Hitchhiker

This happened when I was in either 3rd or 4th grade, and I had just gotten out from elementary school for the day. My home which was only about a twenty minute walk wasn't too far for a young boy like me.

However, one thing stuck out for me all these years. I had just turned the first corner from the street the school was on to see a woman I've never seen before in a white van stopped at the street's stop sign with her window rolled down. (This was a residential street so there wasn't any traffic at all for her to move. She was just waiting there.) I still remember she had blonde hair and was a bit chubby.

"Would you like a ride?" she asked, now being the 3rd grade student I was at the time I wasn't dumb and I knew the whole spiel about stranger danger, but to be asked something so similar and obvious like a predator would ask actually made me laugh. I thought "That's the dumbest attempt at getting someone into your car ever, this must be a teacher/parent at the school testing me, to see if I was dumb enough to fall for something like a real predator would ask!"

So I only smiled and said "No", the woman didn't say anything but continued to watch me until I walked out of the car's line of sight.

I never reported the incident due to thinking it was a test from the school. It wasn't until years later I realize how creepy the whole situation really was, and thinking back there was never a teacher or parent to do something like that. That was an actual woman trying to get me into her car with such an obvious ploy that a child predator would use.

I never told anyone this and just typing this out gives me goosebumps remembering how baffled and harmless I thought the whole think was at the time...