I recently heard about a serial killer who was active in Las Vegas a while back. He’d lure women out into the desert unter the pretense of taking pictures of them to use in a detective magazine.
I had the same thing happen to me when I was about 14 or 15. I took the city bus to and from school and work and was waiting at the bus stop alone. Some guy, probably mid to late 30’s early 40’s drove up and asked me if I “wanted a ride”. I just said “no thanks” and didn’t think anything of it.
It didn’t really occur to me until I was a few years older and a little less naive that the lack of “danger! danger!” bells and red flags at the time could’ve made for a real bad scene. Turns out I was probably lucky as all hell that I just dismissively said “no thanks” without really even thinking.
Never told my mom about it though, she worries about me enough now and I’m 26 years old, living by myself! :eek:
Oh! Archergal’s story reminded me of another incident.
I was visiting a friend of mine who attended UC San Diego over spring break my freshman year of college. Her school got out a few days later than mine so we had a bit of an overlap and I had a few hours to kill by myself while my friend was in class, so I took off to go hang out at the beach.
So I was just sitting by myself, enjoying the peacefulness (it was mid-morning and suprisingly empty on the beach) when this guy came over and sat next to me. He started talking and seemed a little…odd. I can’t remember anything particular he said or did, I just remember he kind of skeeved me out, just a little. But out of politeness, I did the whole, “not really looking at you, only giving you short, curt answers in hopes you’ll take the hint and go away” schtick. Then he leaned over and kissed my arm.
Let’s just say I’ve never moved so fast in my life. I was off that beach and half-way back to my friend’s dorm before the guy unpuckered his skeevy-assed lips.
I knew there was something weird about that dude!
shudder
I was waitressing at CBGB’s when a couple I was waiting on ask me to come work at their club…in Japan. As a waitress. Riiiight.
Mine is weird, rather than scary like some of these.
Back when my children were small, we had a neighbor family with a couple of teenage boys who used to babysit for us occasionally. Now, I’m a big reader and own a lot of books – not all of them upscale. For instance, I’m very fond of Judith Krantz novels. These novels are VERY trashy, with lots of extremely explicit sex. Over the years, I’ve collected all of her books in hardcover – the newer ones as they came out and the older ones from used book or thrift stores and garage sales. Now, when I buy a used hardback book for my collection, I don’t always read it right away. So, when I went to re-read one of my Krantz novels and found that all of the sex scenes had been torn out of the book, I assumed that I just hadn’t noticed that when I bought the book at the garage sale or wherever. Then, a few weeks or months later, I went to reread another Krantz novel and discovered that that one too had had all of the sex scenes removed. And it was one I’d bought new and had read before and knew that the sex scenes had been intact the first time I read it! So I took a look and discovered that the sex scenes had been removed from every one of my Krantz novels! My own kids were too little to care about this stuff, and the only other people with access to our home were adults who could buy their own porn rather than defacing my books to get it… I don’t have proof, but I’ve always assumed that one or both of our babysitters was the culprit.
I have a couple of little stories.
#1: This happened in Liverpool. One night I had dinner with a friend, but I got a huge headache so I left early in a cab. I’m used to cab drivers chatting a bit, but with this one the dialogue took a funny direction.
“Are y’all right, mate? Y’look like y’could do wi’ a bit of cheerin’”.
“Got a headache, mate, so I’m going home for the night - nothing worse than this, thanks for asking”.
“Well, I got something fer ya - some " slight pause…” medicine that will make your head clear, and y’ll feel great!" He turns, winks, nods.
I was so knackered I could barely hold a rational conversation, so I think it was the caveman’s heritage brain Elysian mentioned doing the talking. “Thanks mate, but I just got something else and I prefer not to mix up…” slight pause…" …medicines".
After that, he only answered “Right, mate” and remained silent for the rest of the ride. this was strange, as usually cabbies in Liverpool always try to cheer up customers with some friendly banter. Maybe he was just being helpful and offering me a painkiller, and I worried a bit too much, but I couldn’t help thinking it was a bit funny.
#2: I was with my girlfriend in the train station in Rome. I quickly go to a newsagent, buy a newspaper and come back to find her literally surrounded by a group of guys from another city (I could tell this from their accent) inviting her to go along with them. In just one minute! One of them gave me a dirty look. I thought kicking up a fuss was exactly the wrong thing to do, so I approached them with a big grin and said “Sorry gentlemen, but the lady has been already picked up!” and wink. So they laugh and go looking for another target.
Far from being hailed a hero, my GF told me that’s what happens when I leave her alone, so I should take notice of it and damn not do it anymore. 
Gulp :eek:
My story happened in Plattsburgh, NY in 1988. I wonder how common it is. I’d never even heard of such a ruse at that time, having just turned 18. I’m glad my brand new ‘bullshit detector’ was working that day.
