Thursday, August 13, 2020

Scary

    Before my parents built a woodworking shop and showroom Daddy built furniture in our basement. Our living room and sewing room were used as the showroom. A little bell was attached to the sewing room door, and every time a customer entered it would ring to alert us there was someone there.

    I was fourteen the day when my parents had to go somewhere, leaving me in charge of caring for any customers that might stop in. It had been a fairly quiet day, but toward evening the bell jangled and I hurried into the "showroom" in hopes I would be able to get a nice order written up before my parents got back.

    Three men stood there. Immediately I felt uneasy. I tried to brush the feeling away because customers came in all kinds of different appearances and just because they made me feel uncomfortable didn't mean it should.

    I went through the whole spiel about how they can customize anything they see in the showroom and we can build it to their vision. They didn't say much and kept looking at me. Finally one of them asked if I knew when my parents would be back. I naively told them I didn't. He then asked if I ever considered being a model, that they would be happy to start my career. His friend with a long scraggly gray beard affirmed the offer and added some more comments.

    I no longer felt uncomfortable, I felt fear. I still don't know how I did it, but I flew up the stairs, into my room, slammed the door shut and locked it. I leaned against it, frozen. My heart pumping wildly as I listened to make sure they didn't follow me upstairs and hoped with everything in me that the lock would hold.

    After what seemed like an insufferably long time they left, and shortly thereafter my parents came home. I have no idea why I didn't tell them what happened, but simply went about helping Mom prepare supper.

    Remembering this still gives me shudders, and makes me so thankful that I listened to my flight instinct. 

8 comments:

  1. I am glad that ended well, but it could have gone very wrong.

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  2. I can only imagine how scary that was for you. I'm glad that you ran and they left.
    Blessings,
    Betsy

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  3. I am shaking just reading about it. I know you had to have been petrified. Thank our heavenly Father, you ran and they later left without following you upstairs.

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  4. God had his hand on you at that time! Viv F.

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  5. Oh my how scary. And it shows how any situation could become dangerous in a blink of an eye!
    You never told your parents??? Ever?

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  6. I'm glad that ended well; lucky you listened to your instincts.

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  7. So glad you were able to get away! Looking back, I am amazed at the things I didn't tell my parents. I had a warm, understanding relationship with my mom, yet I couldn't find the words to tell her about the hallucinations that go along with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. It was so terrifying I didn't tell anyone about it until I was in my 30s. I din't even know it was a real diagnosis until I started looking into migraines. I am thankful that God helps us through our childhoods! Being a child can be scary in so many ways.

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