Gah, this is one of those situations where I have no idea how to approach it. I have to put it in some sort of context for you, so that you understand it's relation to tragedy. Otherwise, it's just two brief anecdotes about a blue vibrating dildo. It's taken me most of the day to build myself up to talk about it.

So here's the context: when I was 21 and fresh out of college, I moved to a town in another state for a teaching job. I was there for a year. For most of that time, I was stalked by a mentally disturbed man I had never met. It culminated one night in the spring when he broke into my apartment and attacked me. Before that though, he did things like send me anonymous letters, make anonymous phone calls, break into my home while I wasn't there and go through all of my possessions, and generally lurk around my apartment at all hours of the night. If that sounds terrifying, that's because it is. He did give me one 'gift' - a blue vibrating dildo. I'm going to share two darkly humorous incidents involving the dildo. And really, I can't emphasize the 'darkly humorous' part enough.

I received the dildo one day in November. He left it in a brown paper bag on my doorstep right on top of an edition of the Yellow Pages. To this day, I don't know if the mailman left the Yellow Pages on my doorstep and then my stalker stopped by with the dildo, or if both the Yellow Pages and the dildo came from the stalker. 

In any event, I think the last thing I was expecting to see when I opened the bag was a blue dildo. I had never even seen a dildo before. I remember looking around, mainly to make sure no one else had seen, and then rushing into the apartment. I didn't quite know what to do. You can't really call the police because someone left a dildo and the Yellow Pages on your doorstep. So I called my mother, and started the conversation by saying, "Hi Mom - guess what the mailman brought me today!"

By September of the following year, I had moved back home and the story was just starting to come out. I received another letter from the stalker at my home and, to be honest, I kind of freaked out. I had left my job, the new life I was just beginning to start in an attempt to get away from this guy. When you've been attacked in your home and you move away only to find that the person who attacked you is still looking for you and knows where you are - that sucks. Like, there aren't even words. It's one of the worst feelings ever. I decided that I had to go to the police, even though in his latest letter, the stalker had threatened me if I were to talk to the police.

So I was talking to my mother about going to the police and we were gathering evidence, which I had been keeping in a large plastic baggie since the dildo incident in November. I pulled out the dildo, when at that moment, my brother walked into the room. And there I was, brandishing a blue, vibrating dildo. After a moment of rather awkward silence, my brother said, "What's that?" And in my high-strung, overly emotional state, I shook the dildo at him and said, "Evidence. It's evidence!" And my brother stood there for a moment, sort of shifty-eyed, and then walked right back out of the room.