Stalker.

I had a really creepy experience on Friday afternoon.

Tim was working and I was wrapping up our time at the client from hell (yep, finally). We leave fairly early and I am in a great mood. We have made great progress and I feel fantastic about where we are in the process. It's early and it's sunny so I go home to take Bella on a walk.

We go on our normal walk... through this little woodsy section of our walk which is a little boardwalk through untouched wetlands and woods. We get to the middle section close to the exit where there is an opening and a gazebo. We stop to let Bella go potty.

I look up and this dude is walking towards me. He yells, "Hi, remember me... we met the other day."

Um.... thinking, thinking... nope, pretty sure I have never seen you before in my life.

"Remember, I had two rottweilers?"

Um, nope. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a great memory for remembering people. That coupled with the fact that I have not had time to go on many walks around our house lately (unless it's been a rare chance with Tim), I KNOW that is not accurate that I have met him before...or even seen him for that matter.

At that point he reaches into his pocket...

As my heart rate doubles, I'm thinking, HOLY.HELL, GET ME OUT OF HERE.

He pulls out a camera.

"Can I take your picture?"

WTF?

Um, I guess. What the hell else am I supposed to do? I was caught off guard and at that moment in time yelling "NO!" and running away didn't seem totally appropriate.

He says that "his wife loves puppies at this age so he wants a picture of the puppy." My loyal , protective dog (ha!) is going nuts with the new person, wanting to play with him. We need to work on her protective skill. And by the way? His wife? He made a point to mention her about 100 times. I thought it was just a little weird.

So he takes the picture, tries to get me to tell him my name (no fucking way... sorry mom for the f-bomb), continues to small talk while I walk (aka: half jog) away.

I have had interesting experiences before but to me, this was just creepy. I'm pretty good at reading people and when things like this have happened before, it really isn't weird to me. But this? This just scared the shit out of me for whatever reason.

So at that point, we cut our walk short.

We turned around and walked on the streets home (by houses... you know so I wouldn't be alone in the woods with creepy stalker dude).

On the way home, on one of the main streets I see him AGAIN. He is taking pictures of us in front of us down the road. He sees that I see him and he HIDES. BEHIND. A. FUCKING. TREE. BUT CONTINUES TO TAKE PICTURES.

Before: Weird. Now: TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT.

We turn down the closest street we can to take a side route home. I assess that this guy is not in the best shape in his life and the puppy and I can surely out-sprint him if it comes to that. So we do. And we go into the house the back way, shut all of the blinds, and call it good. Meanwhile, my legs feel like jello and I am contemplating whether or not that night I should sleep with one of my samurai swords (aka: one of the knives in the set we have in our kitchen). I also was thisclose to calling the cops. Honestly. That might sound ridiculous but I did NOT like the feeling I got about this guy. And if somehow my hunch was right, well, then I probably helped someone somewhere. Except for I didn't call. Because I didn't want to deal with it. And I convinced myself that I was probably off base or too sensitive or something. Maybe I should have.

And, I keep telling myself that I overreacted on the one hand but on the flip side, I know I have never been so creeped out in my life. It was just weird. If nothing else, it was a small dose of what it must be like to be a celebrity and all I can say about that is thank god I am not famous. That? That would SUCK.