While I was working downtown one summer, I stopped off in a CVS in the center of the main part of the city to buy some water.

On my way into the store I walked past a homeless black man. He had on a thigh-length coat with a hoodie under it, jeans, and boots that were half laced. The cornea of one eye was milky, presumably damaged at some point and probably blind or nearly so.

I grabbed my water and went to the back of the line, a few feet from that homeless guy. He got a look at me and said with a giant smile “Hi Death_Equity!” like greeting an old friend. I said “Hey man.” hiding how surprised I was and he walked away. I was too caught off guard to find out who he was, I was reeling that he knew my name. I have no idea who he was, but he somehow knew my name. I didn’t have a name tag on, nobody else was in the store with me that could have said my name, I didn’t have a credit card out that he could have read. He either was a voodoo priest who gave his eye for sight beyond sight, or he is someone who knew me and I did not know or recognize him.

When I got back to the truck, I told my coworker about it and was fairly freaked out about this random half-blind homeless guy that knew me by name.

I have spent hours since trying to figure out who that man was to me. I feel horrible knowing that he must have been someone I knew and have forgotten about him as society has. Maybe I went to school with him as a kid? Maybe I met him through work before he was homeless? I wish I knew, but he surprised the fuck out of me.

When my brother and I were pretty young, my dad once left us in the car to run in fast and grab something from a grocery store. (I know, bad, but this was several decades ago. It was more normal back then.)

While he was gone, an older man came up to our car and started aggressively trying to unlock the door.

My brother and I froze in fear and just watched as he kept trying to unlock the door. We had unbuckled ourselves to play while my dad was inside, so we were on the floor.

We both just shrunk down into the floor and hid silently, not knowing what to do.

After probably 30 seconds, he put his hands up over his eyes and looked in the car window, then made a frustrated sound and quickly left.

Once our dad came back a few minutes later, my brother and I told him what happened. We were pretty freaked out.

He said the man was probably just confused because he was elderly and thought it was his car. I think that makes sense, but as little kids alone, it was still really scary.

A stranger trying to grab me by the back of my neck as I rode past on my bicycle. He got ahold of my hoodie but didn’t have a good grip. I got away and pedalled like hell.

I was sitting in my pickup outside my apartment listening to the radio and some guy just…got in. I asked “can I help you?” and the look on his face when he realized his mistake was priceless. In his defense Lyft had just started in my area and there was only one other vehicle that looked like mine in that part of the city.

I was out in the garden when a dude waked by. One of us waved, I don’t remember which, and the other waved back, sort of neighborly one hand up for a second wave. By the time he crosses the bush, he has turned back to cross my (luckily fairly large) yard, walking towards me. I run inside, and lock the door and yell at my SO to come downstairs there was a scary man at the door. SO confronts the man while I hide. Dude makes up a story about how someone yelled at him from our balcony, and he thought it was his friend. SO says he doesn’t believe him, and he better not show his face around here again if he wants to make it home alive.

I was walking home as a young university student from the karaoke bar, not drunk or anything, and I had to climb a small hill which took about 15-20 minutes. This car was idling at the top and sat there the entire time I was walking. I became utterly certain the man in it was waiting to kill me and I became terrified. I reached the top of the hill, and indeed he was waiting for me “to offer me a ride home”, but I think he decided looking at the terror stricken look on my face that I would be a bad victim. I’m pretty sure I narrowly missed getting abducted or something and if I had run or done anything different he’d have tracked me down.

Someone tried to mug me when I was walking back to my dorm room.

I was once stopped at a red light waiting to turn right. I glanced left, saw it clear, and started moving forward…but a tattered, sunburnt dude in a wheelchair had appeared out of nowhere and tried to cross in front of me.

I stopped in time, didn’t hit him, but must’ve scared him (or something), ‘cause he lost his fucking mind and started shrieking bloody murder, backed up a bit and started CLAWING at the passenger side window — not trying to open the door, just clawing, freaking my friend the fuck out — and screamed (exact quote), “I’LL KILL YOU, YOU MISERABLE BASTARD!!!”