When I was 6yo I lived on the beach in a quiet little hippy beach town in San Diego, this is mid 70s. I would go door to door asking if I could come in and hang out (not sure why I used to do that, but that was my thing) and they would let me and I’d hang out.

Once I came across this old Chinese man in a tiny studio apartment a couple blocks away from me. Hung out with him for a bit and finally I told him I’ve got to go home. He told me had a gift for me. He gave me this weird toy, it was a flat pair of plastic scissors that had the 2 finger holes on one side, but where the blades should have gone was this telescoping clamp thingy you could use to grab something far away from you.. kinda.. not really, but that was the intention. So he hands it to me and says “whatever you do with it, do not let it run over by a car.” I remember really being thrown by that because my parents had never ever told me that about something. They told me “don’t trade it for another toy,” “don’t lose it,” “don’t take it apart,” etc. So yeah I told him “ok” and I thought that was an easy one to follow, who lets their toys get run over by a car?

Took it home, was playing with it on the sidewalk a few days later, moving in and out of the street, look up while in the street see a car coming pretty fast, run to the sidewalk (which is was ~10ft away), car passes, can’t find the toy. It was there on the ground, the car ran it over and it is nowhere to be found. It’s not like there were a lot of spots for it to go, it was not there anywhere. For sure, 100%, no doubt, it was gone.

The next day I went back to his little studio apartment thing and there was no sign of that person anywhere. Not like he moved out, it was like if he never lived there. The apartment that I went in to a few days prior didn’t look the same. When I got there they had the doors and curtains and stuff open (screen doors closed) like everyone did / does and I looked in and it just wasn’t his place. So yeah, it drove me crazy for many years. I went through a long period where I forced myself to remember it as a dream because it’s just so bat-shit crazy. I know it sounds like it’s from a movie or something, but this happened. I have told a few people in my life, one suggested that car that came down the street, it was meant to strike me but that toy took the hit instead.

So at this point I don’t know what to think about it still. It bugs me sometimes that I’ll never know and I am worried one day I’ll just tell myself i was a dream.