Sociopath

This happened to me after I turned 15, me and my family had lost our home to a wildfire and were currently living in a crappy Motel 6 in Northern California for the next few months. One night my mother and stepfather went out to go buy more paper plates, which left me, my dog, our cats, and my foster sister alone in the motel room while they were gone.

My foster sister was on her phone with her headphones in next to the room door, and I had to take the dog out to use the restroom. I had trouble using the key card so I asked her if she could listen for me to knock and let me back in. She kinda brushed it off and put her headphones back in.

I took my dog out to do his business in the parking lot, which was a couple meters away from our room. It was getting dark so I kinda stood there while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. On our walk back I noticed the people in the room next to us standing outside their door taking a smoke break. Both were above 6 feet and towered over me at 5 feet 3 inches.

I knocked on our room door and stood there but my foster sister didn't answer. I awkwardly smiled at the men while waiting for her to finally let me in. The guys smiled back and looked at my dog and back at me. My dog is a big dog, a Belgian Malinois, which are commonly used as police dogs.

"What breed is he?" one of the men asked while staring down at me. "Belgian Malinois." I answered while knocking on the door, a little harder this time. The two guys looked at each other and then back at me. "He doesn't bite people, does he?"

My dog has major anxiety and is more scared of people than threatening. "No, he's harmless." I smiled while holding his leash. I think back then I was thinking they were scared of my dog. I swear I could feel my heart go into my chest when the men looked at each other and one started walking towards me.

At this point I banged on my door and my sister finally let me in. I slammed the door shut behind me and slid the lock and the deadbolt shut. I looked through the peephole and nobody walked by my door. Meaning after I went inside my room, the man stopped walking towards me and went back to his own room. They most likely were asking about my dog to make sure he wouldn't attack them if they tried to snatch me.

I'm 16 now but it's still something I think of every now and then. I'm scared of motels to this day.

your local playground.

So, I am a stay at home mom. I try really hard to keep me and my son entertained by going out and about regularly (unfortunately not recently due to current events). At the time though, my son was 18 months and woke up relatively early every morning. So, it wasn't strange for me to be awake before 7 am at the time.

That day, I had planned to take my son to the museum because they had an interactive exhibit perfect for kids his age and I knew he'd love it! When he woke up

we ate breakfast, played, and laughed together, but when you are stuck inside a house everyday with a toddler, there is too many hours in the day and I was ready to start mine! So, I pack all of his stuff into the car and we make our way there.

Well.... once we arrived, it was closed. Me, being the early bird that I was forced to be, didn't realize the museum didn't open for another hour and a half. We were already out and I refused to be cooped up inside for another minute, so I decided to head to the playground to kill some time.

The park is set up around a giant pond, it has a small trail that wraps around it and the playground is located on the opposite side of it. At this time it's probably about 8am, so we are the only people there. I pull up to a spot as close to the playground as possible (because lugging a kid around is hard work) and make our way there.

Since it was early everything was soaked with dew and I really didn't want my son getting wet, so we decided to head towards the pond to look at the ducks. As we head that way, I noticed a white pickup truck that had a truck cap with blacked out windows parked by the side of the pond.

Being the momma bear I am (and the only ones at the park) I started staring at the truck so he knew I was aware that he was parked there. After a few seconds of me staring, he started to drive and quickly stopped in the middle of the road a few yards from where he was parked. I thought it was strange, but wasn't completely concerned at that moment, but I still kept my eye on the truck.

There was a parking lot a bit further from the pond, but still had a visible view of it that he made his way too. Now abit creeped out, I decided to cut the park visit short. My son was having a good time and I felt like I could have been being a bit paranoid, so I decided to take my time walking back to the car while keeping an eye on the truck on the opposite end.

As we started our walk back, the truck drove off out of sight, so I let my guard down a bit and after a 1,000 toddler steps, we finally made it back to the car. As I'm putting my son in his car seat I hear a car coming so I look up and low and behold it's the truck coming straight for my car!

I didn't even finish buckling him in when I slam the door shut and jumped into the front seat (which was thankfully open) I quickly drove off and when I looked in the rear view mirror, the truck was stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the road.

After driving far enough for me to be sure he wasn't behind me, I parked and fixed my son's seatbelt. I waited a second to calm my nerves and drove back to make sure the creep wasn't lingering waiting for another person. Thankfully, he was gone.

It does give me chills when I think what could of happened if I wasn't aware of my surrounding and how easily he could have grabbed me while I was focusing on putting my son in his car seat. What I do know is that I don't stop at playgrounds when no one else is around.