they would be able to see my location and be notified whenever I left the house.

Eventually, I gained the courage to unlock the door and just absolutely rocket myself towards the exit of the park.

Before I turned the corner to get out of there, I looked back for a second and I saw a figure sitting on the bench right next to the bathroom.

The old man was waiting outside for me for nearly an hour.

I'm being completely honest when I say I tore out of there.

Once I was back in my neighborhood, I caught my breath, behind a bush, and then I snuck back into my house.

I haven't snuck out for a late night walk since this experience.

Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever sneak out again.

I still have the spoon buried somewhere in my wardrobe, but I haven't looked at it in months.

Sometimes I wonder how how long he was following me that night.

I also wonder if my encounter with him that night was some kind of isolated incident, or he had been stalking me during any of my other late-night trips.

Anyway, to the creepy old man that stalked me that night, let's not meet again.

I'm a 23-year-old female, and I haven't shared this story with too many people.

It happened some time ago when I was working at a gas station, and I was no older than 18.

I was living in a very suburban area in the deep south that wasn't witness to anything too far out of the ordinary.

As a result, many businesses were lax and didn't take too many safety precautions beyond those mentioned in general training.

The main takeaway from that was pretty much don't fight a robber, give them what they want, etc.

My manager Sophia never scheduled women for the overnight shifts, so those shifts were usually assigned to a male staff member.

However, I had offered to stay late one night to get a bit of extra money.

My walk home was only five minutes, so I didn't see any harm in staying just a bit later.

The only thing I think I need to mention here before continuing is that it gets incredibly dark in the south at night as the sun sets quickly.

Also, the general area where I lived and worked had very scarce street lighting.

So my shift started as normal.

I manned the register, swept, restocked what I could, and kept things tidy for the most part.

But one can only mop so many times before there's nothing left to do, so I spent a lot of my time at the register waiting for customers and messing around on my phone just to pass the time.

When another customer came in, I called out with my standard greeting, and as I looked up, I found a tall, disheveled-looking man standing at the register.

I was immediately attentive towards him, just to help him out, but I noticed that he was acting odd.

At the time, I chalked it up to my imagination, but my gut was telling me otherwise.

He asked me where the restroom was, and I pointed him in the general direction.

The bathroom was down a small hallway past the registers, and our office and stock room were off the same hallway.

He started walking over there, so I continued as normal, completely forgetting about him.

Then a regular of mine walked in.

He was a taller man who served in the Marines for 22 years.

As we started talking, I heard something fall over in the back.

It sounded like a broom or a mop.

My regular asked me if I was working alone and he offered to take a look around for me, if I wanted him to.

But I declined the offer.

I didn't want to get in any trouble with my boss for letting a customer into any of the employee-only areas.

And with that he said his goodbyes and let me know that he'd be back later for lotto tickets.

Some more time passed, and I needed to pee while drinking an endless supply of power aid from the soda machine.

So I made my way down the hallway, but before I reached the bathroom, I glanced at the doorway leading into the office and noticed that the door was far more open than I had left it.

So I kicked the door open even further so that the door would swing and trigger the motion sensor light.

The light went on, but I didn't see anything until I spotted that odd guy that I had sent to the bathroom.

He was standing completely still behind the door.

When we made eye contact, I backed up.

I went out into the hall.

The man that emerged from the office just seconds later and casually strolled out.

He kept his eyes glued to me as he walked away until I couldn't see him any more.

I called my boss to tell her what happened, and she told the police.

Turns out, that man had been banned from every other store in the area for doing the same thing.

By the time I had my encounter with him, the police had been called on him several times, but he was was never charged with anything, as he hadn't actually committed a crime yet.

After that, he continued to show up every day at random hours, just to stare at me through the shelves in the aisles.

He never bought anything.

I'm not sure what his intentions were, or why he hid in the office, but something about the way he stood so still for so long,

long enough for the motion light to turn off, just doesn't sit well with me.

To the creepy man at the gas station, let's not meet again.

When I was in high school, I went to the movies with a friend.

I specifically remember that we went to see the movie The Ugly Truth.

It was a crappy night outside.

There was a massive thunderstorm, and it was windy as hell.

Usually, I like like to get to the theater early to pick a good seat as this was before assigned seating went into effect.

Picking the seats has always been my priority, and then my friend and I would take turns going to concessions.

When we entered the theater, it was empty.

