Doing the Dishes

I had decided to do the dishes. It was hot out and I
took my shirt off and grabbed the phone to call my
boyfriend. As I stood there in my bra I washed and
dried and talked. I looked up now and again to look
out the window before me. The night sky had gone from
dusk to dark and I had difficulty seeing into my
neighbors yard. The kithen light reflected on the
glass. I laughed at my boyfriend's banter as I looked
up and out the window again. This time I was staring
into the face of another. He stood before me gazing in
the window at my shirtless chest. I screamed and
dropped the phone as I fell to the kitchen floor to
escape from his sight. I slowly crept around the
counter to see if the man was still standing there. He
was. His hair blowing in the night breeze, a laugh
coming from his lips. It was my neighbor. He saw me in
the window without a shirt and thought it would serve
me right to scare me. And I was scared.

Mail and Cubical

My husband never misses an opportunity to read someone else's mail or
examine things on the other person's desk if he gets the opportunity.
If a clerk makes a mistake in his favor he never corrects, but if the
mistake is in the store's favor, he always speaks up.  In my mind all of
these attributes are related.  I see all these things are "less than
honorable."  That sounds kind of stuffy and I don't mean that.  But I do
have a very honest streak that compels me to give back every penny to
which I'm not entitled.  If I'm playing cards for pennies and win, I try
to give back my winnings.  To me it's just a game.

In my office we have cubicles about 5 or 6 feet high.  One of the people
on the other side of one of my walls listens to all conversations going
on around her.  Not only does she listen, but comes around the wall
following the conversation to ask questions or make comments about what
she heard.  I once said "we have a lack of privacy here and it's up to
all of us to respect one another's right to have private conversations."
That must have gone right over her head.  When I need to make a very
private call, I wait for my boss to leave, then use his office with the
door closed. 

I respect other people's privacy, don't listen to conversations, and
don't ask questions.  I assume if someone wants me to know something,
they'll tell me.  Well, except for my children.  They never tell me
anything anyway.  We've adopted the habit of saying, "are there any
questions I should be asking?"  I'm beginning to think I'm the Puritan
oddball.  

Myspace

this story is about me and its something i have done and still do, which i am bothered by. it surprises me because im not a person who would normally act like this. it was an act out of heartbreak and confusion that still taunts me to this day. it's almost so cliche in a way, dealing with of all things, myspace. how lame, right? well sometimes a stupid internet site can spill the beans and cause all sorts of heartache...now i will bring you back to a november night, 2005. i had a wonderful phone call with my ex boyfriend/good friend. things were getting a little shakey with us when he moved away and he wanted to end our "relationship" that october. i wasnt dealing well with it, but hey, im a pretty strong girl. i start noticing this girl all over his myspace. ok, he made a new friend, good. then after that november night, i came home, checked myspace and saw a picture she posted. it was of her and him. she was on his lap and it looked about seconds away from them kissing. i saw that and immediately lost it and by that i mean water works and bodily fluids. i couldnt help myself. this is the man i was and am so in love with. this is the man that tried to push me away but kept coming back. this is the man that told me hed always love me. how am i supposed to deal with a new girl in his life? its harder than it sounds because you dont know our complete history. so after that i have gone to this girls myspace page every single day. i still do now to this day and i have no reaosn to. this man is now my world, we are back together and are talking about marriage and children. its like a sickness in a way. i dont want my heart to break again. almos tknowing someone but not knowing them who YOU know has been extremely close to tyhe one you love. you are not exactly sure how far their relationship went, you are curious about it but yet never want to actually know what happens behind closed doors. its the hardest thing to ever deal with. im not a stalker by any means. i have fallen so hard for someone and cant imagine life without him. we both realize that now and we plan our future together. i just keep this as a secret, even from him, the man and only person that knows every detail about me. i cannot believe i pretty much stalk this girls myspace. why? shes probably a nice girl. and from what ive seen and read, she seems a lot like me. maybe thats why he was attracted to her. who knows, maybe she feels her privacy is violated. its something i am almost ashamed of and embarassed of. theres no excuse for it. when it comes down to it, i watch out for myself and im very aware of little details around me at all times.

NIU

While going to NIU, I was walking back from the Taco
Bell on Lincoln Highway late at night. There wasn't
alot of people walking around campus at this time of
the night. I heard someone walking about 30 to 50 feet
behind me.

I turned on Annie Glidden. After a couple minutes, I
still heard someone behind me. It felt like I was
walking through a ghost town: no cars or people going
by. Just me and whoever is walking behind me. I don't
know why, but I got an uneasy feeling after awhile. I
turned around to get a quick look at the person behind
me. It was a big dude with a hoodie draped on top of
his head.

