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August 18, 2025 42 mins
What's The Most Shocking Thing That Happened When You Picked Up A Hitchhiker?

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's the most shocking thing that happened when you picked
up a hitchhiker story? One. On my road trip to
Los Angeles from New Jersey, I happened upon a hitch
hiker who was old, maybe sixty, and walking in the
middle of the desert in Texas. He had no backpack, nothing,
just the clothes on his back. I passed him at first,

(00:20):
but quickly slammed on my brakes and put it in reverse.
I figured, an elderly man walking in the middle of
the desert is not looking to rob, essay, or off
any one. Once I pulled over, he began jogging toward
my car, but with a limp. I could already see
the damage the sun had done to his unprotected face
through my rear view mirror. Once he got in the car,

(00:41):
he immediately thanked me. You could hear the desperation and
dehydration in his voice. I gave him a bottle of
water and then asked where he was headed. Before I
could finish my sentence, he had finished the water. He
said he was headed to Phoenix to go back home
to his wife. He had this deep Southern accent. Akindo
book maker from King of the Hill since I had

(01:02):
family in Gilbert and was headed that way to begin with,
I figured, what's the big deal, it was only going
to be an extra hour of driving. At first, he
was very short tempered with answering the questions that I asked,
not that he was rude, just exhausted. When asked how
many miles he had walked since his last ride, he
replied with relief, only sixty, as if expecting to walk

(01:27):
two hundred. I had a McDonald's gift card that my
girlfriend sent me for the road trip, which I didn't
consider using because McDonald's is a diarrhea factory. I wanted
to make good time without having to crap on the
side of the road in the middle of nowhere every
five minutes. But this guy looked like he hadn't had
a meal in a day or two. I pulled into
the drive through of the next one I came across

(01:48):
and asked him to order anything he liked. He seemed
to become more chipper and have more energy once the
opiates from the cheese hit him, and I must confess
to the purchase of some French fries for myself. After
that McDonald's stop, there were no more rest stops or
gas stations for miles. About two hours into the journey
through the desert, my car began to stall out. Looking

(02:10):
at my quarter tank of gas, I couldn't figure out
why my car was acting up. Before my road trip,
I had my uncle, a mechanic his whole life, look
over my car and fix everything that needed to be fixed.
Change the fluids, the whole nine. I naturally had a
GPS and ran a search for the nearest gas station,
which was twenty two miles away. Trust me when I

(02:30):
say my car sounded like it couldn't even make one
more mile. I immediately started going in the direction of
the suggested route. Keep in mind, there is nothing but
desert and mountains as far as the eye can see.
My car kept on putting its way like those sickly
cars you would see in cartoons. At that moment, I
realized why getting cheap gas doesn't pay off in the

(02:51):
long run. It was a bad mix and my car
was trying to burn something that couldn't. After stalling several times,
I eventually reached my destination and it was the smallest
freaking town I had ever seen. The gas station was there,
just like the GPS said, well, at least what was
ever left from the fire that hit it, maybe about
five months prior. All while this was going on, my

(03:13):
guests just kind of sat there quietly, probably too nervous
to say anything for fear of possibly adding to my frustration.
I stall again. I get out and walk a little bit,
taking my keys. Of course, I don't walk more than
fifty feet before finding the first sign of life, A
man watering his pavement. Yes, he was watering his pavement again,

(03:34):
small friggin town in the middle of nowhere. I asked
if the gas station that burnt down was the only
one in town, and to my delight, it was not.
There was one more about a mile into town. I
got in my car and with a putter my engine
turned over and got me the rest of the way.
Once I got to the gas station, I loaded up
on some snacks and drinks, knowing I still had about

(03:56):
ten hours of driving ahead of me by the way.
At the checkout in the game gas station slash bar
slash grocery store, I asked the attendant how many people
live in town. He said three hundred and fifteen. He
knew the exact frigin number. They had a population smaller
than my high school anyway, Having that old man hitchhiker
in the car while all that was going on made

(04:17):
it seem much more like an adventure. It gave me
a little more motivation to solve the problem rather than
just calling Triple A. I don't know why, just did.
From that point on, it was smooth sailing. Once we
got back on the road, we began the awkward dance
of finding a common musical interest that we could tolerate
for the next ten hours until we reached Phoenix. I

(04:39):
mainly enjoy music like Justice and Kandinsky on these long
road trips. Electro keeps me awake. Being the Southern type,
he liked country, Lo and Behold. There was one group
we both shared a common affinity for Leave It to
the Beatles. With their only being about two hours left
until we reached Phoenix, I began to pry about why

