I was in my 30s and really into turkey hunting. I got up very early in the morning and drove to a remote section of a National Forest in the Ozarks of Missouri. I drove down a trail until it ended and got out with my gun and walked down a path and sat down waiting for the toms to start gobbling. One gobbled just on the other side of a steep ridge. I went down the ridge I was on and up the next ridge where I thought the tom would be. It gobbled again, but on the next ridge over, so I went down and up again and sat down and waited, and waited, and waited and it never gobbled again. It was light now and I looked around and realized I didn’t know which way to go. I had no idea as to what I should do.

My first thought was that if I started hiking and I went in the wrong direction I could be lost for a long, long, time. But I couldn’t just wait either. I had no food and no water. I went down and up the next ridge and started walking along the hogback of the ridge, feeling very worried hiking for perhaps one hour.

Then the most wonderful thing happened. A dog showed up out of nowhere. I excitedly started petting the dog hoping it would lead me to its home. Instead, it seemed to just want to go with me. We went down and up another ridge and like a miracle, there was the trail. The dog stayed with me until I got to my truck, and then took off like it was going home. I have often wondered where the dog came from and how close we were to any homes, because I had looked at a topo map before going there, and no homes were in that area. I would have gladly taken the dog home if he had stayed around. It didn’t have a collar, so it might have been abandoned. I’ll never know.

But that was my scariest experience.

I grew up in a wooded area and I loved to roam. One evening when I was about 14 I had been out wandering and the dark came quicker than I expected. I was about a mile from home on an unlit dirt road. I was headed home when I realized I could hear heavy footfalls down in the woods that seemed to be pacing me.

I tried very hard not to panic.

After I had walked maybe a hundred yards one of the local dogs ran down the road towards me and I was very relieved. He stayed right by my side, often looking into the trees, until I got to the lighted, populated area of my neighborhood and then he turned to go home.

I still don’t know who/what was down in the woods, but I do know that the old GSD that escorted me home has my eternal gratitude.

I was walking home from a friends house sometime after 8pm. It was a mild summer evening, the kind of weather you're more than happy to wear shorts and a t-shirt in, but wouldnt be uncomfortable in more.

The sun had just set, but there was still that red hue that you get when the sun’s light is being stubborn and refusing to lie down.

I was less than a block away from my house. I believe I probably had earphones in- listening to either country or some popular, contemporary hip hop. Possibly alternating between the two.

At my house growing up, it didnt matter what you were doing, you ALWAYS used the back door- never the front. I think in all my life, I only ever used that front door twice. I'm not quite sure why, other than it led into the carpeted dining room.

So, because of this, when I got to the corner where I could see my house- the third one from the corner- instead of heading towards it, it was common practice to continue on to the alley and head inside from that direction.

So that's what I did.

There was a row of tall bushes on that corner and just as I got to them, I heard a faint rustling. I pulled my earphones out and that's when I saw it. This big, dark clump of quivering fur came tottering out from the bushes.

I stopped, uncertain of what it was in the fading light. Until it turned towards me and lifted its droopy, question mark tail. From there I could see the twin stripes leading to its head, defying the lack of light with its bright white color.

It was a skunk. A foot in front of me. I could have bent and picked it up like a cat. Had I done that, I probably wouldnt have to worry about the stench after it tore off my nose, but I COULD have picked it up. But we just stood there looking at each other.

A moment later I heard more rustling from the bushes and here comes 3 or 4 miniature versions of the thing right of front of me. They just circled their mother(I'm assuming it was the mom) and didnt have a care in the world for me. The mom stared me down for another minute or so before nudging her young along down the sidewalk.

Somehow I was a foot from a skunk and her babies and she didnt percieve me as a threat.

Whew! Lucky me.

I still gave them a wide berth and took the long way home haha.

Thank you for reading.

My husband, two daughters, dog, and I were camping in 2017. We live in a small city/big town with mountains all around us so, at the least, we camp once a year (usually without a designated site, our mountains aren't zoned down to specific/individual spots).

This particular time, we pitched a tent in a spot just off the main canyon road. The dog's bed was placed right outside the sleeping section, within the “front porch" area of the tent (an additional zippered section that was open at this particular time).