I try not to judge a book by it's cover, but I also
try to play it safe. I felt like I would be more
comfortable with this guy walking in front of me down
the quiet street. As I was walking, I thought I would
slow my pace down so that the hoodie guy could pass me
up. This is where things started to turn strange.

The man with the hood stayed the same distance behind
me even though I slowed my pace. When I picked up the
pace, I could still see him in my peripheal vision. He
was keeping whatever pace I was going at.

After a couple of minutes of this, I thought it might
be a good idea to cross the street. As I crossed Annie
Glidden, I turned to the right and thirty feet behind
was the hooded man. He was also crossing the street.

I stalled in the middle of the street to let the guy
cross to the other side. I decided to go back to the
sidewalk I had been walking on. Hoodie man continued
walking, but then cut through through the buildings. I
didn't see him anymore, but I would continue to look
over my shoulder until I got back to my dorm
residence.

I do believe in coincidence, but I also find it
extremely odd that the man would keep the different
paces that I walked in addition to crossing the street
the exact moment I did.

Was he armed and trying to mug me or was he just
trying to make his way home?

I look...I watch

And btw... I look... I watch.  And I am very social.  The trick is to
look and watch quickly.  To learn how to be able to see everything in
a split second.  I think a lot of people do that.

Hidden Camera

When I was a manager for an unnamed theater chain. My supervisor called me one
day and asked if I could find him the names of a few restaurants in the area that
would be open after midnight. So I gave him some names and never heard anything
more about it.

A few weeks later I get called into the main office and they bring me into a conference
room where they had video equipment set up. There on the screen were days of
surveillance tapes from my box office. They had been taping my employees stealing
from the company by re-selling tickets and they didn't tell me because they were not
sure that I wasn't in on it.  They had installed a small camera in the ceiling of my box
office and were taping our goings-on for about a week. My supervisor says to me,
"Thank God we didn't catch you doing anything on the tape." Nice.

The surveillance person had to wait until after we closed for the day to install the
camera so he sat in that restaurant to kill time until after we had all left for the day.

Jogging Burglars

When I was 10 years old, my parent's home was robbed while we were away
for Memorial Day Weekend.  The robbers were titled "Jogging Burglars".
It was a commonly used "robbing-technique" at the time when jogging
became popular.

The process was as follows: burglars would jog through the neighborhoods
to get a lay of the 'land', people's schedules, homes that looked
valuable, and places around homes to store the goods. Then the burglars
would rob the house (day or night depending on the home's schedule) and
leave the items hidden near the house. Later they would return with a
vehicle to pick up the items. That way if people saw them at the house -
- it looked more like something was left for them versus an individual
being robbed.

My parents leave the car keys in the cars at home. When we were driving
home from the weekend we saw our car on the side of the highway approx.
3 miles from home. It was odd - but no one thought much about it,
thinking either cousins or friend needed it and something happened. When
we arrived home, my father and brother immediately left to go pick up
the car that was on the highway. Meanwhile, my mother, sister and I went
in the house. I remember distinctly, coming in and turning on the TV and
MASH was on. Immediately I heard my sister scream as she went into the
bathroom and my Mother gasped as she went into the dining room.

The bathroom was a bloody mess. They had broken into the house via the
second story bathroom window. They cut themselves on the window and
blood was everywhere. They even took the time to get out our bandage kit
to fix their wound. (Due to the blood left behind, the police were able
identify our burglars years later in St. Louis).  We recovered a few
items that they had taken, but none of my mother's sterling silver
dining room pieces.

Just about the same time my sister screamed, was when my mom noticed a
lot of things missing in the dining room. We all went and checked our
rooms to see what was missing. I don't remember all of the details from
then on, but I can still recall the horrifying feeling when I went into
my bedroom. Nothing was taken from my room, but the sheets on my bed
were lifted up. They had checked to see if I had stored anything between
my mattress pads.

I remember as a little girl being told that hiding things between the
mattress was a good idea. But to know that they too knew that - as well
as knowing someone that I didn't know was in my room and on my bed left
me feeling very vulnerable and scared.

We think that they were trying to steal the car radio from the car and
found the keys. So they went ahead and took the car. Turns out not much
gas was in the car and they didn't get very far :)

They also robbed a neighbors house approx. 4 houses down from ours. They
took a lot of guns from their house and ate cake from the fridge.

The police thought they would have taken more from my parent's home, but
in the middle of their robbery it seemed something spooked or scared
them. Or, it was thought that we had bug-bombs going in the house and
that maybe they got sick to their stomachs from the bug-bombs.

