25. “I’m not going to hurt you”
About four years ago my college roommate was working in a local cafe. She had been a barista for years and was working the closing shift at this point. It was around closing time, probably almost 7pm when a tall, harmless looking guy walks in and comes up to the counter while she’s performing her closing duties. He starts talking to her but doesn’t order anything, so she asks if he would like her to make him something, as she is closing the place down. He then begins to move around the counter to the opening of the counter to get closer to her. At this point she is completely freaked and running through her mind everything she could possibly use as a weapon. He’s saying things like “don’t worry” and “I’m not gonna hurt you.” He then gets too close for comfort, pretty much backing her into a corner, so she flung open the mini fridge to get a barrier between them and hit him in the legs. He reached his hand out and said ” I just want to touch your hair.” She is in tears and asking him to back away and leave. He has a lock of her hair in his fingers when the cafe’s door opens and a chubby man with a Subway sandwich in one hand and a newspaper in the other walks in and asks; “are you open?” Giving my friend a chance to escape the grabby hands of the creeper, who then booked it out of the cafe. The sandwich man was completely oblivious to the event he had just thwarted and why my friend was broken down in tears at his arrival. The next day the manager reviewed the camera footage and printed a photo of the creeper. She never closed alone again and her co-workers said that the guy had come by a few more times after that. He even asked after her once.