Being teenage girls in an empty movie theater, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to take out our flip phones and start taking selfies.

As we were deciding if we wanted to get snacks for the movie, the lights lights flickered.

We were a bit creeped out, but we knew this was likely happening because of the storm.

The next thing we knew, this guy walked in.

He appeared to be in his thirties and he was wearing a backpack.

He immediately looked at us and said, Uh oh, two beautiful girls and one guy in a movie theater.

You know what that means.

We didn't know what that meant, so my friend and I gave each other a weird look, and just awkwardly tried to laugh it off.

We were pretending to look at stuff on our phones when the guy walked into our row and sat beside me.

He didn't even leave a seat between us.

He started making small talk, and I was uncomfortable.

So I leaned towards my friend so that this guy couldn't see my phone.

Even though my friend was right next to me, I was texting her and saying,

We need to leave.

This is weird.

She would reply, Oh, it's probably nothing.

He continued to make small talk, so I started replying with single-word answers.

The guy then asked if we had boyfriends.

I should have made something up, but I was quick to say no, and I instantly regretted my decision.

My friend ended up saying yes, so he was even more interested in me.

Honestly, I was so mad at myself, but I was so uneasy while I was talking to him.

The guy then talked about how bad the storm was outside, and he said that it reminded him of the movie Twister.

This immediately made my anxiety worse, since I really have a bad fear of being stuck in a tornado.

It made me feel like I was about to have an anxiety attack.

Then I suddenly turned to my friend and said, I want popcorn, let's go get some.

But before my friend had a chance to say anything, the guy chuckled.

It's a good thing I didn't get frisked when I came in here, since I have a knife in my pocket.

I immediately stood up, looked at my friend, and said, Let's go, popcorn, now.

Without any hesitation, he stood up and followed me.

There still wasn't anyone else in the theater, so we calmly walked across the theater in front of the screen, and once we turned the corner, we bolted.

My friend immediately called her mom, who told us to tell someone at the theater.

theater.

So we found an employee, and then the manager came over so that we could explain the situation, and he called the police.

Now, this movie theater was the spot where everyone in my high school worked.

There were a few staff members and the managers standing around us.

I remember feeling very embarrassed when I noticed everyone was staring.

After what felt like forever, the police finally arrived and spoke with us.

It was a male and female officer who showed up.

The male officer was annoyed and didn't even believe us.

The female officer didn't seem to believe us either, but they went into the theater to find the guy who said he had a knife.

About 15 minutes later, they came back out.

The male officer didn't have anything to say, but the female officer told us that the man had a pocket knife on him and he was escorted out of the theater.

She reassured us that we did the right thing and agreed that he seemed quite creepy.

She said that she would have done the same thing in our situation, and this made me feel a bit better.

When the officer was done talking with us, I saw my friend's mom, who was quite short.

She was yelling and shaking her finger at the manager.

Of course, since I was a teenager, I was embarrassed again, but then he gave us five free movie passes each.

He invited us back into the theater to finish the movie, but I just said no thanks and asked my friend and her mom to take me home.

To this day, I still haven't watched that movie.

What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I think it helped me sort of like get grounded.

I think I unlocked some like childhood dream.

Turn my stress into excitement.

Take that gratitude from those experiences into your daily life.

That's why Jim Espeg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s, sat down with Dr.

Henry Ting, Delta's chief health and wellness officer, an instrumental voice behind this travel experiment.

I love that the dream trip versus, you know, the around-the-corner trip both have very similar mental and social perks and benefits.

Oh, yeah, very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of the Psychology of Your 20s presented by Delta.

Fly and live better.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Not all group chats are the same.

Just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for instance, uses WhatsApp to pin messages, send events, and settle debates using polls with his friends, all in one group chat.

Makes our guys' night easier.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp, which means he still can't find that text from his friends about where to meet.

Hang on, still scrolling.

Now the address is here somewhere.

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My wife and I recently purchased our first home after the birth of our daughter.

For the first few months, everything went as you would expect it to go.

We were painting, decorating, renovating, and basking in our newfound slice of the American dream.

You get the idea.

And then, unusual things started to happen several months ago.

One day, As I was getting home after work, I passed by a strange truck two or three houses down from ours.

Now I say that this truck was strange for a few reasons.

We literally know everybody in our small neighborhood, and I had never seen this truck or the person it belonged to before.

There's no reason for through traffic to come down our street, so it was odd.

