We were probably 5 or 6 at the oldest, and way too young to be staying home alone. As triplets, it was very rare for us to be split up, but my brother was out with my parents and my sister and I were home by ourselves. And yet we were, and we were not afraid.
A knock on the door sent us to the front of the house, as we were both curious to see who would be at our house while our parents weren't home. As I walked to the door,my mother's voice echoed through my ears:"Don't open the door if you don't know who it is." Ignoring her advice, I opened the door, my sister standing behind me timidly. There was in fact a stranger, and I ignored the only piece of advice/command my mother had given me that day. "Hello," he said, looking at us as a small child eyes candy, "if you come with me, I will give the two of you as many Oreos as you want." Although we both had ignored our mother's advice, we had sense enough to know that this was the bad kind of stranger. We promptly scream no, and for him to go away. My sister shut the door and ran, but realizing we forgot to lock it, we hid until our parents came home.

Many years later, when I was 15, I took a weekend trip with my best friends about three hours away from where I lived. We had one mother with us, but not mine. I was thankful for not having her "boss me around" in front of my friends all weekend. On Saturday night, we went to an outdoor mall, where we split up into twos and went shopping together. As the sun was setting, my mother's voice rang in my ears once more: "if a strange man asks you if you have (fill in the blank item that requires you to dig through your purse), do not look away from him and do not look for the item. Tell him you don't have it." As I was walking with my best friend, Erin, three men approached us and asked us if we had a pen. Erin completely ignored the men and kept walking. I, ignoring my mother's advice once again, began rummaging in my purse for one. As soon as I did so, I realized my mistake. Looking towards Erin, I realized that she had left me, thinking I was right behind her, with 3 strange men at night. I never looked away from the three, smiling nervously as I still mechanically searched for that wretched pen. I noticed something that made me very ill at ease: the three were getting closer. So I took a step back, yet they still closed the distance between us. The seconds felt like a deadline that was approaching at a dangerous speed. Shortly after I though that to myself, the middle guy reached for me at lighting speed, missing my flowing shirt by millimeters. At that action, I turned and ran as fast as I could, too afraid to look back.I caught up with Erin, realizing that I ha once again ignored my mother's advice.