Episode 92: Reddit's Darkest Confessions
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What triggered the narrator’s memory of a strange encounter at a rural gas station?
This happened more than twenty years ago now, when I was about twenty-two years old. And I still think about this guy every once in a while. It's not constantly anymore. There were definitely years when I thought about him a lot more than I do now, but even after all this time? I'll be sitting somewhere with nothing going on or driving down some empty two-lane road. And for whatever reason You'll see why soon. My brain will pull him back up. Now the weird thing is I didn't know this man. I probably spent 10 or 15 minutes talking to him in my entire life. Back then, I was working at a gas station in a pretty rural area. This would have been the early 2000s. I wasn't exactly a guy with some big career trajectory at twenty-two.
School had never been high on my list of priorities. Had moved out of my parents' house and I needed enough money to pay rent, buy groceries, and just keep myself afloat. This gas station about five miles outside of town was hiring, so that's where I ended up. Now I wanna highlight that this gas station was just that. There's a gas station on a lonely country road. It wasn't some huge interstate travel center or truck stop. Yeah, we had our busy periods, but there could be also long stretches of time where absolutely nothing happened. And being that my cell phone only had the capability of playing snake. I'd often have to clean something that didn't need cleaning. Organize things behind the counter for the third time that day, or just stare out the window and wait for another car to pull in.
I was working alone the day that this happened. At some point, I see a man walk up from the road, stroll onto the property, and come inside the shop. I guess that the guy was a handful of years older than me. He looked rough though, just not in a way that immediately made me think he was homeless or anything. More like somebody who had had a bad couple of weeks, ranging up to a bad couple of years. The guy's clothes were dirty, his hair was kinda greasy, and he looked like he'd spent a lot of time outside and he likely hadn't showered recently. But personality wise, the guy was completely normal. And that's the part that I'd end up thinking about the most as time went on. The guy was friendly. Outgoing and pretty damn funny.
It was a slow day at work, so we just kinda started bullshitting with each other. Now I couldn't tell you everything that we talked about. It's been twenty something years, and at the time there was absolutely no reason for me to commit the conversation to memory. I think a lot of what we shared was just kind of meaningless banter that you have with a stranger and you forget before you even get home that night. We joked around, he laughed, I laughed, and eventually he asked for a pack of cigarettes. When I ring him up. He came up about a dollar short. I looked at the guy and basically thought If anyone out there could use a cigarette right now, it's probably him. So I covered it. This wasn't meant to be a big act of generosity, it was just a dollar.
The look in his eyes when he thanked me? Said a lot. We joked around just a little bit more and eventually he headed for the door. I told him to have a good one or have a good rest of his day, something like that. He turned to face me, put two fingers up to an eyebrow, and gave me this sort of half salute. For telling me to do the same. He hit the door, the chimes went off, and he walked off into the parking lot. Looking like he was headed in the direction that he just came from. Now from behind the counter, I could see him go over to the grassy area near the road and light up one of the cigarettes that I just helped him buy. He stood there and smoked it for a few minutes, while I haphazardly tried to find another task that needed doing.
As he finished his cigarette, I saw him start to move towards the road. Now again, this is an old rural road where traffic could move pretty quickly, even though it was only two lanes. I think the speed limit there was fifty or so. He got to the edge of the lot and looked both ways.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What triggered the narrator’s memory of a strange encounter at a rural gas station?
0:17–7:43
2
How did a brief conversation about a cigarette lead to a shocking accident?
7:43–12:39
3
What happened when the truck driver stopped the semi‑truck after the crash?
12:39–18:26
4
Why did the police officer’s calm reaction feel unsettling to the narrator?
18:26–24:48
5
What was the mysterious phone call about the narrator’s mother’s death and how did it affect him?
24:48–31:08
6
How did the narrator’s best friend Dave’s illness and death shape his responsibility toward Leo?
31:08–34:52
7
What steps did the narrator take to fund Leo’s college education without making him feel like a charity case?
34:52–35:49
8
Why does the narrator choose to keep the full story of the scholarship a secret from Leo?
35:49–35:52