I sold something on craigslist, and didn’t die!

I have accomplished a task today that I have been apprehensive about for some time.
I sold something on craigslist.
It may seem like a fairly insignificant task to you, but to me it was a pretty fantastic feat. You see, my entire childhood was filled with my mother telling me that every stranger you meet is a potential rapist and murderer. I remember hearing a story about 2 girls being at a gas station. One runs inside while the other is left inside the car while it runs. Mr.Murder comes along, jumps in the car and drives her to a secluded area, haves his way with her and throws her in a ditch. Now depending on my mothers mood, the story ended one of two ways. In one case the girl was left butt-naked by the side of the road and wandered along until she was rescued. In the other, “less happy” ending, Mr.Murderer  drops a big rock on her head. And apparently, my dear daddy had the pleasure/burden of moving said rock in an evidence rom. .
Now the fact that I heard that story some 200 times throughout my youth is not what is entirely disturbing to me. It is the fact that it changed, often, back and forth between the victim living and dying. I’ve pretty much drawn the conclusion that most of this story is an urban legend based upon other stories my mother heard or saw on TV. My dad tells me that he did move a rock that had killed someone, but that is really all he says about it. What this story, and several others, was instill in me a great fear strangers, to the point that I and uneasy to go to even the grocery store alone.
I remember once that I bought a printer at Wal-Mart one night, because I needed to complete a project for school that was due the next day (Yay for procrastination!). I actually asked them to have someone escort me to the car because I was convinced that someone would want to mug me for my $150 printer and may or may not want to rape/murder me as well.
That’s pretty sad right? It has caused me to have a great increase in social anxiety, especially with the birth of my son. I’m now fearful that every stranger wants to kidnap him. Larger crowds, especially in unknown areas, are almost disturbing to me. But better safe than sorry, because I would surely die if anything happened to my little boy.

At any rate, back to the point, right?

So now my dad is $200 richer and I got some uber brownie points. Although, he did say I could keep the cash, I have declined it. But secretly, I’m hoping he’ll make me keep it. He had mentioned that he would use whatever he got to get Ty a TV, and that would really be nice. Maybe then he would actually sleep in his room!
Yay for the internet. Yay for craigslist. Yay for my daddy!