“She screamed her head off”
What lengths would you go through to make sure your instincts are followed? Thankfully this mom took advantage of every opportunity to protect her family.
“My mom woke up screaming on the morning of 9/11. My dad was up as usual getting ready to go to work – he worked on Wall Street. My mom told him he needed to call in sick because she had a really bad feeling that something was going to happen if he went in. I think we all thought that just meant he was going to get fired or something, and my dad and I are both ultra-rational and tend to scoff at stuff like this, so my dad kept getting ready and eating breakfast as usual to catch his usual train out.
My brother managed to oversleep, meaning someone had to drive him. My mom leaped at the opportunity to make my dad drive him to school, meaning he’d have to catch the next train out. He watched the towers fall from Hoboken, right across the water. If he had taken the earlier train, like he wanted to, he would have been in the building as it came crashing down.
I asked my brother about it years later, whether he remembered oversleeping that morning. He told me that he had almost forgotten how pissed he was that morning at my mom. While my dad and I were eating breakfast, she had gone to my brother’s room and told him to sleep in. Didn’t stop her from screaming her head off at him when she finally did go wake him up. My mom continues to declare that my brother must have dreamed that she told him that or made it up, but I believe my brother.”
Church Choir to the Rescue
How far will a kidnapper go to get a kid’s attention? To lure them closer to the car? These kids were headed right into danger until the singing stopped.
“We were 15 years old. A friend and I went to shoot hoops near this massive church, that had a park. We are happily playing around on the court. I remember shooting the ball, missing and the sound of it bouncing away. My friend and I looked at each other, we both felt it. This sudden sinking/nervous feeling. It was very quiet. No one was around.
This car comes cruising into the car park next to the court and just sits there. We can see two men in the car.
We try to ignore them and keep playing. After maybe 5 mins, passenger side door opens and this guy stands up and calls out, “Come here for a second.” My friend looks at me and I look at him. We know this isn’t good, something was wrong. He picks up the ball and starts walking away.
The guy in the car yells, “Hey! Come here! I’ve got something that you might like!” We walk faster, heading past the church. He gets back in the car and it continues to cruise toward us, this time faster.
Just as we drop the ball and run, the side door of the church swings open and about 2o to 25 middle aged blokes come walking out. All laughing and chatting away. The car slams on the breaks. One of these guys looks at us and looks at the car and says, “You boys ok?” The car calmly turns around and cruises away.
The men who came out of the church were a men’s choir who had been practicing for some competition.
At first I thought the guys in the car were just going to bash us or rob us. But when I was older and telling a friend he said, “Pretty sure you avoided being kidnapped mate.” Chill down my spine.”
