In case you aren't familiar with the term "creeper" and don't know what one is, it's pretty much what it sounds like: a person who acts in a creepy manner. The Urban Dictionary defines a creeper as "a person who does weird things, like watch you sleep, or looks at you for hours through a window," and also "Edward Cullen."
I find it funny that the ad on the UrbanDic page for creepers is a World of Warcraft ad.
Anyway, after spending the better part of an hour reading CreepersWhoText, I started to remember the creeper I had for a couple of weeks when I lived in England. Here's the story.
Once upon a time, I was in the Air Force and based in England at an undisclosed RAF (Royal Air Force) base. I spent a little less than three years there, in the cold and foggy dark, growing paler by the day.
In the Air Force (and probably in all branches of the military), when you get promoted from one rank tier to the next one up, you have to go to training. Going from the Airman tier to the NCO tier, you have to go to a thing called Airman Leadership School (henceforth known as ALS). It's the most pointless waste of time in history. A dickless monkey could pass ALS.
ALS is a smorgasbord of people from different units from several RAF bases near to the school. It was a chance to hobnob with cops, cooks, maintenance people, and med techs. It was a chance to enjoy the look on someone's face when you responded to the query "so what's your job?" with the answer, "I'm a linguist." They practically oohed and aahed, and you got the satisfaction of knowing that if they knew what you really did all day (check your 12 thousand e-mail accounts, stare at blank screens while pretending to work, see how many times you could go for a "smoke break" before anyone figured out that you don't smoke, and slink from room to room to avoid being tagged to empty the garbage at the end of the day), they'd be just as unimpressed as if you'd said, "I'm a golf cart mechanic."
In the melting pot that was my classroom (there were 4 or 5 different classrooms, I can't remember exactly), there existed another airman who was a mechanic for the jets that belonged to my unit. For the sake of sparing his feelings if he ever stumbles across this blog, we'll call him "Creepy Carl."
Creepy Carl liked to drink and party. He had been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct while in Cambridge because he had gotten shizzlefaced and had broken a number of ceramic urns filled with flowers that decorated the streets. The British po-lees had showed up and had taken him to jail at baton-point. He had been relinquished to the base police and forced to attend "Hi My Name is Creepy Carl and I'm an Alcoholic" meetings on the base. There were other drunk-type things that happened to him, but none of them prevented him from being promoted and winding up in my class.
Creepy Carl had an obsession with the band 311. His birthday was March 11th, a fact that he interpreted as a sign from God that he should love 311 with all of his heart and mortal soul. To this day, any reference to the number or band 311 reminds me of him, which then makes me feel residual creepy feelings. Sadface booooo. :(
So anyway, after a couple of weeks in class, I guess Creepy Carl developed an attraction to me. He was physically attractive enough, I suppose, but he really wasn't my type. I didn't know he was a creeper yet, but I still wasn't attracted. However, when he asked me if I wanted to go to dinner, I accepted. Hey, free food, am I right?! I picked a Wednesday night. That seemed noncommittal enough, and left me with a nice exit excuse: "I have to go to sleep because we have class tomorrow. Byeeeee."
On the morning of our date, I got into a car accident. On the rinky-dink two-lane road on the way to ALS, a British guy had decided to pass a truck without looking before he pulled out. I happened to be on the other side of the road when he did pull out. I managed to swerve out of the way before a head-on collision occurred, but I ended up upside-down in a ditch on the side of the road.
It should be noted that, as an American, I swerved to the right. British people drive on the left side of the road. So I swerved across the opposing traffic lane. Fortunately, there was no one there when I swerved.
My roommate was in the car with me, and neither of us were hurt. I got a cut on my wrist from some broken glass, but it didn't even require a Band-aid. We called the school to inform them that we wouldn't be attending. Here's how that convo went:
My instructor: Hello?
Me: Sergeat Dude? Hi. This is Airman Taylor.
My instructor: Oh hi. What's up?
Me: My roommate, Airman Roomate, and I will be late today.