I'm always awake later than my family and this night was no different. Middle of the night, at the time of this event, I was sitting inside my car.

My dog suddenly starts barking, relentlessly. While it didn't cause much alarm, as it's not completely out of the ordinary for him (with deer or other small animals frequenting our yard), I hopped out to silence him.

Our children were only five and one at the time, so I reacted a bit more quickly to the volume than I would have, otherwise.

I made it to the tent within six to eight steps and shushed my dog. I then turned my sight in the direction of his to determine what he was upset by, with our backs now on the tent's entrance.

Directly in front of me (us), standing by the fire pit a mere 10 feet away, a bear (black bear) raised his head to make eye contact with me.

I immediately froze and started loudly calling my deep-sleeper husband's name, repeatedly, alternating his name with “bear.”

Only then did I realize the guns were in the car.

Fortunately, at the same moment, the bear turned around and ran off.

Our miniature dachshund thinks he's tough and barks accordingly… and, unbelievably, manages to scare off animals he doesn't stand a chance fighting against.

I gained 2 memories that night, including the show my husband gave me… a burned image of him flying out of the tent in only his underwear and boots. Almost bear-naked, if you will.

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* Thank you for all the upvotes and love in the comments! I wish I could reply to all of them at once. This is my first 1k and it's so very appreciated! xo

**3K… Thank you for the additional upvotes and all of the comments! xo

***4K… I'm really happy so many of you enjoy reading my story. Thank you for the continued upvotes!

My mini wiener dog (dachsund), Johnson, when he was a little smaller (still under 11 pounds now). My humourous husband chose a name synonymous with the breed. I've had to explain it to far too many strangers on the street.

For anyone else that I may have confused… Because dachshunds are also known as wiener dogs, my husband chose the name Johnson as another name for ‘wiener.’

Update: Our little guy (10) unexpectedly passed away over the weekend (3/26/2021) making this memory mean so much more to us. He got to spend his final camping season sleeping even more safe & cozy in a camp trailer.

In the 90’s, one evening after watching an X-Files episode, I went out and took my dog for a walk. It had rained earlier in the day and was still kind of misty and cloudy so I had worn a rain jacket. It was also pretty chilly out so I had a sweatshirt-type jacket on under the rain jacket. I usually walked about 2 miles, but as I walked that night it felt like something kept touching or poking me. It was very startling at first, but I tried to laugh it off and make fun of myself for watching The X-Files and then getting spooked while outside walking the dog in the dark. After a while I was having difficulty “laughing it off” because something seriously kept touching my shoulders, shoulder blades on my back, my arms. I got so freaked out that I didn’t even walk my entire 2 miles. I just had to go home early. Come to find out, when I got back home and in the light of my living room, and I was starting to take off the rain jacket and felt the feeling again of something touching me, it ended up being the stupid rain jacket! It was stiff from the cold and was bending sharply, evidently, as I had been walking the dog, and feeling like something touching or poking me. Ridiculous, but frightening at the time.

It was midnight.

We pulled into the driveway, parked, went inside our mimmy's house, and gathered in the living room with our mimmy and popo. Our family was tired. They were tired.

So we went into the Big Room to set our things on the tables. The rest of the family returned to the living room with Mimmy and Popo. The door, left slightly ajar, felt like it was 10 yards from me as I turned around to face it. The room light was off, making it pitch black. The only light flooded in from the hall outside.

I suddenly felt this strange sensation.

Was it just me or was I getting sucked into the ground, and the door was shrinking and growing farther and farther away? That the darkness seemed to grow thicker and crowd every atom of space in the room?

Was it just me, or did I feel a sort of evil presence in that darkness?

I was going through something strange that year. I had depression for no reason. I started hearing things, thinking things, and feeling things. The darkness scared me that year. I heard a voice crackle behind me hoarsely, “Audrey,” when I zoned out in class. (I was 11 to 12 years old during this time.)

So that moment, standing in the large room by myself, in the dark, I started walking toward the door. It became a full blast run to escape the evil I felt in there. Toward the small slice of light peeking around the door, beckoning me to join it.

I stopped being depressd after that year. I wasn't afraid of darkness anymore, nor heard, thought, or felt things abnormal. My grandmother told me to pray the darkness away. So I did.