(05:00):
by an elderly man such as himself was hitchhiking in
the first place. Turns out he was younger than he looked.
He was fifty three, but man was His story was sad.
Having lost his job of twenty years as a janitor,
he moved to Tennessee to work at a construction site
at his age. I guess maybe due to budget cuts.
About a third of their workers got crap canned only

(05:22):
after about seven months after the start of the project,
probably to be replaced by cheaper labor. In these economic times,
I bet people would work for just about any wage.
He had no other choice but to head back home.
With his last check in hand, he headed back to
cash it to fund his trip back home. With a
good chunk of change in his pocket, he purchased a

(05:43):
Greyhound bus ticket and gave a call to his wife
to tell her he was on his way. Once the
bus started to board, tragedy struck. Two guys jumped him,
probably having seen his cash while he was paying for
his ticket. He put up a fight, defending, of course,
the only money he had left to his name, only
to get stabbed twice in the chest. He almost died

(06:05):
and had to spend about a month in the hospital
to recover. Without having any health insurance whatsoever, he racked
up a bill I am sure in the thousands. Side note.
I raged when he told me about the security guard
at Greyhound who just witnessed all this without doing a
damn thing. He showed me the scars on his chest.
The hospital kicked him out as soon as they could,

(06:27):
because screw the Poor America rules. His wife was barely
making the rent, so he decided, instead of burdening her
with the cost of having to buy him a bus ticket,
he would hitch it from Tennessee to Texas. Only truckers
picked him up and dropped him off at whatever rest
stop they stumbled upon before diverting in a direction other
than west. I was the only passenger vehicle to stop

(06:49):
for him. I am glad that I picked up a hitchhiker.
It made me feel good doing something for a stranger
in need for no reason other than for the common good.
Just remember, there are messed up people in this world,
people who will do bad things in the face of
charity and kindness. But there are also people who are
just down on their luck looking for a ride home,

(07:09):
wherever that may be. And for those of you who
are wondering, his name was Walter. Before we continue, do
us a quick favor. Smash that like button and subscribe
to support our channel. Story two. I had to hitchhike
once and it was a pair of Mexican men who
helped me out. The following story is one hundred percent true.

(07:31):
Names have been changed for the privacy of those people involved.
One twenty AM, my friend Sally and I left a
bar and ventured across the street to a lounge of sorts.
Two am, we hail a taxi to get home. Here
is where the story begins. As I was entering the taxi,
a man in a fancy Jaguar S Type two thousand

(07:52):
and seven honked at us from behind. He waves his
hand as if to say, hey, come on and get in.
In the hindered state that I was in, I thought
it would be a great idea. So I took Sally
by the hand, pulled her out of our taxi, and
we got into the back seat of the Jaguar. Where
are we headed, I asked, We're going to the dance club? Sweet,

(08:14):
I thought, let's go. The man named Carlos and his
rather lovely second, as I would later learn wife, Ali,
whose name was changed, started to drive now. I told
him that I lived downtown, thinking I could get a
free ride home. After about five minutes of driving, I
realized that we had been going north north, the opposite

(08:35):
direction of where I live. Carlos started to talk about
his thriving business, and his wife smiled slyly. The whole way.
I was under my have a good time, whatever the
cost exterior, thinking, holy freakin' crap, What the heck did
I just get myself into? Hey, where are we headed now?
I asked? Our house? Came the reply. So we're driving

(08:57):
for about twenty total minutes on the highway, where I
had been texting everyone I knew in a sort of
last words description of where I was in case they
had to find my body before we exited and started
trekking through some god knows where street of suburbia. Here
was my oh crap moment. We arrived at their house.
I will admit their place was very lavish. They had

(09:19):
a bar in their living room, a pool out back,
and they had converted their garage into a nightclub issue
party scene. They immediately started to try and feed us drinks,
mango juice and Gray Goose imported tequila. They had everything.
The thing was, there was something peculiar about the whole thing.
My gut told me we had to get out of there.

(09:42):
I had no idea where I was. When Sally and
I went to the bathroom. The only thing I could
tell her was, I don't know what I just got
us into, but trust me, I promise I will get
us out of here safe. It became pretty apparent that
Carlos and Ali were swingers, but who knew to what
extent they were willing to go. Sally had been complaining

(10:02):
that Carlos had been trying to feel her up whenever
I wasn't around. I had to come up with a plan,
and I remembered that the original plan was for us
to go to a dance club. Hey, when are we
headed to this dance club you were talking about? Slightly offset,
Carlos obliged to take us to the dance club. So again,
the four of us, Carlos and his wife, Sally, and

(10:25):
I started driving north again, further and further we were
from home. We were driving down a long, somewhat shady
street before finally, and thank god, because I was imagining
a warehouse with devices that they wanted to use, we
came to a club. I don't have any cash. I
was hoping this would deter Carlos and somehow magically show

