Day 138
Location 26: Tirana, Albania
Mar. 18, 2023
To start my day, I smoked the last little bit of weed I'd bought from my hostel's owner a few days before.
Next, I chatted with a new hostel arrival. Christopher spoke with the most posh accent I'd ever heard. It was safe to assume his dad was Prince Charles and his mom was a plate of bangers and mash. Except his dad was actually Japanese and his mom was Spanish. (I'd soon come to find out, this was the least surprising surprise about Christopher. )
I offered Christopher the gummy bears I was snacking on and he graciously accepted. Before popping one of the gelatin grizzlies, Christopher removed a partial denture from his mouth that held his front tooth in place. Christopher's smile now looked like it belonged to a homeless person or me a few months earlier:
This is me a few months earlier with a missing tooth (not homeless).
Eager to bond over our shared dental trauma, I asked Christopher how he lost his tooth (selfishly excited to tell my engaging story of how I lost my tooth). Christopher trepidatiously launched into this behemoth of a story. Here's what he said:
My old roommate kept a tonic water bottle filled with GHB next to an identical, actual bottle of tonic water.
Let's pause here. GHB, I'd later find out, is essentially roofies. Why is Christopher's roommate storing a bottle of a date-rape drug? A great, horrifying question—that we'll get back to later, I promise. But now that we're all slightly uncomfortable, let's resume:
One day I confused the two tonic bottles and in blind thirst gulped down a swig of GHB. The amount it takes to kill a person is this much [holds up his index finger and thumb wide enough to fit a small jelly bean between them], and I drank this much [holds up his index finger and thumb wide enough to fit a can of black beans between them]. I immediately realized if I didn't do something, I was going to die in about 20 minutes.
Pause again! Whoa. At this point I'm wondering am I starting to get high or is this one of the most insane stories I've ever heard? I'm also wondering what does this have to do with Christopher's missing tooth? Resume again:
In a controlled panic, I instructed my roommate to call 9-1-1. In the meantime, I began inducing vomit to expel the poison from my body. I don't remember what happened after that, but the doctors told me I fell into a coma for 12 hours in the ICU, and was dangerously close to dying.
I'd say any "close to dying" scenario has the "dangerously" implied.
Oh and so before entering the coma, I began seizing so violently that broke my front tooth, thus the partial denture.
Holy fuck. I needed a nap. As I laid down, hoping for some rest after the mental marathon Christopher just made me run, he walked into my room. He was my new, and only, roommate. But Christopher still wasn't done surprising me.
Later that night, a group of hostel guests prepared to go out: me, my pal Leandro, Christopher, and Stacy, another new arrival from Tennessee with a bonkers energy (derogatory).
At some point Serbia was brought up and Christopher mentioned that he loved Serbia, but struggled to explain why. “You meet a girl there?” Stacy guessed. “No, actually I’m a homosexual.” His British accent combined with his decision to forgo the short-form "gay" for the elongated "homosexual" felt like Mary Poppins singing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
Following up that nugget of info, Stacy asked “what do you do for work?”. Without skipping a beat, Christopher responded “I’m a male escort.”
The entire room fell silent with shock for 5 seconds.
"And I'm good at it."
The silence persisted for an additional 3 seconds.
I spent the silence solving the mystery of why Christopher stored GHB (roofies) in his home: small doses of the drug can make someone extremely horny. So I deduced that Christopher must drink some GHB before meeting a client in the same way Steph Curry might chug some Gatorade before a game.
Later in the discussion, crazy Stacy told a story about almost crashing her car while driving through the Balkans with a friend along a narrow mountain road. “I wasn't really scared because I’ve been in some car crashes and they kind of turn me on”. (What???) Completely unfazed, Christopher chimed in “that’s called being die-curious”. (What?!?!?!??????).
Some wholesome photos from the day to cleanse your palate.