But…

All I did was stand there. That was my scariest alone-in-the-dark moment.

From the age of 7, I used to take the bus home after school. It was a 5 mile ride and the bus used to stop at the end our our drive to drop me off. We lived on a farm and, from the bus stop, it was a quarter of a mile walk down to the house through trees on either side with fields beyond.

This was fine during the light evenings but, when winter came on and the nights were dark (got home at 4.15 pm) it was a spooky walk on my own as the house itself was round a bend of the drive so invisible till I got quite near.

One night, going down I saw the light of a torch being shone around - there was no reason for anyone to be there nor was there any chance a member of the family would come to meet me, so I was on my own - I was about 9 at the time. There was one quite large tree about 50 yards away but I had to get there to hide behind it so, heart thumping, I kept myself as close to the edge of the tree line as I was able, walking as quietly as I could.

While the torch didn’t seem to get any nearer, when I reached the tree and hid behind it, it was still being shone from side to side, I stayed there quietly for some time, watching - and then the light went out!

What now? I still had about 300 yards to go to reach the house and, however I walked, there were gaps between the trees where I could be spotted should the person with the torch shine it on me.

Then I noticed a few of the cows in the field behind had come up to the fence so I decided to try to climb over it in the hope that some of them would hide me as I went towards the house and, bless them, that is exactly what they did - luckily we had a couple of ‘house cows’, Daisy and Rosie, who were very tame and friendly and they stayed with me till I got near enough to the house to make a dash for it.

Once inside, heart still pounding, all that happened was my mother asked if I’d missed the bus and that was why I was late!!!! I never said a word about the torch but I was careful to take one with me every day so I could at least shine the light in their eyes if I ever encountered anyone on my way home again.

Who was the person with the torch - I never did find out but I know it certainly wasn’t any member of the family!

What is the scariest moment you’ve encountered when out by yourself somewhere?

About eight years years ago I went to see a friends band play at a bar a few cities over from mine over the state line in Ma.

I was alone and have done this for years many times before. I've never had a problem or felt akward going anywhere or walking into a club or bar all by myself.

The band finishes up, I say my good-byes and it's time to leave.

I walked out the door just after 1:00 a.m. There was no one else around. No cars, no signs of life, and it was dark out.

As I'm walking I begin to hear voices which begin to get louder.

As I turned the corner from around a building to go to where my car was I'm startled to see a group of 20 something year olds that appeared to look like possible gang members.

Again, there was no one else around, no other cars driving by. Nothing. Just me and this group who I don't know, and the ole saying I'm now recalling of “nothing good ever happens after midnight”.

There we're 15 to 20 of them. Mostly guys, maybe three or four girls. The tatts, the lingo, the dress, and they appeared to be a bit amped and loud.

They we're cirlcled around my car hanging out really doing nothing but yapping and some play fighting type of stuff.

I stopped nervously not really sure what to do or how I should proceed to my car.

Do I walk through them and say excuse me and try to get into my car? Do I turn around and head back to the bar? If they notice me doing this will it insult them resulting in be chased down or confronted? Or maybe I keep walking passed my car playing it off like it's not mine and find a place to wait it out and hope they skedaddle in 10 minutes?

I really had no idea what to do.

As my walked slowed to almost a halt we made eye contact. Most of them stopped to look at me, the others were still laughing and keeping to themselves.

As I stop and look at one of the guys nervously not sure what I should do he says “yo, this your car man”? I sad “yeah that's mine”.

He then tells the rest of the group, “damn ya'll, get the f**k away from this man's car, let the man through god damn it”!

“There you go sir, enjoy your night”.

And off I went.

Sir?

I'd rather have been beaten and robbed.

I was 12 years old babysitting in a house on a dark country road. Opened the back door where the laundry room was, to change the clothes from the washer to the dryer, as the parents had asked me to do.

A dark figure ran out the door. I slammed and locked the door. When I heard a howling coming from the front of the house. Ring, the phone rang. I answered and a man with a gravely voice said, ‘do you hear the howling? There's a crazy old man who lives in the next house”. I slammed the phone down. The howling continued. I sat paralyzed in fear, praying for the owners to get home.