My instructor: Oh, why's that?
Me: My car is upside-down and we're going to the hospital.
My instructor: ........... are you OK?
Me: Yes.
My instructor: Maybe you should just go home after you're finished at the hospital. Don't worry about coming in today.
Me: But I was responsible for snack shopping and they're all in my trunk and if I don't bring them, there will be no snacks!
My instructor: Don't worry about the snacks. See you tomorrow.
Someone from the nearby base (with the hospital on it) had seen the accident and was the first person to arrive at my upside-down car to help me and my roomie out. He offered to drive us to the hospital, since we obviously couldn't drive there ourselves. I was very concerned with the snacks that were in my car, so I had the responding firefighters help me pry the trunk open, retrieve the snacks (I gave them some of the squished ones for being such pals), and then the guy who offered to drive us to the hospital drove us to ALS.
When we arrived and I brought the snacks inside, I was met by many of my classmates and unit compatriots, who were all convinced that I was dead or in a coma. Apparently, my instructor had walked into class after my phone call and had said, "Airman Taylor and Airman Roommate won't be in today. They were in an accident." And he had left it at that and started to teach. Understandably, my classmates had assumed the worst. So when I showed up, snacks in tow, they reacted with extreme happiness that I was, indeed, not dead.
After we dropped off the slightly squished snacks and shaken-up sodas, we were transported to the hospital, where it was deemed that nothing was wrong with me and my roommate had slight whiplash. I spent an hour waiting for her, watching Dora the Explorer on the waiting room TV and answering my First Sergeant's questions about the accident. It hadn't been my fault, and I had plenty of witnesses that could attest to the other guy's guilt (he had also stopped to see if we were alive, which was bully of him). I was still forced to take a breathalyzer to make sure I wasn't drunk at 7 in the morning on a Wednesday.
Now, what does all this have to do with Creepy Carl? Well, he called me and asked if our date was still on for that night. The ER doctors had suggested that we continue our lives as normal and not let the accident keep us from doing what we had already planned for, so I said I still would go on the date. I didn't want to be crippled with fear and hide in my house.
I sat in the back seat of the car and couldn't watch out the windows while we were in motion.
We went to a pub, got some light dinner (he drank, I didn't), and I recounted the accident and the fun day I had had. He drove me home and tried to put the moves on me. I informed him that I wasn't interested, and he said he understood, and seemed very cool about it.
My First Sergeant said he wanted us to avoid driving for a few days, and Creepy Carl stepped up and offered to give us a ride to school. He lived right down the road from our town, so we were practically on the way for him. We accepted, but after a couple of days, my roommate decided she was done being chauffeured around and started to drive her car. I thanked Creepy Carl for the rides to work, and I started to ride with my roommate.
This is when the real creeping began.
Creepy Carl would call and ask me out. I reminded him that I was still not interested. He asked why. I said, "Well, you do things like get drunk and kick over decorative urns, and I do things like knit and play computer games. We don't have much in common."
I was assured that we had tons in common, and he said he would learn to love the things I loved.
I said "nooooo" and hung up. I then saved his phone number to my phone so, when I saw "Creepy Carl" show up on the phone screen, I could let it go to voicemail.
This was in the days before texting was all the rage, so he didn't text me his creepiness. He just left creepy messages. At 2 AM. On a Tuesday.
The messages started out innocently enough - "Hey Taylor, it's Creepy Carl. I guess you're in the shower or something. Call me back when you get this!" - but soon escalated into more frightening and confusing messages.
*The following Creepy Stalker Phone Message has many naughty words in it and may offend the delicate sensitivities of weenies who may be lurking on my blog.*
"I KNOW YOU'RE THERE YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU'RE A SLUT! YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT ANSWERING BECAUSE YOU'RE CHOKING ON A DICK, YOU FUCKING SLUTTY BITCH SLUT! I CAN'T BELIEVE I BOUGHT DINNER FOR YOUR SLUTTY ASS heyyyy I'm sorry. I'm sorry about all that. I'm kind of drunk. And you hurt my feelings. Why don't you call me back? I thought we were friends. I love you, you know, even though you're a slut. Call me back, OK? It's Creepy Carl."