I watched as the truck was driving very slowly.

It was rolling by so slowly that it seemed like it was just in drive, but the driver wasn't pressing down on the gas.

As I pulled into the driveway, the truck flipped a U-turn and came back towards my house.

While I was getting out of my car, the truck crawled by, and the driver stared daggers at me as he passed, and then he sped off.

I don't like to judge based on appearances, and I like to think that I don't scare so easily, but there was something about this guy's eyes that gave me a bad feeling.

I mentioned what happened to my wife, and I told her what the truck looked like.

My wife then said, That same truck drove by, and the guy stared at me when I got home this afternoon.

I thought he was just being creepy and checking me out.

Now she was freaked out about the truck.

So I tried to tease her a bit to lighten the mood and called her cocky for assuming that he was checking her out.

I didn't want to freak her out, at least not any further, but I definitely was freaked out myself, so I suggested that we take some extra precautions with security for our home.

I saw the truck a few more times over the next couple of weeks, and it was always either driving by slowly or parked down the block facing our yard.

Then, just as abruptly as the truck started showing up, it stopped driving by.

We didn't see it for quite some time, so I just sort of dismissed the whole thing and assumed I was being paranoid.

However, then, other things started happening.

In the past month or so, my wife and I have been hearing this tapping sound on the windows in the front of our house at night.

It happened a few times to each of us separately, always around 10 or 11 p.m.

The tapping is always soft, but it's a distinct and intentional tap.

It sounds like someone is knocking with a single knuckle on the metal part of our screen door.

The first time that my wife and I heard the tapping together was last weekend.

We were in the front room playing with our daughter around 9.30, getting ready to settle her down for bed.

Our front room has a large window that's nearly floor to ceiling, running the length of the wall next to the front door, which faces the street.

We were all sitting on the floor with our backs to the window, and my wife and I were reading a book to our daughter when we heard the tap.

Now, our house is older, so creaks and cracks are not uncommon to hear.

But this sound was just as I had mentioned before.

It was distinct and intentional.

My wife and I immediately looked at each other and bolted up out of the room.

I had my wife and daughter lock themselves in a back room while I turned on all of the lights and did a sweep around the outside of the house.

Of course I didn't see anything, so I was ready to dismiss the whole thing as more paranoia, and assumed that whatever it was likely had an innocent explanation.

But then, recently, one night at around 9.45, we heard our daughter making noise on the baby monitor.

I waited a few minutes to see if she would settle down.

But when it became clear she wasn't going to, I got up to go and put her back to sleep.

The layout of her room is important to visualize this next part.

This room is on the side of our house, but the exterior wall juts out just a bit in an L shape.

And the corner of this L is made up of windows.

If you're standing in the doorway of this room, you're directly across from these windows in one corner, and there's a rocking chair in the other corner pointed towards the front of the house.

One window faces the street, and the other faces our neighbor's house.

Right outside of this window is a garden bed planted with small shrubs that wrap around the outside of the house directly underneath.

I was sitting in that rocking chair, trying to get my daughter settled down.

I had a lamp turned on, so the room was softly lit.

Once she fell asleep, I stood up to put her into her crib when something caught my eye.

There was a figure standing about a foot away from the window, in the bare space between the shrubs and the house, and they were staring at us.

I didn't look at the figure for very long,

but I looked at it long enough to see that it appeared to be a man in a light grey hoodie.

He was standing just a few feet away on the other side of the glass.

I sprinted out of my daughter's room and brought my daughter back to our room.

I left my daughter with my wife and told my understandably confused wife to lock the door.

Then, after turning off all of the lights in the house and turning on all the lights outside, I began moving from room to room.

As I peered out our windows and into the darkness, I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Whoever I saw must have taken off after they saw that I had noticed them, so I think that they must have made a quick exit.

I had some trouble sleeping after this, so I spent hours checking security cameras and going from room to room, looking at the windows into the night.

I was simultaneously hoping, and not hoping, that I would see anything that could explain what's been going on.

The following morning I went outside to the spot where the figure had been standing when I saw them.

I was hoping that there would be a plant, or something like that, in the spot.

I was hoping that I had mistaken something else for a person.

When I got to the spot, all that was there was a bare patch of ground about two feet in diameter.

It was directly in front of the window.

So this confirmed, it had to have been the figure of a person after all.

We started taking extra security precautions after this.

We own several guns, and I am well versed in gun safety.

