A scary story with a surprise ending

This story has nothing to do with sustainability, green-living, or raising local food.  In fact, the key players are men in their 50s who like to drive enormous gas-guzzling trucks up the sides of mountains.  It could have had a tragic ending but it didn't, thank goodness.  I'm sharing it because the prologue was so shockingly unexpected that I literally threw up when I heard it.

And that's a good thing.

Last Saturday Gene and I were are having dinner with friends in Redmond.  Their home is easily 45 miles north of us, so we don't get up to see them as often as we'd like.  They have a lovely yard, an incredible vegetable garden, and are fantastic hosts.  We adore them.

Around 8:15p Gene got a phone call from his boss, R.  R explained that he and his buddies has been out in the sticks with their massive trucks and jeeps, 4x-ing in the woods outside of Enumclaw (about 40 miles southeast of Redmond).  One of the guys, J, attempted a slope that was too steep and didn't make it.  His truck had subsquently rolled eight times and he was evacuated to a nearby hospital.

J's friends split up after the wreck.  Some went with him to the hospital while others stayed behind to extricate his truck.  One guy, C, exhausted himself getting his friend out of the truck, then getting the truck out of the woods.  He collapsed and was also evacuated to the hospital.

R was frantic: he needed us to come to Enumclaw because there were still some vehicles up in the woods and he needed help getting things back to town.

We left right away and arrived at the Enumclaw hospital near 10p.  Did I mention that Rosemary was with us?  Good thing that dog is good in the car!

Gene met up with R, whom we took to a grocery store for something to eat.  He's diabetic and in the frenzy of the day hadn't eaten or drank anything.  After that, we headed to the logging access road up in the mountains, about a half-hour's drive outside of Enumclaw, to fetch R's rig.  It was an uneventful ride and allowed R to come back to Earth after a harrowing day.  We dropped him off, made sure he was following us back to the road, and headed home.  We arrived at our house near midnight.

It was a long, tiring night, but one that was relatively unremarkable.

PROLOGUE

On Monday evening Gene came home from work with updates on the guys who had been hospitalized.  J, whose truck rolled, got a number of staples to close a head wound and had been discharged fairly quickly.  C had been kept overnight for observation because the doctors weren't immediately sure what was the cause of his collapse.

Gene: "So.... they figured out what was wrong with C."

Me: "Isn't he diabetic?  Is he OK?"

G: "Yes, he's also a cancer survivor."

Me: "Oh no!  Did he have a heart attack or something?"

(dramatic pause from Gene)

G:  "No, nothing like that.  He's fine actually.  After he made sure J was on the way to the hospital and had gotten J's truck out of the woods, he realized that his blood sugar was getting really low.  He didn't have anything to eat with him but he had noticed that J's truck had a crushed baggie of snacks in it.  So he ate it."

Me: (I'm terrible about trying to guess a story's end) "Oh crap, did he get food poisoning or have an allergic reaction to something??"

G: "Well, sorta.  C found J's brownies, about 3-4 of them, and ate all of them because he was so hungry..."

Me: (realization dawning...) "... nuh uh..."

G: "Sooo... yeah.  C collapsed because J has a medical dispensation to take marijuana to treat chronic back pain."

Me: (starting to chuckel)

G: "Not only that, but when J eats a brownie to relieve his pain, he only eats about a quarter of one.  C got about 12 or more doses of medical grade weed when he scarfed down all those brownies.  When he called my boss today, 48 hours after having eaten the brownies, he was still flying as high as a kite."

At this point, I was laughing so hard that I couldn't see straight.  I started to cough, a fun remnant of the cold I had back in May & June.  My coughing turned to hysterical hacking and wheezing.  I even threw up a little - sort of a "vurp" (vomit burp) - during one particularly bad coughing/laughing fit.  Our neighbors even heard me laughing and coughing!

Lesson learned: do not ever, EVER eat brownies that you find in your buddy's recently rolled truck. 

And if you do, for God's sake don't be a glutton.