Finally they did, the father grabs a gun, says “there's a dog that's been hit by a car up on the road out front. I have to go put it out of its misery”. When he came back in, I told them about the phone call. The father asked, “did the caller have a deep gravelly voice?” I said “yes”. And he said, “That was the man next door”. !!! Never babysat for them again. And have no idea what ran out of the laundry room. Maybe the dog that got hit by the car? Or the crazy old man next door?

One time the light in the living room turned on while both my Wife and I were in bed. We were the only people in the house….

I did my Husbandly duty, and charged into the living room butt naked. I don't know what I was expecting to see, a Ghost perhaps? Or maybe a Burglar? Well whatever it was, it was not going to be prepared for what happened next.

I get into the room. My heart is racing. There is no one there except me and the cats. Houdi is chasing a mosquito. The mosquito lands on the light switch. The cat smashes the mosquito, and turns the lights off.

I climb back into bed. Wambui asks me what it was. I explain that Houdi turned the lights on while smashing a bug. I'm not sure she believed me. I'm not sure I believe me. Houdi doesn’t do those things. Right?

(Me and Houdi fixing a Chair Houdi broke)

I’ll start. When I was having a nightmare/night terror I could see just one man/demon in my dream. I was sitting in the corner of a dark room which looked like an abandoned, wooden shed. In this dream I couldn’t move and saw the tall demonic presence moving closer to me, and closer, and closer. I tried ignoring it at first but then it got so close I began to feel his breath. He was tall, wearing a long, black, robe like covering tied around his waist. Everything about his features were dark, except for his face. It was a dim gray, white distortion; something evil.

I tried waking up but I couldn’t at first, so I closed my eyes and lowered my breaths to force myself out. Little did I know, this was nor ordinary night terror. I starting waking up but I felt a weight on my trying to keep me there. I eventually made it out some how and cried for my wife’s help. I managed to be wide awake while she awoke and saw that I was up. Although she may not have seen what caused it, she was the there to see what happened to me next.

I saw two hands coming from almost nowhere, black, demonic, glove like hands, they grabbed hold of my upper chest and shoulders, and pulled my straight back into to the realm where I had been previously experiencing the night terror. A demon grabbed my and I could do nothing. MY wife said she saw my jolt and sink into the bed in a way where it appeared that something pushed my down. I eventually fought it off and came back out of the terror only to get a glimpse of that same demon hovering over me while I slept…

All in all I learned what this could be. I came to the conclusion it was not an identity disorder, or a physio hallucination, but in fact was demon physically attacking me because the direction I was headed in my spiritual growth in Christ to Love and save others. God Bless ya’ll, can’t wait to read your stories.

I once saw something strange walking home late from a friend's house. I lived in New Jersey and was miles away from the nearest zoo. I heard a noise in the trees across the street in a wooded area and looked up. I saw something slightly smaller than a man jump from one tree to another. My instinct was “monkey” but monkeys aren't native to New Jersey or America for that matter. It's legs were too long to be a monkey anyway, and no human would be able to see well enough in the dark to jump from one tree to another. The tree was a good 20′ tall at least. And this thing jumped from the very top of it. The little skinny branches that wouldn't support much weight. I still have no idea what it was, but I didn't stick around to find out either.

Two college friends and I drove my van to Padre Island National Seashore for Spring break. On the way home, between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, we stopped in one near Texarkana for a bathroom break and to make a minor repair. The accelerator pedal had gotten loose from it's shaft and it became impossible to accelerate or drive faster than 45 or 50. It was a simple repair and I always carry a tool box. The three of us used the bathrooms and, while my friends stretched their legs, I removed the pedal and began the repair.

Just then the young lady with us returned from her walk with a look on her face of sheer terror. There was a man standing behind her who looked and behaved like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He showed us that he had a knife at her back and he demanded that we get in the van with him and drive him somewhere.

Now we were just kids, but I had a small advantage in life that many young people may not. My father was a drill instructor in the army and he taught us all sorts of useful survival information and tactics. I knew that if we got in the van with this man and left the rest area, we would be in much more serious trouble or worse. I was going to avoid that at any cost.