(10:46):
him that all we wanted to do was go home,
But nope, he covered the sixty dollars for all four
of us to get in, and we experienced some of
the entertainment the city had to offer. I even got
a short story about his son. Yeah, his son with
his first wife was older than I. Ten minutes into it,
Carlos said, Hey, this place is boring. Why don't we

(11:08):
go back to our place. It's much nicer there. Yep,
I knew what was going on. He told me that
I could have his wife for the night if he
could get with Sally. This was not going to happen,
but we still needed to get back somehow, so we
piled back into his Jaguar and started driving back. On
the way back, I knew there was no way I

(11:29):
was going back into his house with his wife. At
a traffic light near their place, I prayed that it
would turn red, and it did. I took off my
seat belt, I undid Sally's, and we bolted out of
the door and started running down the street. Luckily, they
didn't chase after us and sped off, so Sally and
I walked down this street for fifteen minutes back to

(11:50):
the highway, where I realized we would need a taxi.
I called yellow cab a couple of times, but they
either didn't pick up or were busy. There was only
one thing I could think of, and it was something
I never thought I would do. I hitchhiked Sally and
I stuck our thumbs out and waited. Driver after driver
passed us, pretending not to notice us, or just blatantly

(12:13):
speeding by. I couldn't blame them. It's always a risk
when you pick up hitchhikers, even if they are wearing
a dress shirt and talking on their cell phone. But
after about ten minutes some guys stopped. These were two
Mexican men. They couldn't speak English that well, and by
the looks of their car with Corona bottles in the back,
they had been drinking. But I didn't care. They offered

(12:37):
a ride, and I told them that as long as
they were going south, they could just bring us as
far as they could and let us out. Seconds felt
like ours. Did these men know where we were headed?
They had been drinking too. Were we going to be
safe going at seventy menph questions raced through my head.
But twenty twenty five minutes later I saw the skyscrapers ahead.

(13:00):
I have never been so happy to see the buildings
that occasionally dwarfed my apartment complex. They dropped us off
two blocks from my place. I offered the money, which
they didn't take, and the only Spanish I could muster
up was Mucho Grathius. They drove off, and Sally and
I slowly made our way through the streets of downtown.
I was finally home. Story three. I've picked up numerous hitchhikers,

(13:24):
but one in particular stands out. His name was Garth.
Garth was a hell of a dude with a hell
of a story. This is the encounter between my friends
and Garth. After graduating from high school, along with four friends,
I decided to take a long road trip over the summer,
and Glacier National Park was our mecca for the trip.
We found ourselves camping in the middle of nowhere in

(13:46):
the woods of northwest Montana, some twenty five miles north
of Missoula. We camped, got drunk, got stoned, and pretty
much stayed up all night. In the morning, I woke
up in the driver's seat of my car to see
some walking by in the road, which was forty yards
away from our campsite. The guy walking couldn't see us
just passing by, but I could see him. I was

(14:08):
still half drunk, so I decided to yell at him,
not even thinking that it could be the owner of
the land that we were illegally camping on. He did
a one hundred and eighty and stared straight at me,
then began walking towards me. He had a single backpack,
a big tree limb for a walking stick, and looked
exhausted and hungry. He looked like the big Lebowski mixed

(14:30):
with salt from Pineapple Express, but acted like someone who
had just had their buns kicked mentally and physically. He
looked like someone had sucked his soul out of him.
My friends heard me yelling for him, so they stirred
awake to find, to their surprise, Garth sitting in one
of our lawn chairs, eating our stale Doritos like he
hadn't eaten anything in days. We would later learn that

(14:52):
it was true. It was about ten am by the
time we decided to leave the campsite and head back
to Missouri to find food. Garth hopped in the car
and began to tell his story of how he ended
up in the middle of nowhere, Montana. He sat shot
gun and talked while my friend sat behind him, ready
for Garth to try to take off us or something crazy.
The story that Garth told us was freaking crazy. It

(15:14):
went something like this. Some dude he met in Missouri
promised him some work on his land. The guy bought
some land and kneaded some trees and brush cleared so
he could start building a house. He said he would
let Garth stay on his land for the night and
meet him there in the morning with some tools and
some food, so they could work all day to clear
this brush. Well, one day went by, then another, and another,
and another and another. The guy never showed up. Garth

(15:38):
was on this guy's land for five freaking days with
no food or shelter. He luckily had a stream of
water on his land that Garth drank from to keep hydrated,
but catching food was next to impossible. He said he
could hear coyotes very close to him at night, and
one morning he woke up to a bull moose thirty
yards away from him, snorting and stomping its hooves on
the ground, ready to charge Garth. Earth ran up a

(16:00):
tree and stayed there for the rest of the day.
He said he didn't want to leave the land because
he had no idea where he was. He was hoping
the guy would show up to take him back to town.
It was n't till this particular morning that he said
he was so hungry and cold that he thought he
was going to die if he didn't start walking somewhere.
Garth said, he started following a logging road with the

(16:20):
hope it would lead him somewhere. He had been walking
all night with no signs of anything. He thought he
was walking in circles. He said. The coyotes were howling,
and he was the most scared he had ever been
in his life. We were the first sign of people
he had seen in almost six days. After he told
us this story, we said we wanted to buy him
a lunch and some beers and a coat. He immediately declined.

