Bimql chhetry.

# original here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/stories/comments/1ra38ah/i\_thought\_if\_i\_just\_froze\_like\_a\_statue\_my/](https://www.reddit.com/r/stories/comments/1ra38ah/i_thought_if_i_just_froze_like_a_statue_my/) Guys… I’m still shaking but in a good way now?? It’s been like 2 day since the Great Balcony Betrayal and I’ve been avoiding the balcony like it’s radioactive. Every time I hear her door open I duck like I’m in a war zone. But yesterday morning I’m taking out the trash in full paranoid mode (hoodie up, eyes down) and boom — she’s right there at the bins too, holding a recycling bag, looking unfairly cute in oversized sunglasses. She sees me, smiles this tiny, knowing smile and goes, “Hey… survived the heat wave?” I freeze again (old habits die hard), face instantly tomato-red, and manage to squeak out, “Y-yeah… mostly. You?” She laughs — not mean, just soft and warm — and says, “I’ve been wondering if you were ever coming back out. Thought maybe I scared you off forever.”...

Okay, this happened two days ago and I'm still dying inside. I'm 28, live in a crappy apartment building with paper-thin walls and balconies that basically stare into each other's souls. It was scorching hot, like 95 degrees, so after work I stripped down to my boxers, grabbed a bowl of leftover spaghetti, and plopped on my balcony chair to chill. Sauce was everywhere – tangy tomato smell mixing with my sweaty pits, fork twirling those slippery noodles like a pro. Felt like a king. Then, horror: my hot neighbor (let's call her Sarah, early 30s, always waves politely) steps onto her balcony right next to mine, maybe 5 feet away. She's in yoga pants, stretching, and I'm mid-bite with a noodle dangling from my lip. Internal scream: "Oh god, don't look over, don't look over." But she does. Our eyes lock. Panic mode – I freeze like that dumb dog meme, thinking if I don't move, I'll blend into the background. Heart pounding, cheeks burning h...

So the other day I was at the skate park with my friend, we were hanging out another guy pulls out a tupperware full of what looked like cosmic brownies without sprinkles. I being the oblivious idiot I am asked for three of the little brownies this guy had and he said “Are you sure bro?” And I said “Yeah! I love these kinds of brownies!” And then he gave me three of these brownies and said “Right on man!” I ate all three in like 5 minutes… I can’t fully recall how it started but I got a large boost of energy and I had some fun riding around on my BMX bike. Then it hit me… My heart started beating super fast and I started to feel like I was buzzing or something. Then my eyes kind of felt puffy like I had just cried so I sat down because I thought I was about to die. The dude who gave me the brownies came up to me and was like “The hit fast don’t they?” “what do you mean? Did you poison me or something” I replied laughing. He looked at me like he just saw a ghost and said “You know thos...

I am a 32-year-old female with a beautiful baby boy just shy of 2 years old. Today, I went to our local coffee shop because I found out that one of my girlfriends was working there. We got to talking, and I ordered my son a lavender latte (really it was just the lavender cream with warm milk). I have to admit that my son distracted her a little bit because he's so cute and talkative that she steamed the milk a bit too much, so she put it in the cooler behind her to cool down, which was fine. My son and I had absolutely no place to go today, so we shared a little croissant. This is where the story turns - a guy from high school came into the shop. This guy was one of those guys who thought he was God's gift to women but doesn't know how to treat them right, and even in high school, I turned him down. So, what do you think he did the moment he saw me out? If you guess he tried to ask me out, try to hit on me, or any of the variants in between, you would be correct. I was pol...

When I was a kid I lived in Telluride, CO for just under 2 years (family was taking a break from the Chicago area where I'm from) and I ran into him more times than I can count. It was to the point that if I saw him at this local bakery in town called Baked In Telluride, he would ask me what I was getting (this was after the story im about to share). My mother was working retail at the time at a fine art gallery. 2002, Tom was dating Penelope cruz and she had this dachshund dog on a retractable leash. I was on summer break from school hanging out in the art gallery (I was 11, almost 12) with my mother and in walks tom, Penelope and the dog. My mom and tom get to talking about what's for sale, etc and I was tasked with walking the dog around the corner so my mom could focus on the sale. I take the dog out around the square block and bring them back in. Mom ended up selling Tom a painting and a glass vase I believe. I hand the dog leach to Penelope, she says thank you and Tom kn...

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I’ve been a data analyst at one of the largest data infrastructure firms in the world for about seven years now. Most of my day is just numbers, pipelines, dashboards, all the boring backend stuff that keeps the internet functioning. It used to feel meaningful in a weirdly satisfying way. Until around two years ago, when I started noticing things that didn’t add up. It began with a simple audit for a retail client. The data looked fine until I realized that roughly eighty-seven percent of their active users weren’t traceable to any known or consistent activity history. New devices, IPs that didn’t match known regions, even fake GPS trails. It wasn’t bot traffic, at least not in the traditional sense. These were fabricated identities. Whole clusters of them. It was like they were generated just to exist. At first, I assumed it was some glitch with an API sync or metadata corruption. But the deeper I dug, the weirder it got. The user patterns weren’t rando...