Lol I unfortunately have tons of stories to share, but I'll drop one from my childhood.
I was around 7 and my family and I lived in Florida. My dad was in the Navy and worked on the local base where we lived. One day he, my older brother and I made plans to go play mini golf however, before we went, my dad needed to stop by his office really quick to grab some paperwork that was due on Monday. When we pulled up to the office, he told us we could hang out in the front, but not the back because there was a waterway there and it was known to have alligators in it. Yikes and cool was our reaction.
We agreed to stay out front and after he went inside the office, my brother asked if I wanted to go check out the water, and of course I said "yup let's go"; (we were kids, so if you tell us not to do something we'd most likely do it anyway). We walked up to the waterway cautiously and looked for gators. All we saw were just a bunch of algae and logs floating on the surface of the water. Thinking the coast was clear, we started skipping rocks on the surface, and throwing large stones in the water. Well I got a little too close to the edge and ended up slipping and sliding down the river bank. The edge was like 9 feet off the ground with a muddy vertical face, so I couldn't just climb back up.
So my brother and I are laughing our asses off at me being stuck on the riverbank. Well, we were laughing until I saw his face turn from joy to fear. I was looking up at him at the time and when I turned around, I saw what was one of, what we thought was a log, moving towards my direction at a slow pace. We kind of stood in silence until we saw eyes peer up from the water... lol that's when I started freaking out.
I yelled and immediately tried to climb that slippery river bank, but kept slipping down. My brother went and got some branches for me grab ahold of but they were too short. So at this point the gator was about 8 car lengths away and moving steadily my way. I told my brother to just get dad and he replied, which is now something we laugh at "no bro, I'll never leave you", lol. I told him to shut up and go, and then I heard him run off yelling for my dad.
I think he was gone for maybe two minutes, but it felt like forever because all I could do was just watch that gator get closer and closer to me. Suddenly I heard my dad say "what the fuck son" and when I looked up and saw him, I started crying. He told me to calm down and that he'd get me out. So what he did was grab my brother by his belt and lowered him down the bank. I had to run and jump into his arms so he could grab me and they could both lift me out.
Since I was covered in mud, I kept slipping out of his arms. So my brother said "grab my shirt idiot" (gotta love siblings). I jump, grabbed his shirt by the neck and held on for dear life. Lol I was holding so tightly, I started choking him out. In between breaths he told my dad to pull, and that's when dad yanked the hell out us and we landed on the riverbank.
"Holy shit" was all that escape my dad's mouth, because when I turned and looked back at the river, the gator was in the spot where I just was. I just stared at it, because if I was there any longer, I'd be gator chow.
So yeah, we both got our butts chewed out, were grounded for 3 months, and hated gators ever since.