#9: Wrong Place, Wrong Time

This storyteller shared their dad’s tragic story that has caused him to feel survivor’s guilt for decades. Back in the 1960s, their dad worked the night shift at a liquor store. His girlfriend (and the storyteller’s future mom) asked him to go to an event with her one Friday night, so he switched shifts with one of his coworkers. He thought nothing of it until he heard the bad news.

The night he was supposed to be working, someone came in and robbed the store. The guy who had switched shifts with him was shot five times and died. If he had declined his girlfriend’s invitation and had gone to work instead, he would have been the one shot and killed. Our storyteller shared that their dad has always felt guilty because of this, but there was no way he could have known something like that was going to happen.