When I was in high school, a friend’s father kept asking me out and stalking me. He would drive up and down the road in front of our home. He could see when I left the house and walked down to the barn every day to feed and water our horses.
Then he would drive in and hang out at the barn, talking to me while I tended to the horses. It made me especially uncomfortable because his wife and daughter were both close friends of mine. Whenever he asked me out, I declined his invitation. While cleaning the watering trough and spreading fresh straw in the stalls, I tried to keep one of the horses between him and me.
I finally complained to my mother, who came up with a brilliant idea. She would dress in the clothes I usually wore to the barn, old jeans and a red-plaid reversible coat with a hood. She would feed the horses.
The next day, hidden behind the drapes, I stood at the dining-room window and watched mother head for the barn. I saw his car turn in our driveway, saw him walk to the barn, and then fairly quickly return to the car, get in, and drive away. He never came back.
-Frances Broadus-Crutchfield (Richmond, Virginia)