I was going on an Amtrak overnight trip to see my daughter and grandbabies. The train usually leaves the local station around 6:35 pm, so my husband said he’d take me to dinner.

There are a lot of nice places around there, so I thought this would be a nice send-off!

Wrong. (-Ish)

We had to go to a local big warehouse membership store for some treats for the grandkids. Said big warehouse membership store has a food court that sells, well, food. 

Specifically, they sell a hot dog and drink for $1.50 plus tax.

Guess where my hubs ended up buying me dinner? At least he thought of me. 

It’s still a great laugh.

(My boyfriend and I are sitting on the couch while he’s playing video games. I have just finished a can of Coke.)

Me: “Man, I love Coke.”

Boyfriend: “We have to talk about your drug problem.”

Me: *not listening* “You know, I think if you and a can of Coke were drowning, I’d have to save the can of coke.”

Boyfriend: “What?!”

Me: “I know, but imagine how cold it would be coming out of the water!”

(My boyfriend went back to playing video games.)

My local subway station is elevated, meaning that you walk up about two flights of stairs to get to the platform. I leave for work rather early and head away from downtown so my side is typically not very crowded. A few years ago, there was a certain man who would wait for the train just a couple of steps from the top of the stairs. You’d have to pass him to get anywhere on the platform.

While waiting, he would try to hit on almost every woman who passed by him if she wasn’t alone. He’d say things like, “Hey, baby, you’re so beautiful, you’re so beautiful! Do you have a boyfriend?” Even though he didn’t follow anyone, it was pretty obvious that he was making them uncomfortable. I wanted to do something but he was a lot bigger than me. Plus, past experiences confronting people on the subway have not gone well for me.

However, I noticed that he didn’t do this on days when it was crowded. This gave me an idea. On days when I saw him, I started waiting for the train as close as I could to where he was standing without it being weird. I kept my phone out to be less obvious but whenever I saw him about to turn toward someone, I moved my body or made noise in some way to remind him that I was there — nothing confrontational, just stretching and coughing. Surprisingly, this worked extremely well. Whether out of embarrassment or perhaps because I’d put myself between him and the stop of the stairs, he stopped.

Then, one day, I reached the platform to find him in a heated conversation with a woman on the other side of the tracks. She’d noticed what he was doing and he was trying to defend himself by saying things like, “It’s just a compliment,” “I’m just being friendly,” and, “I ain’t hurting nobody.” She was having none of it and basically told him that he needed to stop, permanently, or she’d get station personnel to remove him the next time she saw it.

After that, he keeps to himself.

I used to work in a car stereo shop. We had a reputation for electrical work; mechanics in the area would often refer tricky stuff to us because we were the only ones who had the equipment and knowledge to figure it out.

One day we received a call saying that they were referring a customer to us with questions about a GPS tracker.

After a short discussion, it became clear that the customer was trying to find out if a tracker had been somehow installed in her car. Apparently, her crazy ex had been stalking her all over town… just happening to appear wherever she was, even at places where he should have had no idea that she was even there.

I had never seen someone look so scared; she was pale as a ghost and her voice shook when she spoke. She was so terrified that she was literally looking over her shoulder every few seconds and speaking in whispers. 

I gave a cursory inspection at the easy spots in the parking lot. There was nothing under the wheel, nothing on the roof or under the chassis, nothing in the engine compartment, and nothing under or in the seats. There was no factory GPS, no On-Star, nothing that would track her. 

I told her that I didn’t see anything in the typical spots, but if he had somehow managed to have access to her vehicle for a good block of time, then God knows where it could be. 

I told her that I would have to do a shop charge to go deeper. For $75 an hour, we’d look anywhere and for as long as she wanted.

She paid for two hours of inspection without blinking. We took the whole dash apart, dropped the headliner, pulled a bunch of interior panels, flashlight and mirrored the chassis, and generally tore the thing apart. We couldn’t find a single wire out of place anywhere. The whole thing looked totally stock and untouched. (After a while in the industry, you can tell if you’re the first to remove a panel.)

I handed her the keys and reviewed what we did and where we looked as I walked her back to her car. She looked so relieved to finally know there was nothing on her vehicle.

Then, her ex drove by our lot, staring her down. He wasn’t even subtle; he was practically hanging out the window, staring at her like a hawk stares at a fat mouse.

That was my holy-s*** moment: watching this guy blatantly cruise past our business. I’m a big guy, and he didn’t even spare me a glance.

She just burst into tears, practically diving behind me to hide. One of my coworkers came sprinting over to us and said that that vehicle had cruised past three times already, and this was his fourth pass in the two hours we had been stripping her car practically down to the paint.

I walked her back into the store. I told her that we knew it wasn’t in her car, but that I wanted to check something that might help her.

I asked to look at her phone. 

Sure enough, location services were on and had geotagged at our store on Facebook. In fact, it had geotagged everywhere she’d seen him. 

She had him blocked from all her social media in moments and turned the location services off for good measure.

We moved her vehicle out of sight from the road and called the police. We didn’t want her leaving without some proper actions taken, or without a police vehicle on-site to make sure she got away without him coming by again.

From there, we helped her get a restraining order filed against him, and she was able to leave safely.

There’s a guy at my gym who sometimes tries to chat me up. I’m polite but nothing more, as I’m not interested.

One night, I’m leaving the gym just as he’s arriving. We exchange greetings for a few seconds and I set off on my walk home without a second thought.

Halfway there, I stop to wait for a traffic light and just happen to look over my shoulder.

He’s right behind me.

I scream, “Why are you following me?!”

He has the nerve to stand there smiling and ask, “Oh, did I scare you?” as if it’s perfectly normal to follow a woman late at night — or any time, for that matter.

I raise my fists into a fighting stance and scream again, “BACK OFF, MOTHERF*****!”

He takes off running. I’m so petrified that I can’t move until he’s out of sight.

I’ve never seen him again, but I’m always uneasy he’ll show up at the gym again.