a spoonful of random...

my stalker - a true story, part three

written at 10:03 p.m. on 06.29.04

So, I finally got a real bona fide idea from someone about my diary design. Darcee, genius that she is, suggested "a template with a little kid sticking their tongue out or giving some offensive gesture like that. Your not sassy or anything, but I think it would fit you because your so funny." I also got offered ideas and designs from my good friend Allison, which is cool, cuz her color combinations and her layouts are always very unique and, of course, beautiful, since she's an artist and all that good stuff. Anyway, I'm thinking that I'm gonna make about a dozen designs, and then I'll have a vote. Kinda like Template Challenge. Sooo, I'll keep y'all updated on that situation as it comes along.

Meanwhile, with a whopping four people on the pending list at my review site, I'm really happy but in a wee bit of a pickle. I can either do reviews as I have time, which means each review will take about two weeks, or I can start "hiring" reviewers. OR.. Chris and Melissa could get Pulse Reviews working again and I would be really happy!! Actually, that wouldn't fix my problem at all, but I really miss that site. :(

Anyway, I've got a little over forty minutes left on the computer, and I've got oodles of stuff to do. We'll see how much of the stalker story I can get typed out today! (If you missed the stalker story, you might want to go take the time to read part one and part two.)

My Stalker - Part Three

Picking up where I left off.. Oh yes, I was calling "someone." First, let me correct something I said yesterday. I said that Matt didn't respond to my last message. Actually, I'm now remembering that he sent me a message that said "Text me if you want to talk later." I took that to mean.. "If you don't text, I'll assume you're not interested and will leave you alone.. finally."

The person I chose to call was Josh N. When my hugophobia (fear or intense dislike of hugs, if you couldn't figure that out) was at its worst, Josh volunteered to help me out of it, basically by chasing me into a corner and giving me a hug. Now, I understand that my hugophobia might come off as a flirtatious joke, but really, I'm not the kind of person who enjoys touching other people. Well.. I take that back. Really, I just take a lot longer than most people to warm up to the idea of touching other people. Even the innocent hug is scary to me.

Anyway, let me finish explaining why I called Josh. It's not because he hugs me, thought that's part of it. The thing is, I also have an intense fear of the phone. I won't answer the phone, I won't use the phone, and I'm always looking for the "automated" phone lines at banks and stuff. I'm not sure how it started, but I know that when conversing in person, I rely heavily on the facial expressions and reactions of the other person (or people) and I also find myself using a lot of hand motions and facial expressions myself. The phone.. kinda doesn't make that possible. Oh, and I've had a few friends who just suck at talking on the phone, so .. it just made me hate the whole experience. ANYWAY, the point is, Josh is helping me out of that paranoia too. Therefore, knowing that he was someone I could talk to, I called him up. I think I scared him speechless for a second when I said, "Hey, it's Rachel, what's up?" At this point, most people were assuming I was dead and that my ghost was updating my diary. So, after I assured him that I was alive, I blurted out the whole story.

As you can probably guess, this took me forever and a day to explain. We were still talking about it when I got home. Now, days earlier, my mom shrieked at me for being on my cell phone at home, when I could've used the home phone. But, when I arrived home this time, my dad was using the home phone, so I had an excuse. Meanwhile, there was a ten or twenty minute period starting when I walked in the door when Josh and I were talking about something completely unrelated to Matt. Something we were talking about sparked me into babbling more about my "stalker." I used that term, too, which somehow found its way to my mom's super-ear-radar all the way down the hall through quite a few closed doors. Anyway, she started listening in to the conversation, though I, of course, had no knowledge of this. I joked around about having a stalker and how weirded out I was and blah blah blah. Umpteen minutes later, I finally talked the battery off of Josh's cell phone or something, so .. end of that fun stuff.

Meanwhile, my mother had gone to the trouble of morphing into Super-Creepy-and-Completely-Devoid-of-Logic-and-Really-Paranoid Mom. (Insert theme music here, either the righteous superhero kind or the scary supervillain kind. Take your pick.) She came stomping down to my room, glaring at me with the utmost of intensity. Her glares seriously creep me out beyond belief. You thought ::insert scary movie title here:: was scary.. think again. I asked her what she wanted, and she said, "Who was that you were talking to?"

"Josh. .. *last name* Why?"

"And before that?" She was glaring so hard her eyes were bulging halfway out of her head. No joke. You'd think that'd be something to chuckle at, but it's just downright creepy. One hundred percent not funny.

"No one."

"Ok, then who were you text messaging?" This is when I knew beyond a doubt that she had been eavesdropping. This is also when I became completely livid and started thinking obscenities in my head, hoping desperately that none of them would escape my mouth and thereby seal my doom.

"Cribbet. We're making lunch plans together for tomorrow, remember?" Very much so the truth, though I was definitely purposely avoiding telling her about Matt, though knowing my attempts were pointless.

"And who else?"

"No one." Lying through my teeth.. bad idea number three hundred for that day. When I'm on a roll... there's no stopping me.

No words from the mother figure. Just more freakish glaring. In fact, at this point, she almost had heat vision. By that I mean to convey how painful it was enduring the endless glare. I literally shrunk back in my chair and began to cringe. Had I been on the floor, I would have ducked into the fetal position. This woman has superhuman powers in those eyes. It's just not fair.

"Oh, I was talking to some random guy for a minute at work. He just had the wrong number."

"How did he get your number?"

I explained all the guesses I had made up until that point. Either he saw "Rachel cell" on someone's cell phone address book and just assumed it was the Rachel he was looking for or.. it was just the world's freakiest coincidence. Actually, I just told her the first guess. I only came to that conclusion since Allison's brother once switched out my number with another Rachel's number on their family cell phone one time and it threw everyone for a small loop one day. To this very minute, that's the only explanation I have for how he got my name and number.

This, of course, did nothing to soothe the GlareWoman. She continued to glare and then spent approximately ninety minutes arguing with me about the dangers of giving my cell phone number away and why I don't even need a cell phone anymore and why I'm a horrible child for using my cell phone to talk to friends when it is supposed to be for family use only and blah blah blah. I eventually just starting crying to make it look like I was listening and just zoned out.

Well, I somehow managed to convince her to trust me, that I was safe and that I knew what dangers existed and was being smart. True, I did a few stupid things, but I never gave away my last name, and the information I did give away could have been a complete lie. In any case, I decided to be a good girl and forget the "be nice" attitude and just be blunt with strangers, telling them to go away and to leave me alone.

The GlareWoman stomped off to report my behavior to my father, who then spent the entire night on the computer. I knew instinctively that he was running searches for my name. He later admitted to it when I questioned him outright. The thing is, my diary received thirteen hits (well, one hit with thirteen page views) that night from an ameritech.net address. The person spent almost an hour on my diary viewing those pages and was reportedly in the central standard time zone. Who the heck is would it be? Yet, my dad still denies having seen my diary. He did find that my high school's web site lists my full name, my intended major and intended college all in one nice, neat sentence. I'm a little pissed with the liberties they take as far as putting names with pictures and giving out that kind of information. I'll have to email someone about that.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. By 11:40pm, I was in bed reading, exhausted from the whole ordeal and ready for some wicked nightmares. My dad was still clicking away in his study, and I was tempted to run in there and tell him to knock it off, fearing that he would find and read my diary. At that point, I heard my cell phone beep. I panicked and froze, slowly turning to look at my cell phone, which was face down on the headboard of my bed.

Unfortunately, I have to go right this very minute! So, I'll leave you in suspense again. Bwa ha ha. The end.

:: before :: after