The bus stopped twenty feet from my house. Relieved, I slid out of my seat and started climbing over kids’ legs and backpacks.

“I’m coming over,” this kid, we’ll call him Steven, said. Steven was a shrimpy kid, with a year round farmer’s tan and dirty blond hair. Steven annoyed the crap out of me.

“Um, no, you’re not,” I said, and continued my trek off the bus. I hopped down the steps and started walking to my house, relieved to be done with another stupid school day.

Steven appeared beside me. “We can play Final Fantasy IX and — ”

“You’re not coming over. Get back on the bus,” I said, as the bus drove away.

“I don’t have a ride home.”

I sighed. “Fine, but only for a little while. And then you are leaving.”

“Awesome! I can beat Final Fantasy IX in like, half an hour,” Steven said as we came to my screen door.

“Yeah right,” I said, tossing my backpack down and setting up the PlayStation. I had to see this smack talk get trashed. Vaguely I wondered what my mom would say when she came home and saw that I had a boy over — without her permission and everything. I hoped that she would tell him he had to leave.

The game started, and half an hour later Steven was nowhere near beating it. I rolled my eyes, glancing at the digital clock on the stereo every three seconds. Finally my mom came home. All she said was, “Hi Steven.”

Steven even invited himself to dinner. I offered to set the table so I could tell my mom I had no idea why Steven was ruining my life. “He just invited himself over!” Mom just giggled and shrugged.

Throughout dinner I wanted to stab the kid. He was eating my spaghetti, in my kitchen, and I didn’t even like him! Even better, he had only got about forty-five minutes into the game before calling it quits.

It started to get late.

“Steven, it’s a school night, so you’re going to have to go home now,” my mom told him. (I should remember this every time she gets on my nerves, because she was the hero of this story.)

An hour or so earlier Steven had told me he would walk home, but suddenly he needed a ride. My poor mom had to drive him home, with me in the front seat wishing I could turn around and stab the kid.

I don’t know what ever became of dear old Steven. Last I knew, he was dating this girl I’d been friendly with in high school. I’ll always know him as “that annoying kid who invited himself over to my house.” I think he would have been an all right kid, had he not been so rude and even invited himself to dinner.

Did anything like this ever happen to you? I want to hear your wannabe stalker stories!