We couldn't start yelling for help, even though there were people within earshot because he might panic and stab my friend. He was a little too far away and behind her, so I couldn't safely lunge at him either. Instead I told him quite calmly that we could not do as he asked because the van was in need of a repair. I had removed the accelerator pedal, so I held it up and showed it to him. I thought that would discourage him and that he might just leave. No such luck.

Instead he sat my friend in the van doorway, out of reach across from me, pointed the knife and told me to complete the repair and to hurry up about it. I had already formulated a plan of action and needed only to stall for a little while to execute it. Since this guy was obviously neither a mechanic nor a genius, I just worked very slowly to give myself the time I needed. In addition to removing the pedal, I had also removed the interior engine cover. The guy could not have known that I had manual access to the accelerator linkage where it connected to the carburetor inside the engine cowl.

I stalled and stalled and could see that, as the minutes passed, he became more and more edgy and distracted. He began to pace about. At one point, when he was a few feet away, I whispered to my friends to get in the van and close the doors when I yelled, “Now!”

The next time the guy was about 8 or 10 feet away, I yelled, “Now!” My friends did exactly as I'd asked. We'd caught the guy by surprise and in the seconds it took him to recover, I started the engine and, using the accelerator linkage, got us the heck out of there.

We drove to the next exit and into a local Dairy Queen drive-in filled with teens and 20-somethings out for the night. We went inside, told the manager what had just happened and asked if he would call the police. Meanwhile, several of the teens overheard our story and ran outside. They told all of their friends, and all of them promptly left the DQ.

When the police arrived they asked us if we were willing to follow them to the station and both make an identification and fill out statements. We said that we would and we did.

When viewing the lineup, it was obvious the man had been beaten up. We identified him and I asked what had happened. The policeman laughed and told us that the kids from the Dairy Queen had found him several minutes before they arrived.

I haven't gone out by myself in nearly 20 years. Perhaps my scariest experience alone was trying to be a good citizen and use public transportation. I had to drive several miles from my house to a Park ’n' Ride, then take a bus to work…doubling my commute time. Coming home, however, was frightening. The parking lot was full when I got there in the mornings so I had to park way out in the hinterlands. When I got off my bus in the evenings, it was dark and cold, the parking lot was poorly lit, and had vagrants and punks hanging around in the shelter, which was the only.place to get out of the biting wind. The long walk, alone and in the dark, to my car was unnerving and on my last night, I could hear footsteps behind me as I walked to my car, which was parked all by itself against the back fence. I lasted a whole week. I went back to using my car, cut my commute time in half, didn't increase my costs (the bus fare was no cheaper than a tank of gas), and felt a whole lot safer. I never tried to use punlic transport again.

This is going to be a sort of weird post, rather vague and semi-poetic. I don’t know any other way to put this experience in words.

My mother taught me about demons and hostile spirits when I was a young child, initially in the context of how to keep myself safe from them. When I was a little older I used to assist in performing exorcisms in a traditional Hindu context. Of course in my early teen years I began to feel excited about confronting demons and defeating them, etc. It seemed cool, and thrilling. My mom was responsible and admonished me not to go looking for spiritual trouble; we only engaged in such things for family members and friends, and only when they came to us asking for help. Even then we only went so far. But as a teenager I got cocky and reckless, and pushed it.

The scariest demon/spirit encounter I’ve had resulted from this. I was definitely at least thirteen years old, and not much older; I think fourteen at the most. I had been engaging in spiritual hostilities against demonic spirits, and had been sloppy with safeguards.

The resulting encounter came in a dream. I was having a normal, mundane dream, when suddenly an alien presence tore into it like a flood of black water bursting through the screen of a movie theater in the middle of the show. There was no slow, subtle, creeping buildup, or if there was I missed it; it was sudden and all at once, like a tornado tearing through the walls out of nowhere. A dark hand (not a literal hand, but a psychic appendage that I metaphorically call a hand for lack of a better term) tore into my dream and seized me, and I was instantly overwhelmed with panic. It felt like a Stranger grabbing you out of a pleasant crowd and throwing you in the back of a windowless van before you have time to cry out or react in any way. I was pulled Down, Down, Down, dizzyingly fast, far from my familiar and comfortable field of consciousness, from what felt like my own mind, and plunged into Deep Blackness, wrapped in a cruel malice that gripped me like a vice, and felt palpably like an alien mind that had invaded and violated my own. I would have screamed but I had no voice; flailed in panic but I had no body.