O_O
I got lots of messages like that. And I saved them all.
My roommate liked to throw parties, and she threw one in celebration of our completion of ALS. She did a blanket invite for everyone in the class, and Creepy Carl decided to come. I didn't really care. Parties were not and still are not my thing. I made an appearance, got some booze for people, and then ushered them out the door when they all decided to go pub-crawling. A couple of people who were not feeling well/already too drunk stayed behind and crashed on our couches and giant bean bag chairs. I went upstairs and geeked it out on an online game, which mostly consisted that night of just chatting online to a friend who lived about 20 minutes away who also played the game.
About half an hour after the gaggle of drunks had left my house, I got a phone call. I had taken Creepy Carl's number out of my phone because for a while he had stopped calling me, so I thought the worst was over. I didn't recognize the number, and I answered, thinking it might be someone calling about the party. It was none other than Creepy Carl himself.
Creepy Carl: Hey. It's Carl.
Me: (siiiiggghhhhhh) Hi.
Creepy Carl: Hey. I'm coming back. I want to talk to you.
Me: Not necessary. I really have nothing to say to you. Stay out with everyone.
Creepy Carl: I'm already on my way back. Be there soon.
Click.
I relayed this to my friend on the computer, and he said, "Do you want me to come over and throw his creepy drunk ass out on the street?"
I said no. I wasn't alone in the house, and although the other people there were asleep, I doubted very much that they wouldn't wake up and react if Creepy Carl tried to rape me or something. However, when I heard the doorbell ring, I made a request: "Dude, if I'm not back in like 10 minutes, call the cops and come over and save me."
I answered the door and let Creepy Carl in. I restated that I had no interest in having a conversation with him, but he was welcome to finish off the booze in the kitchen, and that I was returning to my nerdy activities upstairs.
He followed me.
I sat down in my office and tried to ignore him. I did a good job of ignoring him, too, until I heard the door shut and the lock click.
I looked back, and he swayed drunkenly by the door. I got up and opened the door, and he closed it again. He said he wanted to talk and needed privacy. I opened the door again, jammed a shoe under it to keep it open, and said we had all the privacy we needed.
He told me he loved me. I told him he didn't, and in any case, I didn't love him, so his love didn't matter.
He told me that I did love him, I just didn't realize it yet. I told him he was wrong.
He told me I was a slut and a cocktease and what about the date we went on. I told him I was in it for the free food and that he was a drunk asshole and he really needed to leave.
He told me he couldn't leave because his friend had drove them there and he was out at the pub crawl.
I'm a nice person, and despite his creepiness, I felt bad for him. I said he could sleep downstairs on a free couch or bean bag chair.
He told me he would rather sleep in my room.
I remembered that my door doesn't have a lock on it.
I told him to call a taxi and I tossed his creepy drunk ass out on the street.
At ALS graduation, I invited the friend from the online game. When Creepy Carl saw him, he flew into a rage and accused me of cheating on him with this friend. I finally said OK, enough is enough, and I informed Creepy Carl that I had saved all the drunk ludicrous messages that he had left during his weekday binge-drinking midnight call-a-thons, and if he didn't leave me AND my friends alone RIGHT NOW, I was going to take my phone and all the messages to his First Sergeant, my First Sergeant, and the First Sergeant of the cop squadron, and that I wouldn't rest until he was committed or kicked out or demoted or something equally as sucky.
He left me alone. I deleted the messages a few weeks later when I still hadn't heard anything from him. I still haven't heard anything from him. I was kind of disappointed, though, because I reeeeally wanted to get him in trouble. Also, those messages were hilarious when I was no longer worried that he was going to show up to my house in the middle of the night, kill me, and wear my skin to feel close to me.
Oh! My! That's some crazy shiznit.
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