(16:44):
He seemed embarrassed by the situation, especially because some eighteen
year olds were going to buy him this stuff. We
understood where he was coming from, but this guy just
had six days of hell in the woods, and he
deserved a hot meal. He finally said he would eat
lunch with us, so he took him to a Chinese buffet,
where he ate down four fat plates like a boss.

(17:05):
After lunch, he asked us to take him to the
homeless shelter in town so he could get a shower
and get a bed for the night. We agreed and
took him across town to drop him off. The car
ride over was quiet, mainly because Garth dozed off, probably
from his exhaustion. He was still sleeping when we got
to the homeless shelter. We woke him up, and he
thanked us a million times and stumbled into the shelter.

(17:27):
My friends and I were floored by his story. We
didn't say much as we hit the road north to
Glacier National Park until we noticed something on the floor
by the front seat, his freaking backpack. We were forty
miles north of town and didn't even think about what
to do. We pulled over and turned around to take
his backpack to him at the shelter. We contemplated opening

(17:49):
it for a good fifteen minutes. We thought it would
be wrong and that we wouldn't want someone to do
that to our pack, But our curiosity got the best
of us and we decided to open it. Garth was
too epic not to find out what he had in
there to aid in his wilderness adventure. We joked about
what would be in there, a bloody knife, a head,
some sort of body part. What we found was truly unbelievable.

(18:13):
We found out that Garth was bipolar and diabetic. Based
on his medications. He had some oral glucose jel to
combat his low blood sugar, a blood sugar machine, and Zoloft.
It blew my mind that this man, a diabetic, would
even think about staying in the woods for this long
while knowing he was a diabetic. We also found a
notebook that had some sketches and writings, mainly about his

(18:35):
travels around the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to read more,
but we had reached the shelter to return his pack.
Garth was a friggin' man if I had ever met one.
We thought he could use a little help, so we
put one hundred dollars in his pack before we gave
it back to him. He was inside sitting at a
table when we arrived with his pack. I held out

(18:56):
the pack and just said, I think you forgot something. Man.
He stood up and ran over to me, grabbed it,
and then gave me a huge bear hug and started crying.
He told me while he was hugging me that he
thought that he had just lost everything he owned after
we dropped him off. It was weird, but I felt
like I had to hug him back, so I did.
He followed us back out to our car and thanked

(19:17):
us again and offered us a cup of coffee. We
declined and said we had to be on our way
to get there before dark. He understood and even offered
to take a look at our car's oil and other
stuff before we headed out. We said no, said goodbye,
and drove off to the corner. We were stuck at
a traffic light, and I could still see him in
the rear view mirror, probably fifty to sixty yards behind us.

(19:40):
He knelt to dig through his backpack. He took out
his glue, commeter, his notebook, and then the one hundred
dollars we had put in there. He saw it and
started running after us, either to thank us or to
try to give it back. The light turned green and
we drove off. Before he got to us, I stood
by the car window gave him a wave and a
peace sign. He responded with a salute and the biggest

(20:02):
smile I've ever seen. We drove off and we never
saw him again. This was our encounter with Garth, the
World's manliest hobo. Wherever you are, Garth, godspeed my good Man.
Story four. Just about every time I see someone, I stop.
I kind of got out of the habit in the
last couple of years, moved to a big city and

(20:22):
all that my girlfriend wasn't too stoked on the practice.
Then some crap happened to me that changed me, and
I am back to offering rides habitually. If you indulge me.
It is a long story and has almost nothing to
do with hitchhiking other than happening on a road. This
past year, I have had three instances of car trouble,
a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses,

(20:44):
and an out of gas situation. All of them were
while driving other people's cars, which, for some reason makes
it worse on an emotional level. It makes it worse
on a practical level as well. I carry things like
a jack in extra fuses in my car. I also
know enough not to park facing downhill on a steep
incline with less than a gallon of fuel. Anyway, each

(21:06):
of these times this crap happened, I was disgusted with
how people would not bother to help me. I spent
hours on the side of the freeway waiting. I watched
roadside assistance vehicles blow past me, waiting for Triple A
to show the four gas stations. I asked for a
gas can, told me they couldn't loan them out for
my safety, but I could buy a crappy one gallon

(21:27):
version with no cap for fifteen dollars. It was enough
each time to make you say crap, like this country
is going to hell in a handbasket. But you know
who came to my rescue all three times. Immigrants, Mexican immigrants.
None of them spoke a lick of the language. But
one of those dudes had a profound effect on me.

