Have you ever been kidnapped?

No but twice I have seen people escape from a car trunk.

Once in college, was obviously a fraternity thing.

The other was in the parking lot of a suburban Publix. That person took off into the store. I was leaving so I never found out what happened. I made sure to watch the news that night but saw no mention.
 
No. And seeing as I am a person who doesn't like surprises, I hope it never happens.

@wildride, Happy 60th Birthday!! 🥳 Hope your kidnapping was a blast, and you loved every second of it. Sounds like you have some fun friends.
 


thankfully no but i went to high school with a girl who was very shocked/upset to learn she had been as an infant (stranger abduction). her family had never told her and she only learned about it by seeing a newspaper headline in a window display at our local historical society.
 
Actually, yes. My mother was in town and my dad let her take us for a visit. She didn’t bring us back. When he showed up at my grandmother’s house with a cop she said, “Not today” and closed the door in his face. Back in those days a non custodial parent, especially a mother taking the kids wasn’t seen as a big deal and the cop was pretty much powerless. They cut off all our hair and permed it. I remember being in a hotel room with my mom and her boyfriend and I remember being in the airport restaurant with my grandfather and mother discussing “the plan.” I don’t remember actually being returned to my dad but he headed them off at the gate with his lawyer. For years he never let anyone touch our hair and he never forgave my maternal grandmother.

And I have been “fun kidnapped” too. Totally spontaneous and unplanned. My best friend left a note on the coffee table for DH, “I have your wife” and I returned 48hrs later with no sleep and the mother of all hangovers just in time to get to work that morning. Ah, the good old days.

Hope your kidnapping was fun and you enjoyed your birthday! 🎂
 


My father planned to but was unsuccessful. He and my mother had been separated for 2 years when he turned up on our doorstep out of the blue when my sisters and I were 8, 6 (me) and 2. Mum was willing to allow him to see us at our house, but was very suspicious of him and didn’t want us to go out with him alone and wouldn’t let him see our school uniforms; she also got advice from the social worker at my sister’s kindergarten who said she also had alarm bells ringing. Funnily I was also very wary of him and even spent one of his visits hiding out with my grandfather (who was secretly there to serve the divorce papers!).

He tried to convince my mum to put the three of us in a taxi and have it drop us off at McDonalds where he would meet us for dinner. She obviously refused to put 3 young girls in a taxi alone and suggested that he could take a taxi and go through the drive through then bring the food to our house. He refused and instead suggested she could come and sit at another table. She again said no; as the social worker pointed out, it would just take the time needed for her to clean up from a drink being “spilled” in her lap for us to be gone. There didn’t end up being a McDonalds dinner.

We later found out that he and his girlfriend sailed from Melbourne back to Queensland; a distance of well over 1,000 miles. Many years later the now ex-girlfriend (who was trying to track him down) confirmed that they did that as they planned to smuggle us out.
 
My brother's ex-girlfriend was "fun kidnapped" and it had dire consequences. She was in college and very stressed about lots of things. Her friends decided to "kidnap" her on birthday. She lived at home and her parents went along with it, thinking it would be a fun distraction. Her friends showed up early, blindfolded her and took her out of her bed. She started resisting and screaming, but everyone thought she was just playing along. They put her in a car and took her to a restaurant in her pajamas. By the time they took the blindfold off, she was in a pretty bad state. She thought the whole thing was real and her friend couldn't calm her down. They had to call her parents to come and get her. They took her to the hospital where she had to be sedated.

She was diagnosed after that with bi-polar and extreme anxiety. Granted, the kidnapping didn't cause these conditions. But it definitely aggravated them and brought them to the forefront. She eventually would have been diagnosed, but her conditions might have been caught and treated before that huge psychological break. She ended up on several medications and had to drop out of college. My brother met her 7 years later when they worked at the same restaurant. She did eventually go back to college and get her degree, but her life definitely took a turn after the fake kidnapping.
 
Well kind of.

Several years ago I the guy I was "seeing" and I went to get food at Jack in the Box. Instead of heading back to where we were hanging out he started driving the opposite direction. I didn't question it. I just figured he had another place he wanted to hang out at. About 10 minutes in to the drive he says to me "I'm not taking you back." We ended up "car camping" that night in a little spot by the river.
 
I started to write out a long story and changed my mind. Suffice it to say, I should have never accepted a ride home from a friend of a friend when I was 19. I ended up safe and unharmed but it still haunts me sometimes. There are some real crazies in this world. So, yes, I've been kidnapped.
 
I tried to kidnap my boyfriend (now husband) in high school to take him to breakfast. His window was right next to the front door. I went to his window and was tapping on it to try to wake him up. The window screen came off in my hands just as his dad opened up the front door. It was a very awkward moment. 😒
 
In Germany it’s tradition at weddings to kidnap the bride. Basically they take the bride some bar in the Area. The Ransom the husband has to pay is a around of drinks for everyone in the bar. It can get rather expensive. That didn’t happen at my wedding just because we had our wedding in the middle of nowhere so unless they wantEd to take me into the woods, there were no options.

But on a serious note I actually had a discussion with my kids about kidnapping a while back. I had read some article about a young woman jogget who was kidnapped and later killed and they had found out that she was lured into the car as the driver was holding a gun. And what stuck out in the article for me was that the authorities and the mother had commented if only she had run. And that the authorities had said that if that ever happens to you - always run - even if there’s a gun because once you get in that car it’s basically over . So I explainEd to my kids if you ever have someone pull over and hold a gun and threaten to shoot unless you get in you’re better off running anyways. As there’s a chance they won’t shoot anyways to avoid drawing attention.
 
In the Netherlands we have something called 'dropping'. It started as military exercises, in the middle of the night you are blindfolded and dropped off at an unknown location (in the middle of a field or forest, usually somewhere in nature) and you have to find your way back. It is now usually a part of summer camps, scouts etc.

The NY Times found out, and wrote an article. For US, this is usually: Crazy things Dutch people do ;-)
 
In Germany it’s tradition at weddings to kidnap the bride. Basically they take the bride some bar in the Area. The Ransom the husband has to pay is a around of drinks for everyone in the bar. It can get rather expensive. That didn’t happen at my wedding just because we had our wedding in the middle of nowhere so unless they wantEd to take me into the woods, there were no options.

But on a serious note I actually had a discussion with my kids about kidnapping a while back. I had read some article about a young woman jogget who was kidnapped and later killed and they had found out that she was lured into the car as the driver was holding a gun. And what stuck out in the article for me was that the authorities and the mother had commented if only she had run. And that the authorities had said that if that ever happens to you - always run - even if there’s a gun because once you get in that car it’s basically over . So I explainEd to my kids if you ever have someone pull over and hold a gun and threaten to shoot unless you get in you’re better off running anyways. As there’s a chance they won’t shoot anyways to avoid drawing attention.
I have pounded this into my kids heads. Fight, never go to a second location. I have also taught them to walk against traffic.
 

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