Then that long, long arm finally brought me to him. All I saw in the blackness were his eyes - a dark, dull red, like ugly old scabs, barely lighter than the surrounding black. Those eyes stabbed me. They burned me. Nothing else moved; nothing else touched me; I was held helpless in place before those eyes, and they just glared at me with such potent Hate and Malice that it hurt in a way hard to describe. It seemed to throb like a pulse, but it was less like the hate or malice ever abated and more like its sheer intensity somewhat numbed my ability to feel it, and I reeled in sick horribleness, and then recovered enough to feel it again, and again, and again. It felt like violation. I wanted to throw up, but again, I had no body. I wanted to close my eyes but I had no eyes; turn my head away but I had no head. There were just those eyes, Hating me so violently that I… I don’t really know a word for what it caused in me, other than intense suffering.

It’s hard to put a sense of time on this experience, but after some period of time - it certainly didn’t feel short - I remembered my Divine Protectors. My training kicked in. I called on one of them, like a hurt, panicking baby for a parent. I don’t think I’ve ever called out with such Need as in that moment. And protection came at once. A mighty column of light speared through the darkness and I wanted to start crying in relief (if I had eyes). The exact following moments were too confusing to describe clearly - roiling, bubbling smoke like oil in water being buffeted and cleared back by a sudden strong current in the water, perhaps. The dark grasp that clutched me weakening, not like the muscles of a hand slackening but more like a cloud fading and coming apart and letting in daylight bit by bit. It happened fast though. Soon the Light held me instead of darkness, and I was whisked away, Up, Up, Up, and I just mentally clung to Him, again like a scared baby to his Father -

I woke up crying, tears in my eyes, shuddering breaths, my whole body still shaky. I got out of bed feeling like I’d just been sick. It was the middle of the night. I didn’t go wake anyone up. I couldn’t bear to lie back down or close my eyes though. I walked around, drank some water, processed it, breathed, meditated, thanked my Protector, thought through what just happened. I was okay. I definitely learned my lesson though. I’ve never been so careless again.

I’ve had a few other negative spirit encounters, both before and after this, but this was the scariest by far.

This was when I was really young, about 8. My parents, little sister and I were camping in a tent in a campground in California. We also had our Pekingese dog with us, one of the worst behaved animals ever. My mom was sitting in a lawn chair outside when a bear wandered through the campsite, because it was garbage city heaven. I was in the tent, and stuck my head out to see my mom holding our stupid little dog who was going to kill the bear. That dog was whirling and twirling in my mom’s arms, an angry bundle of fur. The bear slowed a little as my mom finally got her hand around the dog’s muzzle to shut it up. I watched petrified from the tent as the bear decided to keep moving on, moving in a line that led it about 10 feet at it’s closet part to her. I never have seen my mother so calm and so still. That dog, though much loved, caused various horrible problems through its life. If I remember right, when we came back from that trip, it did something very stupid and nearly drowned! But, that’s another story!

Happened almost 20 years ago. I was working in IT as a system administrator.

It was Saturday and while I wasn’t technically home alone, the only other person in the house was my infant daughter, who was sleeping in her crib upstairs.

I had been working on an irritating computer problem all week entailing a customer service manager. Something about file saving errors. I thought I had finally fixed it Friday and went home to celebrate.

Well, I stupidly checked my work email Saturday and read a nasty email from the manager saying the problem was back, this is unacceptable, she can’t work like this, how much longer will this take to fix, she wants this addressed first thing Monday.

I stomped out of my computer room into the living room in pure rage.

One of the glass picture frames on the fireplace wobbled and began to fall, thanks to my stomping, and I caught it and then in anger hurled it against the brick hearth.

I’ll never recall how this happened, but a shard of glass ricocheted and gashed my left thumb badly.

I stared in horror at the raw wound, then the blood started pouring out of my thumb, like an overflowing toilet.

I knew right away this needed emergency medical treatment. I wrapped a medium size dish towel around my thumb and it began getting soaked with blood.

I am left handed, that made it even more terrifying.

