You Don't Always Know What You're Buying

The weirdest fucking thing happened today.

Lilly and I were at my house, in the middle of baking a giant pizza-sized cookie. I heard someone knock at the door, which is weird - nobody ever comes to my door. There's no reason to. The nearest gas station is an hour's walk away. Anyway, there was Will on my porch. He looked like he'd been through hell. He was bleeding in a couple places and completely covered in mud. Looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He asked to use both the shower and the phone, and I went ahead and let him in. After he was done with his business, he told us how he'd ended up there.
Apparently, he'd been on the same shit I'd been on when I had the whole northern lights/car incident. I told him about that, but he insisted nothing like that had ever happened to him or anyone he knew and just shrugged it off. So, not listening to me, Will went ahead and tripped alone watching Animal Planet. He was fine for the first hour or so, he said, and then it just hit him like a train. Right in the middle of a two hour tiger documentary, he started freaking out. He thought the tigers were real, in his house, and hungry. My favorite part of the entire story was Will's description of how he hid in his bathtub for twenty minutes. Something startled him (I figured it must have been some loud part of the show or something. I imagined a nice, loud tiger fight.). Scared to all hell, he told us he just ran straight out his front door, across the yard, across the road, and into the woods across from his house. He says he doesn't remember exactly how he got where he did, except that he could have sworn that a tiger was still after him and that the woods just did not end. Somehow (and I can picture how), he came to one of the hills along Route 180 and just ate shit. He had already run through some swampy bits (probably by the Millers'), but slipping and sliding down that steep hill just fucked him up completely. That's how he got bloody. As he got down to the road, these redneck kids almost creamed him in their truck. He said he didn't see what group it was, it all happened so fast. He fell right into the road, the truck was there, it came within about a foot of hitting him, and drove off. After that, he told us, he was scared back into his head and realized he was only about a ten minute walk from my house and didn't think he could make it back home without being harassed in his state. I had to agree. He really did look like he'd been chased down by something.
The funny thing is that after he told us all this, I asked him how much he regretted his solo trip. He told me that he didn't. Paraphrasing his words: "I have a crazy, kickass story of my own now. I mean, yeah, I could have died, but I didn't. That's what makes it good. One day, we'll all be sitting here like this, and I'll say, 'Hey, remember that time I showed up at your house thinking a tiger was chasing me?' and we'll all laugh." I realized that I agree with the concept. I wouldn't have any 'what the fuck' stories to be proud of without all the crap I get into. I'm proud I've survived those things, and I'm happy I can make other people laugh by telling them how this one time, I was just minding my own business, and something completely crazy happened...

The silver lining of all this (besides the incredible story Will, Lilly, and I have now) came about when Will used the phone. He called his guy because he wanted to know what the hell had happened. Apparently, the guy has been getting calls since he sold the last of that shit. Will didn't share many details, but he told us that his batch of illicit glory had been tampered with somehow and cut with something weird. His guy hasn't figured out what it is, yet. But as a show of goodwill, he's refunding everyone who bought from him and flipped out. Will is saying that we three should get together soon, set ourselves up in a damn positive environment, and just use up the rest of the shit and hope for the best.
I'm inclined to agree.