“My ex-husband and his friends got together and made you some cookies,” my relative said. “Oh, that’s so nice” I replied, though I thought it was incredibly strange and out of character for her ex-husband to bake cookies. “No, no, these are (eye brows raised) special cookies,” she said, as if letting me in on a secret. “Oh, why are they special,” I asked, while looking at the smile on my relative’s face… then, slowly, a light bulb started to flicker, “Oh, he made special cookies.” I had cancer, I guess this was one of those cancer gifts people give you.
She then opened up the freezer and showed me a plastic bag with cookies inside and the words, “DO NOT TOUCH!” written on the bag. I felt like I was in a secret club. I nodded in my secret club, in-the-know, hip, cool way that I understood where the “cookies” were. If you know me, then you know I am not hip, cool or in-the-know, so I’m sure I just nodded awkwardly.
Homemade marijuana cookies were ready and waiting for me. The only thing was I really wasn’t interested in eating them. I mean I was on a lot of drugs already, I really didn’t want to add another one. So, the cookies were left untouched, buried in the freezer for a while. Finally, the day came when I decided to try one. I ate half a cookie and really didn’t notice anything, then I fell asleep.
It felt like I was trying to walk down the stairs for hours.
In the middle of the night I woke up hungry and remembered that I had a Wetzel pretzel in the refrigerator downstairs. As I started to navigate my way down the stairs, I began seeing swirling colors in the dark. I have no idea what happened, but it was like I was in a vortex, each step took an incredibly long time to negotiate. It felt like I was trying to walk down the stairs for hours.
Finally, land! I had reached the first floor! No more stairs, it was all flat and I wasn’t going back up. I decided to sleep downstairs until I could figure out what time-space continuum had just gobbled me up. But, there was still that Wetzel pretzel that needed to be in my belly. I grabbed the delicious, buttery, salted pretzel and a bottle of mustard from the refrigerator and then sat down to enjoy my precious prize for navigating the stairs. I held the pretzel in one hand and the bottle of mustard in the other. As I brought the mustard bottle up I noticed that it had ears and a long tail, it was still a mustard bottle though. It was yellow and oblong shaped (much like a rotund mouse).
This FREAKED ME OUT. I looked at the mouse mustard bottle and knew it was my mind playing tricks on me. I had already battled the stairs for what seemed like an eternity, I wasn’t going to let a tail on a bottle of mustard keep me from that pretzel. I shook the bottle and the ears disappeared, but the tail was still there. At this point I didn’t care, I adorned my Wetzel pretzel with mustard and ignored the tail at the end of the mustard bottle. The tail eventually faded away, but my memory of what happened didn’t.
The next day I thanked my relative for the cookies, but let her know I wouldn’t be having anymore. It’s safe to say that this was my first and last “special cookie.” 🙂
The Survivor's Gift 
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