The Second Scariest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Me.

I don't know what the deal with Provo, Utah is, but seriously I have experienced some weird stuff here.

Some memorable moments include:

1) sharing a duplex with a lady with schizophrenia (literally)
2) having a police brigade practically knock down my door in the middle of the night looking for a previous tenant who was apparently a meth user and or manufacturer
3) being trapped in a tunnel while a guy huffed whatever kind of drugs you huff and listening to him talk and laugh at himself for several hours until about 4:30 am

So Provo, you are weird.

Tonight I got home from school, feeling the need to relieve a bit of stress and try to be somewhat active considering my new found sedentary lifestyle of law school. I concluded that a run would be a sufficient and pleasing outlet. My brother obliged and planned to accompany me on such a run. We planned to meet at one 24 hour fitness on the corner of University Parkway and... whatever street 24 is on. I planned to take a hill that I can access from my neighborhood. It is a considerable shortcut. Its also quite lush-- lots of trees and bushes and creepy places for creepy people to hide in.

It was about 9pm, so pretty dark. Actually there was a full moon but intermittent clouds.. so kind of pretty or possibly creepy depending on where you are and what you're doing.

I left my house, then ran back in to get my phone, thinking that I may need to explain to my brother exactly where to meet me. I called my brother to see if he was close to our meeting spot. I hung up the phone. I arrived at the creepy hill.

"Heyyy." I heard from the bushes. I called the brother. "Did you just say 'hey' to me in like the creepiest voice ever?" (this would not have been out of character for him).

"No, I'm close but I'm not there yet."

I started briskly walking away from the hill and felt significantly creeped out. I told my brother to come drive to the hill where I was because I was too scared to walk down it because of the "Hey" that had been called to me. I slowed my walk and started to pace around a little bit, just kind of waiting for my brother. There was not adequate street lighting, and it was a semi-private road, so I was constantly looking over my shoulder during this time. I just felt like eyes were watching me.

Then, in an instant, I heard quick shuffling coming from the forested area. I turned to look and saw a man running towards me from the bushes and behind a guard rail. The only thing I really noticed about him was that he was wearing jeans with lots of holes in them. And that the jeans were headed toward me in a substantial manner.

Never in the history of the world, no olympics, no world championship, nowhere, has anyone run as fast as I did in that moment. I didn't dare use any energy to look back and see if he was still behind me.

My phone started ringing-- it was my brother. In a very out of breath voice I shouted "drive to my house" at him. I continued my sprint. I didn't hang up (not on purpose, just didn't think of it) and later I found out that he stayed on the line to make sure he could hear anything that happened to me.

I finally made it to a more public road that was adequately lit with street lights and kept running in the direction that I knew my brother would be coming from. I was basically running in the middle of the road so he could see me, which he did, and pulled over.

I was wheezing and am actually still coughing at this moment. I don't think I have ever pushed my body to those physical limits. I put my hands onto my knees and took some deep breaths then jumped into brother's car and said a thank you prayer in my head that i didn't get capped.

Seriously Provo. What is the deal.