It’s fairly common that the first job that a person gets as a teenager or young adult will be in some form of customer facing role. Whether that’s working in a fast food restaurant, delivering newspapers, or working the checkout at a grocery store, these roles shape you as an employee as well as inadvertently giving you a lot of wisdom when it comes to how the world – and other people – work. Because anyone working in retail or hospitality will know that on any given day you can see the absolute best and absolute worst of humanity. It’s just one of the perks of the job.

The woman in this story enjoyed her job as a waitress in a traditional diner, and had good banter with the regular customers as well as a great relationship with her fellow employees. But one day, a customer would come in who would significantly alter her otherwise unquestioned sense of safety and happiness in her role.

Read on to find out why.

He threatened me!

In my late teens and early twenties I worked as a waitress/server at an old fashioned local diner in my city.

The job was fun and the diner was really cute and had multiple locations. It had a bar area and jukebox. We sold breakfast and lunch items and stayed open 24/7.

I worked the day shift with the manager and usually one other waitress. The manager doubled as the short order fry cook.

We had a few regulars that came in on certain days at the same time. They were old guys that shamelessly hit on us and made crude jokes.

But one day, she encountered a customer like no other.

One day around two hours before my shift ended a tall gentlemen walked in and took a seat at the bar area.

I greeted him, gave him a cup of water and set a menu before him which was customary. I told him to call me over whenever he was ready to order.

He said nothing and just stared at me smiling. I asked if he had heard me. Still nothing, just staring and smiling at me.

I walked away and his eyes followed me everywhere. He hadn’t touched the water or opened the menu. I approached him again and asked did he want to order anything. He just smiled and told me his name was Anthony.

Read on to find out more about her encounter with Anthony.

I said, “Okay Anthony, are you going to order anything?” Because frankly his staring and smiling was making me uncomfortable.

He stood up and said to me, “I’m going to marry you” and walked out. It was an odd moment, but the last hour and a half of my shift picked up and I kinda forgot about it.

On my next shift Anthony showed up again and sat on the same stool. I brought him another cup of water but didn’t bother with the menu.

He started his creepy staring and smiling again. I asked was he going to order something or just stare. He just kept staring at me and smiling creepily.

Let’s see what she did next.

I told my manager that he was creeping me out and she told him if he wasn’t going to order he needed to leave. He got up and walked to the door.

Before exiting he told me, “You’re going to be my wife.”

I went on with my shift but felt weirded out. The next day Anthony showed up but didn’t come in. As I was sweeping the dining area I noticed him staring at me through the windows in the double doors.

When our eyes met he smiled and ran off. I won’t lie, I was pretty nervous. After that, I had two days off and put it out of my mind.

But the next day, things were quite different.

On my next shift it was early and the old guys were there with their normal inappropriate conversations. This was during the time when Kayne dropped Gold Digger and surprisingly they knew the song.

Anthony walked in and took his normal seat at the bar. I ignored him and filled the coffee cups of the old guys.

As I was doing this, they started joking that a girl like me was the type of woman mentioned in Kayne’s song. That I would never date a broke man and that I looked high maintenance.

Well this angered Anthony because he suddenly slammed hard on the counter and screamed at me that I was a money hungry *****!

Yikes! Read on to find out what happened next.

He said he hated ******* like me. Everyone was quiet and still. You could hear a pin drop. My heart was racing.

I screamed for him to get out now! He stormed to the door and screamed back, “***** I’m going to kill you!” before running out the door.

Well little nineteen year old me was literally shaking like a leaf in the wind. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t concentrate or think.

My manager told me to go take a breather in the storage room. I did and called the non emergency police number. I spoke to a kind lady cop who took my statement and Anthony’s description down. They sent a cop to look for him but he was gone.

But what happened next restored her faith in humanity.

I told my family what happened and every day a different relative sat up at my job, ate breakfast or lunch until I got off of work. It was really sweet and I felt a lot safer with them there.

About two weeks after the incident the lady cop called me and told me Anthony had been arrested on drug charges.

He fit the description I had given them and surprisingly, he had given me his real first name so they knew it was the same guy.

He also confessed to stalking and threatening me. She said I no longer needed to worry as he was going away for a while. I thanked her for calling me.

However, that wasn’t the end of this story.

Fast forward a few years later. I still worked at the diner part-time between college classes. I was sweeping the dining area when Anthony walked in.

For a minute my heart stopped. The same fear I felt at nineteen creeped back in, and I couldn’t make my legs or mouth move.

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

To my surprise he instantly apologized to me. He said he was really sorry about how he acted back then, and that he was high on drugs and really messed up. He hoped I could forgive him.

I was pleasantly surprised. I told him he was forgiven. I never saw him again. Unfortunately, all the diners closed down. The last one during the pandemic.

Wow, what a crazy story.

This young woman must have felt so scared going about her daily life, knowing that Anthony was stalking and threatening her.

At least she finally got closure before all the diners closed down for good.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person thought she was very gracious for forgiving him.

While others felt how scary this must have been.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tech support worker who told a manager a computer needed replaced, only to be told no thanks.

Meanwhile, others empathize with what she’d been through.

Honestly, the way Anthony behaved must have been really traumatising for a young woman. It’s lucky that she was surrounded by good people – an empathetic manager, a warm and helpful police dispatcher on the phone, and her lovely family all making sure that there was someone at the diner to support her through the worst of it. Being stalked is no joke, and Anthony was creepy before the threats, but once he started threatening her life things got really serious.

But this is a wonderfully complete story, since after his time in jail, Anthony seems to have really cleaned up his act. The fact that he made amends for his wrongdoing is a really good touch, because honestly, nobody wants to spend time with someone as unhinged as he was back then – and clearly folk weren’t safe to be on the end of his obsessions either. That he came to apologise was a big step, and it must have helped with this woman’s closure too. It’s not often that such a horrifying situation has such a satisfying end.