If I were truly alone I could have managed the 20 minute drive to the local emergency room, but I could not leave my baby alone. I also could not have managed to get her up, dressed and in her car seat to come with me to the hospital, and she would have been confused, upset and fussy.

At the time I knew few people in our neighborhood, the folks across the street were friendly neighbors and we had friends around the corner whom I knew were in Florida.

I went across the street and thankfully those folks were home, a slightly older couple. I knocked on the door in a panic, the wife answered and I told her: “I just gashed my thumb really badly and I need to go to the hospital. Can you come over and watch my daughter? She’s asleep in her crib, her formula bottle is ready for her in the fridge when she wakes up and the changing table has plenty of diapers.”

The lady, a mom of 3, looked at the cut and grimly nodded. “Of course. Drive him to the hospital,” she instructed her husband, who immediately and agreeably complied.

I brooded the whole ride, thinking I would need massive stitches or perhaps even might lose my thumb.

All because I had a temper tantrum.

It turned out I had actually sliced off part of the thumb (could not apply stitches, the wound was like a big gaping pothole) but the doctor assured me the skin would regenerate, it would just be very painful for a few days and I had to apply and reapply a bandage with Neosporin.

The doctor was right. You can see the scar today, but my thumb fully healed.

I still have the same neighbors across the street, we have each other’s backs, I will always be grateful to them. They’ve snowblowed my driveway when I wasn’t around, I have done the same for them, they keep an eye on our house when we are away, it’s amazing to have good people living near you.

I have heard so many horror stories of “neighbors from hell.” These are neighbors from heaven.

And as for my temper, I’ve learned to keep that in check. I work from home full time and when I read an email that gets me angry I simply walk my dog or get on the exercise bike and work out the anger. When all else fails I mildly stomp my foot (if I’m wearing shoes, LOL).

I learned the hard way what taking your job too seriously can do to you.

I was five years old and we lived way out in the country. There were orange groves at the sides and back of the house, the trees were very small the grove had just been planted. Our house was an old wooden house with a big front porch. We were the last house on our dirt road the nearest neighbor was about three quarters of a mile back up the road. The nearest neighbor tha to had a phone was about another quarter mile past them. I was on the front porch and came inside to tell my mom about the dog in the front yard that was sick. She looked out the door and immediately told my brother to run out the back through the grove to the neighbor to call for help. She told me to stand at the back door and watch my brother until he was out of sight. I was frightened by her demeanor but I really got scared when she went out on the front door with a broom and fought this dog who was foaming at the mouth, growling and would take that broom and just shake it violently. I watched out the back door till I could no longer see Dale. I came back and told her he could no longer be seen and she backed her way back into the house with the dog intent on eating his way through the broom to get to her. When inside the dog continued to tear at the door to get in. We huddled up in the living room with my sister and mom listening to the growls and snarls of this rabid dog trying so hard to get into the house. After what seemed like an eternity suddenly the dog quit growling and tearing at the door as we looked through the window we saw my brother and two men in a pickup truck. One got out and into the back, a rifle mounted on the top of the truck and as they came around the corner the dog took off running. They buried the dog out in the pasture. In the theater of my mind I can still see and hear the sounds of my mom fighting with this dog keeping him busy until my brother could no longer be seen. As a five year old boy having mixed emotions when I heard the rifle firing the deadly shots.

Well, I've never gone into the mountains, nor the middle of nowhere. But, I guess the scariest thing that I've seen would still be on topic. So, when I was little I was just looking out the window of my back door and I saw some human looking thing that was a sillouette, it was walking on it's hands and feet, hunched over like someone trying to be a horse. It was walking really slow. I opened the door to get a clearer look and I saw that when it turned to look at me, it was SUPER skinny. After looking at me a couple of times it continued walking and when it went walking passed a pole it disappeared while doing that. I never r forgot that day, and I always hesitate to tell somebody because they never believe me.

A couple months ago, I was driving cross-country, and I got caught in the snowstorm that went through St. Louis. I had made it through the city, but as I continued through Missouri, I saw cars piled up in the median, abandoned.

