almost kidnapped while running a lemonade stand?
I’m going to preface this by saying that I should’ve known better and half of this is my fault.
This was about 10 years ago. My two friends and I were running a lemonade stand as children in the early 2010’s did. We literally live in the smallest town imaginable, at this point in time there was only a gas station, our school, and a really old abandoned church. One of my friends was a few years older than us so she was technically “watching/babysitting” us. nonetheless, our parents felt like we were safe enough to stay home alone for the day.
We had our fair share of customers, a bunch of them were people we knew.
It started to get dark outside, but it was that weird hour before the sun fully goes down. We hadn’t gotten a customer in a while so we were thinking about packing up, all of a sudden a white nissan pulls up. Instantly my friend’s dog starts barking (He is a husky/German Shepherd mix), but he’s very very calm and he barely ever barks. A man with orange curly hair and a very distinctive “save the children” shirt on.
I remember that he had one hand in his pocket and one hand out.
One of us asked him if he wanted any lemonade, and we reached to pour a cup for him. Once it was full, he took it from our hands, drink it super fast and then slammed it back down on the table. At this point, the dog was going ballistic and sniffing his pocket.
I kid you not, this man started to hit my friend’s dog. The older girl who was with us was starting to get alarmed, but me and my friend weren’t because we were really naïve and trusting.
The man says “I actually don’t want any lemonade.” to which we respond saying “why?”
He pointed to his car and ask us if we had an outdoor outlet for his “electric car”
now, I am odd and at this point I knew a lot of about cars. His car was not electric in fact it was very very old.
He then points across the street to the old abandoned church. he told us that he wanted to go attend the church service and he wanted to charge his car while he went. (again, it was abandoned and it was a TUESDAY.) He says that he can follow us to our house and look for the outlet with us. (her house was behind us as we were in the front yard, but it was down the driveway quite a bit.)
The older friend immediately says “my father just got back from the army and I’m sure he would love to help you. Let me call him.” (crazy right? slay girl.)
Immediately this man turns around and gets right back into his car.
The older friend called her mother and explained the situation. Her mom was really far away so she couldn’t really do much for us, but she just told us to go back inside. Of course we were all kids, so we didn’t listen.
We decided to walk down the street to the gas station to get a slushy and some more lemonade for the next day.
The same man was parked at the gas station with all of his windows down. I noticed that he had a black hoodie on now, and the hood was over his head and the drawstrings were pulled tight. All you could see was his curly hair sticking out of the top and a fraction of his face. He let out the strangest laugh combo with the weirdest smirk I’ve ever seen. He rolled his window up and then picked up his keys next to him and tried to put them in the ignition.
Our older friend took us by our shirts and we booked it down the road. I have never ran so fast in my life. We ran all the way to the police station at the very end of the block. We told a police officer who was parked outside the entire situation and he took us home and made sure we got inside safely.
Am I being really dramatic about this situation? Could it have been nothing? I’m just wondering if anyone has had a similar situation and what you would’ve done.