Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Fun With GHB

I am not sure if I have told this story to anyone on the Otaku before, but I thought that I could write about it in a humorous manner even though the situation could have been tragic. When I worked at Structure I had a really cool store manager named Isaac. Isaac was one of those people that could make you laugh no matter how bad of a day you were having, so naturally everybody enjoyed hanging out with him. One night Isaac invited me and our co-worker, Tony, to go have a couple drinks at a local bar after work. Both of us agreed and decided to meet up at the bar at 9:30pm. Tony and I arrived at the bar at roughly the same time and went in to look for our splendiferous supervisor. Isaac is a big, bald, black man that stands 6’4 and is built like a running back, which makes his exceptionally easy to spot in a crowd. Our search proved fruitless, so Tony and I uncomfortably ambled up to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. I ordered my usual, a Jameson on the rocks, and Tony ordered something with rum or tequila in it (Tony always orders drinks that incorporate rum or tequila; he says that Puerto Ricans have to drink one or the other or face eternal damnation). We sat at the bar discussing sports, women, or some other masculine topic hoping that we didn’t seem too out of place. I am sure you are wondering why Tony and I would feel uncomfortable in a bar, having a drink, and making idle conversation while waiting for our friend. You see, Tony and I are both hetero-sexual males, Isaac is not, and neither was the bar that we were currently imbibing alcohol in. By the time I finished my first drink I felt a bit more acclimated to the bar; besides the guy dancing topless in front of a mirrored wall, it was a bar like any other. Isaac had still not arrived, but a small group of pretty college girls flocked into the bar, hoping for cheap drink specials and anonymity from usual crowd of fraternity boys that haunt university bars. Realizing that they most likely desired to have an evening that excluded a man trying to con them into a date, I respected their privacy and immediately sauntered over to their table and struck up a conversation. Twenty minutes later Tony and I had finished our second drink and allowed ourselves to be led to the dance floor. After an hour of showcasing the various dance techniques that I learned by watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas one too many times, Tony, I and our new female friends decided to inhabit a booth right next to a long blonde haired man making out with a gentleman that resembled a muscular Ricky Martin. Realizing that we were out of drinks, Tony went to the bar to get us our third round, I would have gone but I was busy trying to figure out what kind of lip gloss one of my new blonde friends wore. Several minutes later Tony arrived with my Jameson on the rocks and I inquired how much I owed him for the drink. Grinning, Tony said not to worry about it; some guy at the bar had purchased the drinks for us. Who was I too argue, I was low on cash, my throat was parched from dancing, and I desperately wanted to get the pina colada taste off of my lips. Over the next twenty minutes I drank my drink and flirted some more with Samantha of the pina colada lip gloss. I grew increasingly tired and soon decided to head home. I didn’t want to drink anymore for fear that I would be legally intoxicated (to be intoxicated would have taken a substantial amount more alcohol) and unable to legally drive home. I traded numbers with Samantha, bid Tony farewell and sauntered off to my red Saturn coupe. The last thing I remember is searching for my Pogues CD to listen to on the way home. I awoke in a stupor on the floor of my small living room. The smell of vomit permeated the air. I cleaned up the mess that I made in my bathroom, puzzling over why I slept until three in the afternoon and wondering how the hell I arrived home. I ran to my window and saw my Saturn sitting serenely in its parking space, neither bumped nor bruised. Figuring that I had developed a mild case of food poisoning, I made some soup and nestled in front of the TV. Several hours later Tony called. “Dude, WTF happened last night?” Tony asked in a slightly frantic voice, “I don’t remember anything after you left the bar last night, and I have no idea how I got home. But my car isn’t here!” Tony had also blacked out at some point last night, only to wake up in his bed next to quite a bit of vomit. I asked Tony if he saw the bartender mix the drinks that our supposed benefactor had given us. He said that he went to the bathroom while the drinks were being made. Had we been drugged? I decided to go to the doctor that afternoon. He did some blood work and took a urine sample, despite telling me that if I had been drugged, it is very doubtful that it would still be in my system. I went home concerned, feeling slightly violated. Images of things that could have happened, a car wreck, a police officer stopping me, being raped by a human Sasquatch in the most nefarious of orifices, all ran through my mind. The test results wouldn’t arrive until the following Monday, so I had quite a while to ponder the “what ifs”. Isaac had called me while I was out. He had arrived at the bar to find Tony sitting by himself, semi-conscious at about 11:45, approximately 15 minutes after I left. He had driven him home, thinking that Tony had become a little overzealous with the booze. The following Monday, Doctor Tolbert, the physician called personally with the lab results, which I found, and still find, quite reassuring. Usually assistants call with the bad news. The doctor said that at the time of the blood test there was still a trace amount of GHB (a known “date rape” drug) in my system, which means that the sucker that added the poison to our drinks used a heavy amount. The Dr. T assured me that I had nothing to fear, GHB had no physical side effects, and luckily my only mental scar was a feeling a stupidity for allowing me to be placed in what could have been a horrible situation. Well that is the end of my story. One good thing did come out of the experience. Now when a girl tells me that I don’t know what it is like to have to worry about a man taking advantage of me at a bar I can honestly say “like hell I don’t”.

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