(21:48):
He was the guy who stopped to help me with
a blowout with his whole family of six in tow.
I was on the side of the road for close
to four hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare,
but no jack. I had signs in the windows of
the car, big signs that said need a jack and
offered money, no dice. Right as I am about to
give up and just hitch out of there, a van

(22:10):
pulls over and the dude bounds out. He sizes the
situation up and calls for his youngest daughter, who speaks English.
He conveys through her that he has a jack, but
it is too small for the jeep, so we will
need to brace it. He then produces a saw from
the van and cuts a log out of a down
tree on the side of the road. We roll it over,
put his jack on top, and bam in business. I

(22:33):
started taking the wheel off, and if you can believe it,
I broke his tire iron. It was one of those
collapsible ones. I wasn't careful and I snapped the head
I needed clean off. Crap, No worries. He runs to
the van, gives it to his wife and she is
gone in a flash down the road to buy a
tire iron. She is back in fifteen minutes. We finished

(22:54):
the job with a little sweat and cussing. Stupid log
was starting to give, and I am a very happy man.
We are both filthy and sweaty. The wife produces a
large water jug for us to wash our hands in.
I try to put twenty in the man's hand, but
he won't take it, so I instead give it to
his wife as quietly as I can. I thank them

(23:15):
up one side and down the other. I asked the
little girl where they live, thinking maybe I could send
them a gift for being so awesome. She says they
live in Mexico. They are here so mommy and daddy
can pick peaches for the next few weeks. After that,
they are going to pick cherries then go back home.
She asks if I have had lunch, and when I
tell her no, she gives me a Tomali from their cooler,

(23:37):
the best freaking Tamali I have ever had. So to clarify,
a family that is undoubtedly poorer than you, me, and
just about everyone else on that stretch of road working
on a seasonal basis where time is money, took an
hour or two out of their day to help some
strange dude on the side of the road when people
in tow trucks were just passing me by. But we

(23:58):
aren't done yet. I thank them again and walked back
to my car. I opened the foil on the Tamali
because I am starving at this point, and what do
I find inside my freaking twenty dollar bill. I whirl
around and run up to the van and the guy
rolls his window down. He sees the twenty in my
hand and just shakes his head no, like he won't

(24:18):
take it. All I can think to say is poor favure,
poor favre, poor favor. With my hands out. Dude just smiles,
shakes his head, and with what looked like great concentration,
tries his hardest to speak to me in English. Today
you Tomorrow Me rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter,
waving to me in the rear view. I sat in

(24:40):
my car eating the best freaking tmalie of all time,
and I just cried like a little girl. It has
been a rough year and nothing has broken my way.
This was so out of left field. I just couldn't deal.
In the five months since I changed a couple of tires,
given a few rides to gas stations, and once went
fifty miles out of my way to get a girl

(25:01):
to an airport. I won't accept money every time I
tell them the same thing. When we are through Today
You Tomorrow Me story five, Oh man, That fifteen dollars
gas can reminds me of the time I ran out
of gas in my current car. I have this weird
loyalty thing when it comes to refueling, and I tend
to always go to the same petrol station. They were

(25:24):
the first and are still among the few who offer
E ten ethanol blended fuel at ninety five octane, and
it's consistently cheaper, probably thanks to the sugarcane the ethanol
comes from. Anyway, I was dangerously low on fuel, but
really close to one of these stations. I figured I
could make it. Unfortunately, I chose a hilly route and

(25:45):
my car ran out literally around the corner like a
minute's walk. Didn't quite make it, so I walked in
and explained my situation, emphasized I was just around the corner,
and asked if I could borrow a jerry can or
something to put enough fuel in the tank to drive
to the pump. At this point, it was low drama.
I used to have a big old V eight that

(26:05):
ran out all the time, so I knew they usually
had something for idiots like me. But this guy told
me they didn't have anything to loan out. Instead, I
could buy a little two liter can from the back
of the store for fifteen dollars. I try explaining that
I don't want to buy anything except fuel. I tell
him I am willing to pay a bond if he's
worried I might not return his fuel can, which is

(26:26):
oh so valuable at fifteen dollars a pop, not unheard of,
but no same deal. Apparently, for my safety, they can't
loan anything out. So I go to the back of
the store and find this fifteen dollars fuel can, one
of those tiny cans meant for two stroke fuel for
a lawnmower. I go back and tell him I don't