I'm also a pretty good shot.

Since we have a young child, I've been keeping all of our weapons locked away, but after this, I've made sure to find places to store guns that are out of her reach, but within my reach, for quick access.

All of our windows have blinds, curtains, and solar screens.

The window in my daughter's room, where I saw the figure, was dark, and the curtains were drawn over it that night.

They are those semi-see-through semi-see-through ones, so I didn't notice that the blinds were not drawn.

Now I make sure that all the windows are checked and covered as soon as I get home from work.

All of our exterior doors have dead bolts, and the frames have been reinforced already.

These were security measures put in by the previous owners that I thought were unnecessary, but I am now grateful for.

If anybody tries to kick their way in, the door will hold long enough for me to get ready for them.

I've purchased and installed additional exterior cameras with motion-activated lights, and I'm currently looking into buying additional motion-activated floodlights for the more remote corners of our property.

After sharing this story with people, I've had several of them mention getting a dog.

While I love dogs, we have a pretty full house animal-wise already, so I wouldn't feel good about taking in another animal.

Luckily, our neighbors have two very alert dogs who are out all night.

They've been barking after dark, often in the past few weeks, which is another reason we've been on it.

As for the person, this might be.

I don't know if it's the previous owner or someone related to them.

They were a married couple with no children, and they lived in this house for over thirty years.

The husband passed away, so the wife decided to sell the house and downsize.

Maybe it's someone who lost out on their bid for the place.

But there was so much time between us buying the house and this starting up, so that seems unlikely.

I'm a lawyer, so I've had people ask me if I thought that it could be related to that.

My practice is focused on probate and estate planning, and the vast majority of my cases and clients don't involve any contentious issues or drama.

There have been some cases that get heated, but I can't think of anyone who would want to come after me specifically based on any of them.

Part of me is hoping that I'm being paranoid, but I keep thinking about that night and seeing that figure out there.

The mind can play tricks on you in the dark.

It's so easy to see things that aren't there, especially when you're a sleep-deprived new parent.

I used to be a process server, and I have a lot of interesting stories from that job, a couple of which have truly scared me, and this is one of those stories.

This experience helped me confirm that I should always trust my gut.

I went to an apartment building to serve someone who lived there.

When I was walking up to the building, there was an older man sitting on a bench right by the front door.

He had a cane next to him.

He was friendly and said hello.

I said hello back, and initially my guard was down so I started to have some small talk with him.

I attempted to open the front door, but it ended up being locked.

I explained to the man that I was in the process of serving and attempting to give some papers to someone who lived in the building.

He started to go on and on about how he had a daughter my age and that he wouldn't be comfortable with her being a process server since it wasn't a safe job.

He also said it must be extra unsafe for me since I'm so small.

I'm 5'2 and at the time I was 110 pounds.

This instantly made me feel like something was off.

I was being overdramatic because he was just an older man who had to use a cane.

I almost felt like I was being rude to think that I might need to be cautious of someone in that state.

I still had a job to do, though, so I decided I wasn't going to let this deter me from that.

I asked the man if he would be willing to let me into the apartment building, and he said that he would.

It seemed to take some effort from him to stand up and walk towards the door with the help of his cane, so this only made me further believe that I had been overreacting.

The man then opened the door for me, and I walked into the building.

I was about to go up the stairs, but the man insisted that I take the elevator.

I started to feel uneasy, but for some reason I agreed to take the elevator anyway.

I also figured that this man would leave me alone if I took his suggestion.

I started to walk over to the elevator, and he followed me, continuing to talk to me.

He asked about my job and my life.

While we were waiting for the elevator, I was trying to be vague with my responses.

When the elevator doors opened, I got on, and the man got on as well.

At this point I kind of froze because I didn't understand why he was following me.

The man was standing closer to the back wall of the elevator, while I was standing closer to the door.

I didn't want to make eye contact with him while we were in that enclosed space alone, but I was watching him in the reflection of the shiny metal elevator door.

I asked him why he got on the elevator with me and he said, I'm just watching out for you.

As soon as he said this, in the reflection, I could clearly see that his head was facing me, and it moved from the floor where my feet were and slowly moved up, like he was looking at my body in detail from bottom to top.

I began to feel claustrophobic, and I felt like I needed to get off that elevator right away.

So, when the elevator doors opened, I practically jumped out and I told the man that he needed to stay behind since I wanted to respect the privacy of the person whom I was serving papers to.