I was in college and running some errands, when this guy came up to me in the parking lot and asked if I knew of a good place to get a haircut.
As it turns out, the place I worked had a salon, so I mentioned it to him and told him where to go. (It was right down the street.)
He wanted me to give him a ride.
Yeah, sure. Righto, bub. :dubious:
I wasn’t afraid at the time, just weirded out, but like Elysian said, either my hind-brain was slamming on the brakes or there was an angel on my shoulder. God knows what could have happened.
Oooh! Just thought of another one. When I was living in South America, I was with a friend of mine. We had been living in Santiago, and decided to travel around Chile to La Serena before we had to leave the country to come back to the States. So, we’re stumbling back from the beach where we had polished off about 4 bottles of wine with a couple of other girls when a cab with its lights off pulls up. We didn’t really want to walk all the way back to the hostel, but the lights of the cab were off, so I thought there was something fishy about an off-duty cab pulling up. Must’ve been intuition, because once we were in the cab, the guy drove straight out of town and up into the mountains. He stopped twice along the way, once to pick up some friends, who clambered into the back seat with us, and again to drop them off at a liquor store with some cash, telling them to “grab something cheap” and meet him up in the mountains at his place. My friend was so drunk she wasn’t really paying attention, I was muttering to her in English, saying “Let’s get out. We have to get out.” She said, “No way I’m walking, but you can go if you want to.” I didn’t want to leave her alone with the guy, so I stayed. Then, he started driving up the mountain road out of town and kept reaching back to grope my friend’s legs.
She started screaming, I kept demanding he turn around. He said, “Oh, I’m just taking a short cut.” Yeah, fucking right. Finally, my friend opened the door while the car was still moving, threatening to jump out. The guy realized we were serious, turned around and drove us back to town where our hostel was. He had the temerity to ask for money for the ride. We got out and went around to the window as though we were going to pay him, told him to fuck off and ran away. Thank God he didn’t follow. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten out. Jesus. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
I once actually broke the “no lifts with strangers rule” as a teen of about sixteen.
I was during “carnaval”, the southern Dutch equivalent of Mardi Gras. Everyone gets dressed up in fancy dress, there are big parades and everyone goes out till late (which is legal for Dutch teens btw). It’s great fun.
So it was about four in the morning. I was dressed as a witch or something like that and my dress had caught in the spokes of my bike rendering it unusable. This guys shows up in a black Mercedes saying he was a taxi on his way to taxi rank at the station and would give me a lift. Taxis were often black Mercedes in Holland at the time (albeit with a big “Taxi” sign on top) and my house was one my way to the station, so I got in.
Halfway through the lift he confesses to not being a taxi driver. :eek: That gave me quite a shock. He proposed we go back to his place for a smoke (as in spliff) which he said he dealt in. I think I was too shocked to refuse. So we go back to his quite plush house and procede to smoke really strong dope. I was scared shitless though and was very uneasy.
In the end he got a kiss out of me. I remember he was a dreadful “blender” style kisser. I then had enough and decided I was going home there and then. He argued with that but didn’t try and stop me as I ran out and all the way home.
I later reasoned two things. One is that he probably dealt in more than dope. Marijuana doesn’t buy you a house as plush as that and a Mercedes. Not in Holland anyway. And secondly, that he most likely meant me no harm and was too much of a professional to endanger his trade by trying to harm someone who knew where he lived and what he did. Thinking back later I think he was just trying to seduce me in a somewhat slimy way.
Still, not very smart behaviour on my part that night.
“If I medicined you, you’d think a brain tumour was a birthday present.” 
And now, thanks to readily available internet porn, owners of loin-quivering fiction everywhere can breathe sighs of relief.
'fraid I don’t have any tales of my own to share, but some of the stories y’all have told here are creepy.
Somebody broke into my house, stole everything, and replaced all of it with an exact replica.
I could have proven it too, but certain agents of the realm have displaced my reality with their own.
Years back we lived in the country and I had a small home daycare business. Our home shared a gravel road with my sister in law’s house, and she also ran a home daycare. There were often parents traveling up and down our gravel road to drop off or pick up children, so a fair amount of traffic was normal.
One summer afternoon, I answered the door (leaving the screen door latched) to find a woman in hospital scrubs asking to come in to use our phone. I noticed her car was not in my driveway, or my sister in laws, but parked halfway between our place and the highway. Something set my scalp crawling, but I didn’t know what it was so I offered to make the phone call for her. I walked away from the door to get the cordless phone and in the interim Junior the Wonder Dog (large black lab that was devoted to all of the children) went to the door to investigate. As I was returning to the door, I heard him growling and saw the fur raised up and down his back. Turns out the woman tried to enter our home, couldn’t because of the latched screen, heard our dog and began briskly running/walking back to her car, which is when I noticed there were no license plates!
