On Friday night, I set out from Spokane, Washington to San Francisco, California. I have a bladder the size of a walnut, and I also intended to complete the drive in a single nonstop run. This entailed numerous rest stops in Washington, Oregon, and California.
Just after 9PM, after passing through The Dalles, Oregon on Interstate 84 westbound, I felt the typical bladder contractions, rolled my eyes, sighed, and began to hunt for a rest stop while simultaneously notching my cruise speed up to 85 mph.
At last, a sign for a rest stop - 3 miles ahead...
I pulled into the rest area. It was fairly empty as compared to several of the others I'd been to. A few trucks were parked, shrouded in the darkness along the freeway. The main alcove of spaces near the bathroom was fairly full, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. I wasn't paying too much attention to my surroundings, truthfully.
I parked next to this junky beat up Ford Escort and let my engine idle for about a minute - about 150 feet from the bathrooms. As the engine was idling, the Escort started up, and moved to the far end of the parking lot and turned off. I didn't think too much of it - I've hung around in parking lots before, trying to get some rest - I figured that's what they were doing, and that my car's idle disturbed them. (Preemtively to those of you who say I'm wasting gas: I have a turbocharged engine which is oil cooled. You need to let the oil passages cool down in an oil cooled turbocharger before you turn it off, otherwise the bearings seize up and you have premature turbo failure).
I got out of the car, locked it, went to the bathroom. I got out of the bathroom a few minutes later, and found that the Ford Escort had moved - parked directly in front of the bathrooms, where I had wanted to park. The rest stop had cleared out in the interim, though I still didn't think it warranted much of anything. I just remember thinking, "That's odd," and carrying on. I returned to my car, unlocked it, and continued my rest stop routine - bathroom, cigarette, red bull. Only the first item on that list had been completed.. I pulled out a Marlboro Light (and I know it'll kill me), closed the car without locking it, and lit up the cigarette.
I stared up at the nearly full moon, and took a drag from the cigarette. The nicotine started coursing through my veins as I heard a car door slam behind me. The person inside the junky Escort had gotten out. He was an older man, about 55 or so? Salt and pepper hair, and had on a white tank top and jeans. I remember this because this is the verbatim description I later gave to the Oregon State Police.
He stood about 50 feet away, and lit up a cigarette of his own. He didn't say anything to me - just watched me. He moved off to the picnic tables, which were about 25 feet from where I was standing, and he sat down on them. He asked me, "Where you headed?"
I answered him, "San Francisco." Figuring it would be impolite not to answer back, I simply replied, "You?"
"Oh I'm just driving around," he answered. Kind of set off some alarms.
I just nodded my response and took another drag of the cigarette. He stood up from the table and began moving closer to me. "So how interested are you in a backrub?"
"Excuse me?" I answered.
"Well, you know. We can start there. And go from there."
"No thanks," I replied. I threw the cigarette down, made it to the door of my Volvo in about 2 big leaps. 30 seconds later, my car was screaming through the rev limiter on the onramp with my cell phone in hand, dialing 911.
They called back twice asking for more information - I gave them as much as I could. I spoke with the officer, who told me they were arresting him on priors.
I suppose the moral of the story is this: predators aren't limited to men 'preying' on other men in bathrooms, much to Tucker Carlson's dismay. Predators are everywhere and everyone is a target - they prey on men, women, children, the elderly, the disabled - no group, not a single person is free from this.
There's so much divisiveness on both sides of the aisle - and I'll also make it clear that I hardly consider myself a social liberal, but I can call a double standard when I see it applied. Much in the case of Senator Craig, and using this whole issue to blast away at an entire voting bloc? Sorry - freepers, listen up: predators and bathrooms kinda go together. I almost found out the hard way. I'm sure many others of you have similar experiences... treat this as an open thread.
Let the sharing begin.
UPDATE : Yes, there's lots of talk about gay sex in restrooms. This isn't one of them. This is a diary dealing with de-emphasizing that. To make things slightly more clear - I'm female. I was hit on by a guy. I think there was some misunderstanding (I didn't think my username was that ambiguous)... Hope this clears it all up.
UPDATE II : Because my gender needed further emphasis, because nobody reads these updates, I changed the title... Thank you InfaredRoses for suggesting this.