Today's rambling: Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
Written on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2003 at 12:39 a.m.
while feeling a bit

I never wrote about the experience with the Scary Trailer Park Man! So I'm going to share that with all of you now.

A few miles from our university is this shabby old trailer park, which sits across from what looks like some kind of construction storage place. There's all sorts of lumber and machinery and other ugly things sitting there, which definitely doesn't add any charm to a place that already looks ugly and run-down. Anyway, the other night during our activity, we decided to go down this road because it had a shortcut to get to an apartment complex we needed to reach. It also bypassed a steep, unlit hill that's rather dangerous to travel on.

Unfortunately, the gravel drive we needed to walk up was also unlit. It was definitely a creepy experience, walking in this area with no light. As we were all heading toward the beginning of the drive, I saw this faint glimmer of reddish light, almost like a car's tail light reflecting briefly off of something. However, there were no cars around. My hand shot up to my mouth to stifle a gasp, and my eyes strained in the darkness to see what was up ahead. It looked like a person just standing at the bottom of this drive. There were no trailers or anything nearby, so it was pretty random for anyone to be standing there. I tried convincing myself that it was just a mailbox post.

After a minute, one of the other girls noticed the same thing and cried out, "There's someone standing there!" Jesse, the navigator of our group (she grew up in this town) just kept going, and I think she might've said hello to the person. Yes, it WAS a person. Just standing at the bottom of the gravel drive.

we had all turned onto the drive and were walking past him when I guess one of the girls totally freaked out. We were all laughing nervously, but one of them started running...and like a bunch of sheep, the rest of us followed. Kim didn't even know WHY we were running, but she went with us anyway! At one point I panicked, thinking that I had been shoved to the back of the group.

"Don't leave me behind!" I cried, breathless but laughing. "It's always the last person who gets killed!!!"

By the way, we all made it through alive. But it was still a little freaky. ;)