Felt close to dying last year from covid + pneumonia (possibly comorbid RSV as well). Still not 100% over my long-covid symptoms.

I was shot at in the woods as a kid by an old man with a shotgun and a big greyhound. My niece and nephew were with me, and I literally drug them behind me as we ran back to our family's camp site. Have no idea why he fired at us, but he most certainly did.. I was so afraid he was going to release his dog... No way we would've gotten away from it. Our family didn't believe us about this event until the 3 of us reminisced about it as young adults at Thanksgiving years later.

I also was chased by a farmer known for shooting trespassers with rock salt, when we snuck on his farm for shrooming. Some other highlights from that shrooming trip were almost stepping on a pygmie rattlesnake, and my brother getting stuck in quicksand and loosing his boot while we fled from the pursuing farmer thru the woods.

A buddy of mine and I were chased by a strange car for miles late at night. Should've called the police, but we were dumb teenagers. No idea what they wanted, but they pursued us for miles. We drove into a large neighborhood that was being developed, sped around the grid of empty streets with our lights off being chased by that car going crazy speeds on those residential streets, and we managed to slip out of the developing neighborhood and hid in a driveway on a side street until we saw the car go flying past looking for us. Still have no clue who that was or what their motivation/end goal was..

Had a close call with my wife and human traffickers... At least I'm 99% sure. I have had multiple training seminars from my former employer (mental health organization) due to the extremely elevated rate of human trafficking in this region and along Route 66 which pases thru. As a caseworker for the adult population, I worked with individuals who had been trafficked...

My wife is very petite and adorable, and was clearly being stalked and targeted by a man in Walmart while we were shopping one night. We were split up shopping, and apparently this man had been following my wife down every aisle, staring at her, and was coordinating with someone on the phone. This was unknown to me when I was heading to meet back up with my wife.

I finally spotted her down an aisle, but saw this guy peaking around the end of the aisle at my wife, who was the only person in that aisle... He was speaking quietly and I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, but it was clear he was staring at my wife and relaying information to someone on the phone.

I'm muscular and I don't fuck around. I'm from Jersey and will admit I can be a bit of a hothead. I wanted to do more, but I walked right in front of this guy while he was staring at my wife down the aisle, postured up feet in front of him while giving him a deathstare until that bastard broke my stare, looking like he'd seen a ghost. I walked down the aisle towards my wife, turning back and maintaining eye-contact with the creep the whole time, especially as I put my arm around her.

I could tell I shook the guy, because he went out of his way to circle by my wife and I a few times with totally different body language, speaking in an entirely different cadence, volume, and tone. It was clear he was speaking loudly and in a manner aimed at us overhearing his now seemingly innocuous conversation. But it was clearly a rouse. He was stammering over his words all nervously and clearly wasn't really asking the person on the phone about shopping items.

After I got back to my wife, she told me how this creep was following her down aisles for the last 15 minutes or more, staring at her while on the phone. Some people reading this may believe I jumped to conclusions, but this tripped human trafficking warning signs and sent alarm bells ringing in my gut. Better safe than sorry. Dude was a creek regardless.

I can't think of any other close calls right now, but I know there's other stories somewhere in my memory bank...