A 29-year-old woman took to Reddit to share the terrifying reason why she doesn’t shop at stores late at night anymore.
On the subreddit r/LetsNotMeet, user Venus_Nova shared a story about how when she was 25 years old, she narrowly escaped “walking to [her] death” all thanks to a kind stranger.
‘They were staring at me and whispering to each other in a way that made me uncomfortable’
On the night when everything changed, Venus_Nova was working at her bartending job when her boss asked her to grab some bar necessities at a 24-hour grocery store.
While at the store, Venus_Nova encountered two “‘country’-looking guys” around her age. “They were staring at me and whispering to each other in a way that made me uncomfortable, as I assumed they were making comments about me,” she said.
At this point, things were “pretty innocent,” but out of an abundance of caution, Venus_Nova quickly grabbed everything she needed and “power-walked to the self-checkout.”
When Venus_Nova got to the self-checkout station, she noticed that the two guys had followed her. Eventually, they tried to talk to her, asking her questions like “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “You ready to party?”
‘We can teach you a lesson’
When the two guys realized that Venus_Nova wasn’t interested in their advances, they apparently started to use “a more threatening tone.”
“He gets a little louder and says, ‘I see how it is. You probably only f*** doctors and rich men like that. You think you’re too good for us. We can show you that you aren’t. We can teach you a lesson,’” she wrote. “Now, I’m not sure in what context he meant- but it definitely wasn’t good.”
Feeling unsafe at this point, Venus_Nova slyly grabbed the 4″ pocket knife in her purse and slid it up her jacket sleeve in case she needed to protect herself.
While doing this, Venus_Nova made eye contact with the cashier and “[looked] at her with wide eyes trying to communicate that I do not feel safe and I might need help.”
Thankfully, the cashier got the message. When Venus_Nova’s credit card didn’t scan correctly, she acted as if the entire machine was busted and escorted her over to the cash register to check her out manually.
“[The cashier] said, ‘I had a bad feeling about those guys from the moment they walked in and then I saw them getting aggressive towards you. I already rang security to be ready to walk out to the parking lot and make sure you left safely when you were ready to leave,’” Venus_Nova explained.
‘I don’t know what these guys are capable of’
When Venus_Nova was ready to be escorted to the parking lot, she spotted the two guys waiting for her outside.
“Towards the back of the lot, there sat [an] old big pick-up truck running with the lights on pointed towards the store,” she said. “It was a huge parking lot, and it wouldn’t have made sense for them to initially park like that, so I’m assuming they moved the truck to sit that way so they had a full view of when I exited the store to go to my vehicle. It was like being stalked by very hungry lions.”
Once the two men realized that the security guard and the cashier were not going to leave until they felt Venus_Nova was safe, they “peeled out of the parking lot.”
“I thanked the worker and the guard over and over again, as I am certain they had just saved my life or at least saved me from having to live with whatever those guys were planning on doing to me,” Venus_Nova wrote.
“Needless to say, I do not go late night shopping by myself anymore. Never will again.”
If you found this story helpful, you might also want to read about this mom’s scary experience being “hunted” at Target.
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