My mother's wedding ring had a diamond missing (a smaller diamond that
surrounded the main diamond) so she had left it home for the weekend
because it needed to go to the repair shop. The burglars found it and
took it. The next spring my father was out in the driveway working on
the car and guess what he found in the driveway? My mother's wedding
ring. It had survived the whole winter in the drive way and not a thing
was broken or lost. Other than the one chip diamond that was already
missing. Again, we think when they were trying to steal the car it fell
out of their bag? No one knows, but it was a great relief to have it
back.

Being robbed left me feeling so vulnerable - a scared, timid, just icky
all over feeling.

Walking Down an Alley

When I was 8th grade I was on my way to a friend's house. I always walked down the alley to go to her house because it was the quickest route. It was a Saturday afternoon, a bright sunny day, but it was cold outside, because I remember the fog coming off of my breath. As I was walking toward the boat yard, I turned around because my Aunt always told me to "be aware of my surroundings, to watch my back, and never look down." I can still hear her saying this to me to this day, replaying in the back of my mind. I saw a boy I knew, well not actually knew I never talked to him. He was a senior in high school or out of school. But he was a brother of a boy I liked. There were three brothers actually and I had a crush on the middle one. As I walked I noticed he was still behind me. So I turned down the alley to contine to her house. I continued walking after a couple of minutes I turned to look and see if he was following me he wasn't. I felt the anxiety go away. I contiued on... As I approached a garage he appeared. I couldn't turn around he was in front of me and I was half way there. I kept walking he was standing side ways and he was watching me. I thought he was peeing in the alley but as I got closer I realized he was masterbating. I looked at him with disgust and kept on walking. Penises didn't impress me and I really didn't like boys.

The Men I Date

I don't know what it is with the men I date, but they act like girls when
they break up with me. They cling. They won't let it go. I wear the pants in
the relationship, which I don't mind until that point. The last two guys
were strikingly similar in their break-up mode. They stalled, thought of
petty things to irritate me enough to break up with them, and yet had to
give me the exceedingly lame break up excuse. It's me, not you. I'm not
ready for this. School. Both sucked at school. My reaction to such a display
results in rage and the immediate clearing out of any mementos, pictures,
anything to do with them. And then the final act - I delete them from my
instant messenger buddy list. I cease all contact. What I did not count on
is my last boyfriend not letting go of his buddy list entry.
It all started so innocently enough (this is how they all start). I'd been
clear I did not want contact with him and yet he would think of things to
contact me about. Just to say hi. Just to say he missed me. Did I send that
package for his mother I'd been working on before we'd broken up? No matter
how many times I was clear as to my intentions for moving on and not talking
to him, he would play the part of the wounded party. Say he was sorry. Say
he messed everything up (he had). Why couldn't we be friends? He continued
to instant messenge me during times in his schedule I knew he was bored, or
had nothing to do except feel sorry for himself. I ignored him. I watched
the little alerts pop up on my Mac. I x'ed them out. Finally I found the
block option on all my instant messengers, then my e-mail inbox. I deleted
him from my phone. I thought the coast was clear. After all, he did live in
another state, so the risk of him showing up at my door was low.
2 months later he called my phone. Even though I'd deleted him from my
address book I recognized his number. The most unfortunate part was that it
occurred at my current boyfriend's house. I figured since his birthday had
been 2 days before he was feeling sorry for himself and wanted someone to
talk to. I ignored him. The strangest part about it had been that he was on
my mind the week before so much that I wanted to erase memories like Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I figured it would be a one-time deal and
that would be it. However, last night he proved me wrong. And my mind proved
me right. Hours before he called I thought he might. I hope he gets
discouraged enough to leave me alone for good soon. And if my mind gives me
any warning again, I'll be sure to shut off my phone.

MSU

As an incomming freshman at MSU and member or the Racer band, we were required to report two weeks prior to the begining of classes for "band camp". The first part of this is registration in which you have to wait in a very, very long line to update info, get assigned a room, be assigned an audition time and get fitted for a uniform. A week after this process I started getting mysterious phone calls from this guy, whom I did not know and we were also getting alot of hang ups on our phone. Very busy with school and work and what not I was not home alot, and my parents got the brunt of this annoyance. Apparently after many missed calls he actually talked to my mother, and said his name and that he was a good friend of mine from band and he was really trying to get a hold of me because he wanted to take me out. I had NO clue who the hell this guy was, so I called the number back just to get to the bottom of it. This was a guy that was behind me in that long ass line for band registration who had proceeded to write down all my information when I had had to give it to the registration people. He acted like we were good friends or something when i called, and didnt seem to "get" why I was quite irritated that he had "taken" my info.

Fortunately althought the kid was wierd and we were never really friends, he ended up being harmless I suppose. But I was quite upset at the happenings. Why the hell would someone do that?? I had never really felt paranoid about that sort of thing before. But now anytime that I am asked for my information somewhere, ssn, phone etc. I am definitely more conscious of those surrounding me.