I have a firm belief in intuitions and gut feelings. I’ve had so many occurrences in my life that I now have a hard time determining whether I’m having a gut feeling or if I’m playing out possible scenarios to be aware of what COULD happen. It’s a stressful way of thinking, I’ll tell you that much. The story I’m about to tell you isn’t one of my SCARIEST moments, but it’s one of my most memorable moments.
My intuition kept me safe. For starters, I worked at a salon in a pretty busy suburban town outside of Chicago. My shift ended at 9 and I couldn’t wait to go home. I hopped in my car and headed down the same drive I took every single day for the last 4 years. I was in a hurry to get home because I had to be back at work at 8:00am the next morning so I wanted to go home and relax before having to go straight to bed.
I was coming up to a light that I always would get stuck at. And like clock work, it turns yellow and then red. I get annoyed and decide I’m going to turn left. I’ll get the green turn signal first before the main light turns green and maybe this route home will surprise me by being quicker than my usual route.
So I carry on this different route home. Once I reach my town, I start heading to my go-to gas station to buy cigarettes. As I approached the station, I noticed it looked very empty. It was close to 10pm but typically this gas station always had at least two cars in attendance. It’s strange to me. But I pull in and park. As I parked I checked the time and realized that driving that different route actually took me about 5 minutes longer than my usual route.
I get out of the car and walk up to the door and pull it, but the door is locked. I look up and an employee opens it for me. I think nothing of it and walk in and I hear him lock it behind me. I feel very confused at this point. I see one employee behind the counter on the phone and she looks panicked. Then guy who unlocked the door for me ran behind the counter and grabbed me my cigarettes. He knew which kind because I was a regular.
As I’m paying I hear the woman on the phone say “we need the police we were just robbed at gunpoint!”. I looked at the guy who unlocked the door for me and I said “wait, is that why the door was locked?” And he replied “yes and that’s why I let you in and locked the door behind you, idk where that guy is and you’re safer in here”. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I was scared to be in the gas station but I was also scared to leave it. I waited to leave until the police arrived. But when I got to my car. I got inside, and sat there, still in disbelief.
All I could think about was how my mind RANDOMLY told me to take a different way home tonight. That route took me 5 extra minutes. I arrived at the gas station 5 minutes later than I would have if I took my normal route. If I had taken my normal route, would I have been inside the gas station during the robbery? I felt so grateful that I was able to miss that incident completely and that nobody working was hurt! It was a mind blowing feeling.