I’m at a campground. I’m on my way to take a shower because I got sweaty while hiking. I find the last open shower. I am about to get undressed when I hear a knock at the door.

Me: “Who is it?”

Woman: “Ugh, can you hurry up? My darling [Child] needs his shower before he goes to bed.”

Me: “Ma’am, I was just about to start. You can look for another shower if you want.”

Woman: “Ugh, but there are no bathrooms left! You can go after my darling [Child]! And I won’t take no for an answer!”

Jeez, this lady is persistent. I hear a tinier voice.

Child: “Mom, it’s fine. I can go after him.”

Woman: “No! Gentlemen are supposed to let ladies go first always! You should get out of there, b*****d!”

I just ignored her after that. Little did I know, I forgot to lock the door.

This lady just walked in like nobody’s business, and even worse, her kid came pre-naked. I shielded my eyes and yelled, “Get OUT!”

She ran out of the shower and finally let me be. I don’t know why she thought she could come in anyway, or why anyone would undress their kid in their RV and let them run around naked, but I’ll always lock my door from now on.

I am a white-passing femme-presenting person. It’s winter and it’s snowing, so I’m wearing a matching knit set of gloves, beanie, and scarf. Since my hair is kind of short, I like to make sure my neck is 100% protected from the cold wind by wrapping the scarf and tucking it against the lower edge of the hat firmly, leading to it vaguely looking like one long piece of knitwear.

Some old guy is standing in the middle of campus whining about democrats, Obamacare — which isn’t even available in this state at the time — and tuition, face as red as a toddler throwing a tantrum. He’s yelling at some very disinterested-looking young people who are unfortunately waiting for the bus and are thus a captive audience.

Man: “I don’t want to pay for your college! That’s your problem! It’s not fair to make me pay for your liberal arts degree! You need to pay me!”

I glance back at the sign for the dental school’s building, not twenty feet from him, which is very much not considered a liberal arts program

Me: “Sir, you’re disrupting anyone taking their pre-dental classes in that room. Please quiet down. No one cares what you think.”

Man: *Yelling* “AND WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU [ARABIC SLUR]?”

Me: “I’m a Native American. And I’m also paler than you. Maybe you should go back to your own country.”

He loses steam; he is clearly not used to being challenged by people half his size.

Man: “Uh, well! Well! The f*** do you call that dumb thing on your head?!”

I unwrap the scarf a little bit, speaking slowly to mock his intelligence.

Me: “This part is called a ‘scarf.’ The other part is a ‘hat.’”

The people waiting for the bus started laughing, causing this gigantic toddler to kick the pole for the bus sign in rage, then cuss in pain and limp away. Whenever I saw him harassing my fellow students after that, he’d put his tail between his legs and hurriedly leave like I was Satan himself.

When I was about nine years old, I had a massive hay fever flare-up after playing in a meadow all day. In addition to other symptoms, my eyeballs swelled up and went red. I didn’t have any sunglasses at the time, so the next day my mother took me into the nearby village to buy some. I wore a baseball cap pulled down low over my eyes to hide them.

It is regarded as rude by some people for a man or boy to keep his hat on when indoors, and as we walked into the shop, a complete stranger decided that he would teach me a lesson by taking my hat off for me. I reflexively looked up at him with my swollen, red eyes.

I’ve never seen a person leave a place so quickly in my life. Apparently, he didn’t think that there might be some reason why I kept my hat on — until he saw those eyes.

In my freshman year of college, I take an Introduction To The Old Testament course to fulfill a general education requirement. I don’t recall how we got into this discussion, but somehow we get on the topic of how many Christians tend to use variations of “God has everything happen for a reason” when trying to comfort people and how most people don’t like hearing that.

Professor: “You know, I was on the receiving end of one of the worst variations of that I’ve ever heard. It was several years ago now. My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and I was obviously devastated about it. It also happened far enough along that everyone already knew I was pregnant. The first time I went back to church after it happened, this woman I had never spoken to before in my life walked up to me, and you know what she said? She said, ‘I’m sorry about your miscarriage, but it’s okay! God did it because he knew your baby would become a criminal!'”

There’s a pause as the whole class “ooh”s in sympathy.

Professor: “You know, I have never hit someone ever in my life, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to changing that.”

Classmate: “That would have been too kind. I probably would have murdered her in front of the altar.”

I am studying in the park by my house one afternoon when a cute guy around my age, wearing a sweatshirt from my college, sits down directly next to me. I think that’s kind of odd, especially during a global health crisis, so I kind of scooch in the other direction.

Guy: “So… hi, I’m… I’m [Guy].”

He’s all stuttery and not making eye contact. I think it’s so sweet that he is this nervous to talk to me, so I take the bait.

Me: “Oh, well, hi, I’m [My Name].”

Guy: “Oh. That’s a really pretty name. I never would’ve guessed that would be your name.”

There is a long awkward pause as I try to think what I could say in response to that.

Guy: “So, uh, how about a walk? Around the park?”

I think, “That’s really gutsy to ask, but you know what? I kind of like that.” So, I say sure and pack up my books and off we go. I figured it is the middle of the day and we’re surrounded by other people, so, worst-case scenario, I can always ditch him if things feel shady.

As we walk, he makes more nervous small talk. I tell him some stuff about my interests and background, asking him about his.

Guy: “Wow, I didn’t expect you to actually tell me so much about yourself.”

I’m not sure how to feel about that, but all right.

Guy: “Should I just, should I tell you a little more about me, then? Because it is almost 3:00 pm.”

I figure maybe he has to go somewhere by 3:00 and I missed him mentioning it.

Me: “Sure, tell me everything I should know about you.”

I figure the whole experience to this point has been like a fairy book or sitcom so I should just keep rolling with it.

Guy: “Maybe we should have this conversation at your place.”

Uh… I thought asking me, a total stranger, to stop what I was doing and take a walk with him was gutsy. I think what he just said was sleazy. At best.

I kind of nervously chuckle as I look for non-confrontational outs to the situation.

Me: “Ahaha, we’re definitely not going to my place.”

Guy: “Oh. Okay. Sure, fine. I didn’t mean where you live, necessarily; I just meant the place, wherever it is we’re going. I’m sure you’ve got something all worked out. Anyway, I can start telling you… uh… about myself now, sure.”

He kind of looks around to see if other people are listening.

Guy: “See, I’m really more of an a** kind of guy. I have a major spanking fetish. So, if you’ve got any short skirts or—”

Uh… AAAHHHHHHHH! WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAAAAAT?! Forget the non-confrontational exit.

Me: *Instinctively* “Stop. This conversation is over.”

I turn to hightail it into the nearest store. The guy runs after me.

Guy: “Wait, what? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry! The ad said you were cool with kinks and stuff, so I just thought… Wow, I’m sorry.”

All right, that slows me down. Did he just say, “ad”? He’s stopped near me now, catching his breath.

Guy: “Again, I’m so sorry, and look, this may not be the best time to ask this, but am I still gonna be charged? Like for the full time? Even if you’re leaving?”

It took a second to figure out, but to make a long story short, this poor guy was experiencing a touch of lockdown loneliness, so he went and hired a call girl off of some personals section online.

She’d told him she’d be there in the park wearing an identical graphic tee to mine, and we apparently have very similar features because she’d described a similar height, build, hair, and eye color to mine.

Once we got everything worked out, he was especially apologetic and begged me not to speak of the encounter ever again in case we know anyone in common.

I’m going to do my best to keep that promise; instead, I’m posting about it under the cloak of Internet anonymity because — oh, my God — I just had to tell someone.

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