Eventually night fell, and I stopped for gas one last time. Getting back out, I took a wrong turn thanks to my GPS, and ended up on a side road. There was nowhere to turn around, so I continued towards what appeared to be an RV park. The snow got deeper and deeper, and eventually my car couldn’t move. I got out to survey the damage and found that I was near the visitor's center of a state park. I knocked on the door, and got no answer, so I continued back the way I came.

I got to a little house with a truck parked outside. A truck could pull me out no problem, so I knocked on the door. A little old man answered. I asked him if he could get me back on the road, and he said that his truck was frozen, but I was welcome to come in while he called a tow truck.

The man turned out to be the park manager. His house was warm, and I saw a dreidels on the side table that must have been left over from the holiday season. A big mop of a dog barked at me from the kitchen. We sat there for probably an hour, him calling wreckers, and me on the phone with my mom. Nobody was working, and worse, apparently a semi truck had jack-knifed and closed off the road. Until the truck was moved, I was trapped.

Our options narrowed down to basically only one: open the visitor's center and let me sleep there for the night. He piled all of his spare blankets on the floor and let me loose, telling me that he would be up the hill and that only he had a key, if I wanted to lock myself in. He left and it rapidly set in: I was alone, with no food and no way out.

I called my boyfriend and talked to him until I was calm. We made a plan that everyone would load into the van and drive to meet me, and I would get an escort the rest of the way. I thanked them and curled into my coat, burrowed into a blanket nest, with every light on.

The next morning, I woke up with my hood pulled to block the light, face down on the floor. It took a moment to understand what was going on until I heard a knock at the door. The park manager greeted me with honey and tea bags, which he brewed with water heated in the coffee pot. I drank it down with gusto, and thanked him again. He said that a sheriff was coming with a truck, and that I would be on the road again before noon. We talked until the truck arrived, and within minutes, I was in my car again, being pulled backwards up to a clearing. I got turned around and thanked them both one last time before going on my way, with the promise that I would wait until warmer weather to come visit again.

On a lighter note, once I got going, I drove to a Taco Bell to meet up with my crew. I was exhausted, smelly, and filthy from sleeping on the ground…and absolutely starving. I went up to the counter and ordered a cheese quesadilla and some cinnamon twists, and joked with the cashier about what a night I had, and how I hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours. She looked at me, hit a few buttons, and handed me the receipt, saying she was giving me my entire meal free of charge. When everyone else got there, they found me sitting in a corner chair, telling my story to an audience of 4 or 5 people over lunch.

I was alone at home, playing on my Xbox, and I heard this weird thumping sound. No one else was at home, and I was scared as can be. Best believe I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. The thumping sound got louder and louder until it stopped. Then I heard this insanely loud crashing noise. Then everything stopped. Including my heart. I locked myself in the bathroom for about four hours and didn’t make a sound. It turned out a UPS truck was bumping into a series of mailboxes and was coming closer and closer, giving the effect that the noise was getting closer, and finally the truck crashed into a tree outside. The driver got fired, obviously.

I moved to NYC about 5 years ago. When I first lived here I was pretty broke and couldn’t afford much in terms of an apartment. I decided to move to the boarder of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy.

My apartment was about a 10 minute walk to the nearest grocery store. One Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight, I went to go pick some things up.

As I was walking to the store, I waited at a crosswalk for the light to turn. I began crossing as a large box truck approached the intersection I was crossing, nearly hitting me in the crosswalk. I yelled some obscenity and the man in the passenger seat yelled some kind of sexual harassment comment towards me. This, of course, enraged me so I yelled back gave the finger and kept walking.

Thankfully, as this was all going down, I turned my music off but left my headphones in. I heard behind me the passenger door from the box truck open and close and could hear footsteps approaching behind me. I could tell the man was getting closer.

I picked up my pace, he picked up his.

I was terrified if I tried to take out my phone and call for help he would do something to stop me. I’m not sure if he knew I could hear him, but I could hear him saying things like “I’m going to put you in your f*cking place” and “I’m going f*ck you up, you little c*nt.”

Thankfully, as soon as I turned onto the block with the grocery store there was a cop car and I made an immediate b-line for the officer. The guy noticed this and ran back the way we came.

I honestly don’t know what would’ve happened if he decided to grab me or if I was walking towards my apartment (which wasn’t on a busy street) but I’m very grateful I was able to get away from him and think twice about responding to street harassment.