(26:46):
think it's going to be good enough for a start.
There's this little pull out piece of plastic meant to
act as a funnel, like the ones you sometimes see
on olive oil bottles. He tells me it should be fine,
but if I want, he can sell me a real
funnel for an extra eight dollars. It's like he's discovered
a little side hustle. I buy the little lawnmower, can

(27:07):
fill it with fuel, pay the man his extortion, and
go back to my car. Unfortunately, it proves completely useless
as a funnel, and most of my precious fuel ends
up outside the tank. In desperation, I start slowly filling
an empty water bottle, against my better judgment, and try
using that to pour fuel into the car, but it's
just as hopeless. Out of those two leaders, I manage

(27:30):
to get so little into the tank that the car
still refuses to start. Now I am pissed. I go
back to the guy and tell him his useless lawnmower
can that should be fine? Did exactly, jack squat? I
just wasted all this time and money on him, and
I still can't start my car. I demand my money back.
We get into a massive argument. While we're arguing, some

(27:52):
dude dashes off without paying karma if you ask me,
and he gets pissed at me instead. Then the guy
who's been running the adjacent and car wash, who turns
out to be the actual owner, comes in and of
course backs up his employee. I start ripping into him
for coming up with this ridiculous policy in the first place.
It all builds to a crescendo and he ends up

(28:13):
threatening me with physical violence. Did I mention I'd been
a loyal customer who used these guys almost exclusively for years.
I finally decide these guys can go screw off, and
I make sure to tell them I'll be going out
of my way in the future to give my business
to the next guy and will have nothing but bad
things to say about them. As I walk out the door,

(28:35):
these guys are surrounded by two other petrol stations I
had never even glanced at before. I walk into the
first one with my newly purchased lawnmower can and ask
if they have any funnels. Unfortunately, they're out of stock.
I go to the next place, and not only do
they have a funnel, but they modify it to work
with my crappy little can. For this, they charge me

(28:56):
exactly two dollars. The normal price is three, which I
pay on top of the fuel I fill the can with.
I go back to my car, get it going, and
return to fill the tank. When I return to pay
for a full tank, I offer to give him the
lawnmower can in funnel so he can lend it to
the next person. You know what he tells me. He
says he already has a Jerry cann out back that

(29:18):
he lends to people who run out of gas with
a twenty dollars deposit refunded when you return the can.
Can you guess where I get my fuel from now?
Story six. I have picked up plenty of hitchhikers in
my life. One I remember was a man around twenty
eight years old who was trying to get to Madison
to be a test subject for a new add medication. Apparently,

(29:40):
they keep you for a couple of months, regulate your
diet and exercise, then give you a few thousand dollars
and set you free. You know if the meds they
are testing do not work for you. I got him
another fifty miles down the road before I had to
turn south. He was nice though. This past June, right
before our wedding, my now ex husband picked up three

(30:01):
crusty kids and their dog. They were hitching their way
to a rainbow gathering, so he brought them home to me.
We fed them and packed them goodie bags full of
aspirin and hand sanitizer along with ten pounds of dog food,
then drove them to the next state. They were a
nice bunch of kids. I have also chosen not to
pick up hitchhikers who I thought were suspicious, but I

(30:23):
usually go to the nearest gas station and put together
a bag of water, gatorade, and granola bars to bring
to them. Even if I think they look creepy, I
still do not want them to go hungry. Story seven.
I was dropping a friend off at the airport, and
a middle aged man with luggage came up to my
car and asked for money for a taxi to his hotel.

(30:44):
He did not really know the city's geography, and a
taxi would have cost around eighty dollars. He did not
look too happy when I told him that, and explained
that he had just flown in from a job interview
in Detroit and was in town for another job interview
the following day. After hemming and hying, I let him
jump in and drove him forty miles to his hotel.
Along the way, we passed several small towns in some

(31:07):
beautiful countryside. He was apparently an engineer, who I kid
you not, worked on rockets, the Space Shuttle and other
various flying things. He said he was on his last
and these job interviews were his final bit of hope.
We just talked the whole time about his previous jobs,
the challenges he faced in aerospace, and various three dimensional

(31:28):
rendering software technologies. I was fascinated by his stories and
could tell he was genuinely passionate about his work. He
also told me about the long hours, tight deadlines, and
how sometimes even small mistakes could have massive consequences. I listened,
amazed at his dedication and how much he had accomplished
in his career. It was my first time picking up

(31:50):
a hitchhiker, and he was not creepy at all. It
actually turned out to be one of the most interesting
car rides I have ever had. I felt a mix
of awe inspiration, realizing that sometimes the people you meet
unexpectedly can leave a lasting impression. Story eight. I've actually
picked up about eighteen hitchhikers in the past three years.

