I've been a little distracted

I posted these over at Sick Fantasy and I refuse to let my breathless participation in a Facebook group interfere with my blog productivity.


First topic: ANIMALS

When I was about six years old our cat Rosie had kittens. Mom let us keep one and my brother and I selected the black and white one with markings on it's nose in the shape of a bow. We named him Bowtie. He was such a cute sweet kitten, very curious, always getting in to trouble. Maybe too curious.

Bowtie always would try to sneak his way into the refrigerator when we'd open it. I guess he was attracted to the smell of food but we were forever shooing him away. One day I thought it would be wise to slam the door in his face to try and make him scared of the refrigerator (six year-old logic here.) As I slammed the door he darted forward and holy shit! I slammed the kitten's head in the refrigerator door. The details of the aftermath escape me right now (repressed childhood guilt trauma perhaps) but there was a lot of screaming and crying and one seriously fucked up kitten. After visit to the vet and some massive head trauma the kitten somehow survived, but it was always a slightly off after that. My mother would look at the Bowtie and shake her head and saying, "That cat has always been a little slow since Beverly slammed it's poor head in the refrigerator door."

Second topic: DRUGS

First off, I am writing this merely as participation, thus far I doubt anyone will top Rich's contribution.

I have never been a big drug user, always just a glorious drunk. But as the most likely only sober member of Sick Fantasy I've got to at least make an attempt to participate in this one.

When I was 18 and living as a townie in the ultimate Missouri college town I befriended a motley assortment of freaks and losers from the bar scene (for some reason no one ever carded me, maybe because the company I kept consisted of a former US Bombs roadie striken with TB, a goth ballerina, several bikers in their late-20s, and a Native American tattoo artist named Spider. One summer evening instead of our usual bartime, I went to some local dirtbag's house with Spider to drink some beers and smoke some weed.

Weed's never really been my speed so I've never been much of a smoker. Still, for the sake of party I took a hit or two off the joint and drank two beers. Suddenly, right after Spider, my only friend present ducked out to go home and feed his cat, I started feeling really off. Something really gnarly was coming on and I didn't know what was what so I bailed and decided to walk home alone. Problem was, I had lived in Columbia for all of three weeks and had no idea where the fuck I was.

I picked a direction and started walking. The town was pretty small and everyone lived within a couple of miles from each other so I figured I'd figure it out and walk until a street name sounded familiar. I made it to the corner when a feeling of unquestionable terror gripped me. I stood motionless staring at the street. Watching, listening, waiting. A car passed and slowed down. A head popped out and asked, "Are you all right?" I nodded my head, the realization that this car was the harbinger of my doom creept into brain. "Do you need a lift?" I shook my head no and started walking shaking my head and rubbing my arms. These fuckers were gonna abduct me, they were going to take me into their car and fucking rape me and kill me, I just knew it. They'd find my body weeks later in a ditch in the wooded road leading out of town. I'd have my belly and my throat slit open, the electrical tape they'd use to bind my wrists still present. Seriously, I needed to get the fuck out of there...now!

Two miles and what seemed like hours later I arrived at my front door a shaking mess. I had wandered the streets trying to find my way home utterly convinced that every car that passed contained rapists who were on their way to kill me. I'd circled my block three times trying to throw off my pursuers before finally deciding it was safe enough to approach my front door. I remember trying to get into my apartment. The key wouldn't work. They'd already been there, they'd changed the locks, they were waiting for me. Oh wait...shit, wrong door.

I found the right unit and collapsed as soon as I got in the door. My legs completely stopped cooperating and I pulled myself up the stairs of my shitty split-level apartment. I regained my bearings slightly and decided that I should eat something to make myself feel better. In my room I found a tin of chocolate cookies my mom had sent me and I dove in to them praying that this sweet sustenance would make me feel better. Determined to normalize I went into the bathroom to wash up. I remember staring in the mirror thinking of Bloody Mary and the Candy Man and I was about to die a horrible death and join their ranks. I am not sure what went down in there but I woke up on the floor with the faucet still running, wedged in between the toilet and the sink. Bewildered I stood up and fell backwards into the shower door, ripping the towel rack off the wall in the process.

The second time I regained consciousness on my bathroom floor I decided that standing up was the culprit so I crawled on my hands and knees back into my bedroom where I awoke the next morning covered in chocolate colored vomit from the cookies.

I asked my roommate if he remembered hearing me come home and he said I'd woken him up but I'd made so much noise he figured I had brought some dude home and we'd been fucking in the bathroom. A few days later I ran into a casual bar-time acquaintance and they asked me if I had gotten home all right the other night. Apparently they'd offered me a ride and I had looked really upset and declined and muttered something about self-preservation.

To this day I am unsure as to what was in that weed. Some more experienced drug users offer up PCP as a likely substance while others suggest heroin. Whatever it was laced with, I didn't smoke weed again for two years.