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1. so this is a semi-fucked up story. it involves a weird series of events that occurred one afternoon in march or april back when i was 16 and in high-school. this is maybe the only weird thing that’s ever happened to me so far in my life:
   
   i’m walking home from school, and some fuckin' ese walking about a hundred feet behind me yells out, “HEY DAVE?!” so i turn around and stare hard at the guy. i don’t recognize him at all, and i notice he’s staring hard at me like he’s unsure of who i am, and finally he yells out, “SORRY I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND DAVE!”
   
   i don’t know if this has anything to do with the actual story, but it’s where i begin things. so i’m on my street walking down the hill, when i suddenly hear really loud punk music blaring from my house. it’s pretty evident someone has turned my awesome stereo up full blast which is something you are never suppose to do because that shit gets fucking LOUD. so i kind of run down the street towards the noise. it’s definitely my house and the front door is wide open. the car isn’t in the driveway. i run inside and tear into my room, pissed. i think it’s my sister being an unfit dullard and ruining my stereo. nobody’s in my room. i turn the music down and off. without the music, i can now hear my dog barking like crazy, only it sounds like it’s coming from the basement. this is a little weird in itself, because my dog usually greets me when i come home from school.
   
   i go down into the basement. my parents’ basement is fucking creepy, it’s like four rooms that almost spiral inward and the rooms keep getting smaller and more dismal as you go in. my dog is in the second room and her leash is attached to her collar and the other end is tied around the leg of an old desk. weird. she’s still barking like mad. as i’m untying her i hear the back door slam shut really loudly. the dog is now loose and runs upstairs barking like crazy. i follow her and open the back door. i can’t see anyone, and i have a pretty good view of everything from my back door. this is really, really strange.
   
   so i decide to go check shit out, because i think maybe a stranger was in the house just now. i shut THE front and back door and leave through the back. i walk around the house and stroll around the whole block looking for anybody. there isn’t a single person around, which is kind of surprising because i lived in an area full of kids my age and school’s out for the day. rounding the corner back to my house music suddenly explodes from my room. someone’s turned my stereo back on. i run around the corner, back to my house. front door is wide open again. i run inside. this time the dog is barking and running around me all excitedly. i run into my room, but nobody’s there. i turn off the stereo just in time to hear the back door slam shut. i run back into the kitchen and yank the back door open. i look out, nobody is fucking there. the dog’s barking and staring out the back and whining and just going nuts.
   
   i step back into the kitchen and notice there’s a message on my answering machine. i’m used to checking it as soon as i get home, and noticed that it had been empty prior to my little walk around the block, which means it must have just been left. i press play. it’s from my neighbor dana, who lives across the street and one house down from me. the message goes as follows:
   
   “hi janet? (janet’s my mom) this is dana. is dave home? there’s someone walking around and around the house screaming out his name and banging his hands on the walls. i think he’s gone now.”
   
   i want to mention that at no point in this whole fiasco was i ever even remotely upset or scared, i remember just being really confused and kind of angry, but there was nothing really ‘scary’ about the situation.
   
   anyway, i decide it’s high time i figure out what the hell is going on. i grab my dog (a retriever/border collie mix who is pretty amazing at tracking people down), put her on the leash, shut both doors, leave through the back and do a second circuit around the block. the dog is pulling me hard all the way around the block, as though she’s caught the scent of something that’s making her really excited. at pretty much the exact same spot on the corner music erupts from my house for the third time. i run like crazy, only to find the front door open. exact same fucking shit, only this time when i get through the front door i immediately hear the back door slam shut. i ignore my bedroom/stereo for the moment and tear through the kitchen to the back door. the answering machine & phone have both been moved across the counter and the message has been deleted. i throw open the back door… nothing. i run around the house really quickly…. nothing.
   
   i head back inside and turn off my stereo. this time i’m determined to wait things out since my little walks aren’t being very productive. i call up my mom to see if maybe she has any potential explanation for this. she answers and says she & my sister & my other neighbor tanya are all out getting ice cream and will be coming home soon. i tell her some weird stuff is happening but everything’s alright.
   
   so i wait at home, thinking that this is the best plan since the person slamming the doors keeps returning to the house. i keep checking the back & front doors and the basement every couple of minutes. nothing’s happening. about ten minutes later my mom, sister & tanya pull into the driveway. as they get out of the car and see me waiting by the front door they suddenly all look really surprised.
   
   my mom’s the first to say something: “what are you doing home?” i tell her i’ve been waiting for her since i called. mom looks at me really strangely and so does my sister & tanya. i ask why they all look so confused. then my sister says, “while we were driving home we saw you walking in the woods along the bike path!”
   
   i quickly ask her what she means. i should explain that to get home from the downtown part of the town i grew up in, you take a long road next to the woods. about twenty feet away there’s a big chain-link fence that runs parallel to the road, and on the other side of the fence is the bike path.
   
   tanya continues: “yeah, we saw you walking down the bike path! you weren’t wearing shoes and you were walking all funny and muttering stuff!”
   
   then my mom says, “yeah even i thought it was you. that’s really strange.”
   
   i never told them my half of it, but anyway it’s the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me so far.