(32:12):
I went to Rutgers University and it all started one
night after I finished a very late summer class. There
are four campuses and each has spread pretty far apart.
So the school has a very modern bus system to
shuttle students around in the summer. However, most students go
home and the buses run very infrequently at night. So

(32:32):
as I left class in my mom's minivan, I noticed
that the last bus was pulling away to take kids
back to the student center. There was a Korean student
running after the bus. The driver didn't see him. As
I drove past, I could see that he just sat
on the bench waiting for another bus to come. The
next one was until six thirty in the morning. I

(32:52):
stopped the van, did a U turn and pulled up
to the stop. I powered down the window and asked
him if he needed a lift to the student center.
He was a bit hesitant at first. I guess, it's
not every day a black guy pulls up in the
dead of night offering a free ride in air conditioning.
So we drive and we start to talk and find
out that we have a lot in common. I dropped

(33:12):
him off and he offered to pay me, but I
just told him to pay it forward to the next
person he sees in need. That summer, the city of
New Brunswick was hot. I had to cancel a class
that day because it was the last day to do so,
and Rutger's bureaucracy made it so I had to go
to three different campuses that day in order to do it.
For some strange reason. Anyway, on my way to drop

(33:35):
off the final form, I saw an older white man
in his fifties with crutches and his leg in a
cast walking down the street. I could see that he
was struggling, and it was rosewood hot outside. I couldn't
just let him suffer. While I sat there in my
seven seater air conditioned minivan. So I pulled over and
asked him if he needed a ride. This big, genuine

(33:56):
smile came over his face and he thanked me numerous
times and thanked God a few times too. He broke
his leg and had a compound fracture after falling off
his son's roof while trying to help him install a
satellite dish nuts. The next time I picked up people
was May of the following year, during Rutgers Fest, where
the school hires popular bands and hip hop stars to

(34:18):
perform for tens of thousands of students. It was amazing.
I always have a great time, and I always invite
my friends from Princeton to come this Rutgers Fest. They
drove their cars from Princeton and brought a few other classmates,
so I was alone in the minivan again. As I
was driving back to the College Avenue student Center, I
noticed that there were hundreds of students that were walking

(34:41):
back along the highway. They didn't feel like waiting for
the buses and decided to take their chances. So here
I am watching the sea of kids walking back along
the highway as the sun began to set, I turned
the minivan around after reaching New Brunswick and sat in
traffic for a while, which I should have anticipated. When
I was finally clear of the traffic, I pulled over

(35:03):
to the side of the road and honked. I waved
my hand outside the window to a group of five
kids I saw in my rear view mirror. They looked
confused at first, and then one of them realized that
I was trying to help them and started running to
the van, and the others followed him. I asked if
they needed a lift, and they were overjoyed that I
was helping them out. They each gave me their hands

(35:24):
to shake, and I drove them back to campus, where
they shook my hand again and thanked me for helping
them out. I did this two more times, and each
group was really happy. I decided that it may be
time to go back home and take the forty five
minute drive back to Hillside as the sun had already set,
but something almost compelled me to go back one more time,

(35:44):
just one more time, so I did, and unfortunately, most
of the groups of kids were way too big to
all fit in the van, so I drove back to
campus with no one but this feeling just one more time,
you have to go back, just kept gnawing at my soul.
So I went back and saw this one kid by himself.
It was pitch blackout, but I could see that he

(36:05):
was angry as he was throwing bottles under a bridge.
On the way back. I drove past him about one
hundred feet and thought to myself, are you sure he
deserves your help? I thought back to all the lessons
in church I had about helping people in need and
not judging people. So I decided to take a leap
of faith and against common sense, to help this kid out.

(36:25):
I was on the side of the highway now and
I reversed parallel to him. He was so mad that
he didn't even notice, and he kept on throwing rocks
and bottles at the concrete in the distance. Furthermore, I
honked the horn and asked him if he needed a ride.
He was startled, and I could see that he wasn't
crazy after all. He said that his friends ditched him
and he was forced to walk back along the highway.