I then told the man to have a nice day because I felt like that was what I needed to say to end the conversation before he tried to continue.

The man nodded at me in response, so I stepped off of the elevator and began walking down the hallway looking for the apartment number that was listed on the documents in my hands.

I continued walking, and I felt a sensation like I was being watched, but I didn't turn around because I was too afraid that I'd see the man standing there.

So I just continued walking ahead.

I ended up having to walk around a corner to get further down the alley.

The feeling of being watched went away once I was around the corner, but I knew that was because there was now a wall between me and whoever's eyes were watching my back.

When I got to the right apartment, I knocked knocked on the door.

There was no answer, so I knocked again a bit louder this time.

I waited about thirty seconds before giving the door about four more steady knocks while I continued to wait patiently.

I couldn't hear anyone inside the apartment.

I didn't hear a TV or any pets or anything.

There was nothing.

I was fully under the impression that this person wasn't home, so I accepted defeat.

I was a little annoyed that I went through all of this only to arrive at this person's apartment without them being home, so I started to walk back the way I came from.

When I turned around the corner to get back to the elevators, what came into my immediate view made my stomach sink.

The man was standing right there.

He had one hand on his cane and the other hand hovering in front of the elevator button.

As I kept walking, a bunch of different thoughts were running through my head.

When I approached the elevator, the man asked, how did it go?

I answered, Oh, they weren't home.

The man then replied, I've been waiting here for you.

There was something about the way that the man said this.

I had this feeling that I shouldn't get on that elevator with him again, so I essentially did a drive-by, and I walked right past him as fast as I could.

I'm in a hurry.

Have a nice day, I said as I passed him.

I didn't even wait for him to reply, I just continued to move quickly past the elevator and towards the stairwell.

Once I reached the stairs, I ran down them.

Once I got down a flight of stairs, I heard him loudly call out to me.

Wait!

I looked back and I saw the man at the top of the stairs.

He was now carrying his cane and running down the stairs after me.

He wasn't using his cane at all to descend these stairs, and was suddenly moving faster than he had previously.

I turned away, and I ran as fast as I could down the rest of the stairs.

I was in such a rush to get out of there that I started skipping steps and jumping down two at a time.

I knew that he was close behind me because I could hear his loud footsteps as he was now running.

When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I almost ran into another resident of the building.

I apologized, but felt panic when I realized the man was probably right behind me.

I looked behind me, and he was now using his cane again to get down the last few steps.

I looked back at the other building resident, and they had a puzzled look on their face, so I then mumbled, have a nice day, and I booked it out of that apartment building and straight to my car.

I didn't check to see if the man was following me after that, but something in my gut told me the fact that the other resident was present had helped me.

When I got to my car, I practically jumped inside, slammed the door, and hit the lock button.

I started the car and pulled out of there.

The parking lot required me to drive past the front of the apartment building, so I looked over to see if there was any sign of the man, and there he was.

He had stepped outside the front door and was standing there, leaning on his cane and smiling at me as I drove by.

He then gave me a slow wave.

I don't know why, but I gave him a tight lipped smile.

I still felt like like I had to be nice, even though something messed up had just happened.

But at least I was in my locked car, driving away, and he had no way of catching up to me.

Thanks for listening and be sure to send in your stories to let's not meet stories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show.

And don't forget to pick up your tickets for the Let's Not Meet live shows November 17th in Phoenix, Arizona, November 19th in St.

Paul, Minnesota, and November 20th in Chicago, Illinois.

You can get tickets at let's not meetpodcast.com slash tour or click the link in the show notes.

If you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode.

If you want to get access, go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast.

To sign up and support the show today, you'll get access to ad-free versions of all of the episodes at a higher bit rate, plus bonus content every single week with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast.

Finally, be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, My True Paranormal Podcast, The Old Time Radio Cast, and D-Grads, all at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

This week you have heard The Smile That Haunts Me by Dew Donkey937.

I Have a Stalker by Magical Bone.

The Scariest Experience of My Life by Anonymous, Man Hides in a Gas Station Office by Brooke, Empty Movie Theater by Critsch1123, I Think Somebody Has Been Watching My Family at Night by Tall, Pale, and Meh.

And finally, Always Trust Your Gut by Abs1833.

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.

And again, if you have a story, send it to Let's Not MeetStories at gmail.com.

We'll see you guys next week.

Everybody, stay safe.

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