Apparently, This Is a Thing

Story Sent in by John:

When I asked Johanna if she wanted to go out and she said yes, I had about a dozen ideas of fun stuff we could do. I wrote her back with a couple of options.

She wrote back with, "Have you ever drank ginger ale in a cemetery?"

I hadn't. Nor had I ever heard of such a thing. I wrote her back to ask if it was code for something.

"No," she wrote, "Just something really fun a lot of people are doing."

O… kay. So that's how I wound up walking with Johanna through a graveyard that smelled faintly of urine with a two-liter bottle of ginger ale, all on a Saturday afternoon.

Johanna would grab the bottle from me and take long swigs before handing it back. "This is awesome," she informed me, "An excellent legal high."

"High on ginger ale?" I asked.

"Yeah, but it's weird. It only works in cemeteries. Like the air is just different. You know?"

"Yeah. How did you come up with this?"

She said, "I read it on a forum. It started in Japan. It's the strangest thing but it works."

I drank some down, just to ensure that she really didn't know what she was talking about. I was right. Aside from a bit of gas, I didn't feel a thing. Psychosomatic? More than likely.

Not to Johanna, though. She waved her arms around and wiggled her fingers as if she was fingerpainting across a gigantic canvas.

"Wow. It's so bright. Isn't it beautiful?" she asked. "It's what the dead see."

"It really is," I lied. She shortly thereafter finished the entire bottle. Maybe I just didn't drink enough. I don't know.

Once we were done stumbling around the graves, we returned to our cars. I asked her if she'd be okay to drive.

"I'm fine. It'll sound weird, but I'm always a better driver after doing this. Let me know if it does the same for you!"

"I will."

I didn't. Oops.