(36:47):
I told him to hop in, and he thanked me
a lot and occasionally turned to look at me, sort
of like I was a very unexpected angel. I dropped
him off near the student center and shook his hand.
He thanked me again, and I told to take it
easy and to pay it forward to someone else in need.
All these events made me feel good and reaffirmed my
faith in humanity and God too. They were all just

(37:09):
simple acts of kindness, a simple car ride. But there
was just something about being that unexpected stranger, that good
samaritan that didn't just think about helping others, but gathered
the courage to turn my thoughts of compassion into reality
that really had profound effects on my life. Those times
I picked up those strangers, we went from being black

(37:30):
or white, Hispanic or Asian to just being people glad
to be in each other's company by the end of
the trip. I've always appreciated moments like that. I hope
you have two story nine. I've never picked up a hitchhiker,
but I have been one numerous times. On one occasion,
I'd been touring with a local punk band from Washington State,

(37:51):
and I was a roadie by the way. After touring
from our first stop in Medford, Oregon and hitting every
small venue we could find that also had us booked
for a possible sins down the west coast to Chula Vista.
The band decided they wanted to take a longer road
trip east into the desert and possibly find Nevada, which
was a horrible idea, seeing as how these guys didn't

(38:11):
know how to read a map. I knew it was
a bad idea at the time and voiced that fact twice.
Twice is as far as I go with advice if
it's the same people I am talking to. I'd never
been to Nevada before, so I just said screw it.
They refused to read a map themselves, but every time
I advised them on a direction to go, they agreed.
A little over eleven miles into Nevada, the crappy van

(38:34):
broke down. It was nearing nine at night, so the
owner of the van, Sean the bassist, decided that we
should camp in it overnight and abandon it in the morning.
I woke up to find that the band had abandoned
me too, cursed my heavy sleeping habits at the time.
Needless to say, I was pissed. A message on my
phone told me that they'd stood in front of a

(38:54):
truck until the driver let them on. The only valuable
item they left is a relatively small but expensive amp.
Knowing that I would have my revenge later, but being
a loyal roadie, I took it with me on the walk.
The trip to a truck stop was thoroughly uneventful, but
consisted of me walking I don't know how many miles
with my thumb to the road. I didn't get a ride.

(39:16):
At the truck stop, however, I found a guy called Guss.
At least that's what his belt buckle said. I never
called him by his name or asked him what it was.
I just asked a group of guys who looked like
truckers if they were headed north at all. Gus spoke
up and confirmed that he was headed to a town
in Washington called Tumwater. If you've been there, you understand
that the name, as stupid as it sounds, is more

(39:38):
exciting than the town itself. I only had a few twenties,
but it would be more than enough to pay for
gas along the way. Up to this point, all the
drivers I'd seen along this stretch of road had treated
me the way you'd expect people to treat hitchhikers. I
said to him, you aren't wary of me or suspect
that I might do something horrible. I tell you, I'll
never forget that look of total dumb. He made a

(40:01):
small smile and patted a gun holster at his hip.
Everything was going pretty well, and Gus even made small talk,
none of that uncomfortable silence you get with strangers sometimes.
It wasn't until we'd almost reached the state line between
Oregon and Washington that something happened. Gus was ranting about
how money's becoming useless and will eventually be a third

(40:23):
world country when he put on the brakes hard and
there was a loud sound. He'd hit a deer in
broad daylight with people everywhere. I had never seen a
deer hit before, even though I'd lived in Washington a
few years, so I was like, oh crap. He stepped
out of the cab, looked at the deer, then turned
to me and said, friggin delicious, come on, help me

(40:44):
with this. Remember this was in the middle of the day.
Not even fifteen minutes went by before a state patrol
car stopped behind Gus's truck. I was like, dude, police.
I pulled out a cigarette as the closest thing to
a diversion, as I thought was possible given the circumstances.
Gus was covered in blood and I looked like a
hoodlum too many days without a shower, which was half right.

(41:07):
The patrol officer, dude, looked at us. Then the deer
glowered at Gus and told him you should be using
a serrated edge. I think promptly is a good word
to describe the way the officer left. I just stood there,
thinking what the heck just happened. Gus had a few
unused palletts for cargo crap in his truck that he
put a sheet of plastic over to hold the deer.

(41:27):
We ate venison the whole way into Tumwater, which was
pretty epic compared to Vienna Sausage my dining experience up
until that four point buck at the motel, because Tumwater
doesn't have hotels. Gus told me that he needed me
to stay until the deer meat was all gone or
take it with me, with the latter being less likely.
Hauling the deer husk into the woods in the middle

(41:48):
of the night was a lot more comforting than assisting
a former butcher and present hunter to perform his task
in broad freaking daylight when I got back to get
my share of the deer meat and said later to
Gus told me that he does that kind of crap
all the time, and that picking up hitchhikers is something
that only armed crazies like him should do regularly. As
a farewell, he handed me the knife he used for

(42:10):
the deer. He looked down at the ground, then back
at my face and said, if I see you hitchhiking
in Nevada again, after what you told me about your friends,
I'll friggin off you. Yeah, he was crazy. I never
ran so fast away from a person, and I am
no pushover. I still have the knife to this day.
I left the amp in Guss's truck. Crap. Thank you

(42:33):
for watching. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to
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