Hitchhiking can be a risky business. As the hitchhiker, you never know whose car you’re getting into. As the driver, you never know who will get into your car. When this man saw a friendly-looking hitchhiker on the side of the road in Zimbabwe, he didn’t think twice before picking him up. What happened next is something out of a movie.
This story is based off a post from the Tumblr blog today-if*ckedup. To see more hilarious posts, check out the link at the end of the article.
This happened a few years ago when I was living in Zimbabwe. I was having a pretty bad day, and was going to see my auntie who lived about 400km away from me. If you’re African you’ll understand that this was no small journey.
So I got in my car and set off. About three hours into the journey I came across a dude by the side of the road who was going in the same direction. So, out of the goodness of my heart, I told him to jump in. We got to talking and he happened to be going to the exact same village as me and he knew my auntie!
Half an hour passes and we’re making polite chit-chat and reminiscing about old times in Zimbabwe, when all of a sudden he tells me to pull over, so I do. He runs out of the car and starts making wretching noises, so I assume he’s throwing up.
It’s dark at this point so I can’t really see much, so I go check on him (my first mistake). I get out and go to his side expecting him to be there but he’s not. Then I hear someone behind me and before I know it I’m unconscious! So I wake up a couple of hours later (I know this because the sun was coming up at this point), without my car, clothes, or wallet. So I’m thinking “great”. I look around and see I’m on some farmland wearing the guy’s clothes. So I start walking in no particular direction and eventually come across a settlement.
I explain to them my situation and they tell me that the nearest main road is at least a good half a day’s walk from where I am and they don’t get many cars coming through this part but they heard one last night (which might be our thief).
So I start walking in the direction they point me in and after what felt like forever I come across a road, so I pitch up and start waiting.
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Now I know most of you are thinking why not call someone. I had no phone with me and I don’t have the best memory so I didn’t know any numbers that would come in handy. After a couple of hours, a car stops and lets me hitch. I let him know my situation and he says we’re in the complete opposite direction of my intended destination but he’s willing to drop me close enough to walk the rest of the way to which I thought, “great!”
He drops me off and I say my goodbyes to my driver. I take down his number so I can repay him later on. At this point I’m starting to recognize my surroundings. I walk for a few miles and as I’m getting closer to my auntie’s I can hear lots of singing and see what appears to be a large crowd which I thought was strange.
I’m about 100 feet from the house and I also see my son, which again I thought was strange because he was meant to be in school at this time.
Instead of running to me and hugging me as he normally does, he runs away screaming to my complete bewilderment. I get to the gate and all of a sudden the large crowd alerted by my son’s scream has stopped singing and stands silent. My wife appears and starts to run toward me hugging and kissing me like I’ve been gone for months. My auntie appears and immediately faints when she sees me.
I still have no clue what’s going on at this point and I’m exhausted, so we rush to get my auntie inside and I see my picture on top of a large box that resembles my coffin sitting in the living room.
It turns out that the guy who robbed me and made off with my car, my wallet, and all of my clothes was in a car crash so bad that they couldn’t identify the body. Because the only thing they could use to identify him was my wallet, they assumed it was me who had died in the crash. Since there was no body, they could arrange the funeral pretty quickly and that is what I had stumbled upon.
My son still has nightmares to this day and my wife has told me to never pick up a hitchhiker every again.