The Old Man and the Vegetables

I recently got a request to blog some of my more popular stories from the past, and this was the first one that came to mind. I might be digging my own grave here because I think everyone knows my stories already, but after this I’ll know they know them. Knowing that still won’t keep me from telling them though! Enjoy.

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The stories of the Old Man and the Vegetables dates back to my high school years. I was at a planning retreat with the leaders of my youth group from church. We were at one our favorite retreat sites near Six Flags in New Jersey. It was a popular site among our group because it was run by Korean folks and they made home-cooked Korean food for our meals. That’s really the only reason why we like going there...

So they have a gym/chapel area in the central part of the facilities and in there was a random refrigerator in the back. The fridge side was completely empty and cleared of all its racks while the freezer side was empty save some packs of frozen vegetables. We figured the fridge side was large enough to fit a person, so we had the great idea to hide someone inside and tell others from our group to check out the fridge because “it’s really cool inside.” We thoroughly freaking a couple people out and caused one of our friends to immediately squat on the floor to start crying.

This was all good and fun until I managed to freak myself out by asking the questions, “Wouldn’t it be scary if we opened it and there was an old man inside? And then he would get out, open the freezer, take some vegetables, get back into the fridge and when we open it again....he would be gone?!?!?” If you don’t know me that well I scare incredibly easily. I mean, I literally just freaked the crap out of myself with a simple statement about an old man in the fridge. This is when everyone’s real fun started and my nightmare retreat begun.

Later that night we were getting ready for bed when I was in a stall taking a leak when the lights suddenly went out. The door opened for a moment and I can hear light footsteps going all about the bathroom as I start anticipating the cheap scares to happen around me. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t try anything while I was in the stall for fear of possibly seeing me indecent or getting urinated on, so I started to plan my escape. Luckily, my stall was close to the bathroom exit, so I quietly unlocked the stall door, quickly swung it back and ran as fast as I could out of the bathroom while yelling in order to drown out the frightening screams of everyone else hiding in the bathroom. Yes, I didn’t wash my hands, but I think it was worth not getting the bejesus scared out of me.

Later, we went out to a diner for a midnight snack and during the ride we did nothing but tell ghost stories. That wasn’t near as bad as what happened when we were all getting ready for bed though. I had taken a shower and was walking back into the big room all the guys were sleeping in. I noticed the lights were out and everyone was in their beds sleeping. When I had entered the bathroom only minutes before everyone was still up and about talking and not really ready to jump into bed yet. Unfortunately, I didn’t think anything of it. I was sleeping on the top bunk of a (believe it or not) queen sized bunk bed. When I felt something like a large rock in my sleeping bag as I climbed into my bed. I extracted it from the jumble of sheets and pillows to find it wasn’t a stone...but a frozen pack of vegetables! At that moment I realized I was being setup, but it was too late to brace myself for terror. Someone was hiding in my sleeping bag waiting for me and at that moment they jumped out screaming and I screamed back in fear while holding up the frozen vegetables in a poor attempt to protect myself. Of course it wasn’t the old man in my sleeping bag, but one of the other group members. The lights flicked on and everyone had a good laugh including myself, but inside my heart was still racing with fear.

There were no more attempt to give me a heart-attack or an accident in my pants with cheap scares for the rest of that retreat, but I sleep lightly that night in anticipation that one of the old man’s minions would come and stalk me in the night. Who knew an imaginary old man with vegetables can cause so much fear in an individual and bring so much entertainment to others.