To this day, I’m not positive what her intentions were, but I suspect she was their to snatch once of the children once my back was turned :eek: Junior the Wonderdog had steak for dinner that night!
When I was 16, half a lifetime ago, my boyfriend and I went to a pumpkin farm in the fall. There was a clown there, and I noticed he had a long strand of his hair sticking out from under the wig. I told him about it so he could tuck it in, and he thanked me.
A little while later, I went to the far back of the farm to use the port-a-potty. No one else was around. As I was walking back, I saw that same clown in the space between two of the buildings. He beckoned to me to join him. Instead, I ran away and we left.
I have since read Stephen King’s It, and know why I ran-- it’s just something about those clowns, man. Probably he just wanted to talk or something, but it creeped me out something terrible.
NEVER trust a clown.
That is all.
When in university in Toronto a few years ago, a number of my friends and I had gone out to the bars for a bit of a pub crawl. Much alcohol was consumed. Hilarity and stupidity ensued as we walked from pub to pub. Eventually, though, I had had enough and was developing a headache. None of the others wanted to call it quits, and I had no money left for a cab, so I brilliantly decided to walk the 12 blocks back to dorm by myself in late November in pub gear (IE, scantily clad in very chilly weather and severely drunk). I mentioned that this was a brilliant decision, did I?
Not a block away from the pub, I had myself a follower: a tall skinny man who was waaay too intense for my current state of mind. He wanted to tell me stories about the gruesome ways girls come to grief when walking about the city alone at night. I did not want to listen, so I just walked as fast as I could without running and therefore guaranteeing a fall (high heels, ice, alcohol, and no athletic ability to speak of). Just when I was getting a tad bit hysterical about the whole thing, he grabbed my arm and told me I was not being very nice to him. Holy hind-brain reaction - as drunk as I was, I yelled at the top of my lungs that I was not going to BE nice to him, and that I was going to be very nasty in a minute if he didn’t leave me alone.
Thank Og for coincidence, however. Even as Mr. Creepy was backing away from the crazy lady, a couple guys I knew well from dorm saw me and decided it was their job to get me back home in one piece. Mr. Creepy had some very unnice things to say about my preferring two college kids to him, but tough luck.
To Dave and Pete, wherever you may be, Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.
This is bizarre. I think I’ve told this story on the boards before, but a few months ago, when we were still living in South Carolina, a woman came to our door in the middle of the afternoon wanting me to give her a ride to meet a friend. She was wearing what I would describe as a nurse’s or med tech’s uniform - hospital scrubs with a printed top instead of the standard blue. What was especially weird about it was that she told me the neighborhood she lived in and she had walked about 6 blocks north in order to get a ride to a place that was about 2 miles south of us. What was also really weird is that we lived in a house with four apartments. Several of the houses around us were set up the same way - several apartments in each. She could have more easily knocked on almost anyone’s door except ours - she had to come up stairs, open a latched gate, and cross our porch to get to us, whereas most of the other doors were at street level or just more easily accessible. When she left, she didn’t knock on anyone else’s door - she just walked up the street.
Like you, I have a dog (border collie/lab mix) who came to the door with me and got between me and her. Also, like you, I had a baby in the house - I’m a stay-at-home mom. He was in his room napping when this happened and, at the time, I remember feeling relieved that he wasn’t in view. I don’t really have a good reason for feeling that way. When I told her I couldn’t give her a ride, she just said “okay” and walked away. At the time I thought maybe she was trying to get me out of the house so that someone could rob us. Or maybe she was just a freak. Who knows. Very strange.
My story is nearly identical to lezlers.’ I was in college, 18 or 19 years old, waiting at a bus stop with my suitcase. I was taking the bus to catch a ride with someone else home for the weekend. As I was standing there, a middle-aged man swooped over to the curb and offered me a ride. “I’m taking the bus!” was my incredulous reply. Why would anyone offer a ride to someone obviously waiting for a bus? I was perplexed and, obviously, naive.
Only much later did it occur to me that I must have looked like an easy mark; young girl standing on a streetcorner with a suitcase, all alone. Thank God I might have been naive, but not stupidly trusting, that I would forgo bus fare for a free ride with a stranger.
I only took a ride with a stranger once, freshman year of college. I was walking home from the union to the dorms with a friend of mine when a young hippie type pulled up in a van asking if we knew where the dorms were. My friend offered to show him if he’d give us a ride.
We sat on amps and guitar equipment and were offered pot at least six times during the half mile trip.
I felt uneasy about it, but it turned out okay. I’d never do it again. 